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The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Part
II – 12. Fascist occultism and it’s close relationship
to Buddhist tantrism
© Victor & Victoria
Trimondi
12. FASCIST OCCULTISM AND IT’S CLOSE RELATIONSHIP TO BUDDHIST TANTRISM
Visionary fascism was, and indeed
still is, exceptionally deeply fascinated by the
Buddhocratic form of state. In the late thirties
(as the various fascist systems bloomed in Europe
and the whole world) Spencer Chapman, a traveler
in Tibet, wrote that even in the days of the dictators
one can only be amazed at what uncontested power
the Dalai Lama possesses” (Chapman, 1940, p. 192).
The idea of kingship of the world, the uniting
of spiritual and secular power in a single person,
the ideology of war in the Shambhala myth, the uncompromisingly
andocentric orientation, the tantric vision of
the feminine, the whole occult ambience and much
more besides were specifically adopted by several
fascist ideologists and welded together into an
aggressive myth. As we shall soon see, entire
fascist systems are based upon the adoption of
Tibetan/tantric doctrines.
The Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s
national socialist friends
As depressing as it may be for
the Nobel peace prize winner’s followers, there
has been continuous contact between the Dalai
Lama and the far right wing and former national
socialists (Nazis). His close friendship with
his German mentor, Heinrich Harrer has become
the most well-known of these. It caused a small
scandal in 1997-1998 when, after years of research,
the Austrian journalist, Gerald Lehner, succeeded
in making public Harrer’s “brown-shirt” (i.e.,
German fascist) past, which the latter had been
able to keep secret for many years. Harrer is
not just anybody. He is one of the best-known
international authors and has sold over four million
books in 57 languages (mostly about Tibet and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama).
The Austrian mountain climber and
competition skier joined the SS on April
1, 1938
and in the same year received instructions to
climb Nanga
Parbat
in the Himalayas after an official meeting with Adolf Hitler.
Heinrich Himmler, himself most interested in occult
phenomena is said by Harrer to have offered him
a Tibet expedition. In 1942, the Reichsführer of the SS (Himmler)
ordered the creation of the Sven Hedin Institut für Innerasienforschung
[Sven Hedin Institute for Central Asian Research].
This educational establishment had combined esoteric,
scientific, and racial studies goals. It was completely
in this vein that Himmler was interested in occult
doctrines from “mysterious Tibet”, and assumed — probably under
the influence of theosophical ideas — that a “race
with Nordic blood” existed there, oppressed by
the English and Chinese, and waiting for their
liberation by the Germans. Himmler’s “advisor”,
reports the German magazine Spiegel, “… and the scientist
Ernst Schäfer believed that Tibet was the cradle
of humanity, the refuge of an ‘Aryan root race’,
where a priestly caste had created a mysterious
kingdom of Shambhala — decorated with
the Buddhist symbol of the wheel of teaching,
a swastika. In 1934 Schäfer set out on the first
of two expeditions financed by the SS to track
down remnants of the ‘Nordic intellectual’ nobility”
(Spiegel, 16/1998, p. 111).
Dr. Ernst Schäfer, a specialist
on Tibet and an ornithologist, was one
of Himmler’s personal staff and in 1943 took over
the scientific leadership of the notorious project,
“Ahnenerbe” (‘ancestral inheritance’),
primarily devoted to racial studies. His third
research trip to the Himalayas was officially described as the “SS Schäfer
Expedition” and was considered a huge success
(Kater 1997, p. 80). Upon his return in August
1939, the scientist was presented with the SS
skull ring and dagger of honor in recognition.
Subsequently, the Reichsführer
of the black corps (Himmler) had grand plans for
his protégé: Schäfer was supposed to return to
Tibet and “stir up the Tibetan army
against the British/Indian troops” with a shock
troop of 30 men (Kater, 1997, p. 212). The undertaking
was, however, called off at Hitler’s direct order.
