While growing up I used to devour any and every strange and weird book I could lay my hands on. This included not only UFO books (think Eric Von Daniken and others), mystical shamanism (think Carlos Castaneda), but also a whole series by T Lobsang Rampa.
His most famous book, “the third eye”, (published in 1956) claimed that it related his experiences in a monastery in Tibet from about the age of seven. It was all riveting stuff (for a 14 year old) and included encounters with yetis, and also finding a mummified body of his earlier incarnation. Oh and lets not forget his discovery of the early history of planet earth and how an impact by another planet caused the uplift of Tibet. Now hopefully all that should be enough to set your “bullshit” detector clanging away at its maximum setting.
The book was just a start, he went on to write a total of about 19 other books, but none were as successful as his initial offering, “the third eye”. Actually, its quite hard to pin down exactly how many more he wrote, because two were apparently written by his cat, or to be more precise, he claimed that his cat had used telepathy to dictate them to him. Yes OK, just in case you had not quite clicked from my previous outlay of the third eye, we are well and truly into kook territory here.
Alas, when I read all this I was at that time a rather naive young teen, so I lapped it all up and believed every word. I was not alone, it became a global bestseller, but of course money had nothing to do with his motivation here, I’m sure he was only interested in spiritual enlightenment for us all.
The Reveal
OK, its time for the reveal, so who exactly was T Lobsang Rampa, was he truly a Tibetian monk?
Quite a few were truly curious to find out. The most notable enquirer was the explorer and tibetologist Heinrich Harrer. Since he knew quite a bit about Tibet, he was rather skeptical about all these claims, so he hired a private detective from Liverpool named Clifford Burgess to investigate. The results were well worth the cost. His detective soon discovered that Rampa was really a plumber from Devon called Cyril Henry Hoskin.
Had he ever actually traveled to Tibet?
Nope, I think the closest he ever came would have been the end of Brighton pier. As for his linguistic skills, did he speak Tibetan?
I strongly suspect by now that you can see where this is going and can guess the answer without calling upon any supernatural powers.
When it all came out, the press hunted him down to Howth in Ireland and challenged him to his face about all this. That is of personal interest to me, because at about the same time my parents used to hang on in a coffee shop in Howth on Saturday mornings with me, so I wonder if I ever passed him on the street at that time.
How did he react when challenged?
It was exactly as you might expect. He remained true to his obvious skills at spinning a great yarn, and so quickly claimed that while it was indeed Cyril’s body, it was now occupied by the spirit of Lobsang Rampa. He explained that he had fallen out of a fir tree in his garden in Thames Ditton, Surrey while attempting to photograph an owl. When he recovered from the fall, he saw a monk in saffron robes who spoke to him about taking over his body. Hoskin agreed, saying that he was dissatisfied with his current life.
There are no surprises here. His books were proving to be a real source of revenue, so it was vital to keep the show on the road.
He maintained for the rest of his life that The Third Eye was a true story, but with the press persistently hounding him, he moved to Canada where he carried on churning out more books.
In many ways this charlatan and con artist was a bit of a new age trail blazer. The first of many since then.
Further Reading
If interested in finding out more, here are a couple of links:
- The skeptics dictionary entry on him is here
- Here is the JREF page on him
- The Wikipedia Page on him is here
What do I now think of him now after all these years?
I suspect you can guess.
With an abundance of huge factual blunders he is quite obviously a fraud. Tragically, even though he died in 1981, he still has a following of those that sincerely believe every word he wrote. They will not be the first to have found meaning and enlightenment within fictitious writings, we have lots of far more popular examples of that all around us.
It’s a diamond.
What is the device he is holding under his chin?
What I would like to know is , How does a plumber , get to write so well ,and to make things seem truly believable ? I read the book about 15 years ago , and I could not put it down. After I had finished reading the book , I felt a little different inside , thinking about all the spiritual stuff and of the hardships of a monk in Tibet .
Now I see all the stuff about it being all bullshit etc , ands it a bit of a let down.
Nobody ever proved he did not experience & know these things. I believe his true problem is that he did not ask for money.
It is easy to call it a fraud, But, in the end, he sparkled many people interest toward buddhism, Tibet, hindouism, and other cultures.
But why did it sell so well ?? This kind of “fictional” books have been published a lot in 19/20th century… mystery!
I have read some of Rampa, and many things are indeed “bullshit” …but he helped people to approach spirituality …imo, a bad, incomplete, or even false spirituality is better for human being than no spirituality at all !
Many things like yoga,relaxation, breath exercises, aura (energy), meditation, etc, everyone heard about this today, but in 1956?
Probably he is not a Lama, probably it s all fictional, but what is real ? what is false?
What religion/ideology is real ? what is false? Everything, after a certain point, dive into the unknow… no one can say for sure.(for fact.)
If the Rampa “followers” find benefits in his “teaching” , what’s wrong ?
Dalai lama said it’s fictional, but transmigration of soul is recognized by tibetan buddhism ,”taking” another body ,or even a dead body !
So fictional, yes,but not all fantasy to tibetan buddhism texts.
Overall, I mean, are they not all “BS” ? Everywhere..
whatever robe they wear, whatever the teachings are ….if you don’t “believe”….then the bullshit” detector goes red fast.
no one can say what God is, or even if there’s a God or no,, same for the mind/spirit/soul…. it’s all opinion, faith, belief system…moe or less educated/rationall/logic.
So as long as it don’t hurt people, or f*** their mind, it s ok, he’s a plumber ?or install medical stuff, then?
Jesus was carpenter some say; erm =). Live and let live.
(Sorry for poor English.)
P.S.
As Skeptical, how can you take position on any system of belief?
Rational thinking is just one more creation of man, as is Science…
Ultimately ,any idea or number is product of mind, and is appreciated with mind, (or Tools made by mind) so we can’t go past this wall ,
True skeptical should declare any idea “uncertain “….the mean of verification, we have not .
Science works, i know, but we can start to see some limits, where tools and mind struggle to see the “reality” , the “truth” ,
That may bring critical changes in future (or no) , but anyway it is sad to think “we know for sure”, because it’s not the case,
Any idea or number is just that, an idea or number.
If you could actually spell his pen name correctly it just might be possible to take your comment seriously
Dear unknown,
You claim to have read Tampa. But unfortunately I doubt whether you really understood the content for the concept in his book is there is nothing called a person.
Doesn’t Tampa say the physical body and the spirit are two different things?