This unique biography explores the inner journey of a woman whose outer life was a thrilling story of passion and adventure. Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969), born in Paris to a socially prominent family, once boasted, "I learned to run before I could walk " In the course of a lifetime of more than one hundred years, she was an acclaimed operatic soprano, a political anarchist, a religious reformer, an intrepid explorer who traveled in Tibet for fourteen years, a scholar of Buddhism, and the author of more than forty books. But perhaps the most intriguing of all her adventures was the...

This groundbreaking work examines the role of the feminine in the Western healing traditions. Drawing upon anthropology, history, botany, archaeology and the behaviorial sciences, Dr. Achterberg discusses the ancient cultures in which women worked as honored healers; the persecuted healers of the witch trial era; midwifery and nursing in the 19th century; and the developing healing arts of our time. 10 halftones.