[kullukid]

Here's a copy of "With Mystic's & Magicians In Tibet" by the amazing Mystic Traveller, Frenchwoman Alexandra David-Neel, the first Western Woman to enter & stay in Tibet in the early 1900's.She secretly travelled across the Indian Himalayas to Lhasa disguised as a  Tibetan.She eventually reached the status of an advanced Lama & became a leading authority on Tibetan Buddhism & it's many Tantric practises. She wrote many books on the subject her most famous book was "My journey to Lhasa".
Here's the online version of "With Mystic's & Magicians In Tibet" http://www.algonet.s.../books/mmtibet/

Here's what www.answers.com has to say about her:

David-Neel's Psychic Sports

For centuries, Tibet was a forbidden territory to Westerners, and only a handful of Europeans succeeded in penetrating the country, usually in disguise. From 1912 on, an intrepid French-woman, Alexandra David-Neel, began a series of travels through Tibet over fourteen years. She acquired the rank of lama.

An Oriental scholar, David-Neel learned Sanskrit and Tibetan and studied the various forms of Buddhism and Lamaism. She became the first European woman to penetrate the holy city of Lhasa. Although skeptical regarding the supernatural, she gained firsthand experience of Tibetan ghosts and demons and saw the paranormal feats of mystics. In her book With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet (1931), she revealed how Tibetan mystics acquired the ability to live naked in zero temperatures by generating a protective body heat (tumo), how they learned to float in air and walk on water, and how they brought corpses back to life or created thoughtforms that had independent existence.

She described such feats as "psychic sports," acquired by special mind and body training. Amongst such feats was the lung-gom training of "inner breathing" and meditation, which enabled an individual to travel at high speed for days and nights without stopping, sometimes with the feet hardly touching the ground. David-Neel herself witnessed a lung-gom-pa, or swift traveler. She described the special training necessary for feats of levitation and for thought-reading and telepathy ("sending thoughts on the wind").

She successfully experimented in the creation of a tulpa or phantom thoughtforms. After a period in isolation following special concentration techniques, she claimed that she succeeded in creating a phantom monk, who became a guest in her party, seen and accepted by the others. But in the course of time, this phantom form changed from a fat jolly monk, becoming lean, mocking, and somewhat malignant, and it was necessary for her to concentrate on special techniques to destroy a phantom, which was beginning to take on independent life.

She explained that Tibetans believed that such psychic phenomena were the result of utilizing natural forces by the powers of the mind. Her experiences seem to have been the result of a long and intimate association with Tibet and its peoples in a period when magic and mystery were more common. Few subsequent travelers have reported such remarkable phenomena, and her books survive as a unique record of a Tibet that has largely been destroyed. However, they helped create the image of Tibet as a place where the most successful mastery of the occult arts had been made. The spread of Buddhist masters to the west has done much to offer a more mundane picture of Tibetan life. KK

[cyberhippie]

The Lama raping the girl to avoid his guru's reincarnation into a Donkey is weird!

[priya]

This certainly sounds like an excellent read, KK.  Another one for my already fast growing collection!  Thank you.

[cyberhippie]

I read it a long time ago and I remember thinking much of what Buddhism claims as it's own was around before the philosophy was even thought of. Yes a pretty interesting read, I think, as it was about 10 years ago I read it!

[cyberhippie]

KK knowing your love of the mountains, have you read The Snow leopard??

[torryquine]

cyberhippie, on May 2 2007, 12:21 PM, said:

have you read The Snow leopard??

Great book!  Thanks for the recommendation KK

[kullukid]

cyberhippie, on May 2 2007, 12:21 PM, said:

KK knowing your love of the mountains, have you read The Snow leopard??

Not sure, seem to remember reading one called ........? Snow Lion. Who's it by? KK

[cyberhippie]

It's by Peter Matthiessen, it's the story of an expedition to the Dolpo region of the Himalaya looking for the Asian Snow leopard.
Great read!
The scientist in the story is a real life Indiana Jones figure

[kullukid]

cyberhippie, on May 3 2007, 01:56 PM, said:

It's by Peter Matthiessen, it's the story of an expedition to the Dolpo region of the Himalaya looking for the Asian Snow leopard.
Great read!
The scientist in the story is a real life Indiana Jones figure

But...but........ I always thought you were Indiana Jones?   KK

[iwanttogoback]

no, he's indiana mcjones.

[kullukid]

Just returned from the South of France. It was Mrs KK's Birthday this weekend so we flew to Nice & stayed in Cannes for 3 nts. While we were there we drove up into the hills towards the Alps( spectacular Scenery) for about 2.5hrs to visit the home & now Museum of Alexandra David-Neel See Here;

http://www.alexandra...nglais/acca.htm

http://www.mysteriou..._David-Neel.htm

It was wonderful!! Mrs KK enjoyed it,but secretly it felt more like my Birthday than Hers The more info I find out about Alexandra, the more She amazes me. She lived until She was nearly 101yrs old, She applied for Her driving test when She was 67yrs old,She did Her Journey to Lhasa on foot disguised as a Tibetan Beggar when She was 56 yrs old. Twice She left for Tibet planning to be away for 18mths & both times didn't return home for 9yrs, the second time Her husband died after She had been gone for 6yrs. She applied for Her passport renewing on Her hundredth Birthday.When She died Her ashes were scattered in The Ganges at Varanasi. To show how much She was respected by Tibetans HH Dalai Lama visited the museum in 1982 for the laying of a commemerative stone in Her honour.

Amazing!! KK

Edited by kullukid, 28 October 2008 - 04:17 PM.

[priya]

It's certainly hard to believe all she did, and at that age too.  What an amazing lady.

An excellent birthday celebration for both of you, by all accounts.