In the years to follow, Schäfer instead built
up the Sven Hedin Institute for Central Asian
Research with great success, making it the largest
division within the Ahnenerbe project.
But let us return to Heinrich Harrer.
War broke out while he was still in India and the young German was interned
by the British. It was not until 1944 that he
was able to flee to Tibet with a comrade. Coincidence or
fate led to his acting as the young Dalai Lama’s
personal tutor until the early 50s, and teaching
him about all the “wonders” of western civilization
and introducing him to the English language as
well. It is very likely that his lessons were
tainted by the contemporary zeitgeist
which had swept through Hitler’s Germany, and not by the British attitudes
of the envoy Hugh Richardson, also present in
Lhasa. This led in fact to some problems
at the court of the young god-king and the English
were not happy about his contact to Harrer. But
there are nevertheless no grounds for describing
the lessons the former SS member gave his “divine”
pupil as fascist, particularly since they were
primarily given after the end of the World War
II. In 1952 His Holiness’s German “teacher “ returned
to Europe.
The adaptation to film of Harrer’s
autobiographic bestseller, Seven Years in Tibet, triggered
an international protest. Since the famous traveler
through Tibet had told director Jean Jacques
Annaud nothing about his “brown-shirt” past, and
this only became public knowledge after the film
had been finished, Annaud felt pressured to introduce
“corrections”. A remorseful Austrian was now shown,
who begins his mountain-climbing career as a supporter
of a regime accused of genocide and then, under
the influence of the young Kundun
and Tibetan Buddhism, reforms to become a “campaigner
for human rights”. In the film, he says of the
brutal Chinese: “Terrible — I dare not think about
how I myself was once so intolerant “ (Stern 41/97, p. 24).
Reinhold Messner, the famous mountain
climber, found such an admission of guilt from
Hollywood’s dream factory difficult to understand.
He spoke up, confirming that he had long known
about Harrer’s political opinions. This man, he
said had up until the present day still not learned
anything, he still believed in the national socialist
alpinist ideals. In contrast, the Dalai Lama’s
brother, Gyalo Thondup, defended the former SS
member with the tasteless argument that what the
Chinese had done to the Tibetans was worse and
more cruel than what the Nazis had done to the
Jews.
It is a fact that Harrer — in his
own account- first turned against the Chinese
invaders at the end of the fifties, after he had
already left Tibet. There is not the slightest trace
of a deep catharsis as depicted in Annaud’s film
to be found in the German’s books. This was purely
an invention of the director to avoid losing face
before a world audience.
The journalist Gerhard Lehner also
pursued a second lead: on September 13,
1994
eight veterans who had visited and reported from
Tibet before 1950 met with the Dalai
Lama in London. In a photo taken to record the
occasion a second major SS figure can be seen
beside Heinrich Harrer and directly behind the
Kundun, Dr. Bruno Beger. Beger
was the actual “expert” who pushed forward the
racial studies research by Himmler’s Ahnenerbe project (Kater,
1997, p. 208). He too, like the Tibetan explorer
Ernst Schäfer, was a member of Himmler’s personal
staff. In 1939 he went to the Himalayas as a member of the SS Expedition. There he
measured the skulls of more than 400 Tibetans
in order to investigate a possible relationship
between the Tibetan and Aryan ‘races’. In 1943,
Beger was sent to Auschwitz where he took the measurements
of 150 mainly Jewish prisoners. These were later
killed and added to a collection of skeletons.
In 1971 Beger appeared in a German court and was
sentenced to three years imprisonment on probation
for his national socialist crimes.
The racialist, who was the last
survivor of the “SS Schäfer Expedition” (dying
in 1998), met His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai
Lama at least five times (in 1983, 1984, 1985,
1986, and 1994). The meetings were all very hearty
affairs. The former SS member dedicated a small
brochure entitled “My Encounters with the Ocean of Knowledge” to the first three (Beger, 1986).
