Stormy day

What a perfect day to write. It’s raining right now in Massachusetts with thunderstorms and high winds in the forecast! I have a lot of day-job work to do today, but I am eager to get to my writing. Yesterday, my wife made me take a break, so I did. Although I was bitter like a child to be kept from my book, in hindsight, it was a good thing. We had a great dinner and a nice long walk, and I realized I was spending too much time on a particular chapter in Vril. The distance helped me see that.

In the prologue, I wanted to touch on a very peculiar incident in history, the 1938-39 Ernst Schafer expedition to Tibet. The original version of Vril devoted several chapters to this expedition and was cut. But I feel that some of its essences should return. Most of you probably haven’t heard of this adventure. You may have heard of Sven Hedin’s (from Sweden and the basis for Brad Pitt’s movie Seven Years in Tibet) or Colonel Younghusband’s (British) expeditions, but what about Ernst? That’s probably because it was a Nazi expedition funded by Heinrich Himmler and the Ahnenerbe, a quasi-scientific SS organization. This was well before full-blown World War II, but the tension was building, and the SS was still nefarious. There indeed were some scientific aspects of the expedition, but the real purpose was to discover the home of the Aryan race amongst the elevated plateaus of the Himalayas.

This expedition fascinates me. There is so much mystery and unknown surrounding it that it could easily be the basis of several fictions books (and maybe in the future, it will be). In any event, after working for a few days on the chapter, I realized last night during my time of rest and reflection that it was again getting far too long. My imagination was ticking along, and I was losing sight of my goal. I was trying to fit an entire 2-year expedition into a prologue! Even though this expedition is vital to the story, the reader would likely wonder where I was going with it. There is a lot of meat there, but I need to focus on the aspects relevant to my fiction.

The chapter started with the caravan moving through the Himalayas and entering the forbidden city of Lhasa (which is still very much a forbidden city in many respects), with all the sights, sounds and smells of the exotic location. After such an arduous journey, the excitement within the caravan must have been palatable. There were many setbacks, and the whole enterprise could have failed countless times.

I go into detail about the juxtaposition between this group with their SS adorned helmets and flying flags of auspicious red with black Swastikas with that of the sleeping holy city, naively watching the approach of these strange hairy-faced foreigners. Through a peculiar curveball of history, Tibetans also embraced the Swastika, for this was the symbol’s home.

I finally get to the first meeting between Ernst Schafer and the Prince Regent, a young reincarnated Buddha that sits on the Tibet throne until the 3-year-old recently found 14th Dali Lama (who is the current Dali Lama) comes of age to accept power. It is a perfect storm moment. The prince regent doesn’t want to give up power, China and Britain eye Tibet for their own purposes, and Erst Schafer is coming with gifts and promises of alliance (all true). The Regent and Schafer actually become close friends and spend much time with each other over the 3 months the expedition was in Lhasa. You see? Fascinating, and whole books have been written on these events (Himmler’s Crusade is a pretty good account).

But for my purposes, and what I am going to focus on tonight, is one particular moment during this expedition. Just before the Nazis leave Lhasa, the Regent bestows upon Ernst a special gift to bring back to his Fuhrer- the ancient books of Vril. Although the Prince Regent indeed offered gifts (he was eager for guns from Germany), it is a fictitious moment, but one that provides an excellent starting point for my book.

Cheers!