Alexandra David-Neel (1868–1969) — singer, poet, and composer — at the age of 43, unexpectedly for everyone, leaves the Paris opera stage to travel to India. For fourteen years she wandered across the Buddhist East. She lived in Burma, visited Japan, Korea, China, and of course the country of her dreams—Tibet. Tibet, “The Land of Gods,” one of the planet’s main metaphysical chakras, a sacred pole where earth meets heaven—where traditional Knowledge has been preserved in its pristine purity, where everyone is monks and bandits, ascetics and shamans, seeking immortality.
There, David-Neel became a student of the Dalai Lama and earned deep respect from Buddhists and lamas of the East.
What prompted her to live among Tibetan lamas and sorcerers of all kinds? How did she learn the theory and practice of those mystic-occultists? And what about the astonishing circumstances of her adventurous journey to the Land of Snow? This book tells everything—one that connoisseurs consider a sort of encyclopedia of Tibetan everyday life, philosophical doctrines, and people’s beliefs.