Theodore Illion: Darkness Over Tibet

[Benjamin]

...I scrolled through 100 pages of 'Iljin' in the 'Birth, marriage and death' collections. That's 5,000 entries, all in Cyrillic, having this exact name...

Just a clarification that those results for 'Iljin' had many different first names of which 'Feodor' constituted a handful by comparison.

Not knowing where else to go, I returned to the Die Furche newspaper list. With my free time-limited membership, I translated all 42 of Illion's articles using DeepL and Google (because DeepL kept booting me for 24hrs). Die Furche had already (machine) transcribed the articles so it was just a cut-n-paste job. Unfortunately, only a few of the articles are (seemingly) fully transcribed, the rest being incomplete and a few only having a paragraph or two. Nevertheless, some interesting things came out of this.

I'm not going to critique Illion's writings. I don't have the knowledge of Communist, Indian/Pakistani or Nigerian/Biafran history suitable to do so and, since the articles are incomplete, I don't know his conclusions if he made any. Rather, I'm going to focus on something a bit more general, in a way.

Illion's articles are exclusively about certain current events of his time. It becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly that he's critical of "Red China" which dominates the majority of his Die Furche articles. He seems to be well informed and keeps up with, at least, world events. But I found it interesting that he never adds anything historical. There is a mention of the 13 century Japanese Buddhist Nichiren and the Ming Dynasty but otherwise there are no references or parallels to historical events, nor are there any quotes from anybody of a historical nature. I wouldn't have been surprised to see a line from a Greek or Roman writer thrown in somewhere, or maybe a passage from the Bible, or anything from a more recent author. Unless he does so in the untranscribed parts, there is nothing at all. I started to think that he might not have a very strong knowledge base of history which made me wonder about his schooling. I'm going to guess that he went through some sort of elementary school, but after that? I could be wrong but I'm skeptical if he attended a university and that baffles me a bit because these are well written.

There is also a phrase that he uses a lot. Here are some examples:

• "Sources with good information..."
• "...the best-informed observers - including a leading French journalist these days..."
• "...the not too densely populated well-informed Asia experts wonder..."
• "...estimates by foreign experts vary widely. Japanese observers have proved to be more reliable than average in their assessment of the Red Chinese economic situation."
• "...some China experts are of the opinion..."
• " According to reports from impartial sources in areas close to China..."
• "Sources in Hong Kong, who are in regular contact with many people from Red China, claim..." [ I mean, come on!]
• "Good experts on Asia say..."
• "According to reports from Asian sources, whose information has repeatedly proved to be accurate..."
• "According to reports from sources in a number of non-communist Asian countries (India, etc.)..."
• "...quite a few impartial experts on Asia nevertheless consider..."
• "Reliable sources claim..."
• "The prevailing impression among the well-informed is..."
• "Sources based in northern India, who despite all border controls have good connections to various inner Asian areas, report..."
• "...in the opinion of good experts on Asia, whose predictions have repeatedly proven to be valid..."

Of course those sources are never named. I understand wanting to keep your sources safe but wouldn't one hear little bells ringing eventually?

But I noticed something else. Sometimes he uses the word 'we' in a certain way and, in very rare cases, uses the words 'us' and 'our'.

Where is Nigeria Heading?- May 21, 1969

The conflicting reports from observers from both camps are difficult to bring to a common denominator. Our informants tried to compare, among other things, numerous reports of bombings of civilians.

No Weapons for Nigeria- Sept. 17, 1969

A very well-informed, impartial expert on Africa told one of our sources: “The Pope's initiative is praiseworthy. However, should hostilities not cease despite this, the fighters for peace would have no choice but to appeal directly to the goodwill of the countries that supply the belligerents with weapons.”

Turning Point in the Nigerian War?- Oct. 8, 1969

The latest report from the area of secessionists says that they are aware of the great influence of Dr. Azikiwe's focus is primarily on the common people and his assurance that no extermination campaign has been launched against "Biafra" is viewed as a serious setback for the secessionists. And we have just learned from Owerri that the leaders of the secessionists there organized an impressive funeral with African imprecation rites, at which a Dr. The doll [?] depicting Azikiwe was solemnly cursed and buried in the presence of hundreds of simple Ibos.

