The Devils Guard - Ramsden

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Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. If you like adventure, supernatural events, evil people, and some mysticism thrown in, then you may want to read Talbot Mundy. This time he's on a quest for the hidden country of Shamballa, encounteri If you like adventure, supernatural events, evil people, and some mysticism thrown in, then you may want to read Talbot Mundy. Jimgrim , Narayan Singh. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

To ask other readers questions about The Devil's Guard , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Like what I imagine the majority of the readers who pick this book up today, I began "The Devil's Guard" because of its connection to "Twin Peaks. While some of his attitudes are uncomfortable to the modern reader he's better than many; he's certainly more refined and sensitive than the contemporary pulp authors who are still widely read today. Since I've already written a bit about this no Like what I imagine the majority of the readers who pick this book up today, I began "The Devil's Guard" because of its connection to "Twin Peaks.

Since I've already written a bit about this novel I'll just borrow from myself: Jimgrim is the nickname of an adventurer, an Allan Quatermain type, whose excursions into the Orient draw him into encounters with mysterious immortals and secret societies. Mundy himself was involved with the Theosophical Society, the occult group started by the marvelously disreputable Madam Blavatsky and responsible for much of the magical revival of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The narrator, Ramsden is a proto-Agent Cooper as he upholds morality and loyalty and searches for his onetime compatriot Elmer Rait whose lust for knowledge and association with the the Black Lodge with its dugpa sorcerers makes him a nice analog for Windom Earle.

Naturally the Black Lodge is at war with the White Lodge. Much of the lore about dugpas is derived from this book. On further consideration Cooper, with his career excellence and abundance of wisdom, is much more akin to Jimgrim than Ramsden. Ramsden, who is a stolid friend, simple, but pure is much more like Sheriff Truman. Mar 04, Amity rated it it was ok. Skeptics have stated that the "Nazis in Indochina" myth came from communist bloc sources during the war. Elford claims his only contribution to the book is in the capacity of an editor, changing the names of soldiers and military verbiage.

Critics however, point to the fact that much of the military power possessed by the characters is anachronistic. The access to military records should also allow for the exact tracing of units in which Wagemueller and his comrades served, but the name of Wagemueller's unit in eastern Europe, the 21st Special Partisanjaeger Commando, is mentioned in only Devil's Guard.

Supporters point to the fact that Elford is following Wagemueller's request that his details not be made traceable. Critics also point to the serialization of the book it spawned two sequels, despite the fact the original ended towards the end of the war, days from Dien Bien Phu in according to the narrator.

Wagemueller ends up fighting for the US later in the series, after spending time in Tibet his officers in New Caledonia. Specifically, Vanderberghe's use of Viet Minh 'pajama' uniforms' to walk right into Viet Minh camps to attack. Devil's Guard was first published as a hardbound book by Dell using the Delacorte imprint in This was the only DG title released in this format.

It was subsequently released as a mass market paperback in originally published by New English Library in the UK in Reprinted,,,,,, It was never offered by Dell in the US. All three Devil's Guard books were reprinted by St. Petersburg, Florida's Hailer Publishing in the mids. During the journey through the Sind Valley, Ramsden takes on the identity of Painless Parker, "a great physician gifted with powers of divination and possessed of infallible remedies for curing barrenness of acres, camels, cows and wives.

Parker , a famous and flamboyant street dentist in the United States. On page 55, Chullunder Ghose tells a nonsense tale of all of "Painless Parker's" achievements, such as curing the King of the United States of leprosy; that the Crown Prince of Switzerland conferred on him the Order of the Garter for healing him of so-called Republican Tendencies; and the Emperor of France offered him his only daughter in marriage, on condition he should live in the Louvre, which honor he refused, on account of insufficiency of palace furnishings.

The United States is led, of course, by an elected president, not a king; likewise, Switzerland is lead by a president, as a republic, not royalty and the Order of the Garter is an honor bestowed on certain individuals in the United Kingdom, not Switzerland; France was not led by an emperor during Ramsden's lifetime, and the Louvre is a museum in France, not a royal palace. Also on page 55, Ramsden remarks that he gave the superstitious locals Worsteshire sauce for their imagined ailments, which they took for Tantric drugs.

Tantrism is part of Hindu spiritualism and meditation, sometimes augmented with the use of mind-altering substances. On page 56, Ramsden remarks that Asian health department officials are known to be extremely jealous of genuine thaumaturgists. A thaumaturgist is a person who is allegedly able to work miracles or magic to affect cures or make other observable changes in the physical world.

