Helena Roerich and her husband Nicholas journeyed through the Himalayas in the 1920s to establish Agni Yoga, a mystical teaching centered entirely on the esoteric element of invisible cosmic fire.

A closer look

Helena Roerich and her husband Nicholas journeyed through the Himalayas in the 1920s to establish Agni Yoga, a mystical teaching centered entirely on the esoteric element of invisible cosmic fire. She claimed this spiritual flame could rapidly accelerate human evolution, provided you avoided eating meat, abstained from negative thoughts, and occasionally received telepathic instructions from a hidden brotherhood in Shambhala. Their expedition was secretly funded by the Soviet Union and American businessmen, both of whom bizarrely believed the Roerichs could help them establish a geopolitical utopia in central Asia using Buddhist prophecies. The idea that hardened communist intelligence agents and Wall Street capitalists both eagerly financed an occult quest to find a magical fire kingdom proves that geopolitical strategy is often just as unhinged as standard New Age mysticism