According to Ravenscroft
by dr Alexander Berzin
A slightly different account of the Nazi search for Shambhala and Agharti appeared in The Spear of Destiny (1973) by the British researcher Trevor Ravenscroft. According to this version, the Thule Society believed that two sections of Aryans turned to worship of two evil forces. Their turning to evil brought about the decline of Atlantis and, subsequently, the two groups established cave communities in mountains submerged beneath the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland. The legend of Thule arose from them. One group of Aryans followed the Luciferic Oracle, called Agarthi (Agharti), and practiced the left-hand path. The other group followed the Ahrimanic Oracle, called Schamballah (Shambhala), and practiced the right-hand path. Note that Ravenscroft reported the reverse of Pauwels, Bergier, and Frére’s assertions that Agharti followed the right-hand path and Shambhala the left.
Ravenscroft went on to explain that according to the “Secret Doctrine” – alluding to Blavatsky’s book by the same name – which appeared in Tibet ten thousand years ago, Lucifer and Ahriman are the two forces of Evil, the two great adversaries of human evolution. Lucifer leads people to set themselves up as gods and is associated with the lust for power. Following Lucifer can lead to egotism, false pride, and the misuse of magic powers. Ahriman strives to establish a purely material realm on the earth and uses the perverse sexual craving of people in black magic rites.
Recall that although Blavatsky had written about Lucifer and Ahriman, she did not make the two a pair and did not associate either of the two with Shambhala or Agharti. Moreover, Blavatsky explained that although Latin scholastics had transformed Lucifer into a purely evil Satan, Lucifer had the power both to destroy and to create. He represented the light-bearing presence in everyone’s minds that could uplift people from animalism and bring about a positive transformation to a higher plane of existence.
It was Steiner who had emphasized Lucifer and Ahriman as representing the two poles of destructive power. However, Steiner described Lucifer as the ultimately benevolent destructive force for regeneration and Ahriman as purely malevolent. Moreover, Steiner associated Lucifer with Shambhala, not Agharti and, in fact, like Blavatsky and Bailey, did not mention Agharti at all. In addition, none of the three occult authors described Shambhala as located underground. Only the Roerichs had associated Shambhala with the underground city of Agharti, but had clarified that the two were different and never asserted that Shambhala was underground.
Ravenscroft, like Pauwels, Bergier, and Frére, also asserted that through the initiative of Haushofer and other Thule Society members, exploratory teams were sent to Tibet annually from 1926 to 1942 to establish contact with underground cave communities. They were supposed to convince the masters there to enlist the aid of Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers to further the Nazi cause, especially for creating an Aryan superrace. The adepts of Shambhala refused to help. As followers of the Ahrimanic Oracle, they were concerned only with furthering materialism. Moreover, Shambhala had already affiliated itself with certain lodges in Britain and the United States. This was perhaps a reference to Doreal, whose Brotherhood of the White Temple in America was the first major occult movement to assert Shambhala as an underground city. Moreover, this account also fits well with Haushofer’s disdain for Western materialistic science, which he called “Jewish-Marxist-Liberal Science,” in favor of “Nordic-Nationalistic Science.”
Ravenscroft continued that the masters of Agharti agreed to help the Nazi cause and, from 1929, groups of Tibetans came to Germany, where they became known as the Society of Green Men. Joined by members of the Green Dragon Society of Japan, they set up occult schools in Berlin and elsewhere. Note that Pauwels and Bergier asserted that colonies of not only Tibetans, but also Hindus were present in Berlin and Munich from 1926, not 1929.
Himmler was attracted to these groups of Tibetan-Agharti adepts and, from their influence, established the Ahnenerbe in 1935. Recall that Himmler did not establish the Ahnenerbe, but rather incorporated it into the SS in 1937.