:)

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Oddly enough, and whilst we are discussing all these curious coincidences, it is worth remembering that Hell was always believed, even when I was a youngster, to be a huge underworld region deep inside our own earth!     Modern Christian thinking has since come up with the concept of a Planet Heaven and a Planet Hell, but perhaps the old beliefs might very well have had some reasonable foundation in fact, if such an evil inner realm of Agartha does actually exist?

Nicholas Roerich.
Before I close this section, I should perhaps make mention of Nicholas Roerich, who was a famous Russian explorer, artist and mystic, who traversed these mysterious regions during the 1920s and 30s in search of adventure and enlightenment.   Roerich was particularly interested in the lost realm of Shambala, about which he later wrote a book, entitled simply enough �Shambhala�, published in 1930, along with �Himalayas: Abode of Light� and �Heart of Asia�, among others. At one time, Roerich had possession of a �magical stone from another world� which was known as the Chintamani Stone.

According to David Hatcher Childress, it was purported in ancient Asian chronicles to have come from the Sirius star system, and is said it been given to Tazlavoo, the one-time Emperor of Atlantis, by an angelic messenger from the skies. Legend has it that this same stone was sent to King Solomon in Israel, from Tibet via a Vimana airship (one of which he was also believed to have personally owned!)     The stone, which is said to have had magical properties, is believed to have been Moldavite, a magnetic meteoric stone which is sold in many crystal shops, and is thought to have fallen in a shower of meteors some 15 million years ago. (The great sacred black stone inside the Kabah at Mecca, which all Muslims venerate, is also a large fragment of meteorite, and could well be of the same Moldavite stone).

Roerich wrote of Shambala in his book that: �Shambhala itself is the Holy Place, where the earthly world links with the higher states of consciousness...many speculations have been made about the location of the earthly Shambhala. Certain indications put this place in the extreme North, explaining that the rays of the Aurora Borealis are the rays of Shambhala�but this is incorrect. Shambhala is only north in relation to India, being perhaps on the Pamir, in Turkestan, or in the Central Gobi...�    He associates it with the underground city of �Agharti� and with the �White Island�, and that its �Splendid Valley� is reached via subterranean tunnels and passages from the Himalayas.   He further adds that �the underground caverns of Central Asia are inhabited to this day by the people called the Agharti, or Chud, and that when the time of purification comes, say the legends, they will emerge in their glory�.

The Religion of Shambala.
If one can properly describe it as a religion, according to Roerich, that of Shambala is of Fire. He relates it to the old cults of Fire and Sun, and the Swastika is its emblem, found carved or painted everywhere.   He definitively associates it with the Aryan Race. However, it was not only confined to Buddhist temples. He found it also connected to B�n-Po - a pre-Buddhist Black Faith �which reveres some mysterious gods of the Swastika.� He said that they drew the symbol counter-clockwise or left-handed - which, as we�ve seen, was the version chosen by the Nazis! (There seems to be some confirmation here that �B�n-Po� was adopted by the Aghartis.)
Flying Saucers and Atomic Power.
It was on August 5th, 1927, that Roerich and his party had a typical UFO sighting, 20 years before Kenneth Arnold saw his in 1947. �We saw, in a direction from north to south, something big and shiny reflecting the sun, like a huge oval moving at great speed. Crossing our camp, this thing changed in its direction from south to south west. And we saw how it dis-appeared in the intense blue sky. We even had time to take our field glasses and saw quite distinctly an oval form with a shiny surface, one side of which was brilliant from the sun.�

�The King of the World�
According to a lama who was travelling with Roerich�s group, this was a good omen �A very good sign.� he said. �We are protected. Rigden-Jyepo himself is looking after us!�   He was referring to the prophesied �Lord of Shambala�s New Era� . The �Ruler of The World�, �Maitreya�, the �Last Avatar of the Kali Yuga�, who was to herald in a New Age - somewhat similar to the manner in which Christ is to bring in the new Millennium of Peace upon the earth.   However, there is reference to an esoteric college of astrology, which was to be established in Urga (Ulan Bator, Mongolia) �as a centre from which comes the impulse for the imminent renewal of humanity, and to a Lord, King or Ruler of the World who is neither Christ nor Lucifer�.   Could this perhaps imply the �Beast 666� of St. John�s Revelation in the Christian Bible?

It�s perhaps of some passing interest to note that, in the early-1980s, a full-page advertisement appeared in all of the world�s leading daily newspapers announcing the imminent revelation of the �Maitreya�, who, it promised, would appear to everyone in the world simultaneously, whether by direct sight or by television. I personally still have a copy of this advertisement somewhere in my files! (But, as I write this, almost twenty years later, he still hasn�t put in an appearance!)

Vril Power
Roerich�s wife, Helena, herself a mystic, wrote in her own book, �Agni Yoga� about the Agni or Fire of Shambhala, and how it will be used in the New Age, describing it as �the great eternal energy, this fine imponderable matter which is scattered everywhere and which is within our use at any moment�. Roerich himself said of this same power in the 1940s: �energies of cosmic fire will approach the earth and create many new conditions of life�.