The Dalai Lama (worshipped by his
followers as the “Ocean of Wisdom” because of his “omniscience”)
claims not to have been informed about his Nazi
friends’ past. One may well believe this, yet
he has not distanced himself from them since their
exposure. His statements about Adolf Hitler and
the “final solution to the question of the Jews”
also seem strange. Just like his brother, Gyalo
Thondup, he sees the dictator as a more noble
figure than the Chinese occupiers of Tibet: “In 1959, in Lhasa, the Chinese shot Tibetan families
from aeroplanes with machine guns. Systematic
destruction in the name of liberation against
the tyranny of the Dalai Lama! Hu, Hu, Hu! In
Hitler's case he was more honest. In concentration
camps he made it clear he intended to exterminate
the Jews. With the Chinese they called us their
brothers! Big brother bullying little brother!
Hu, Hu, Hu! It’s less honest, I think” (Daily Telegraph, August 15,
1998).
The Nazi–Tibet connection
Were there occult intentions behind
the “SS Schäfer Expedition”? In the neo-fascist
literature these are considered a top secret mission
of Himmler’s to make contact with the “adepts
of Shambhala and Agarthi”. Authors from the scene
like Wilhelm Landig, Miguel Serrano, Russell McCloud,
etc., let their readers believe that through these
expeditions a kind of metapolitical axis between
Berlin and Lhasa was constructed. Dietrich Bronder
knows that “Schäfer’s SS men were permitted to
enter holy Lhasa, otherwise closed to Europeans
and Christians, even the magnificent Lamaist temple
that contains just one huge symbol, the holiest
in the Mongolian world — the swastika” (Bronder,
1975, p. 250)
Although in recent years comprehensive
research findings about the interests of leading
Nazis in occult phenomena have been published,
this is currently played down by pro-Lamaist intellectuals,
especially as far as a occult Nazi — Tibet connection
is concerned. [1] Ernst Schäfer and Bruno Beger,
the two leaders of the undertaking (the SS Schäfer
expedition), are depicted as sober natural scientists.
Heinrich Himmler’ esoteric ambitions in Tibet were minimal, indeed “probably
did not exist” (Brauen, 2000). Hitler himself
appears as a decided anti-occultist. “However,
the suggestion that Hitler was interested in Eastern
esotericism or even Tibet can be ruled out” (Brauen, 2000,
p. 65). With an appeal to the historian Goodrick-Clark,
the pro-Lamaist authors also assess the occult
currents within the early Nazi
movement (the notorious Thule
Society for example) as insignificant, and
completely lacking in evidence for a particular
interest in Tibet. Rudolf Freiherr von Sebottendorf
(1875-1945), the founder of the Thule Society, is said to
have explicitly spoken out against the suggestion
that the light came from the highlands of Asia.
We do not see it as our primary
task here to historically prove the interweaving
of the relevant SS members (Hitler, Himmler, Harrer,
etc.) in an occult Nazi — Tibet connection. Things were not as
cleanly rationalist and scientifically correct
as the pro-Lamaist intellectuals would have it
among the SS. When for example, at the presentation
of a gift to the Tibetan regent in Lhasa Ernst
Schäfer declaims, “Since the swastika is also
the supreme and most holy symbol for us Germans,
the motto of our visit is: A meeting of the Western
and Eastern swastikas in friendship and peace
…” (quoted by Brauen, 2000, p. 79), then an occult
note in accord with the zeitgeist of the time is present.
There are certainly also other,
non-fascist, authors who create an occult correspondence
between national socialism and Tibetan Buddhism
via a esoteric interpretation of the “Hakenkreuz”
(the swastika), a Buddhist symbol
par excellence:
“The rightward hooked cross [signifies] a prayer
formula in Tibet”, writes Friedrich W. Doucet,
“In its left-turned form — like the national socialist
swastika — it designates the orthodox Yellow Hats
... it is the Yellow Hats who supervise the spiritual
rules in the Tibetan ecclesiastical state and
also exercise worldly power” (Doucet, 1979, p.
