Lobsang Rampa
Encyclopedia
Cyril Henry Hoskin more popularly known as Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, was a writer who claimed to have been a lama
in Tibet
before spending the second part of his life in the body of a British
man. Hoskin described himself as the "host" of Tuesday Lobsang Rampa. The name Tuesday relates to a claim in The Third Eye that Tibetans are named after the day of the week on which they were born.
in Tibet after being sent there at the age of seven. The title of the book is derived from an operation, similar to trepanation
, that Rampa claimed he had, in which a small hole was drilled into his forehead to arouse the third eye
and allow stronger powers of clairvoyance
. The book describes the operation as follows:
During the story, Rampa meets yeti
s and, at the end of the book, he encounters a mummified
body that was him in an earlier incarnation
. He also takes part in an initiation ceremony in which he learns that during its early history the Earth was struck by another planet, causing Tibet to become the mountain kingdom that it is today.
The manuscript of The Third Eye had been turned down by several leading British publishers before being accepted by Secker and Warburg
for an advance of £800. Prior to the book's publication Fredric Warburg
met "Doctor Carl Kuon Suo" - before he changed his name to Dr Tuesday Lobsang Rampa - and was intrigued by his personality. Warburg sent the manuscript of the unpublished book to a number of scholars, several of whom expressed doubts about its authenticity. Nevertheless, the book was published in November 1956 and soon became a global bestseller. The Times Literary Supplement
said of the book: "It comes near to being a work of art."
was unconvinced about the book's origins and hired a private detective from Liverpool
named Clifford Burgess to investigate Rampa. The findings of Burgess' investigation were published in the Daily Mail
in February 1958. It was reported that the author of the book was a man named Cyril Henry Hoskin, who had been born in Plympton
, Devon
in 1910 and was the son of a plumber
. Hoskin had never been to Tibet and spoke no Tibetan. In 1948, he had legally changed his name to Carl Kuon Suo before adopting the name Lobsang Rampa. An obituary of Fra Andrew Bertie
, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, claims that he was involved in unmasking Lobsang Rampa as a West Country plumber.
Rampa was tracked by the British press to Howth
, Ireland
and confronted with these allegations. He did not deny that he had been born as Cyril Hoskin, but claimed that his body was now occupied by the spirit
of Lobsang Rampa. According to the account given in his third book, The Rampa Story, he had fallen out of a fir
tree in his garden in Thames Ditton
, Surrey
while attempting to photograph an owl
. He was concussed and on regaining his senses had seen a Buddhist monk in saffron robes walking towards him. The monk spoke to him about Rampa taking over his body and Hoskin agreed, saying that he was dissatisfied with his current life. When Rampa's original body became too worn out to continue, he took over Hoskin's body in a process of transmigration of the soul.
Rampa maintained for the rest of his life that The Third Eye was a true story. In the foreword to the 1964 edition of the book, he wrote:
material. One of the books, Living With The Lama, was described as being dictated to Rampa by his pet Siamese cat, Mrs Fifi Greywhiskers. Faced with repeated accusations from the British press that he was a charlatan
and a con artist, Rampa went to live in Canada
in the 1960s. He and his wife, San Ra'ab, became Canadian citizens in 1973, along with Sheelagh Rouse (Buttercup) who was his secretary and regarded by Rampa as his adopted daughter.
Lobsang Rampa died in Calgary
on 25 January 1981, at the age of 70.
My Visit to Venus is based on work which Lobsang Rampa did not approve for publication and was published some years after it was written. It describes how Rampa meets the masters of several planets during a trip in a spaceship. The original manuscript was written by Rampa, but this book was not. It was created by Gray Barker who used Rampa's name and manuscript without his permission. Read "Feeding the Flame" page 140 for more information.
Books by Sheelagh Rouse (alias Buttercup)
Lama
Lama is a title for a Tibetan teacher of the Dharma. The name is similar to the Sanskrit term guru .Historically, the term was used for venerated spiritual masters or heads of monasteries...
in Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
before spending the second part of his life in the body of a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
man. Hoskin described himself as the "host" of Tuesday Lobsang Rampa. The name Tuesday relates to a claim in The Third Eye that Tibetans are named after the day of the week on which they were born.
The Third Eye
In November 1956 a book called The Third Eye was published in the United Kingdom. It was written by a man named Tuesday Lobsang Rampa and purported to relate his experiences while growing up in a monasteryMonastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
in Tibet after being sent there at the age of seven. The title of the book is derived from an operation, similar to trepanation
Trepanation
Trepanning, also known as trephination, trephining or making a burr hole, is a surgical intervention in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull, exposing the dura mater in order to treat health problems related to intracranial diseases. It may also refer to any "burr" hole created...
