Magic and Mystery in Tibet Paperback – Illustrated, 4 May 2014

This intrepid woman went where no-one had gone before, went native and then told her captivating story.Did she introduce the term "tulpa" to the West? She created her own.Like Richard Burton who disguised himself as Afghan(?) doctor and made the pilgrimage to Mecca, David-Neel disguised herself as a man to travel into the unknown territory of Tibet against the dictates of the British Raj.Why hasn't someone made a movie or TV series on this?First-rate true adventure.

Wonderful introduction to the magical, less-focused-on-enlightenment-and-more-on-psychic-phenomena side of Tibetan Buddhism. Alexandra David-Neel was a fearless explorer and sophisticated thinker. She clearly understood the philosophical truths of Tibetan Buddhism quite well though it does seem that adventuresomeness predominated in her explorations. I particularly enjoyed a Westerner’s perspective on Tibetan Buddhism - especially Tibetan Buddhism in the very early 20th Century.Mrs. David-Neel also introduces us to a lot of mystical and magical practices that Tibetan masters don’t tend to talk or publicly write much about, e.g., tulpas or lung-tom-pas. Regarding tulpas, i can’t help but wonder if David Lynch got his inspiration for the tulpas in Twin Peaks from Mrs. David-Neel’s writings. Or whether Alvin Schwartz’s An Unlikely Prophet was also inspired or influenced by Mrs. David-Neel.Mrs. David-Neel seems to understand Tibetan Buddhism itself quite well and do justice to both the good and the culturally-conditioned short-comings of a culture whose fabric is inextricably woven with both Buddhism and shamanism. The book is a wonderful, informal, and therefore highly enjoyable, anthropological study of Tibetan culture.

I have read this book from the library before and really loved her delving into the metaphysical world of Tibetan Buddhism. She comes from a scholarly and religious viewpoint so it really is up to the reader to decide for themselves about her experience. This author is an amazing woman and has lived an incredible life. I finally purchased the book because I know I'll read it again and again.

Read it in 5 days. Amazing.

Alexandra David-Neel tells her stories in several books. This one deals with accounts of strange behaviour she observes during her many years in Tibet in the 1920s and 1930s - the only woman ever to have travelled there at that time and surely the only one ever to have had personal teaching on request, by the Dalai Lama (13th), accepted as a hermit in a small cave, and taught by the most learned and practised of Tibetan Buddhists.Plainly her intelligence and understanding were apparent to Tibetan lamas of a high order, who would normally have only taught men, and never encounter any foreigners at all. The encounters she made are not easily brushed aside with any kind of familiar explanation - in fact, I cannot understand at all how some things came about, other than the mysterious explanations she gives which simply do not fit within our Western understanding of the possible, but which do fit with deep Buddhist understanding of the nature of the mind and the world. David-Neel was well aware that her readers would be incredulous, as she says of herself, and does her best to recount what happened, originally written in her diaries, as plainly as possible, so that at least, her reports are read without immediate disbelief. Anyone inclined to think that a scientific explanation of the physical world is pretty much well mapped out, might be inclined to reconsider. Otherwise, enjoy the book for its wonderful account of a world now vanished - but yet, perhaps not?