(Conspiracy Nation, 07/24/05)
-- Beyond the Himalayas lies Tibet, a mysterious country. In times of
tourist frenzy, with nations eager for tourist money, what a strange
nation it is which shuns visitors. As Detective Charlie Chan of the
Honolulu Police has stated, "Closed avenue like pretty girl: very
enticing." (See "Reality Spawned Of Mother," http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Spawn.html)
So too thought Heinrich Himmler who, in 1938, sent Nazi explorers to
Tibet.
The fascinating tale of the Schafer Expedition is told in
Christopher Hale's book, Himmler's
Crusade: The Nazi Expedition To Find The Origins Of The Aryan Race.
Hale is from "the reality based community" (See "Chan On The Case," http://www.shout.net/~bigred/ChanCase.html)
and so is dismissive of what others might deem credible. For example,
he calls nineteenth-century author Ignatius Donnelly, who broke new
ground on theories of comet/earth collision (See "Ragnarok vs.
Unlimited Oil," http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Ragnarok.html)
and the lost continent of Atlantis (See "Atlantis, USA," http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Atlantis.html),
a "fraudster." Although Hale shows bias against conspiracy-type
thought, nonetheless he has done significant research and his book is
worthwhile.
There are a slew of books dealing with the unusual beliefs prevalent
amongst the Nazi elite. Many such books are nonsense. Two exceptions
which cut through the outlandish speculations are The Occult Roots Of Nazism
by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke and Arktos: The Polar Myth In Science,
Symbolism, and Nazi Survival by Joscelyn Godwin. There is a
middle ground in delving into bizarre Nazi thought, neither
close-minded ("reality based") nor credulous (e.g. see "Puzzling
Evidence" segment in David Byrne's fine film, "True Stories.")
Elite members of Himmler's SS were lawyers, doctors, and aristocrats
-- high society types. "Simple disgust fails to come to grips with why intellectuals and scientists
flocked to serve the Reich," writes Hale (op. cit.) The explanation,
according to Hale, seems to be that those wanting to advance their
careers in Adolph Hitler's New Order "made little compromises" with
their consciences. They looked the other way and went along to get
along.
In the 19th century there had been a typical scientific
preoccupation with measurement. In the realm of anthropology this
manifested in caliper measurements of skulls. Especially "American and
German anthropologists relied so completely on anthropometric data.
Both nations were preoccupied with race and with theories about race
difference..." (Hale, op. cit.)
Today, were you to take an anthropology class at a university, you
would likely be told that "race is too vague." The thinking now seems
to be that no clear dividing line exists between "races." On the other
hand, the U.S. government, for example, is constantly collecting data
on what "race" you are. (e.g., Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic,
Asian, etc.) So which is it? Is there "race" or is there not "race"?
What do you think?
Disparaged by Hale is Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ruled by Hale to
be, like Donnelly, a fraudster. Nazi intellectuals had become
fascinated by Blavatsky's ideas about "root races." In the dim past,
might not Brahmin survivors of Atlantean destruction have escaped to
the Himalayas? Could these be the Hindu "Vidyadhara, a race of
supermen"? (Hale, op. cit.) Blavatsky had written that the Himalayas
form the "veil of Isis." In Tibet, speculated Himmler's elite, could be
found traces of Shambhala. So a scientific expedition headed by Ernst
Schafer was organized to penetrate Tibet and look for remnants of the
"Aryan" ancestors.
In Germany, racial ideas became tied to expansionism. The German
people, the Volk, needed Lebensraum ("living space"). The
"scientific" cult of racialism and Aryan "superiority" was used to
justify imperialism. In Mexico, among many, a somewhat similar racial
expansionist theme exists today: "La
Raza" ("The Race"). African-American racialism is also subtly
pushed by the exclusionary Nation Of Islam. So divisive racist
identifications tied to political power grabs have not gone away in
these enlightened times. Resolution of such resilient schemes now
unfolds right before our eyes: intermingling of the "races" gradually
brings about a new "race," a hybrid of all the races. "Race"
increasingly blurry and therefore less and less of an issue.
The "science" in Germany served the policy of the state. Are things
so different now? Who pays the "scientists" today? "Many of the ideas
that would become excuses for murder," writes Hale, "had been laid
down, layer after layer, at the highest levels of German academia, in
universities, laboratories and museums." Hale himself refers to a
"measuring mania" extant amongst the German scientists, echoing
previous observation by Conspiracy
Nation (See "Can It Be Measured?" http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Measured.html).
A fetish for measurements amongst the anthropologists caused a
vulture-like anticipation at whiffs of war. "War meant bodies; bodies
meant bigger collections; collections led to knowledge, academic papers
and prestige." (Hale, op. cit.) Yes, upright scholars -- those who
would not sell their souls -- suffered in Nazi Germany. But that
situation was not unilateral.
"To a remarkable degree, Himmler's ideas had been formed not by
politicians but by anthropologists and biologists." (Hale, op. cit.) He
also believed in a weird cosmogony, Hanns Horbiger's World Ice Theory.
Melding various theories, Himmler arrived at such whoppers as "the
supernatural ancestors of the Aryans had once been sheathed in ice and
had been released from their frozen bondage by divine thunderbolts."
(Ibid.) This was the top-ranking bureaucrat of Nazi Germany. The
official policy was Gleichschaltung
-- Unity -- as it is also today in America where we "stand united." The
"scientists" were "team players" absorbed into the State. It must be
proved that Asia, not Africa, was the cradle of humanity. Measurements
of Tibetan skulls might prove Aryan ancestry. This would prop up Volk imperialism, since after all,
the Volk had a right to
"their" territory.
So Ernst Schafer and his team journeyed to the "roof of the world"
accompanied by yaks (Bos grunniens
"grumbling oxes") bearing gifts. In Tibet, the birds "had no sense of
humans as predators." (Hale, op. cit.) Everywhere was the yungdrung, the swastika
representing the wind turning aside the rays of the sun. They reached
the Potala Palace, Vatican of Tibetan Buddhism. "Ejaculated sperm was
the physical form of enlightened thought." "Everyone walked clockwise."
Gold cannot be mined because it might disturb "the demons of the
earth." This was Tibet before it had been converted into a spiritual
Disneyland cluttered with billboards. Hale's account contains extensive
photos supplementing his portrait of a vanished world.
-------
Conspiracy Nation
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/cn.html