, that Rampa claimed he had, in which a small hole was drilled into his forehead to arouse the third eye
Third eye
The third eye is a mystical and esoteric concept referring in part to the ajna chakra in certain spiritual traditions. It is also spoken of as the gate that leads within to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness...
and allow stronger powers of clairvoyance
Clairvoyance
The term clairvoyance is used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...
. The book describes the operation as follows:
During the story, Rampa meets yeti
Yeti
The Yeti or Abominable Snowman is an ape-like cryptid said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal, and Tibet. The names Yeti and Meh-Teh are commonly used by the people indigenous to the region, and are part of their history and mythology...
s and, at the end of the book, he encounters a mummified
Mummy
A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...
body that was him in an earlier incarnation
Incarnation
Incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It refers to the conception and birth of a sentient creature who is the material manifestation of an entity, god or force whose original nature is immaterial....
. He also takes part in an initiation ceremony in which he learns that during its early history the Earth was struck by another planet, causing Tibet to become the mountain kingdom that it is today.
Secker and Warburg
Harvill Secker is a British publishing company formed in 2004 from the merger of Secker and Warburg and the Harvill Press.Secker and Warburg was formed in 1936 from a takeover of Martin Secker, which was in receivership, by Fredric Warburg and Roger Senhouse...
for an advance of £800. Prior to the book's publication Fredric Warburg
Fredric Warburg
Fredric John Warburg was an English publisher best known for his association with the British author George Orwell...
met "Doctor Carl Kuon Suo" - before he changed his name to Dr Tuesday Lobsang Rampa - and was intrigued by his personality. Warburg sent the manuscript of the unpublished book to a number of scholars, several of whom expressed doubts about its authenticity. Nevertheless, the book was published in November 1956 and soon became a global bestseller. The Times Literary Supplement
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
said of the book: "It comes near to being a work of art."
Controversy over authorship of The Third Eye
Explorer and Tibetologist Heinrich HarrerHeinrich Harrer
Heinrich Harrer was an Austrian mountaineer, sportsman, geographer, and author.He is best known for his books Seven Years in Tibet and The White Spider .-Athletics:...
was unconvinced about the book's origins and hired a private detective from Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
named Clifford Burgess to investigate Rampa. The findings of Burgess' investigation were published in the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
in February 1958. It was reported that the author of the book was a man named Cyril Henry Hoskin, who had been born in Plympton
Plympton
Plympton, or Plympton Maurice or Plympton St Maurice or Plympton St Mary or Plympton Erle, in south-western Devon, England is an ancient stannary town: an important trading centre in the past for locally mined tin, and a former seaport...
, Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
in 1910 and was the son of a plumber
Plumber
A plumber is a tradesperson who specializes in installing and maintaining systems used for potable water, sewage, and drainage in plumbing systems. The term dates from ancient times, and is related to the Latin word for lead, "plumbum." A person engaged in fixing metaphorical "leaks" may also be...
. Hoskin had never been to Tibet and spoke no Tibetan. In 1948, he had legally changed his name to Carl Kuon Suo before adopting the name Lobsang Rampa. An obituary of Fra Andrew Bertie
Fra Andrew Bertie
Fra' Andrew Willoughby Ninian Bertie was the 78th Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, serving for nearly 20 years from 1988 until his death in 2008. Bertie was the first Englishman elected Grand Master since 1258.He never married and had a younger brother...
, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, claims that he was involved in unmasking Lobsang Rampa as a West Country plumber.
Rampa was tracked by the British press to Howth
Howth
Howth is an area in Fingal County near Dublin city in Ireland. Originally just a small fishing village, Howth with its surrounding rural district is now a busy suburb of Dublin, with a mix of dense residential development and wild hillside, all on the peninsula of Howth Head. The only...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and confronted with these allegations. He did not deny that he had been born as Cyril Hoskin, but claimed that his body was now occupied by the spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
of Lobsang Rampa. According to the account given in his third book, The Rampa Story, he had fallen out of a fir
Fir
Firs are a genus of 48–55 species of evergreen conifers in the family Pinaceae. They are found through much of North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa, occurring in mountains over most of the range...
tree in his garden in Thames Ditton
Thames Ditton
Thames Ditton is a village in Surrey, England, bordering Greater London. It is situated 12.2 miles south-west of Charing Cross between the towns of Kingston upon Thames, Surbiton, Esher and East Molesey...
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
while attempting to photograph an owl
Owl
Owls are a group of birds that belong to the order Strigiformes, constituting 200 bird of prey species. Most are solitary and nocturnal, with some exceptions . Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds, although a few species specialize in hunting fish...
