B R I D A
A N ov e l
F
P a u l o
C o e l h o
T r a n s l at e d
f ro m t h e P o rt u g u e s e b y M a rg a r e t J u l l C o s ta
For N.D.L., who made the miracles happen,for Christina, who is one of those miracles,and for Brida
. . . what woman having ten silver coins,if she loses one of them,
does not light a lamp, sweep the house,and search carefully until she finds it?
When she has found it, she calls togetherher friends and neighbors, saying,
“Rejoice with me, for I have found the cointhat I had lost.”
Luke 15:8–9
Contents
Epigraph iii
Warning vi
Prologue vii
Ireland
August 1983–March 1984
Summer and Autumn
1
Winter and Spring 91
About the Author
Other Books by Paulo Coelho
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
F
Warning
In my book The Pilgrimage, I replaced two of the practices of RAM with exercises in perception learned in the days when I worked in drama. Although the results were, strictly speaking, the same, I received a severe reprimand from my Teacher. “There may well be quicker or easier methods, that doesn’t matter; what matters is that the Tradition remains unchanged,” he said.
For this reason, the few rituals described in Brida are the same as those practiced over the centuries by the Tradition of the Moon—a specific tradition that requires experience and practice.
Practicing such rituals without guidance is dangerous, inadvisable, unnecessary, and can greatly hinder the Spiritual Search.
Paulo Coelho
F
Prologue
We used to sit until late at night in a café in Lourdes. I was a pilgrim on the sacred Road of Rome and still had many more days to travel in search of my Gift. She was Brida O’Fern and was in charge of a certain stretch of that road.
On one such night, I asked if she remembered having felt especially moved when she arrived at a particular abbey that forms part of the star-shaped trail followed by Initiates in the Pyrenees.