81).[2]
It is also certain that Himmler’s
spiritual advisor, Karl Maria Wiligut (“Himmler’s
Rasputin”), saw the “SS Schäfer Expedition” as
an extremely occult undertaking and at Himmler’s
direction attempted to exert an appropriate influence
on the participants in the expedition. The SS
standard bearer Wiligut/Weisthor, who was one
of Himmler’s personal staff, was accredited with
mediumistic abilities and he himself was convinced
he was in contact with transpersonal powers. Wiligut/Weisthor
was considered to be the Schutz
Staffel’s (SS’s) expert on runes and designed
the legendary skull ring of the SS. His megalomaniac
overestimation of himself (there are authenticated
statements from him to the effect that he believed
he was the “secret King of Germany”) and the fact
that he was deprived of the right of decision
by his family led Himmler to discharge Wiligut
from the SS in 1939 (Lange 1998, p. 271).
The German author Rüdiger Sunner
quotes the report of a member of the “SS Schäfer
Expedition” over a meeting with Wiligut.[3] During
the encounter (in 1937 or 1938?), the latter was
in a trance-like state and addressed his visitors
in a guttural voice: “I telephoned my friends
this evening … in Abyssinia and America, in Japan
and Tibet ... with all who come from another world
in order to construct a new empire. The occidental
spirit is thoroughly corrupted, we have a major
task before us. A new era will come, for creation
is subject to just one grand law. One of the keys
lies with the Dalai Lama [!] and in the Tibetan
monasteries.” The visitor was not a little distressed,
and goes on to report: “Then came the names of
monasteries and their abbots, of localities in
eastern Tibet which I alone knew about … Did he
draw these out of my brain? Telepathy? To this
day I do not know, I know only that I left the
place in a hurry” (Sünner, 1999, p. 50). In the
80s the Chilean Miguel Serrano took up the speculation
anew that the Dalai Lama plays a key role in the
Nazi-Tibet connection. His “skill”, this
author says of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is “closely
linked with that of Hitler’s Germany … on the basis of not yet discovered
connections. A few years after Germany, Tibet also falls” (Serrano, 1987, p.
366).
Wiligut also believed that Lhasa would form a geomantic quadrilateral
with Urga (Ulan Bator), the Egyptian pyramids, and Vienna. Miguel Seranno was later to expound
similar ideas (in the seventies). Himmler too
was interested in geomantic ideas and it cannot
be excluded “that he hoped for more exact data
about this from the Schäfer expedition” (Brauen,
2000, p. 78).
Otto Rahn, likewise a member of
the SS, who in the 30s attempted to render the
myth of the holy grail and the Cathar movement
fruitful for the national socialist vision and
the SS as some kind of “warrior monks”, assumed
that the Cathars had been influenced by Tibetan
Buddhism “One of the Cathari symbols of the spirit
that is god which was taken over from Buddhism
was the mani,
a glowing jewel that lit up the world and allowed
all earthly wishes to be forgotten. The mani
is the emblem of the Buddhist law that drives
out the night of misconception. In Nepal and Tibet it is considered the symbol of
the Dyanibodhisattva Avalokiteshvara or Padmapani,
charity” (Rahn, 1989, pp. 185, 107).
The myth of the “black sun” which
was able to win a central place in the neo-fascist
movement and displays similarities with the Tibetan
Rahu myth from the Kalachakra Tantra, can be
traced to the inspiration of Wiligut and his milieu
among others. In a commentary on Wiligut’s runic
writings, a pupil, Emil Rüdiger, mentions an invisible
dark planet, Santur by name, which is supposed
to influence human history and to be able to be
microcosmically linked with the energy body of
an adept. Appropriate yogic exercises(rune gymnastics)
are recommended for producing “high intelligence
effects” (Lange, 1998, p. 226). Just how seamlessly
such “rune gymnastics” can be linked to tantric
exercises can be seen in the writings of Miguel
Serrano, the father of “esoteric Hitlerism” (Serrano,
1984).
