17. CONCLUSION

We have now reached the end of our detailed treatise on the Dalai Lama, Tantric Buddhism, and Tibetan history. The first part of our study (Ritual as Politics) was centered on the theme of gender, especially the sexual magic exploitation of the woman in the androcentric system of Vajrayana for the mytho-political accumulation of power. The derivation of Tibetan history and the Dalai Lama’s politics from the cultic mysteries of Buddhist Tantrism (especially the Kalachakra Tantra) forms the content of the second part of our book (Politics as Ritual). In general, we have attempted to show that, in the world view of the Lamaist, sacred sexuality, magic, mysticism, and myth are united with his understanding of politics and history.

Tibetan Buddhism primarily owes its success in the West to two facts: first, the charm and brilliant self-presentation of its supreme representative, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, and second, the promise to lead people on the way to enlightenment. Although the tantric path to enlightenment explicitly involves a dissolution of the ego, it is at first the I of the pupil which is addressed. “I would like to overcome the senselessness and suffering of my earthly existence. I would like to experience liberation from samsara (the world of illusion).” When a western sadhaka is prepared to sacrifice his “little self”, he certainly does not have the same understanding as the lamas of the “greater self” (the higher self or Buddha consciousness) which the tantric philosophy and practices of Vajrayana offers him as a spiritual goal. The Westerners believe that enlightened consciousness still has something to do with a self. In contrast, a teacher of Tantric Buddhism knows that the individual identity of the pupil will be completely extinguished and replaced by a strictly codified, culturally anchored army of gods. It is the Tibetan Buddhas, herukas, Bodhisattvas, deities, demons (dharmapalas) and the representatives of the particular guru lineages who take the place of the individual pupil’s consciousness. One must thus gain the impression that an “exclusive club” of supernatural, albeit culturally bounded, beings (Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, gods, etc.) has managed to survive by time and again occupying human bodies anew (until these wear out). Tibetan Buddhism is not aimed at the enlightenment of individuals but rather at the continuing existence of a culture of superhumans (yogis, gods) in the form of possessed people (the pupils). It is concerned here to perpetuate a priestly caste that does not need to die because their consciousnesses can be incarnated into the human bodies of their followers again and again. This caste and their deities are considered sacrosanct. They live beyond all criticism. Their symbols, deeds, and history are set up as exemplary; they are the cultural inheritance which may not be analyzed but must be taken on blind faith by believers.

For these reasons Tibetan Buddhism’s entire promise of enlightenment forms a trap with which intimate and religious yearnings can be used to magically push through the politico-religious goals of the monastic clergy. (We are not discussing here whether this is really possible, rather, we are talking about the intentions of the Lamaist system.) This corresponds exactly with what the Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno describes as “manipulation”. Bruno, it will be recalled, indicated that a masterly manipulator may not speak about his actual power-political intentions. In contrast, he flatters the ego of the one to be manipulated (the ego the masses), so that the latter always believes he is following solely his own interests and pursuing his completely personal goals — but in truth he is fulfilling the wishes and targets of the manipulator (without knowing it). Applied to the Dalai Lama and his religion this means that people practice Tibetan Buddhism because they hope for enlightenment (liberation from personal suffering) from it, yet in reality they become agents of political Lamaism and the Tibetan gods at work behind it. The Dalai Lama is thus a particularly impressive example of a “manipulator” in Bruno’s sense.

If people are used to serve as vessels for the Tibetan gods, then the energy which directly powers the mysto-political motor of the Lamaist system consists in the sacred sexuality, the erotic love, particularly in the gynergy of the woman (as fuel). Tibetan Buddhism is a mystery religion and its mysteries are the driving force behind its political decisions. Reduced to a concise formula, this means that sexuality is transformed via mysticism into power. The French poet Charles Péguy is supposed to have said that, “every mysticism ends up as politics”. The dynamic of the tantric system cannot be better described. It is a large-scale “mystic ritual machine” whose sole aim is the production of the all-encompassing ADI BUDDHA and the establishment of his universal political control.

