The Secret lives of Alexandra David-Neel is the definitive biography of the first European to explore Tibet at a time when foreigners were banned; few have led a life of adventure equal to hers, or made so much of it.

In Tibet and Sikkim, David-Neel lived among hermits and shamans, bandits and pilgrims. She had a torrid love affair with the handsome Maharajah of Sikkim and studied with a genuine master in a cave high in the Himalayas. Herself a Buddhist, David-Neel knew first-hand the Tibet of magic and mystery closed to other travelers from the West, the secret mystical practices of Tibetan Buddhism including out-of-body travel, telepathy, vampiric Shamanism, and tantric sex.

After returning to France, she wrote some thirty books, among them My Journey to Lhasa and Magic and Mystery in Tibet. She has had a profound influence on, among other things, Beat culture and the emergence of an American Buddhism.