Thanks to reader Arielle K who writes:

“I was recently looking through my meetup.com listings and found a group referring to Shamballa Basic^TM. It looks like they’re a new-age group co-opting the Shambhala name to sell a skill-set a man thought up in 2000 for $3-400 a pop. They make references to karma, reincarnation, “Mahatma” (sanskrit), “Antakarana” (Hindu), and claim to have roots in the “Trans-Himalayan eosteric tradition.” Now, I don’t know a lot about the historical regional beliefs of Tibet and the Himalayas, but something feels very wrong about this. Has anyone sounded the alarm on these guys yet? Are they too small-time to get anyone’s hackles up? Or have the new-agers been doing this with “Oriental” mystical forces for so long people don’t bat an eye anymore? I, for one, am creeped out.

And Arielle sends another link, here. It seems that “Shambhalla” was once related to Reiki (and has some astrological leanings), but nothing much can be derived to answer Arielle’s questions. There are various websites but parsing them, with their references to Mayan culture and the occult roots of Nazism, isn’t very easy. Some language on this page says things like “What IS Shamballa? No less than the collective consciousness of the Ascended and Galactic Masters” and promises that “[i]n a Shamballa workshop, you will experience meditations designed to help you to clear away all of the old emotional debris you have been carrying around through lifetimes. Then you will be filled with the energies of Shamballa, and connected to the source of those energies, so that you may call upon them whenever you will.”

Hmmm. Anyone know more?