Agartha

Agartha (variously spelled as Agharta, Aghartta, Agharti, among many other spellings) is a legendary kingdom said to be on the inner surface of the Earth. Though the story has many different versions, Agartha is usually said to be in Central Asia and led by a powerful figure sometimes called the King of the World, who secretly influences the surface. Later versions connect it to the belief in a hollow Earth. The idea of Agartha has been a popular subject in esotericism, occultism, and the New Age since the late 19th century. The term and concept dates to the 1870s, first introduced by the French writer and colonial official Louis Jacolliot in his 1873 book Les fils de Dieu. Jacolliot said he had been given access to 15,000-year-old Indian manuscripts that told of the ancient city of Asgartha, its rise, and its fall. The original idea did not involve an underground kingdom, but was said to be India's destroyed former capital city, and is closer to Norse mythology than Indian mythology in content. Jacolliot's book was popular in France, and the concept of Agartha gained traction. It was expanded upon by a variety of occultist writers, including Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, whose book Mission de l'Inde en Europe portrays Agartha as still within the Earth and reachable by astral projection. The idea was popularized by Ferdynand Ossendowski's 1922 book Beasts, Men and Gods, which was heavily influenced by Saint-Yves and became the standard version of Agartha's myth. Some interpretations involve Nordicism or Aryanism. A derived belief is that of the Grand Lodge of Agartha, a concept in Theosophy and related movements, where a group of ascended masters who secretly control the world are said to live in Agartha. For unclear reasons, it is frequently associated or confused with the Buddhist mythical kingdom Shambhala, alternatively seen as a rival power, with either Agartha as the good to Shambhala's evil, or both as evil.