The Pill - A Time Bomb?- Jun. 24, 1970

Also interesting are the statements made by some leading Africans about the dangers of loud propaganda for the “pill” in view of the increasing manipulation of people in our technological age. A letter we received in this context mentions newspaper reports that an Anglican clergyman had seriously advocated the introduction of a “reproductive license” in a sermon.

Before us is an article published in a black African newspaper with the title: “Islam is against birth control”, with quotations from the Koran, which, according to the authors, prohibit artificial contraception, such as: “Do not kill the (expectant) child for fear of poverty.”

Drilling in Formosa- Apr. 21, 1971

At the same time, we learn from Saigon that soon after this news became known, no fewer than 28 oil companies from various countries expressed their interest in participating in the South Vietnamese oil business.

Hunger and Power- Nov. 24, 1971

And while a major news magazine claims in a report that impartial experts describe as one-sided that “Sheikh Muribur Rahman is facing the death penalty,” we learn from well-informed sources that heads of state and government, including President Nixon, intervened on his behalf.

Most of the Awami League leaders who fled to India reside in Calcutta. We learn from impartial informants that their prestige has been tarnished because they are accused of having failed over the course of many months to initiate a “real mass uprising”.

The Dangerous Needles- Mar. 7, 1973

Henry A. Kissinger, one of the most prominent presidential advisors and secret diplomat in the USA, analyzed and reviewed Metternich's statesmanship in his 1972 paperback history work “Great Power Diplomacy”. We can rightly recognize Kissinger as Metternich's interlocutor.

The later 'we' references are possibly just a grammatical style used to address people collectively. But the highlighted selections that I've underlined are different. Unless Illion switches to a third-person perspective while writing (like he did with his 'Canadian' admission), these selections allude to more then one person or possibly a group.

And notice here:

Where is Nigeria Heading?- May 21, 1969

Most other black African states also fear the example of such progressive “Balkanization” on any similar currents that may exist in their own countries, so that so far only four of these many countries have recognized the secession of the Nigerian Eastern Province under the name “Biafra”. This is also clear from the author of this article's correspondence with some leading African statesmen.

No Weapons for Nigeria- Sept. 17, 1969

Other African statesmen, including the head of a black African state with which the author of this article is associated, express similar fears.

Add in the humorous 'letter to the editor' complaint Illion sent to the Salzburg Nachrichten paper where he reveals his correspondence with a person in Vienna and you get the impression that he is a connected guy with a seemingly well established information network that appears to, at least, extend to Japan, India and Nigeria. Additionally, reading many newspapers from around the world, whatever he hears on the radio and his personal experiences from travelling to 15/16 countries and Illion becomes quite the man in the know, at least on certain topics. Then there's this:

The Spectre of China- July 30, 1969

At a meeting of Western and Eastern European politicians, diplomats, university professors and freelance journalists in Grundlsee, which was not hindered by the Soviet side, the aim was openly to achieve closer cooperation between Western and Eastern European states, independent of ideologies. At this meeting, which received little public attention and to which the author of this article was invited, an official representative of Romania also confirmed the position of his and “other socialist countries” that “the division of the world into military blocs is an anachronism and an obstacle on the way to state cooperation”.

This admission implies that Illion travels in some pretty elite company. Remember the admission that he was a member of the Club of Rome? This isn't proof but is this support for it? I don't think so.

The first full meeting of the Club of Rome was at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy in 1968. It was considered a "monumental flop". The second full meeting was sponsored by Pierre Trudeau and the Canadian Government and held in April, 1971 at the Seigniory Club in Chateau Montebello (which is for sale, btw), Quebec. At this meeting, "members heard the outline of a global “Systems Dynamics” model that would become the basis for The Limits to Growth", which was published in 1972. The Club of Rome was not a big deal in 1969, so to have a meeting of such significant participants as described by "the author of this article" (a phrase he uses seven times throughout the articles) is unlikely Club of Rome members.

