This will be our last walk with George on the way to Shangri-la. It's a walk that he never made, at least not as he had planned. When he returned to The Abbey after part of his speaking tour, he wanted to go back to Pomatana. One member of the band died on the try and they never made it. Then, when he left for his European speaking tour, his wife Betty contracted an illness and died in a Lima, Peru hospital. Despite GHW being a man who lived a life as if it was a drama with only him, really, in mid-stage, this actually seemed to get to him. After returning to pick up his son Mark, he left South America [after one last look at Tiahuanaco], never to return. He spent the following years engaged in one unusual pursuit after another, including marrying a Hollywood starlet [Jennifer Hoyt], becoming a bishop in a fringe Christian church, and "discovering" that he was in fact Yugoslavian royalty --- I swear that I am not making this stuff up. And that's not the half of it.
But the idea that Shangri-la existed in a Temple and an entrance to the underground kingdom never left him. That Temple of the Seven Rays was in the high Andes, difficult to find and approach, difficult to see even when one was right upon it. 
But in the last of the 1950s [and published in about 1960 or 1961], someone said that they HAD seen it. Japanese explorers flying over the mountains seemed to photograph a Temple in the highest peaks. Williamson went bonkers. He was not only sure that this was in fact the real lost temple, but that its "appearance" at this time was proof of messages that he was getting that this is when the lost supercivilization would be revealed. But other pieces of his wild life stopped him from going to climb those hills himself. For one thing, even the Japanese who did the photographing weren't sure where they were when the surprise photo was taken from their plane. And George could always rationalize NOT doing something by "getting a message" that the time wasn't ripe. Nevertheless, the proof was now in. Shangri-la had been seen and at least roughly located. All else would come in its proper time. But for our boy, it never did.
This is a blow-up of the photo that someone got for GHW from the Japanese who reported, however, that the original film had been mysteriously misplaced. Ummmm...THAT again. 
Williamson bided his time pursuing his impossible-to-categorize life, and time then passed him by. His health gave way, in the form of heart attacks, and there would be no more exploring. Except, of course in his mind. Along came Erich von Daniken, and GHW was amused, sort of, that von Daniken was making such a killing putting out stuff that Williamson felt he had already revealed a decade or more previously. But what really interested him about von Daniken was nothing to do with EvD. It was the tale of Juan Moricz that ancient tunnels existed in Ecuador [von D & Moricz in photo] --- tunnels containing the remnants of the lost race, and possibly extending cross-continent or even beyond. Here we go; Agharti again. 
GHW received, second-hand, a letter from a lawyer from Ecuador within which was testimony that he was with Moricz during at least one of these cave explorations. The lawyer asserted that the caverns existed but that he saw no artifacts as far as he was able to penetrate, but believes that such artifacts do exist deeper down in the system. He also asserted that Erich von Daniken has never been on any of their expeditions and has merely falsely claimed things told him by Moricz. The general location of the entrance to this vast underground system is marked on the map above for those of you who want to get moving.
Williamson believed that the effective entrances to the underground world would be "portals" of some type --- not simple gates and doors, but consisting of some advanced technological power or else some psychic way of translating a body from one spot to another. He also believed that these ruins were in some way "The Habitation of The Dragon", which seemed to represent to him both some spiritual force and an actual abode where there might be real dragons at times. Don't ask me to explain how all this fits together. GHW further thought that the Quechua word for Great Serpent or Dragon was "AMARU". He would have probably flipped completely if he had lived to hear of the rock temple of Amaru shown in the accompanying photos. 
People have claimed all manner of wild possibilities for this ruin, including that it is a Portal to the lost civilization of Atlantis/Lemurian underground dwellers. That would probably have been altogether too much for our George and he may have had his heart attack right there. But this is a portal that won't open. Our boy would have said: of course not, you have to have the right spirituality and perhaps the right tool. Modern seekers have suggested that the temple portal will open only if you have some sort of magic disk to set into the gap in its entryway. Our boy might not have figured it out, but he probably would have had thirty ideas about it.
Maybe George should have just listened to the Dalai Lama. In the basement areas of the Potala there is a room with paintings which illustrate the Tibetan Buddhist beliefs about Shamballa and its legendary Seven Kings. Supposedly there is a ceremony of some importance which is administered by the Dalai Lama associated with these ideas. If you have a quick eye, you may even get to see the ceremony yourselves on television [History Channel, I think]. All this would point to a real and at least partially physical Shamballa. 
But the Dalai Lama himself says differently. He says that despite the apparent concreteness of the imagery, Shamballa is not a physical place on Earth at all. He seems not to credit it as being anywhere physical at all. Shamballa can only be reached by a traveling of the spirit. In that it may be something like the Bardo [only a lot nicer]. Williamson doubtlessly wouldn't have bought this, even from the Dalai Lama himself. He and Brown Landone believed that an earlier twentieth century Dalai Lama actually traveled from the Potala all the way to the Shamballa of the Eastern Andes to prepare it for the revelations of the existence of the underground world and the emergence to come.
This wonderfully mystical painting by Joan Butler Gore is perhaps my favorite rendition of the half real-half unreal journey to this paradise. It pictures a Land Impossible but maybe just beyond the hill. Late in life, Williamson dreamed, literally, about this land --- dreams of The Grandfather and the Masters and Temples. I believe that it was within one of those dreams [which he viewed as absolutely veridical] that he noticed a distinctive pendant worn by the chosen adepts. It was a silver crescent Moon within the points of which was a Blue Star jewel. These people were the Keepers of the Temples. Well, all fantasy, eh what?? Still....if you see a person one day wearing a pendant like the one below, you'd be wise not to let him out of your sight.
May all your journeys be happy ones; and all your arrivals be joy.
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