Editor's note: On Sept. 2, 2013, Paul, a 39-year-old American software engineer living in southern California wrote an article entitled "CIA's Dalai Lama: Who Else Does he Serve?” on henrymakow.com about a few facts about the 14th Dalai Lama that “might be worth knowing":

(1) The Dali Lama wears a $60,000+ solid gold Rolex wristwatch while giving speeches to the great unwashed masses about how much "fun it is to be poor". In fact, he doesn't just wear the wristwatch, but he makes the effort to turn it inside-out (so that the face is on the underside of the arm) and cover it up with several layers of Tibetan prayer bracelets.

In fact, I am fairly certain that Dali Lama is literally an official "brand ambassador" for the Rolex corporation (i.e., one of their official celebrity endorsers, essentially the same job that say Tiger Woods does for Tag Heuer).

(2) He's not the "real" Dali Lama and he's not the "only" Dali Lama.

If you were to go to Tibet, you would find no fewer than four or five other "Dali Lamas" all contending for the title of being the One and the Great "Dali Lama", and the "Western" Dali Lama has probably the most dubious and most tenuous claim to that title of them all.

It's something similar to the situation in Rome in the past when there were warring "Popes" and "Antipopes" fighting for control of the Vatican, only with a greater multiplicity of contenders in Tibet. Tibet is a political system like any other, and can be just as cut-throat and underhanded as any other.

Indeed, Tibetan Buddhism dates to no earlier than roughly 1400 AD in the Western calendar. Prior to that, Tibet had an occult tradition, but it was not based or grounded in Buddhism (of course, Buddhism itself dates to 500 BC, but was practiced largely in India and China prior to arriving in Tibet). Westerns should note that this makes European Christianity a (vastly) older and more ancient system of Spiritual enlightenment than anything sourcing from Tibet under the name of "Buddhism".