Quoted By:
Chapter 1
WESTERN IDEAS ABOUT
AGARTTHA
contained in the posthumous work Mission de I'lnde, by
Saint- Yves d'Alveydre (published in 19 10), 1 there is a des-
cription of a mysterious centre of initiation called Agarttha;
many readers have no doubt assumed it was a purely
imaginary story, a sort of fiction without any foundation in
reality. In fact it does contain, if one takes it absolutely literally,
unlikelihoods which could justify such an opinion, particularly
for those given to seeing only external appearances. The
author no doubt had his reasons for not publishing the book
himself, although it was written long ago (albeit left unedited).
The only previous mention in Europe of Agarttha and its chief
the Brahmatma was made by a rather superficial writer called
Louis Jacolliot, 2 who cannot be considered authoritative and
who seems to have heard tell of these things whilst in India,
and created his own fantasy about them as he did with the
rest. However, in 1924 a book entitled Beasts, Men and Gods
appeared unexpectedly on the scene. In this book Ferdinand
Ossendowski wrote of a thrilling journey made across central
Asia in 1920 and 1921, using descriptions that tally, especially
in the latter part of the book, almost identically with those of
Saint- Yves