It is thus not at all the case
that there is no historical foundation for hypothesizing
an occult Nazi — Tibet connection, even if it
is publicly denied by one of the protagonists
of the “SS Schäfer Expedition”, Bruno Beger (Lange
1998, p. 68). Nevertheless, an occult interconnection
between the SS and Lamaist Tibet of the dimensions
in which it is currently portrayed in a large
number of neo-fascist and esoteric publications
has to be described as a post
facto construction. This construction could,
however, we repeat, fall back on an esoteric ambience
in which Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS,
and other high-ranking Nazis moved. Thus the well-known,
historically proven material has at any rate been
sufficient to create new and very effective myths.
In the Nazi- Tibet connection , we are thus dealing
with a process of myth creation and not a historical
set of events. In such processes, there is a blending
of historical facts, the stuff of traditional
sagas, straining for effect, and imaginary, visionary,
religious, fantastic, and personal elements until
it all binds into a resistant pattern and anchors
itself as such in a culture. It is not unusual
for different mythologemes to become fused, and
this is exactly, as we will show, what has happened
in the case of the Nazi — Tibet connection. Here, racist Nazi
myths have been fused with elements of the Tibetan
Shambhala myth and with sexual magic practices
from Tantric Buddhism.
In this process of myth construction
it should also not be underestimated that the
meetings known to have occurred between the Dalai
Lama and former SS members (Schäfer, Harrer, Beger)
have a occult significance alone by virtue of
the fact that anybody who mentally negotiates
an esoteric network interprets a meeting with
the Dalai Lama as an occult event.
On the Homepage of the Government
of Tibet in Exile ( http://www.tibet.com/Status/statement.html ) 13. 09. 1994: The XIV. Dalai
Lama between two former SS-men, Bruno Beger on
his right behind and Heinrich Harrer on his left
behind. The other persons, who visited Tibet before 1950, are:
Mr Kazi Sonam Togpyal, Mr Robert Ford, Mrs Ronguy
Collectt (daughter of Sir Charles Bell),
Mrs Joan Mary Jehu, Mr Archibald Jack and Prof.
Fosco Maraini.
In the meantime an enormous amount
of literature about a suspected Nazi — Tibet connection has appeared, some
examples of which we briefly introduce here:
·
In 1958 an American publisher released the
book The
Lightning and the Sun, by Savitri Devi (“Hitler’s
Priestess”), which presents Adolf Hitler as an
avatar (an incarnation) of the sun god, alongside
Akhenaton and Genghis Khan. Devi does not mention
a Nazi — Tibet connection, but introduces the
“avatar principle” into the myth building surrounding
Hitler that is seized upon by later authors so
as to present the Führer as an incarnation from
the kingdom of Agarthi/Shambhala (see Miguel Serrano in this regard).
·
In their best-seller The Dawn of Magic, Jacques
Bergier and Louis Pauwells (1962) first claim
that the Shambhala/Agarthi myth strongly influenced
the founders of the national socialist movement.
·
Robert Charroux (Verratene Geheimnisse [“Betrayed
Secrets”]) presumes that Lama priests had gained
influence over Hitler and worked on “ a plan for
exercising control over the world which was thoroughly
the equal of that of the Germans “ (Charroux,
170, p. 258).
·
The anti-fascist myth researcher Friedrich
Doucet (Im
Banne des Mythos [In the Thrall of Myth],
1979) discusses “psycho-techniques of the monks
and abbots in the Lama monasteries of Tibet” with which leading national socialist
figures were manipulated.
·
Likewise, the anthroposophically oriented
author, Trevor Ravenscroft (The Spear of Destiny), 1974),
assumes that Hitler cooperated with “Tibetan leaders”
in Berlin.
·
In the 80s, two books by the Chilean Miguel
Serrano appeared (El
Cordon Dorado [The Golden Ribbon] and Adolf Hitler el último Avatara
[Adolf Hitler: The Final Avatar]). Both texts
form the basis for “esoteric Hitlerism”. One of
Serrano’s central themes is the relationship between
sexual magic and political power (especially national
socialism). The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, whom Serrano
has met several times, is woven by the author
into the creation of neo-fascist myths around
Hitler.
