Lewis Thompson, one of the greatest and least known pioneers of the current mystical renaissance, died in Benares, India at the age of forty in 1949. He left behind an extraordinary prose book, Mirror to the Light, together with thousands of diary entries and the brilliant poems collected and published here for the first time.

Lewis Thompson, born in Great Britain, encountered the Buddhist teachings in his early adolescence and began his great love affair with the East. He lived for seventeen years in India, where his passionate mysticism and itinerant lifestyle acquainted him with many living spiritual giants of his day and provided the backdrop for much of his writing. Besides writing poetry, Thompson’s kept meticulously journals, edited by India scholar and photographer Richard Lannoy, and published under the title Mirror to the Light. His journals trace the interior journey of a dedicated sadhika, i.e., one who pursues the spiritual path.