Just how closely intertwined Lamaism sees sexual magic and politics to be is demonstrated by the dual nature of the Kalachakra Tantra. The sexual magic rituals, the cosmology, and the political program of the Shambhala myth are tightly interwoven with each other in this document. For a Western reader, the text seems unintegrated, at odds with itself, and contradictory, but for a Buddhist Tantric it forms a seamless unity.

Tantric rituals are thus politics, as we have described in the first part of our study. But in reverse, politics is also a ritual, i.e., every political event, be it the flight of the Dalai Lama from Tibet, the vandalistic actions the Chinese Red Guard, the death of Mao Zedong, or a film like Scorsese’s Kundun, they all — from a traditional Tibetan and not from a Western point of view — form a performance along the Kalachakra master’s progress toward the throne of the ADI BUDDHA.

If we judge the politics of Lamaist Buddhocracy from a Western point of view, especially those of the Kalachakra Tantra and the Shambhala myth, then we arrive at the following nine assessment points:

1. The politics of the Time Tantra is “inhuman”, because it is conducted by gods and yogis, but not by people. These gods possess in part extremely destructive characteristics. They are nonetheless sacrosanct and may neither be criticized nor exchanged or transformed.
2. The goal of this tantra is the establishment of an androcentric, undemocratic, despotic monastic state headed by an autocrat (the ADI BUDDHA).
3. The Buddhocratic state is structurally based upon sacrifice: the sacrifice of the loving goddess, the woman, the individual, the pupil, the king, the scapegoat.
4. Buddhocracy skillfully manipulates several models of temporary anarchism in order to in the end turn them around into an authoritarian system.
5. In a Tibetan-style Buddhocracy, the state and its organs do not shrink from using black magic rituals to get political opponents out of the way.
6. Buddhocratic politics are aligned not towards democratic decision-making processes but rather towards divine commands, especially the pronouncements of oracles, of whom Pehar, the pre-Buddhist war god of the Hor Mongols, assumes the leading role (of state oracle).
7. The tantric state is pursuing an aggressive policy of war and conquest (the Shambhalization of the world).
8. The Shambhala myth contains an apocalyptic vision borne by a “fascistoid” warrior ethos, in which the faithful (the Buddhists) brutally annihilate all non-believers (above all the Moslems).
9. Tantric Buddhism manipulates the western masses with falsified images of peace, ecology, democracy, a pro-woman orientation, social justice, and compassion.

In this connection we would like to (in warning) mention once more the significant influence that both Buddhist Tantrism in general and the Kalachakra Tantra and Shambhala myth in particular have had over fascism and German national socialism, and continue to exert. In chapter 12 we reported on Heinrich Himmler’s occult interest in Tibet, about the former SS member Heinrich Harrer, the tutor of the young Dalai Lama, and about the significance of Vajrayana for the fascist ideology of Mussolini’s confidante, Julius Evola. But at the center of this chapter stood a detailed analysis of Esoteric Hitlerism, the world view of the Chilean diplomat and author Miguel Serrano who closely follows Buddhist Tantrism and combines it with occult doctrines of the Nazis. Most clearly of all, Serrano shows what awaits humanity if the Kalachakra Tantra were to gain control over the world: a racist autocracy of androgynous warriors who celebrate real female sacrifices as their supreme mystery and worship Hitler’s SS as their historical role-model. In warning, we would indicate that it is not a coincidence that His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama has maintained contact with these fanatic worshippers of the SS and the German “Führer” since his flight from Tibet (in 1959), but rather because his tantric tradition corresponds with many of their ideological and visionary aspects.

Where Serrano’s Shambhala visions have up until now remained speculations, they have taken on a horrifying reality in the figure of the Japanese sect leader, Shoko Asahara. The world held its breath in the case of Asahara as he ordered the carrying out of a gas attack on Tokyo’s overfilled underground railway system in 1995 in which there were numerous injuries and several people died. It was the first militarily planned attempted murder by a religious group from an industrialized country which was directed outwardly (i.e. not against its own membership). The immense danger of such insidious attacks, against which the masses are completely unprotected, is obvious. For all the depth of feeling which the act stirred up among the international public, no-one has until now made the effort of investigating the ideological and religious bases and motives which led Asahara to commit his crime. Here too, the ways lead to Tibetan Buddhism, especially the Shambhala myth of the Kalachakra Tantra. Asahara saw himself as an incarnation of the Rudra Chakrin, the raging wheel turner, who destroys one half of the world in order to (literally) rescue the other half through his Shambhalization plan. Not only was did he practice Vajrayana, he was also a “good friend” of the Dalai Lama, whom he met five times in person.