Now, this meeting may have happened. However, I could find three articles in the SN about the The Fifth World Congress of the Theosophical Society (mentioned earlier) in Salzburg, but I couldn't find a reference to this gathering in Grundlsee on Grundlsee Lake in the SN or Die Furche. And this is what bothers me: "At this meeting, which received little public attention..." is reported by Illion. I'm leaving it open, but I wonder if he's controlling the narrative.

I took a look at Illion's biography again (found in the Darkness Over Illion article) where he mentions:

As a child he ran away from home and lived roughly like Kipling's "Kim" (by the way, the applicant knew "Kim", whose real name was Hastings Palmer, quite well).

Hastings Palmer? Yeah right. But I wonder if Illion got some inspiration from that book?

It's interesting that, throughout his biography, he refers to himself in the third-person exclusively. Unlike his books In Secret Tibet and Darkness Over Tibet where he uses 'I' and 'my', Illion doesn't us 'I' in his newspaper articles or biography (he does use 'my' once in the first article Dangerous Vacuum). He has 'plurals' and 'third-persons'. Is he dissociating? (see: The Myth of Sanity)

On a sidenote he also mentioned:

...stayed several times at the house of Vidunas, the Lithuanian national poet...

Looking at his wikipage, I find that Vydūnas was a pioneer of pagan revival and one of the leaders of the theosophical movement in East Prussia.

 

[Benjamin]

As suggested by Altair, I looked around for Altai legends and it seems like the 'big one' (7738 verses) is called the Maadai-Kara. I cannot find an English translation of it anywhere (there's a 4-part reading of the epic starting here, in Turkish, no CC). There was one published in 1986 with the title Māday Qara: An Altay Epic Poem, translated by Ugo Marazzi, but I can only find the Italian version. One 'complete' English version I could find is a savagely edited, low-budget animation that has been hacked to 3:30 minutes.

Piecing it together, here's a bit more about the epic:

Kögüdei Mergen, who is the hero of the epic and son of Maadai Kara, goes to the underground to unlock the secret of life, to bring his mother and father back to the world from the world of the dead and save his livestock and people from death. The epic takes place in three different dimensions called the world, the underground and the heavens. The world is the place of the living creatures. The underground is the world of spirits and the dead. The heaven is unknown and beyond what man knows. The portals of these three dimensions are not closed to each other and it is possible to pass through one from another and return.

In a pdf by Lauri Harvilahti titled Altai Oral Epic (2000), there is a description of the Maadai-Kara. Lauri mentions that there are many different versions of this poem to begin with. But out of all of the one's that I have seen in English (like the two examples above) this one is the most thorough. (I've uploaded the pdf because the link is weirdly porn-sketchy.)

The Epic of Maadai-Kara and the World Tree

The following is a short fragment from the Maadai-Kara poem
performed by A. Kalkin: (11)

Jeten airy kök talaidyη beltirinde
Jeti jaan köö taiganyη koltugunda
Jüs budaktu möηkü terek. . .

By the shores of a blue river with seventy still waters
By the loins of seven matched black mountains,
(Grew a) hundred-branched eternal poplar. . .

The eternal poplar described in the poem is the world tree. The road to the lower and higher levels of the world runs, according to the elder Kalkin, up and down an eternal tree. It may be a single iron tree trunk or there may be one hundred trunks. The eternal poplar thus unites the upper and lower world by passing through the middle world, where humans dwell. It is believed that the world tree both brings forth and maintains life, as well as controls human destiny.

In Altai epics the eternal poplar marks the center of the world. This mythical tree is also characteristically a dwelling place for a number of mythical animals. These animals have various functions: they determine destinies, guard the tree, and caution those who have taken the wrong road. When the tree leans towards the moon, it begins to shed golden leaves; when it leans towards the sun, it begins to shed silver leaves. The treetop is the home of two golden cuckoos, who call out the number of days that remain for the living; they also know where the souls of the dying will go. In the middle of the tree perch two identical diamond-clawed eagles, the protectors of the firmament. Their breath is like the wind, and they shriek warnings to lost heroes on dangerous roads. At the base of the tree are two black dogs with flecked and flashing eyes who gaze in the direction of the underworld. Gnashing their teeth, the dogs bark to Erlik Kaan, the lord of that realm.

