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ORIENTED

                                              January 11, 2007
                                              May     25, 2008
There's a recurrent
obsession in Western
adventure fiction        For some, that obsession may have been
with "the Orient" as     transmitted by things such as "The Shadow"
a source of mystic       radio show...
knowledge.
                             GHOSTS_OF_THE_SHADOW

   My guess was that this is
   a reflection of one of the      The fictional trope of psychics and
   undercurrents of mysticism      mediums reflected a quite common
   around the beginning of         obsession with Spiritualism.
   the twentieth century.
                                        Later successfully
   But it's been around                 discredited by Houdini
   longer than that...                  and the like: now it's
                                        generally understood       Or as
   Balzac, "Cousin Pons" (1847)         that there were many       succesful
   (1968 trans. by Herbet J Hunt):      con-artists working        as such
                                        the medium racket.         things
      "It is in Asia that,                                         ever are.
      from time immemorial,   
      the heroes ot the occult                                  Neon signs
      sciences are found."                                      advertising
                                                                a Psychic are
                      In the same passage Balzac                not all that
                      is at pains to state that                 rare, not in
                      even the genuine psychics                 the Bay Area
                      often resort to fradulent                 at least.
                      practices.  Nothing dents                 
                      the beliefs of a true                     And we've had 
                      believer.                                 other go-rounds
                                                                since those    
                                                                days, e.g. 
                                                                Uri Geller.
                                       
  So... where did the idea come          
  from that Tibet is the source          
  of true magical wisdom?      
                               
               One idea I've had is that       
               it might have been someone       
               like Nicholas Roerich...       
                                          
                                  ROERICH


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