The atavistic pattern of Tibetan Buddhism

Despite all these problematic points, the image of Tibetan Buddhism as the best of all religious systems and the Dalai Lama as the gentlest (!) of all beings continues to spread successfully. One of the latest high points in this glorification has been the cover story on Buddhism in the German news magazine Spiegel (April 1998). In the case of the Dalai Lama this magazine, well-known for its critical stance towards religion and anti-church articles which often did not shy away from a sharp cynicism, let itself be used as a propaganda instrument by an atavistic, autocratic religious system. The author of the euphoric article, Erich Follath, was like so many of his colleagues completely captivated by the god-king’s charm after a visit to Dharamsala. “I show old friends like you around my garden!”, the Kundun had smiled at the Spiegel editor and shown him his flower beds (Spiegel, no. 16, April 13, 1998). The journalist Follath gratefully accepted this personal gesture by the divine charmer and in the same moment abandoned his critical awareness and his journalistic responsibility. His article is an embarrassing collection of historical distortions and sentimental celebration of the Kundun, his country, and his religion. [1]

If we were to characterize the obvious self-presentation of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama on the world political stage, we would soon recognize that he strictly abides by (a) four positive rules and (b) four negative ones which proves him to indeed be a masterful manipulator:

1.       (a) In public, always argue using the terms of Mahayana Buddhism. Refer to compassion, love, and peace. (b) Never mention the sexual magic mysteries and power-political obsessions of Vajrayana.

2.       (a) Lead all arguments that could in any manner be directed against Buddhism into the “emptiness” (shunyata) and in public “shunyatize” even your own religious approach: “nothing has an inherent existence” — that is, everything comes from nothingness and everything ends in nothingness.
(b) In contrast, never mention in public the Tibetan gods, demons, and spirits (the Nechung oracle) or their power-political program (the Shambhala myth), who sink into this “emptiness” only to push through their “Buddhocratic” interests and tantric ideology globally.

3.       (a) Apparently take on all progressive currents within western culture (democracy, freedom of opinion, human rights, individualism, women’s rights, ecology, humanism, and so forth). (b) Never mention the autocratic clerical intentions of the tantric system, and under no circumstances the establishment of worldwide control by the androcentric Buddhist monastic state which can perpetuate itself via the doctrine of reincarnation.

4.       (a) Smile and always appear friendly, ordinary, modest, humble, and human. Always play the gentle “Lord of Compassion”, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.(b) Never display annoyance or pride in public, and thickly veil the destructive aspects of those gods and demons (herukas) whose emanation on earth you are. Be silent about the cruelty of Lamaist history.

The smile and the friendly words of the “living Buddha” are only the outer facade of his many-layered personality. But it is not what the Dalai Lama says, but rather the religious system which stands behind him and what his gods command that determine the politics of Tibetan Buddhism, as we have shown in the course of our study. It is not the new pseudo-Western constitution of the Tibetans in exile which counts, rather it is in the final instance the “political theology” recorded in the Kalachakra Tantra and Shambhala myth and the sexual magic practices prescribed there for the accumulation of power which are decisive. It is not the relaxed and friendly relations between His Holiness and western celebrities which are a problem, but rather his close contacts with occult sects like Shoko Asahara’s AUM cult and with representatives of “esoteric Hitlerism” like Miguel Serrano. The reason they are extremely problematic and very dangerous is because both occultists (Asahara and Serrano) have placed the philosophy and practice of Vajrayana and the warlike Shambhala myth at the center of their destructive world view. It is not the conflict between the Dalai Lama and Beijing which poses a threat for the West and the world community, but rather in contrast a possible future cultural conquest of the “Chinese dragon” by the “Tibetan snow lion” (of Lamaism). The Shambhala myth provides the optimal ideological foundations for an aggressive, pan-Asian superpower politics and for the unleashing of a Buddhist jihad (holy war). It is not the gentle downward-looking Avalokiteshvara and the “simple monk” from Dharamsala, but rather Yama the god of death and Kalachakra the time god with his woman-destroying cult which are the problem, since they are likewise incarnated in the figure of the Dalai Lama. It is not that the Dalai Lama privately seeks advice from an oracle that is problematic, but rather that a Mongolian war god speaks through the state oracle. It is not the popularity that Hollywood has lent the Kundun which should be criticized, but rather the use of these media giants to distort historical facts.