In addition to the iron poplar, or any other tree symbolizing the center of the world, the iron mountain also functions as a symbolic center of the world in Altai mythology. The task of the shaman was to take the souls of the dead to the base of the world tree or mountain, that is, to the tortuous path leading to the Erlik’s realm.

Another symbolic center of the world is the hitching post described in the Altai and Yakutian shamanistic epic. This pole runs through the lower, middle, and upper levels of the earth. The upper part belongs to the god of the heavens, generally known in the poems as Üc-Kurbustan, (12) while the middle belongs to the poem’s hero, Maadai-Kara, and the lower part to Aibystan, the god of the underworld: (13)

Togzon kyrlu tas örgöödiη ezigi alty
Togus kyrlu möηgün caky bar boluptyr.
Altyy ucy altyy oroon —
Aibystannyη bu cadany,
Üstin ucy üstin oroon —
Üc-Kurbustan bu cakyzy.
Tal ortozy
Kara kaltar jaksy attu
Maadai-Kara baatyrdyη
Bu cadany bu boluptyr.

At the mouth of the ninety-sided stone yurt
Stands a ninety-sided silver hitching post.
Its lower part is in the underworld,
It is Aibystan’s hitching post.
The upper part extends to the upper world,
It is  Üc-Kurbustan’s hitching post.
The middle part belongs to
The one who rides the dark gray steed,
It is the hitching post of the hero Maadai-Kara.

In the narrative poetry of the Yakutians (a Siberian ethnic group), the top of the world tree serves as a hitching post for the highest god. During Buryat shamanistic funeral rites, participants would place three posts on the way to the burial site, posts where the shaman’s spirit might tie his horse. (14)

Uno Harva shows the close link between the shaman’s tree and its guardian. According to the Yakutian myths, the supreme god ajyy tojon [Aisyt] brought the blossomless tree into the world and taught the first shamans their incantations and powerful techniques. Each shaman had his own tree that would begin growing as soon as the sorcerer found his calling. When the shaman died, the tree would also begin to decay. The belief that chopping down a shaman’s tree also spelled the death of the shaman is widespread among the peoples of Siberia. (15) According to local Altai researchers, a deceased shaman would customarily be entombed in the hollow of a deciduous tree. The shaman’s final resting place and the surrounding woodlands were highly venerated. Even today, the multi-branched tamaracks at an old sacrificial site are surrounded by a thick log fence. According to one explanation, this practice also prevents animals from digging at the roots of the sacred trees.

The beginning of Maadai-Kara is a typical description of the mythical time and golden age. The epic begins with familiar elements from the mythical landscape, including the holy poplar as a symbol of eternal life. Maadai-Kara is an old hero who has already lost his power. He sleeps for sixty days. When he finally wakes up, he notices that a hostile kaan (lord or ruler) is approaching in order to seize him and capture his livestock, people, and property. When his wife gives birth to a son, Kögüdei Mergen, Maadai- Kara hides the boy in the black mountain and leaves him under the protection of the birch trees of Altai. The hostile Kara-Kula Kaan arrives and enslaves the white-faced people of Maadai-Kara.

The son remains in the mountain, however, and becomes the real hero of the epic. The old mistress of Altai finds him, takes good care of him, and soon the boy starts his heroic exploits. First he shoots two gigantic wolves and ravens with his bow and arrow. Then he rides his heroic steed toward the domain of Kara-Kula Kaan and kills all of the monsters on the way. His horse jumps over a yellow poisonous sea and through two continuously opening and closing mountains. After multiple adventures, Kögüdei Mergen finds out that Kara-Kula Kaan’s soul is hidden in the form of a quail’s chick in a gold coffer in the abdomen of one of the heavenly reindeer. Finally Kögüdei Mergen is able to shoot the middle reindeer, causing the golden coffer to fall out. In the struggle between the hostile kaan and the hero the quail chick is injured, and Kara-Kula dies. With the help of seven identical heroes Kögüdei Mergen is able, after a long wooing competition, to win the daughter of Ay Kaan, Altyn Küskü, as his bride. Finally he is able to kill Erlik by burning him into coal. Then he sets free all the just prisoners from Erlik’s domain, but the unjust remain there. As a result, a golden era returns to Altai.