Also on page 57, Tsang-yang is presented as Ramsden's chela. This is a Hindi word for "disciple". On page 59, Tsang-yang mentions Krishna. Krishna is one of the most revered of the Hindu deities. On page 60, Tsang-yang mentions Leh. Leh is a city in the Ladakh region of the Himalayas of India. Also on page 60, U is described as a province of Tibet. This is correct, it is one of the three regions of Tibet, with Kam and Amdo.

The term chiling is used in Tibet for a foreigner. More specifically, it is used for a Caucasian foreigner in the real world. On page 61, in the asking of questions, Chullunder Ghose implores Tsang-Mondrong, " Tsang-Mondrong refers to Rait as a ragyaba. Ragyaba is a term used in Tibet for the lowest class of person, beggars who live in filth on the outskirts of towns.

Tsang-yang spent some time at the Dre-pung monastery. This is a real monastery in India. Ramsden makes a remark about it being bad generalship to postpone crossing the Rubicon. Ramsden describes Mordecai's face as being like Lenin's, but better-humored. This refers to Vladimir Lenin , the communist founder of the Soviet Union in after the dissolution of the Russian Empire in The term is Tibetan for "presence", which Mordecai says the monks also refer to him as the Presence. Mordecai remarks on gold brought from Thok Jalung.

The Devil's Guard

Thok Jalung was an actual gold mine in India in this period of time. Mordecai states that Rait had the monks of the monastery he was staying at believing he'd been taught in China by some kind of living Buddha. Mordecai says there are white Mahatmas and black Mahatmas and a war going on between them behind the scenes. This sounds similar to members or adherents of the White and Black Lodges in Twin Peaks ; in fact, both White and Black Lodges are mentioned specifically later in the novel.

Mordecai refers to the black Mahatmas as Red Hats. Are these what Mordecai is referring to? Yet, later in the novel, a figure referred to as the Yellow Lama is depicted as essentially evil. In the real world both Red and Yellow sects of Buddhism are generally considered peaceful, fair, and tolerant Mordecai tells the assembled group that he had rode all over the Dras plateau. Dras is a town in India often considered the Gateway to Ladakh.

On page 76, Mordecai exclaims, "Ach Ihr lieben Gottesmenschen! Mordecai reports that a monk told him that Sham-bha-la is not a place, but a kind of state of consciousness. Mordecai says he shared a drink of chang with the monk who provided him the information about Sham-bha-la. As he says, chang is a type of beer, brewed in Nepal and Tibet.

Mordecai speculates that Rait may think he can gain a clue to Sham-bha-la through the Tantric mysteries. Mordecai remarks on having been into the secret caves of Lebanon. Lebanon is a country in the Middle East, but I'm unaware of what secret caves he refers to. On page 79, Mordecai remarks on his experience inside a dark cavern the Black Lodge?

He goes on to say that it feels as if your senses all worked backward instead of forward, like being the reflection in a looking-glass, like a place where animals exist before they are born. He says he felt the way he guesses a cow feels in the shambles slaughterhouse. On page 81 and 82, Mordecai uses nemo for "landlady" and kale pe a for "go slowly". These are the respective Tibetan words for these terms. Mordecai tells the group there is a Morovian mission in Ladakh. I've not been able to find a reliable reference to "Morovian".

Possibly, it's a misprint of Moravian, relating to the region of Moravia in the Czech Republic. Mordecai relates that the evil ones tried to poison him with aconite in his soup. Aconite is a toxin derived from the Aconitum genus of plants. On page 86, the author uses the word buss , stating it means "that is all". I've been unable to confirm the meaning of the word. On page 89, as Ramsden's party is watched by two snow leopards through the winter's night, Tsang-Mondrong tells them of snow leopards in the superstitions of his people, "They are incarnations of the souls of lamas who forsook the true religion and pursued black arts.

And as they robbed and misled men's souls, so now they seek our bodies. If they catch us, we will be as they are--leopards in the next life! If a man should die of a sickness, or be slain by a man, then it is safe to throw his body to the dogs and vultures, who will merely eat it and the soul goes free; but if he is slain by an animal he becomes an animal. And all creatures crave company, which is why those leopards seek to slay us men, hoping to add to the number of leopards. Also on page 89, Ramsden mentions Baltistan. This is a region in the Karakoram mountains of Pakistan.

The home of Sidiki ben Mohammed is said to lie "near the northern outskirts of Leh, in a hollow between two spurs of a rock-littered mountain. Ramsden's party is brought to a meeting room in Sidiki's house and Ramsden describes two chromographs hanging on the wall of Queen Victoria and Field-Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar.