Yet the atavistic and mythic pattern of Tibetan thought and Tantric Buddhism is completely ignored by people in the West (as long as they are not converted Buddhists). If it were to be examined, one would inevitably reach the conclusion that there is absolutely no freedom of opinion in the Lamaist culture of Tibet, and hence no real criticism either, since the Tibetan people have always been administered autocratically, and even in exile have no democracy, having “ opted” for a constitutionally fixed(!) Buddhocracy instead. Further, since doctrine has it that the highest ruler of the country, the Dalai Lama, is not a state president but a living “god” (an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara and the Kalachakra deity), his will must always be valued more highly than that of his subjects, even should they have a seat in the exile Tibetan government.

Additionally, Tibet has no ordinary history but rather a sacred one, with the Shambhala myth at its center and as its goal. For this reason, every political act of the Kundun and the Tibetans in exile must be subsumed within this eschatology. Lamaist culture is in its essence undemocratic, fundamentalist, and totalitarian, and sees nothing bad in this — in contrast, it holds itself to be the best system of all. Thanks to the doctrine of reincarnation, the ruling clerical elite views its absolutist exercise of power as unlimited even by death.

Every reform policy, every affirmation of democratization, every profession of peace remains a lie for as long as the Dalai Lama has not renounced the tantric ritual system, especially the Kalachakra Tantra. At heart this rests on the magic transformation of sexuality into power and ultimately aspires to the militarily enforced enthronement of a sacred/political world king. Nonetheless, without even the slightest concession and headed by the Kundun, all schools of Lamaism continue to hold fast to the — as we believe we have demonstrated them to be — extremely destructive and humanity despising rites and associated political ideology.

Even if the Tibetan clergy were to relinquish its political privileges for a time in a “liberated” Tibet, the idea of the hegemony of a patriarchal monastic dictatorship as the supreme goal would remain, as this is the core of the entire tantric ritual system. The theocratic system that can be found in all the past cultures of the world only survives today in Tibetan Buddhism and parts of Islam. In both cases it demands worldwide recognition and distribution. Among the Tibetans in exile it does so — grotesquely — from behind a mask of democracy, human rights, the ecumenical mission, and the protection of nature.

However, when they not in public, the Tibetan Gurus do not shrink at all from talking about their mystic envisionings, plans for conquest, apocalyptic battles, or the worldwide expansion of a Buddhocracy. In their followers’ circles the Shambhala myth has long since become a power-political factor. Yet it is not even mentioned in the world media. The lamas tailor their outwardly presented depictions of Tibet to their audience. If the tenor of an academic conference is one of sober discussion, then the arguments of the Tibetans in exile are likewise sober, analytic, and critical. If another meeting is more emotional and esoteric, then the very same people there subscribe to the fantastic historical myths of the eternally peaceful and mysterious, occult highlands (Shangri La) which at the first conference they claimed to be the invention of a errant “western orientalism”. In turn, at the congresses of “committed Buddhists”, the Tibet of old is built up as the sanctuary of all those values which are gaining ground in postmodern society. „Tibetan exiles”, Toni Huber writes, „have reinvented a kind of modern, liberal Shangri-La image of themselves”, in that they adopt images from the protest movements of the industrialized West „which are now transnational in scope and appeal: environmentalism, pacifism, human rights, and feminism” (Huber, 2001, p. 358). Yet Western values, like the separation of ecclesiastical and secular power, equality before the law, the rule of law, freedom of expression, social pluralism, political representation, equality of the sexes, and individualism, had no place in the history of Tibet.

