RED SHAMBHALA: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia by Andrei Znamenski. Wheaton, Illinois: Quest Books. 268 pp., $17.95 (paper).

Alexander Barchenko was a "dropout medical student and popular mystery writer." He believed that "by introducing the elite of Red Russia to Tibetan Buddhism and to the knowledge of Shambhala ... he [would] be able to make the communist project in Russia less violent."

Ja-Lama was "a spiritual drifter and adventurer who ... pose[d] as a reincarnation of Mahakala (an avenging Buddhist deity) and as the grandson of Prince Amursana (18th-century ruler who fought against Chinese domination) to stir nationalist feeling among Mongol nomads and draw them together."

Nicholas Roerich was an "emigre Russian painter and Theosophist ... who venture[d] to Tibet, Mongolia, and the Altai to establish a Buddhist-communist theocracy, posing as a reincarnation of the fifth Dalai Lama, who came to cleanse Tibetan Buddhism from modern evils."