Queen Victoria was the ruler of the United Kingdom from Field-Marshal Lord Roberts was an extremely successful British Army commander in the 19th Century, including time spent in the Kandahar field forces. Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan. Several of the characters seemingly associated with the White Lodge wear a gold ring on the middle finger. Is there any significance to this? The White Lodge chela called Lhaten is said to speak English "with a pause between each word, as if he had lost a former fluency, but there was not much accent.

The passage goes on, " On page , Narayan Singh worries that Tsang-Mondrong and Tsang-yang have run off to betray the party, bringing policemen and a burra sahib. An author's footnote describes a "burra sahib" as "an important official".

The Devil's Guard by Talbot Mundy

This seems to be a roughly accurate definition of the term. An unnamed man who visits Ramsden's party at Sidiki's house and who seems to be associated with the dugpas is described on pages thusly: He had more hair than a woman, but his face was almost tigerishly masculine On page , Sidiki declares he would treat his young child-wife as "Abdurrahman of Kabul used to treat faithless women not particularly mercifully, that is, if accounts are true.

Jimgrim describes the dugpas in a manner almost identical to the words of Windom Earle in Episode In the real world, Dugpas, or the Drukpa Lineage as they are sometimes called, are a branch of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, no kind of evil fraternity at all, though some 19th and early 20th Century writers used them as sorcerer-practioners of the "left-hand path" LHP , allegedly malicious black magic, as opposed to practitioners of the "right-hand path" RHP of benevolent white magic.

Definitions of LHP and RHP that go back to the origins of the terms in Indian Tantra suggest a more middle-of-the-road approach for each, RHP being based on ethical codes and social convention and LHP being based on the breaking of taboos and desire for individual freedom. Jimgrim and Earle both also compare the dugpas to the Kali-worshipers of India. Kali is the Hindu goddess of empowerment, but popular western fiction has tended to portray her as an evil goddess of destruction such as with the Kali-worshipping Thuggee cult depicted in the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Jimgrim states that the White Lodge is made up of those who are "the students of Life, so to speak—much in the same way that Luther Burbank studies botany, for the love of it.

Jimgrim states that the Dalai Lama and Tashi Lama of Shigatse are the trusted outer representatives of the inner secret White Lodge, whose headquarters is said to be Sham-bha-la. Jimgrim also states their Jewish shopkeeper friend Benjamin "takes orders from the White Lodge, although he isn't a White and doesn't know much more about them than we do. According to Jimgrim, the dugpas are master hypnotists, incredibly expert psychologists.

Jimgrim states that the dugpas want to gain control of the entire world, just like the Bolshevists. Lhaten makes reference to Thales, Gilbert, Faraday, Edison, and Tesla in regards to the discovery and knowledge of electricity. Gilbert is William Gilbert , an English physician and physicist who is credited by some as the father of electrical engineering. Faraday is Michael Faraday , an English scientist who contributed greatly to the study of electricity.

Thomas Edison was an inventor and businessman, producing many electric products, including the light bulb. Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American electrical engineer and physicist who was something of a competitor against Edison. On page , Lhaten mentions Galileo. Galileo Galilei is often considered the father of the Scientific Revolution and contributed to astronomy, physics, mathematics, and philosophy. Lhaten mentions Kabir becoming a poet.

Kabir was a 15th Century Indian poet and philosopher who influenced and criticized both Hinduism and Islam.

Sir Isaac Newton is often considered the father of modern science. Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer, known for many great works of classical music. Lao Tse was a poet and philosopher of ancient China. On page , Lhaten mentions Einstein. Einstein, of course, is a reference to Albert Einstein, the renowned German theoretical physicist.

On page , Lhaten is described as seeming to hesitate in his speech, as if listening to the wind. Then, on page , he goes on to say, "What becomes of the fire that has eaten the wood! Fire is a bad master. Better to grow trees, though fire come and consume them. The very worst that fire can do is to release the elements of what it burns. Does any of you wish your very spirit to revert into its elements?

Serve evil if you do. It is first a little comfortable fire that warms the intellect; and some, by growing used to heat, endure it for a long time. Even rocks burn when the heat grows great enough. Better to grow trees and guard against the fire. Ramsden describes the abbot of the monastery as enduring the outrageous banter of Chullunder Ghose with emotions that suggested an old maid being flattered by Don Juan.

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Don Juan is a fictitious character of 17th Century Spain known as a womanizer. On page , Jimgrim exclaims, "Take a dekko at him. The abbot of the monastery proclaims, "Can a tree not cast a shadow on a wall?

Can even you not see your image in a pool?