But it is not just a result of pure naïveté when government sources in Europe and America express the opinion that autocratic Lamaism is compatible with the fundamentals of a modern constitution. Behind this also lie the tactical politics of power with an “impending” Chinese threat. Washington in particular is most interested in making use of an oppressed Tibet as an argument in discussions with China, the USA’s greatest competitor.

This dangerous antagonism between the two superpowers (China vs. the USA) is efficiently stirred up by their respective internal politics, and Dharamsala does not let a chance pass without pouring gas on the flames. The Kundun with his loud and “heartfelt” criticism of China is a American king-piece in the political chess game between Washington and Beijing. In it, official posts in the USA are thoroughly informed about the “true” history of the old and the new Tibet as well as the “undemocratic” circumstances in Dharamsala. They are advised by such objective scholars as, among others, A. Tom Grunfeld and Melvyn C. Goldstein. In public, however, the State Department has until now followed the pro-Tibetan arguments of the Hollywood actor and Kalachakra initiate, Richard Gere.

“Clash of Religions”: The fundamentalist contribution of Lamaism

In the last fifteen years, the West has to its great surprise discovered just how much political explosiveness religiously based strategies for world domination (like the Shambhala myth) and magic/mystic practices (like the Kalachakra ritual) have been able to develop today, on the threshold of the third millennium. Catching the western cultures unprepared, theocratic (and Buddhocratic) visions of the most varied schools of belief have burst forth explosively from the depths of the human subconscious, where they have survived in hiding since the bourgeois Enlightenment (of the 18^th century). Events in Iran, the country where the mullahs established the first smoothly functioning Moslem religious state of the modern era, triggered a culture shock in the West. All at once the atavistic attitudes and rules of violence, the warrior ethic, racism, intolerance, discrimination against women, the dictatorship of the priesthood, the persecution of nonbelievers, inquisitions, visions of global wars and the end of the world, etc., with which theocratic (and Buddhocratic) systems are associated were once more (as in the Middle Ages) were very current issues.

In a widely respected book, Clash of Civilizations, the American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, has indicated with convincing arguments that the confrontations which await the world of the 21st century primarily have neither economic, class conflict, nor nationalistic causes. In their search for identity, people have since the eighties been grouping themselves around “cultures”, but most especially around religions.

Surprisingly, all religious traditions have in the meantime overcome their opposition to technology. “The West” and “technology” are no longer identified with one another as they once were. Even the most radical fundamentalists use high-tech gadgets and the latest means of communication. It is the students from the faculties of engineering and the natural sciences who fell particularly drawn to religious ideas. According to Huntington, social conflicts (rich against poor) are also no longer a primary factor in the causes of war. Cultural spheres, such as that of Islam for instance, can encompass both extremely rich and extremely poor countries at the same time. The critical factor is the common religion.

The West and its values, Huntington argues, is becoming increasingly weak as a central power, while other cultural power blocs are crystallizing. Of these the two most significant are Islam and China. Its universalistic claims are increasingly bringing the West into conflict with other cultural spheres, most seriously with Islam and China. ... Islam and China embody grand cultural traditions that are very different from those of the West and, in the eyes of these cultural spheres, vastly superior to them. The power and self-assurance of these two spheres are increasing in comparison to the West, and the conflicts of interest and values between them and the West are becoming more numerous and intense (Huntington, 1997, p. 19). Wars, under certain circumstances world wars, are for Huntington hardly avoidable.

If we take Huntington’s suggestion seriously, we have to ask ourselves whether the Kalachakra Tantra and Shambhala myth of the Dalai Lama do not represent an extremely dangerous ideological bomb which could set the whole world aflame. As we know, the Time Tantra predicts an eschatological apocalyptic war with Islam. In the year 2327, the prophecy says, Rudra Chakrin, the “wrathful wheel turner” from Shambhala, will lead his army into battle against the Mlecchas (Moslems). A contribution from the Internet has thus rightly compared the vision of the Time Tantra with the idea of an Islamic holy war (jihad). “The Kalachakra initiation”, writes Richard P. Hayes, “seems to have been a call to the Buddhist equivalent of jihad ... the Kalachakra was interpreted externally as a call to Holy War (to preserve the Dharma against its enemies)” (Hayes, Newsgroup 11).

