Below us, we found a group of people dressed in vividly colored clothes. They moved slowly, walking in circles.
They wept and sobbed, their faces weary and vacant. They wore long robes with lowered hoods that covered their eyes.
The robes seemed to have been made for the monks of Cluny Abbey.
The outside of the robes was gilded, dazzling with golden light.
But the insides were all lined with lead.
Still we turned left and walked with them, listening to their miserable cries.
—Dante, The Divine Comedy: Inferno
In 1933, James Hilton described Shangri-La in his novel Lost Horizon as a place of eternal peace and serenity, hidden deep among the mountains of the distant East.
There were sacred snow-capped mountains, deep ravines, cascading waterfalls, tranquil lakes surrounded by forests, herds of cattle and sheep wandering beautiful grasslands, skies as clear as mirrors, resplendent temples, and pure, hospitable natives.
Shangri-La later became synonymous with paradise on earth, and a five-star hotel chain was named after it.
Mandala meant "pleasant" in Buddhist scriptures. It was one of Buddhism's four auspicious flowers, said to bloom only in the Land of Ultimate Bliss. When Jung introduced the concept of the mandala to the West, it caused a sensation.
Hollywood was in its "Golden Age" during the 1930s. Extravagance and false prosperity blanketed the streets of Los Angeles, and the Mandala Hotel rose up at that time.
With crystal chandeliers, stained glass, and carpets full of exotic flair, it had once been a fashionable avant-garde haunt for celebrities.
But as the Great Depression struck and the economic bubble burst, the Mandala Hotel began to decay. In front of the hotel was a vast parking lot capable of holding an enormous convoy, evidence of the hotel's grand scale in its heyday. Yet now only