Joscelyn Godwin comments in his intriguing book, �Arktos, The Polar Myth�, �This could be a definition of Bulwer-Lytton�s Vril force.....if Nicholas Roerich, the indefatigable worker for world peace, had known the form in which Agni would be compelled to manifest in 1945, he might have been more cautious in recommending it...�     It seems patently clear that this Agni fire, or �Vril force�, (which appear to be the same thing) could only have been what we nowadays describe as atomic energy.
So is it any great wonder then that the Nazis sought after it so eagerly during the Second World War?    The repercussions of such a discovery upon Britain and America don�t require much imagination, especially with Nazi V2 rockets being already developed and available to deliver �Agni -Vril� atomic bombs upon London and New York!
Whence the �Hollow Earth� Theory, Anyhow?
It was Sir Edmund Halley, the 17th century astronomer who discovered Halley�s Comet, who first suggested a hollow earth. His idea was that it comprised three concentric spheres, each of which supported life and that had at their centre a white-hot shining core. He ascribed the shifting of the earth�s magnetic poles to their movements one within another. This might sound rather a crackpot notion, until one considers that other reputable scientists have deduced that �polar wander� could be caused by slippage of the mesosphere within the lithosphere, or the slippage of the latter over the former, as hypothesized by eminent people like Wegener and Hapgood.

A theological dabbler in science, Thomas Burnet, in his book �Sacred Theory of the Earth�, proposed that all the waters of the oceans came out of a hole at the North Pole, but only in accordance with Divine Will, as and when required for Deluges and suchlike Heaven-sent catastrophes, but not as a continuous, self-sustained process of replenishment of the seas.

Alexander Colcott of Bristol subscribed somewhat to Burnet�s idea, in 1768, but he chose to posit a hollow sphere, with an inner surface covered by a vast ocean. In his view, the biblical Flood was caused when this ocean welled up to the outer surface through a polar gap or portal.

However, none of these scientific thinkers envisaged a hollow earth that had fertile landmasses and a central sun, which could be the habitation of human and animal life.    Nor did they conceive of any connection between holes at both ends of the earth.   (Perhaps this was because the South Polar landmass still remained to be discovered.)    The exposition of such possibilities was left, as I have mentioned earlier, to the writers of popular fantasy-fiction, from the 17th century to the present-day.

Particularly writers of the so-called Romantic Era, like Edgar Allen Poe, with his great story, �The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym�, and Bulwer-Lytton�s �The Coming Race�, not to mention Jules Verne�s immortal classics: �Voyage To The Centre Of The Earth� and �The Sphinx of the Ice�, John Uri Lloyd�s �Etidorhpa� and Willis Emerson�s �The Smoky God�.    Plus, of course, the unrivalled Edgar Rice Burroughs series of adventure tales of �Pellucidar - The Earth�s Core�, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.

Conclusions.
It�s tempting to continue delving into this fascinating concept of a hollow earth, but there are other intriguing areas yet to be covered, so I must reluctantly leave the subject at this point, and let my readers decide for themselves as to the likelihood or otherwise of such a possibility.   However, let us keep reasonably open minds as to the existence of underground realms and cities such as Agharta and Shambala.   Let us not forget that there are modern �underground realms� and �cities� today, in both the United States and Russia. Huge hollowed-out mountains, (such as the NORAD Defense Command headquarters in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado Springs) which quite literally contain great technological cities inside them - and provide an ideal, natural protection against nuclear attack - especially for Top-Brass Military and Government VIPs!

Future Explorations and Discoveries
According to all the legends, myths and reports which abound today, and are constantly being substantiated by evidences of their actual existence, there are still a great many as-yet unexplored mysteries hidden beneath the Himalayas and the Andes, and other places - especially those beneath the Giza plateau which may, hopefully - if commonsense prevails - be unearthed and revealed within our present generation!

We can only hope that the spirit of adventure and the quest for relics and evidences of such ancient fabled civilizations continues to be fostered among modern archaeological explorers as well as it was during the last two centuries. We can but hope that governments and business corporations continue to work together in a spirit of cooperation in sponsoring such investigations, as they have in the past.

Alas, at the time I write, this spirit is sadly lacking in some areas. This is notably so with the Egyptian Department of Antiquities. They are currently rejecting proper scientific investigation of possible world-shaking secrets hidden under the Sphinx and inside the Great Pyramid. Whilst this obdurate refusal is their sovereign national right, we can but hope for a speedy resolution of this ridiculously petty, bureaucratic impasse!

Surely such world-encompassing mysteries, possible clues to ancient technologies, and other great secrets that may lie awaiting discovery are of great interest to the whole world and might well benefit all mankind, rather than satisfy the bureaucratic veto-power of a minor Government department!   Particularly that of a government whose national income depends so very heavily upon international interest in its antiquities from both scientific and tourist standpoints!

However, I feel sure that there will be many more fantastic finds in the future that will tell us a great deal more about Humanity�s past than we know even today. All that is required is the willingness and dedication of those intrepid and daring scholars who are prepared to commit their lives - and even to risk them if need be - to searching out the secrets that still lie concealed upon - and within - the crust of our planet, as well as upon those other enigmatic and mysterious planets which are our close neighbours in space!

Long live the spirit of �Indiana Jones� - and may there be many more great explorers and seekers after truth of such adventurous and learned ilk yet to follow