·
According to Jan van
Helsing (Geheimgesellschaften
und ihre Macht ... [“Secret Societies and their Power”], 1993),
Tibetan monks worked together with Templar Knights
who were organized in the highest lodge of the
“black sun” on the establishment of the Third
Reich. The secret order had (and still has) an
important base underground in the Himalayas. The ruler of the underground
kingdom is said to be “Rigden Iyepo”, the king
of the world, with his representative on the surface,
the Dalai Lama.
·
In Die schwarze Sonne von Tashi Lhunpo
[The Black Sun of Tashi Lhunpo] (1996), McCloud
reports on the survival of the national socialist
Thule group in Tibet . They are the followers of a
“sun oracle” there.
·
For Wilhelm Landig
(Götzen
gegen Thule ... [Idols
against Thule], n.d.), Tibet is also “the realm
of the black sun! It is the meeting point of the
esoteric circles of the Schutzstaffel [the SS], whose
knowledge Mr. Himmler also knew about but did
not share.”
·
In his novel (The Black Sun…, 1997), Peter
Moon reiterates the decisive influence of Tibetan
Lamas on National Socialism and extends it with
new images. He takes the side of the old Tibetan
Bon religion, and accuses the Dalai Lama and Tibetan
Buddhism of religious oppression.
“Why”, Martin Brauen, a pro-Lamaist
expert on Tibet, asks in light of this considerable
and by no means complete literature list, “does
Tibet arouse the interest of the neo-fascists
so much?” What makes Tibet so attractive for them? What is
so fascinating about the Shambhala myth that it
draws into its thrall both those who cultivate
and those who combat it?” (Brauen, 2000, p. 93).
He cannot answer this question. But in order to
be able invert the fact that national socialism
had a occult relationship to Tibetan Buddhism
into its complete opposite, he foregrounds an
anti-Lamaist faction within the German right-wing.
It was precisely the Nazis, Brauen says, who denounced
the Lamas and the Tibetans as “Untermenschen” (subhumans).
·
Among the anti–Dalai Lama and anti-Tibet literature
are works by S. Ipares (Geheime Weltmächte [Secret
World Powers], 1937), who was influenced by the
orientalist Albert Grünwedel. In his book, the
author talks of an occult hierarchia ordinis of the
Lamaist theocracy, which invisibly influences
and steers the East.
·
J. Strunk’s arguments (Zu Juda und Rom — Tibet, [To
Juda and Rome — Tibet], 1937) are more far reaching;
he tries to uncover a conspiracy of an international
ecclesiastical elite (with members from all the
world religions) with the living Buddha, the Dalai
Lama from Lhasa as their visible head. “What there
are of organizations and new spiritual currents
running alongside and in all directions nearly
always end up on the ‘roof of the world’, in a
Lama temple, once one has progressed through Jewish
and Christian lodges” (Strunk, 1937, p. 28).
·
In the same year (1937) Fritz Wilhelmy published
the piece Asekha.
Der Kreuzzug der Bettelmönche [Asekha: The
Crusade of the Mendicant Monks]. In it “Tibetan
Buddhism … [is] openly appointed to play a more
than mysterious role in the great global hustle
and bustle of suprastate pullers of strings” (Wilhelmy
1937, p.17)
·
General Ludendorff and his wife likewise took
to the field with great vigor against the “Asian
priests” and warned that the Tibetan Lamas had
emplaced themselves at the head of Jewish and
Jesuit secret orders (Europa den Asiatenpriestern?
[Europe of the Asian priests)], 1941).
·
Clearly the most prominent of the anti-Lamaist
Nazi faction was the racialist Alfred Rosenberg,
who in his seminal work Der
Mythos des 20. Jahrhundert [The Myth of the
20th Century] made the battle between
the priests and the warrior caste into the primal
conflict of the history of the world. The Tibetan
lamas appear here as the representatives of a
decadent Asian Catholicism.
