Magic and Mystery in Tibet

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Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Neel is a captivating exploration of Tibetan culture, spirituality, Land mysticism. The book documents her extensive travels and experiences in Tibet, where she delved into the hidden, esoteric practices of Tibetan Buddhism. As one of the first Western women to gain access to Tibetan monastic life, David-Neel provides readers with a unique perspective on rituals, magic, and the mysteries that permeate Tibetan society. The book delves into topics such as the practice of meditation, the concept of tulku (reincarnated lamas), and the power of mantras and symbols in Tibetan belief. It also examines the mystical elements of Tibetan culture, including the use of tantric rituals and the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment through unconventional means. Through her vivid descriptions, David-Neel not only conveys the beauty of Tibet but also the profound spiritual insights she gained on her journey, making this work an essential contribution to understanding Tibetan mysticism.

Alexandra David-Neel was a pioneering French explorer, writer, and scholar, best known for her extensive travels in Tibet and her contributions to the study of Tibetan Buddhism. She was one of the first western women to visit Tibet, where she spent time in Lhasa, gaining firsthand knowledge of Tibetan culture and spirituality. Also published by us are David-Neel's other books, including Magic and Mystery in Tibet, Buddhism: its Doctrines and its Methods, Tibetan Tale of Love and Magic, Initiations and Initiates in Tibet, My Journey to Lhasa, The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects, The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling, and Tibetan Journey, sharing her insights into Tibetan rituals, mysticism, and philosophy. Her groundbreaking work bridged Eastern and Western thought, making her a key figure in the study of Buddhism and Himalayan cultures.

Immediately after the publication of my account of my journey to Lhasa, many persons expressed a wish, both in articles devoted to my book and in private conversation, to know how I came to live among the larmas, and also to learn more about the doctrines and practices of the mystics and magicians of Tibet.

In this book I attempt to satisfy their friendly curiosity. This task is however fraught with certain difficulties.

In order to answer these two questions in the order in which they have been put to me, I have started by describing the events which brought me into contact with the religious world of the lamas and of the various kinds of magicians who surround them.

Next I have tried to group together a certain number of salient points concerning the occult and mystical theories and the psychic training practices of the Tibetans. Whenever I have discovered in the rich store of my recollections a fact bearing on these subjects, I have related it as it came. Consequently this book is not a record of travel, for the subject does not lend itself to that treatment.

In the course of such investigations as I have pursued, the information obtained on one particular day is some-times not completed till several months or several years later. It is only by presenting the final results of information gathered in various places that one can hope to give an adequate idea of the subject I am describing.

It is my intention, later on, to treat the question of Tibetan mysticism and philosophy in a more technical work.

As in my previous book My Journey to Lhasa, the Tibetan names are generally transcribed phonetically only. The few cases in which the Tibetan orthography has been indicated will show how the correct pronunciation deviates from the spelling.

For many Westerners Tibet is wrapped in an atmosphere of mystery. The ""Land of Snows is for them the country of the unknown, the fantastic and the impossible. What superhuman powers have not been ascribed to the various kinds of lamas, magicians, sorcerers, necromancers and practitioners of the occult who inhabit those high tablelands, and whom both nature and their own deliberate purpose have so splendidly isolated from the rest of the world? And how readily are the strangest legends about them accepted as indisputable truths! In that country plants, animals and human beings seem to divert to their own purposes the best established laws of physics, chemistry, physiology and even plain common sense.

It is therefore quite natural that scholars accustomed to the strict discipline of experimental method should have paid to these stories merely the condescending and amused attention that is usually given to fairy tales,

Such was my own state of mind up to the day when I had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of Madame Alexandra David-Neel.

This well-known and courageous explorer of Tibet unites in herself all the physical, moral and intellectual qualities that could be desired in one who is to observe and examine a subject of this kind. I must insist on saying this, however much her modesty may suffer.

Madame David-Neel understands, writes and speaks fluently all the dialects of Tibet. She has spent fourteen consecutive years in the country and the neighbouring regions. She is a professed Buddhist, and so has been able to gain the confidence of the most important Lamas. Her adopted son is an ordained lama; and she herself has undergone the psychic exercises of which she speaks. Madame David-Neel has in fact become, as she herself says, a complete Asiatic, and, what is still more important for an explorer of a country hitherto inaccessible to foreign travellers, she is recognized as such by those among whom she has lived.

This Easterner, this complete Tibetan, has nevertheless remained a Westerner, a disciple of Descartes and of Claude Bernard, practising the philosophic scepticism of the former which, according to the latter, should be the constant ally of the scientific observer. Unencumbered by any preconceived theory, and unbiassed by any doctrine or dogma, Madame David-Neel has observed everything in Tibet in a free and impartial spirit.

In the lectures which, in my capacity as professor of the Collège de France, succeeding my master Claude Bernard, I asked her to deliver, Madame David-Neel sums up her conclusions in these words:

""Everything that relates, whether closely or more distantly, to psychic phenomena and to the action of psychic forces in general, should be studied just like any other science. There is nothing miraculous or supernatural in them, nothing that should engender or keep alive superstition. Psychic training, rationally and scientifically conducted, can lead to desirable results. That is why the information gained about such training even though it is practised empirically and based on theories to which we cannot always give assent constitutes useful documentary evidence worthy of our attention.""

Here, it is clear, is a true scientific determinism, as far removed from scepticism as from blind credulity. The studies of Madame David-Neel will be of interest to Orientalists, psychologists and physiologists alike.

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