For historical reasons Islam has proven itself to be the most culturally aggressive counterforce to western culture. The struggles between the Christian Occident and the Islamic Orient are part of a centuries old tradition. With their explicit hostility towards Islam the Kalachakra Tantra and Shambhala myth are thus stirring up a fire which is already glowing fiercely on the current world political stage and has even spread to the center of the greatest western power (the USA).

According to Huntington, China will very soon be the West’s most potent economic and ethnic challenger. The country will develop into the core state and magnet of a Sinitic cultural sphere and will culturally dominate all its neighbors; the entire East Asian economy will be centered around China. Unification between the People’s Republic and Taiwan is just a question of time. Huntington sees the “Middle Kingdom” as the one power that could one day cast doubt on the global influence of the West.

In contrast to Islam, the philosophy (which can hardly still be described as communist) currently dominant in China, that terms itself the “inheritance of Confucian thought” both on the mainland and in Taiwan, is not outwardly aggressive and oriented towards conquest. On a general level, the Confucian ethos stresses authority, hierarchy, a sense of family, ancestor worship, the subordination of the rights of the individual to the community, and the supremacy of the state over the individual, but also the “avoidance of confrontations”, that is, wars as well.

We must nevertheless not forget that in the course of its history China has never been free from external ideological influences. Buddhism in its various forms, as well as Christianity and communism are cultural imports and have at times had a decisive influence on the politics of the country. In the 14th chapter of Part II of our study we thus posed the question of whether the Chinese might not also be susceptible to the Shambhala myth’s global visions of power. The “Middle Kingdom” has always had spiritually and mythically based claims to world domination. Even if it has not tried to impose these militarily, the Chinese Emperor is nonetheless revered as a world king (a Chakravartin). As we have demonstrated in our detailed portrait of Mao Zedong, such a claim survived even under communism. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama is most aware of this. For a good five years now his missionary work has been concentrated on Taiwan (Nationalist China). We have quoted several prophecies from his own lips which foretell a decisive codetermining role for Lamaism in shaping the Chinese future. Taiwan, which — according to all prognoses — will sooner  or later return to the mother country, can be considered the springboard from which the Tibetan monks and the new Nationalist Chinese recruits ordained by them could infiltrate the Chinese cultural fabric.

Return to rationalism?

Why is the West so helpless when it encounters the “battle of cultures”, and why is it surprised every time violent eruptions of fundamentalist religious systems (as in Islam for instance) occur? We believe that the reasons for this must be of a primarily epistemological nature: Since the time of the Enlightenment, the occidental culture has drawn a clear dividing line between the church and the state, science and religion, technology and magic, politics and myth, art and mysticism. This division led to the assessment of all state, scientific, technical, political, and artistic phenomena purely according to the criteria of reason or the aesthetics. Rationalism unconditionally required that the church, religion, magic, myth, and mysticism have no influence on the “scientific culture of the Enlightenment”. Naïvely, it also projects such conceptions onto non-Western cultural spheres. In the issue of Tibet, for example, the West neatly separates Tantric Buddhism and its mysteries (about which it knows as good as nothing) from the political questions of human rights, the concept of democracy, the national interests of the Tibetan people. But for the Dalai Lama and his system, politics and religion have been united for centuries. For him and for Lamaism, power-political decisions — of whatever kind — are tactical and strategic elements in the plan for world conquest recorded in the Kalachakra Tantra and Shambhala myth.

Since rationalism does not take the power-political effectiveness of myths and religions seriously enough, it refrains from the outset from examining the central contents of religious cults (such as the Kalachakra Tantra for example). The mysteries of the various religious orientations have never been more hidden and mysterious than in the Age of Reason, for the simple reason that this has never examined them.

To be successful, however, a critical analysis and evaluation of an ancient world view must fulfill three conditions:

1.       First of all it must be able to immerse itself in the world view of the particular religion, that is, it must be capable of perceiving the world and the universe through the eyes and filters of the religious dogmata to be examined. Otherwise it will never learn what it is all about. In the specific case of Tibetan culture, this means that it must familiarize itself with the sexual magic and micro-/macrocosmic philosophy of the Kalachakra Tantra and the political ideology of the Shambhala myth so as to be able to understand the politics of the Dalai Lama and his executive at all.