The problem with the construction
of a fascist anti-Lamaism lies in the fact that
apart from Alfred Rosenberg the right-wing authors
cited definitely did not occupy positions of power
like those of Himmler, the SS, and the Ahnenerbe project. “Hitler’s
mythologist” (Rosenberg) was cut dead by Himmler and barely
taken seriously by Hitler. The Ludendorff’s fell
out of favor with the Führer.
In contrast, the SS with their rites and their
martial style increasingly became the epitome
of the Nazi myth. It was the SS who explored Tibet and it was a former SS trooper
(Heinrich Harrer) who schooled the Dalai Lama.
Besides this, the national socialist
opponents of Lamaism mentioned, who Martin Brauen
so demonstratively parades to prove that fascism
was hostile towards Tibetan Buddhism, are just
as fanatically fascinated by the atavistic mythology
of Tibet as the pro-Lamaist fascists whom we have
listed above. They do not attack the Lamaist system
out of a democratic attitude or rational consideration,
but the opposite, because they fear the occult
world of the Lamas — namely, control by magic,
the conquest of the planet by Buddhist despots,
the manipulation of awareness through rituals,
etc. — all concepts which can indeed be found
in the tantric texts. Thus, right-wing opponents
of Lamaism, just like the right-wing advocates
of Lamaism, see in Tibet and its religion an occult control
center.
Since the pro-Lamaist intellectuals
can no loner deny that fascist authors increasingly
sought out contact with Lamaist cultural images
after the war, they emphatically reassure us that
these were a matter of Western “illusions”, or
at least Western hybrids of Lamaism which were
in no sense just. With this they seem to think
the problem is solved (in this regard, see Brauen
2000). But they leave us waiting for an examination
of contents which reveals to what depth and extent
ideas and practices from Lamaism have been directly
incorporated by the fascist side. Yet a debate
about the images, archetypes, metapolitical visions,
political structures, and rituals from the Tibetan
cultural sphere which the neo-Nazis refer back
to is of far greater interest than the question
of whether there was personal contact between
lamas and Nazis. Here the actual work of cultural
criticism begins, which entails
- discovering Lamaist myths of origin behind
the “Nazi fantasies”
- investigating these Lamaist myths of origin
- examining structural similarities between
neo-fascism and Lamaism
Only then when such “myths of origin”
are not to be found can the Nazi- Tibet connection
be said to have been exposed as a purely Western
fiction.
The following list of paradigms,
concepts, theories, methods, and myths which have
essentially shaped the culture of Lamaism (and
still do) have become central for the neo-fascist
movement:
·
The combination of religious and political
power
·
A strictly hierarchical state structure that
rests upon a spiritually based “Führer principle”
·
The out and out patriarchal orientation of
the state and society
·
A pattern of complete subordination of pupil
to master
·
The appearance of divine beings of earth to
fulfill political missions (the avatar, incarnation,
and Bodhisattva principle)
·
A political micro-/macrocosmic theory according
to which a Buddhist ruler represents a likeness
of the entire universe.