. He was concussed and on regaining his senses had seen a Buddhist monk in saffron robes walking towards him. The monk spoke to him about Rampa taking over his body and Hoskin agreed, saying that he was dissatisfied with his current life. When Rampa's original body became too worn out to continue, he took over Hoskin's body in a process of transmigration of the soul.
Rampa maintained for the rest of his life that The Third Eye was a true story. In the foreword to the 1964 edition of the book, he wrote:
Later career
Lobsang Rampa went on to write another 18 books containing a mixture of religious and occultOccult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
material. One of the books, Living With The Lama, was described as being dictated to Rampa by his pet Siamese cat, Mrs Fifi Greywhiskers. Faced with repeated accusations from the British press that he was a charlatan
Charlatan
A charlatan is a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, fame or other advantages via some form of pretense or deception....
and a con artist, Rampa went to live in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
in the 1960s. He and his wife, San Ra'ab, became Canadian citizens in 1973, along with Sheelagh Rouse (Buttercup) who was his secretary and regarded by Rampa as his adopted daughter.
Lobsang Rampa died in Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
on 25 January 1981, at the age of 70.
Books by Lobsang Rampa
- The Third Eye (1956)
- My Visit to Venus (1957, but see note below)
- Doctor from Lhasa (1959)
- The Rampa Story (1960)
- Cave of the Ancients (1963)
- Living with the Lama (1964)
- You Forever (1965)
- Wisdom of the Ancients (1965)
- The Saffron Robe (1966)
- Chapters of Life (1967)
- Beyond The Tenth (1969)
- Feeding the Flame (1971)
- The Hermit (1971)
- The Thirteenth Candle (1972)
- Candlelight (1973)
- Twilight (1975)
- As It Was! (1976)
- I Believe (1976)
- Three Lives (1977)
- Tibetan Sage (1980)
My Visit to Venus is based on work which Lobsang Rampa did not approve for publication and was published some years after it was written. It describes how Rampa meets the masters of several planets during a trip in a spaceship. The original manuscript was written by Rampa, but this book was not. It was created by Gray Barker who used Rampa's name and manuscript without his permission. Read "Feeding the Flame" page 140 for more information.
Books by persons living with Lobsang Rampa
Books by his wife, San Ra'ab Rampa:- Pussywillow (1976)
- Tigerlily (1978)
- Autumn Lady (1980)
- Wild Briar (1982)
- Le Testament de Lobsang Rampa (French,1984)
Books by Sheelagh Rouse (alias Buttercup)
- 25 years with T. Lobsang Rampa (2005) ISBN 978-1-4116-7432-5
- Grace, The World of Rampa (2007)
Further reading
- The Guinness Book of Fakes, Frauds and Forgeries by Richard Newnham, ISBN 0-85112-975-7
- Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West by Donald S. Lopez Jr., ISBN 0-226-49311-3
- Lobsang Rampa - New Age Trailblazer by Karen Mutton, ISBN 0971316600
Excerpts from Rampa's writings, advocacy of his views
- Tuesday Lobsang Rampa A multilingual website dedicated to Lobsang Rampa that has all 19 of his books in English, Spanish, and French, and lists of titles in 20 other languages. Dr. Rampa's books were published in a total 38 languages.
- T. Lobsang Rampa – extracts from his writings
- LobsangRampa.net – website maintained by followers of Rampa, containing links to a mailgroup and other Rampa-themed websites
- T. Lobsang Rampa – New Age Trailblazer – website advertising an eBook by Karen Mutton about Rampa's life and works
Criticism/scepticism
- T. Lobsang Rampa – article on Rampa in the Skeptic's DictionarySkeptic's DictionaryThe Skeptic's Dictionary is a collection of cross-referenced skeptical essays by Robert Todd Carroll, published on his website skepdic.com and in a printed book. The skepdic.com site was launched in 1994 and the book was published in 2003 with nearly 400 entries. As of January 2011 the website has...
- Tuesday Lobsang Rampa – encyclopedia article from James RandiJames RandiJames Randi is a Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic best known as a challenger of paranormal claims and pseudoscience. Randi is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation...
's website - The Third Eye – critical article at the Museum of HoaxesMuseum of HoaxesThe Museum of Hoaxes is a website created by Alex Boese in 1997 in San Diego, California as a resource for reporting and discussing hoaxes and urban legends, both past and present....
website - Fictitious Tibet: The Origin and Persistence of Rampaism – critical article by Agehananda BharatiAgehananda BharatiAgehananda Bharati was the monastic name of Leopold Fischer, professor of Anthropology at Syracuse University for over 30 years...
, first published in Tibet Society Bulletin, Vol. 7, 1974