Roosevelt Hotel Lobby
I had the pleasure of officially meeting Nikolas in December of 2012, after maintaining a long distance relationship since our initial meeting on 08.08.08. via telephone communication
(Charles thought he and I should meet, and so he gave me his phone number while I was visiting him in the hole, 2008).
A prior post here-
ATWA– an excerpt about “ATWA” and it’s inception prior to the terms “deep ecology” and “revolutionary environmentalism” (and prior to “Earth First!“), from Nikolas Schreck’s huge contribution debunking the “myth” of Charles Manson, “The Manson File – Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman”– provides much needed insight into one of the many pieces of the whole, that is Charles Manson. Truths that hitherto had been mostly non-existent to not only myself, but to the public at large, Nikolas has illuminated through many years of insight. This work that Nikolas has shared with the world is a clear light- a warm wind which counters the cold winds of this dark age.
I hold the highest Regard and Respect for Nikolas, his teachings, his work, and his spiritual evolution over the years (Zeena’s as well).
I consider him a brother, comrade, and teacher.
And so, For All Beings, I wanted to share “Mehr Licht” (More Light) with a couple excerpts from Nikolas’ latest interview for the occult magazine, “Secret Knowledge”, with Nik’s permission of course.
“MY SHIFT FROM DARKNESS”: AN INTERVIEW WITH NIKOLAS SCHRECK,
BY GUS BRESLAUER
Excerpts used with permission from Nikolas Schreck
“Secret Knowledge” Vol. I
When asked how Nikolas feels “about the Westernization of Buddhism in our modern society”,
he answers, in part-
“…In the largely secular, materialist, individualist, “rationalist” West, Buddhist teachers have to start from scratch, teaching Westerners the ABC’s of what spirituality is, which wastes a lot of time and energy. And in order to appeal to minds programmed to believe that only what can be scientifically proven is valid, much of the magical supernatural aspect of Tantric Buddhism is downplayed in the West. Another thing that bugs me about Western Buddhism is how it caters almost exclusively to the privileged, spoiled and well-educated elite who can afford the time and money required to take a nice little spiritual vacation by attending the teachings held at ornate dharma centers in a comfortable atmosphere of snobbish self-congratulation. I’d like to see a more socially engaged and classless Buddhism made accessible to the street, to the disadvantaged and despised, to prisoners, the homeless, the terminally ill, where the antidote the Dharma offers is desperately needed. There are 84,000 Buddhist teachings for all types of temperament and lifestyle, but it seems to me that sort of approach would be more in keeping with the wild yogic Mahasiddhas who were the founders and masters of Tantric Buddhism in India and Tibet. If Tantric Buddhism in the West really seeks to free all sentient beings from suffering, it has to develop the skillful means to speak to areas of society it currently ignores. Another factor is that this is the Kali Yuga, the cyclical phase of spiritual degeneracy. The Buddha predicted that in the Kali Yuga, the Dharma would become increasingly less comprehensible to humans until it died out altogether for many thousands of years. It may be that the West’s embrace of egoic individualism, hypercapitalist materialism, non-stop digital entertainment via information overload, and atheist reductionism has sped up the Kali Yugic tendencies to such a toxic degree that only a very few can even truly grasp the Buddhist teaching at all, let alone practice it…”
When asked about Nikolas’ spiritual evolution, and whether his political stance has had a similar evolution, Nikolas answers, in part-
“… To the minimal degree that my political stance was ever understood by the public at large, yes, of course, that’s evolved over the years too. I’m still a monarchist who believes rulership must be guided by divine and spiritual authority rather than corporate-sponsored election by a mob or a dictatorship of the proletariat. But I no longer believe any kind of political system can address the deeper spiritual dilemma facing humanity. All efforts should be directed to ultimate liberation by spiritual practice rather than the futile Samsaric ups and downs of politics. What some mistakenly interpret as a mundane and political agenda on my part was actually an intrinsic facet of my spiritual quest in my exploration of how to change human behavior through magic. You mentioned the counterculture and that’s a good key to this quandary. My understanding that a truly comprehensive politics must be informed by a spiritual perspective, and isn’t simply a pragmatic matter of economics and social policy, comes from my upbringing in the late 60s and early 70s counter-culture. Back then, it was a common utopian belief in radical factions that a total revolution on every level was imminent, and that the entire social, spiritual, sexual framework of human existence would be drastically transformed by mass insurrection against the prevailing establishment values. I expected to be on the front lines of that civil war that unfortunately never happened. If you weren’t there, you can’t imagine how intensely this expectation of revolution was in the air. That revolutionary ideal was imbued with the 1960s magical revival and the sudden awareness of mystical experience mass use of psychedelics revealed. The best example of this magical politics was the ritual banishing and exorcism a collective of pacifist radicals performed on the Pentagon in October 1967. When Squeaky Fromme was accused of trying to assassinate President Ford in 1975, I thought, “Oh, good, here’s that revolution I’d been waiting for.” Now, I know you were expecting me to get into Hitler, not hippies, but there’s a strong similarity between the 1960s American counter-culture revolt against “The Establishment”, and the 1930s German counter-culture rebellion against what was called “The System”. They were both concerned with changing humanity at the root, making a new world, a sharp break with politics as usual, and they were both greatly focused on pioneering radical ecology and getting back to nature and the soil. And more importantly, they were both informed by magical, pagan, and spiritual ideals that few other political movements have ever been concerned with. What interested me about the history of the Third Reich wasn’t the political aspects, but the fact that several National Socialist leader’s planned to bring about a new religion in Europe once the war was won. While in Germany to research my first book in 1983, a study of Nazi occultism which I ultimately decided not to publish, I investigated this subject exhaustively…”
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http://www.lulu.com/shop/stephen-bower/secret-knowledge-volume-one/paperback/product-21015040.html
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