·
The idea of a world ruler (Chakravartin) and
a violent conquest of the world
·
The motif of spiritual/political redemption
·
The idea of a superhuman center of power in
Asia, from where an influence on world politics
is exercised (the Shambhala myth)
·
The legitimation of contemporary politics
through mythic roots
·
The derivation of political control from myths
of the sun and light
·
The myth of the “black sun” (Rahu myth in
the Kalachakra
Tantra)
·
Alchemic speculations (as in the Kalachakra Tantra)
·
An interest in secret men’s associations (members
of orders)
·
The existence of a supernatural community
of “priestly warriors” (Shambhala warriors) who
observe and influence the history of the world
·
A “Buddhist” warrior ethic based upon spiritual
control of the body and emotions
·
An apocalyptic final battle, in which good
and evil stand opposed and all nonbelievers are
annihilated (Shambhala war)
·
A fascination with the machinery of war (Shambhala
myth)
·
Flying discs (UFOs) — corresponding objects
(flying wheels) will be put to use in the final
Shambhala war
·
A magical view of the world and the associated
conception that the manipulation of symbols can
affect history
·
Techniques for manipulating consciousness
·
A great interest in paranormal phenomena and
their combination with politics (visions, oracles,
prophecies)
·
A magic/political understanding of the system
of rituals in the service of the state
·
Sexual magic practices for transforming erotic
love and sexuality into worldly and spiritual
power (Kalachakra Tantra)
·
The functionalization of the feminine principle
for the purposes of politico-religious power
All these pillars of Tibetan Buddhist
culture are likewise ingredients of the Kalachakra Tantra constantly
practiced by the Dalai Lama and the Shambhala
myth this evokes. For centuries they have determined
the form of Tibetan monastic society, completely
independent of any Western imaginings or influence.
Hence the question about neo-fascism's inordinate
interest in Tibet and its atavistic culture is easily
answered: fascists of the most varied persuasion
see their own “political theology” confirmed by
the Tibetan Buddhist religious system, or discover
new images and practices in it with which they
can enrich and extend their ideologies.
Some (not all) of the above-mentioned
Tibetan cultural elements to which the new right
has helped itself were also to be found in the
Europe of old, yet these were either disempowered
or relativized by the Enlightenment and “modernity”
— only to be reactivated in the history of fascism
and national socialism. In traditional Tibet (up
until 1958), in the community of Tibetans in exile,
but above all in the figure of the Dalai Lama
and his clergy, in the holy texts and the rituals
(the tantras), these images and archetypes were
able to survive without pause. Through the active
presence of the lamas in the West they are now
visible and tangible once more and play an ever
greater role in Western popular culture. Yet it
is not just in comics and kitsch films that the
Dalai Lama is portrayed as a god-king, but also
both the respectable and the down-market western
press, a label which gains fundamental significance
in the political theology of fascism and is combined
there with the Führer principle.[4]
Julius Evola: A fascist Tantric
It was not just the ideologists
and theoreticians of national socialism who were
closely concerned with Tibet, but also high-ranking intellectuals
and scholars closely linked to Italian fascism.
First of all, Giuseppe Tucci, who attempted to
combine Eastern and fascist ideas with one another,
must be mentioned (Benavides 1995).
A further example is the work of
the Italian, Julius Evola (1898-1974), for a time
Benito Mussolini’s chief ideologist (mainly in
the forties). In numerous books and articles he
has investigated and further developed the relationship
between tantric rituals and power politics. He
has followed “tantric trails” in European cultural
history and come across them everywhere: among
the Cathars, the troubadours, the Knights Templar,
in the work of Alighieri Dante, the mysticism
surrounding the holy grail, European knighthood,
alchemy. Using criteria drawn from Vajrayana, he propounds a
cultural history of sexuality in his most famous
book, Eros and the Mysteries of Love:
The Metaphysics of Sex. Evola was not just
a theoretician, he also practiced sexual magic
rites himself. There are unmistakable statements
from him about the “tantric female sacrifice”
and the transformation of sexuality into political
power. Like almost no other, the Italian has openly
named the events that unfold in the mysteries
of the yogis and then confessed to them: “The
young woman,” he writes, “who is first ‘demonized’
and then raped, ... is essentially... the basic
motif for the higher forms of tantric and Vajrayanic
sexual magic” (Evola, 1983, p. 389). In dictators
like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini he saw
the precursors of future Maha Siddhas who would one
day conquer the world with their magic powers:
“The magician, the ruler, the lord”, he proclaims
in regard to Tantrism, “that is the type of the
culture of the future!” (Evola, 1926, p. 304).
He recommends Tantrism as “the way for a Western
elite” (Evola, East and West, p. 29).
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