2.       Only after obtaining exact knowledge about the basis, goals, and history of the religion in question should it compare these with western values so as to then make an evaluation. For example, it must relate the “female sacrifice” and the absorption of gynergy through yoga practices in Buddhist Tantrism to contemporary demands for the equality of the sexes. The West cannot overcome the myths by denying their power. It has itself had to experience their unbroken and enormous presence even in the twentieth century. In the case of national socialism (Nazism) the mythological world view developed an all but superhuman potency. Only if investigative thinkers risk entering into the heart of the religious cult mysteries and are prepared to engage with the innermost core of these mysteries can such “religious time bombs” be diffused. For this reason,

3.       the requirements for a critical reappraisal of the cultures are that their mystery cults and their contents be brought into the arena for public discussion — a procedure which is sure to send a shiver down the spines of the majority of fans of the esoteric and fundamentalists. But such an open and public discussion of the mystery knowledge is not at all an achievement of our liberal-democratic age. If, for example, we consider the critical and polemic disputes of the fathers of the Christian church with the various religious currents of their times and the rejoinders of the latter, then we can see that between the 2nd and the 5th centuries there was — despite the very primitive state of communication technologies — a far larger openness about fundamental questions of how the world is viewed than today. These days, religions are either blindly adopted or rejected per se; back then religions were made, formed, and codified.

As absurd as it may sound, “western rationalism” is actually the cause of occultism. [2] It pushes the esoteric doctrines and their practices (the New Age for example) into the social underground, where they can spread undisturbed and uninhibited, and lay claim to one mind after another unnoticed, until one day when — as in the case of national socialism in Germany in the 30s, the Mullah regime in Iran in the 80s, and perhaps the Shambhala myth in Asia in the ??s — they burst forth with immense power and draw the whole of society into their atavistic wake. [3]

On the other hand, the “critical descent” into the mystery cults of the religious traditions makes possible valuable learning processes. We did not want to reach the conclusion in our analysis of Buddhist Tantrism that everything about traditional religions (Buddhism in this particular case) ought to be dismissed. Many religious teachings, many convictions, practices, and visions appear thoroughly valuable and even necessary in the establishment of a peaceful world community. We too are of the opinion that the “Enlightenment” and western “rationalism” alone no longer have the power to sensibly interpret the world, and definitely not to change it. Man does not live on bread alone!

Hence, in our view, the world of the new millennium is thus not to be demythologized (nor dis-enchanted or re-rationalized), but rather humans have the power, the right, and the responsibility to subject the existing myths, mysteries and religions to a critical examination and selection process. We can, may, and must resist those gods who exhibit destructive conceptions and dualist thoughts and deeds. We can, may, and ought to join those who contribute to the construction of a peaceful world. we can, may, and perhaps should even seek new gods. There is, however, a great danger that the time for a fundamental renewal of the religious process will disappear if the atavistic/warlike world views (with western help as well) continue to spread further and are not replaced by other, peaceful depictions of the world (and myths). The existing traditions (and the deities and mysteries behind them) may only be of help in such a process of renewal in as far as they adhere to certain fundamentals like mutual respect, peaceableness, openness, equality of the sexes, cooperation with nature, charity, etc.

The cultural critic Samuel P. Huntington rejects from the outset the idea of a universal culture, a new world culture as unrealistic and unwanted. But why actually? The general interconnection, the technologization, the interlacing of the economy, the expansion of international travel have like never before in the history of humankind generated the communicative conditions for the discussion of a global cultural beginning. This is, at least as far as certain western values like human rights, equality of opportunity, democracy, and so forth, already encouraged by the world community (especially the UN) with more or less large success. But on a religious level, everything remains the same — or will there be new mysteries, oriented to laws of human harmony without a need to sacrifice intercultural variety and colorful splendor?

Footnotes:

[1] We will not go into the individual points raised in the article here as we have already discussed them at appropriate points throughout the book.

[2] The word “occultism” in its current sense first emerged during the age of rationalism.