Born Paris 24 October 1868, she was the only daughter of a Hugenot Freemason teacher, and in her early years, she played piano and sang, and was precociously interested in ascetic practices. Travelling widely and compulsively, she was fascinated with secret societies, studying with Annie Besant and Madame Blavatsky. She converted to Buddhism when she was 20 years old, and due to an inherited personal fortune, she became an intrepid explorer, visiting Mongolia, Korea, Japan and India, much of the time disguised as a beggar or monk. She was fascinated with secret societies, studying with Annie Besant and Madame Blavatsky. She became a member of a mixed Scottish Rite Freemasonry society where she reached a high status.
She was also an early feminist, a Spiritualist, and a political anarchist. In 1924, she travelled to Tibet and became a lama. At that time, Tibet was closed to foreigners. She underwent the notorious 'chod' initiation, an experience of greatest stress, where demons and devils cause the disintegration of the self. She also was engaged in the extraordinary creation of the 'tulpa', where a spirit is summoned and given sufficient power to materialise. Author of 40 books on mostly Buddhist topics. She died 8th September 1969.
Though she had an unhappy childhood, the only child of bitter parents who fought all the time. She ran away from home as soon as she could walk. As a teenager, she traveled by herself through European countries, including a bike trip across Spain. When she was 21, she inherited money from her parents, and she used it to visit Sri Lanka, her first country abroad. She worked as an opera singer for a while to finance her travels. She was especially interested in Buddhism.
She disguised herself as a Tibetan woman and managed to get into the city of Lhasa, which at that time was off-limits to foreigners. She became fluent in Tibetan, met the Dalai Lama, practiced meditation and yoga, and trekked through the Himalayas, where she survived by eating the leather off her boots and once saved herself in a snowstorm with a meditation that increases body temperature. The locals thought she might be the incarnation of Thunderbolt Sow, a female Buddhist deity. She became a Tantric lama in Tibet when she was 52 years old.
Her most famous book is Magic and Mystery in Tibet (1929), in which she wrote: “Then it was springtime in the cloudy Himalayas. Nine hundred feet below my cave rhododendrons blossomed. I climbed barren mountain-tops. Long tramps led me to desolate valleys studded with translucent lakes … Solitude, solitude! … Mind and senses develop their sensibility in this contemplative life made up of continual observations and reflections. Does one become a visionary or, rather, is it not that one has been blind until then?”
She was granted many accolades and awards and is said to have influenced the work and lives of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Alan Watts, and Benjamin Creme. To discover more about this remarkable woman, visit this page: http://selfdefinition.org/tibetan/Alexandra-David-Neel-Magic-and-Mystery-in-Tibet-hardback-scan.pdf
From the Writer's Almanac:
Alexandra David-Néel had an unhappy childhood, the only child of bitter parents who fought all the time. She tried running away and as a teenager, she traveled by herself through European countries, including a bike trip across Spain.
When she was 21, she inherited money from her parents, and she used it all to go to Sri Lanka. She worked as an opera singer for a while to finance her travels. She was especially interested in Buddhism.
She disguised herself as a Tibetan woman and managed to get into the city of Lhasa, which at that time was off-limits to foreigners. She became fluent in Tibetan, met the Dalai Lama, practiced meditation and yoga, and trekked through the Himalayas, where she survived by eating the leather off her boots and once saved herself in a snowstorm with a meditation that increases body temperature.
The locals thought she might be the incarnation of Thunderbolt
Sow, a female Buddhist deity. She became a Tantrika in Tibet when she was 52 years old.
And she wrote about it all.
Her most famous book is Magic and Mystery in Tibet (1929), in which she wrote:
“Then it was springtime in the cloudy Himalayas. Nine hundred feet below my cave rhododendrons blossomed. I climbed barren mountain-tops. Long tramps led me to desolate valleys studded with translucent lakes … Solitude, solitude! …
Mind and senses develop their sensibility in this contemplative life made up of continual observations and reflections. Does one become a visionary or, rather, is it not that one has been blind until then?”
She died in 1969, at the age of 101. She was a big influence on the Beat writers, especially Allen Ginsberg, who converted to Buddhism after reading some of her teachings.
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