At the end of the epic Kögüdei Mergen and Altyn Küskü, as well as the seven identical heroes, turn into stars. In the night sky the seven kaans (the Great Bear) are the seven heroes going to the wedding, the North Star is Altyn Küskü, and above the constellation of the Three Reindeer (Orion) is a red star. That is the arrow of Kögüdei Mergen. In the Altai language the Great Bear is Jeti-kaan, “Seven kaans,” and Orion Üc myjgak, “Three reindeers,” and the North Star is called Altyn-Kazyk, “The Golden Pole.” This summary is in brief the main content of this fantastic mythical epic, a total of 7,738 verses in Aleksej Kalkin’s version.

According to Ugo Marazzi the epic of Maadai-Kara is an example of the cosmogonic theme of “heavenly hunt,” with a heroic plot borrowed from a shamanistic initiation experience. It serves as a tale of origin for the constellations Orion and the Great Bear, and the hero K güdei Mergen is a great proto-shaman. (16)

(11) Surazakov 1973b: verses 45-47.

(12) In Altaic epic poetry, Üc-Kurbustan is the god of the heavens and corresponds to Ülgen. Kurbustan refers to the Persian god of the sky Ahura Mazda. As it was adopted by Buddhism, this divinity was identified with Sakra (Indra) and in the Mongolian Lamaist cosmology it became the leading divinity of the group of 33 divinities of the sky (teηgri). It was also adopted with varying significance in shamanistic concepts, in particular as the highest god of the sky, but among the peoples of the Altai mountains it also applied to spirit beings (körmös) from shamanism in general. The first part of the name appearing in the poem, üc, which means three, may allude to Buddhism (the number three in place of the original 33). For more details, see Harva 1933:97-98; Nekljudov and ›ukovskaja 1991:594.

(13) Surazakov 1973b:verses 156-65. Aibystan (“sable-fur-blanket”) is a euphemism for Erlik, the lord of the underworld (see Puhov 1975:24; Kazagaceva 1997:638).

(14) Harva 1933:53, 201; see Puhov 1975:24.

(15) Harva 1933:319-20.

(16) Marazzi 1986:7-8.

Earlier in the article, she publishes a short selection of an interview recorded by Z. S. Kazagaceva and herself on Sept. 1996 in Jabagan, Altai Republic. I found this part to be interesting.

...
Lauri Harvilahti: What is your religion?
Elbek: Among us—the real Altaians—the religion is a heathen one.
Lauri Harvilahti: Where does the epic come from? Does it originate from—what do you think?
V. M. Gacak: Who gave people the epic? [refering to the Maadai-Kara]
Lauri Harvilahti: Does it come from a god, or the ancestors? What would you say?
Elbek: I think it comes from, from the ancestors. Well, as heathens we worship the mountains . . . poetically, the Altai Eezi. That is the spirit of the mountain. Altai Eezi may also, how to put it—I mean, transmit the epics. (9)
...

(9) See Potapov (1991:200), who states that in epics the god of Altai is called Altai Ääzi, “the lord of Altai.”

The epic is meant to be sung, which apparently can take over 8 hours to do. Here is a 2 minute example by the above mentioned Kai singer Elbek Kalkin, the son of the most prominent of the last masters of the Upper Altai region's Kai singers, Aleksej Grigorevic Kalkin (the "A. Kalkin" mentioned at the beginning of the section):

I also started reading Shamanism by Mircea Eliade (recommended books section). It now seemed like a logical progression after Darkness.