Walter Evans-Wentz

[3] As a teenager, Walter read Madame Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine in his father's library, and became interested in the teachings of Theosophy and the occult.

[5] At age 24 Evans-Wentz went to Stanford University, where he studied religion, philosophy, and history and was deeply influenced by visitors William James and W. B.

He performed ethnographic fieldwork collecting fairy folklore in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany, and the Isle of Man.

[3] Thereafter, funded by his rental properties in Florida,[5] he started travelling extensively, spending time in Mexico, Europe, and the Far East.

[8] There he started studying the history, customs and religious traditions of the country,[8] and also collected a large number of important Pali manuscripts, which were later donated to Stanford University.

He met spiritual figures like Yogananda, J. Krishnamurti, Paul Brunton, Ramana Maharishi, Sri Krishna Prem and Shunyata.

He next met Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup (1868–1922), an English teacher and headmaster at Maharaja's Boys School, in Gangtok, Sikkim.

Samdup had been with 13th Dalai Lama during the latter's exile years in India in 1910; more importantly for Evans-Wentz, he had already worked as a translator with Alexandra David-Néel, the Belgian-French explorer, travel writer, and Buddhist convert, and Sir John Woodroffe, noted British Orientalist.

[3] Evans-Wentz credited himself only as the compiler and editor of these volumes; the actual translation was performed by Tibetan Buddhists, primarily Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup.

Evans-Wentz's interpretations and organisation of this Tibetan material is hermeneutically controversial, being influenced by preconceptions he brought to the subject from Theosophy and other metaphysical schools.

He mentions having personally met Yogananda's guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, at his ashram in Puri and noted positive impressions of him.