T Lobsang Rampa

[steve_bank]

In the 60s I read his books as a teen on the a kid growing up as a monk. One was The Third Eye, they were great stories. It was not until the 80s that I leaned he was an out right fraud and had a history of con scams.

He claimed he was the reincarnation of a Tibetan monk sent to bring it the west. Under pressure he claimed he fell out of a tree, hit his head, and realized who he was.

He still has a following today.

Tuesday Lobsang Rampa

www.lobsangrampa.org

The Tibetan lama who was really a plumber from Devon

A 1956 bestseller about life in a Himalayan monastery turned out to be made up by a man who’d never been there. But that didn’t stop the Dalai Lama endorsing it

www.theguardian.com

The Tibetan lama who was really a plumber from Devon​

A 1956 bestseller about life in a Himalayan monastery turned out to be made up by a man who’d never been there. But that didn’t stop the Dalai Lama endorsing it

When it comes to accounts of exotic climes, however, none is quite so extraordinary – or enduring – as The Third Eye, written in 1956 by a person who called himself Tuesday Lobsang Rampa. This spiritual travelogue covers Rampa’s early life in Lhasa, his years in a Tibetan monastery, encounters with yetis, yogic flying and other Buddhist mysteries. The book sold half a million copies in its first two years, making Rampa something of a celebrity.



He did, however, have his detractors. Rampa’s wild claims – not to mention his West Country burr – led Tibetologist Heinrich Harrer to hire a private detective. What this gumshoe uncovered surprised even his employer. Not only had Rampa never been to Tibet, he didn’t even own a passport. He was a former plumber from Devon called Cyril Hoskin who damaged his back by falling out of a tree while owl-spotting. During convalescence he had, it seems, settled on a drastic career change.

The media was scandalised; Hoskin was unrepentant. Cheerfully admitting that he’d never been to Tibet, he now claimed that as he lay semi-conscious at the bottom of a tree that fateful afternoon, half-strangled by his binoculars, an elderly lama (monk) had floated by on the astral plane and the pair had agreed to swap bodies. (Whether, in 1950s Tibet, an elderly lama ever claimed to be a West Country plumber remains unverified.)

Rampa nevertheless garnered a global following. His 20 books range from an interstellar travel memoir entitled My Visit to Venus to Living with the Lama, transmitted to him telepathically by his cat, Mrs Fifi Greywhiskers.


History should not judge Rampa, who died in 1981, too harshly. Many leading Tibetologists admit that he set them on their paths, and the Dalai Lama has acknowledged Rampa’s role in drawing attention to the plight of his country. “The farther one travels, the less one knows,” sang George Harrison in 1968’s The Inner Light. With lockdown making travel writing almost impossible, fellow freelancers take note. A ripe imagination, decent broadband and a trickster’s cunning are perhaps all you need.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

In the 60s I read his books as a teen on the a kid growing up as a monk. One was The Third Eye, they were great stories.

You can purchase the audiobook on Amazon or listen to it for free on YouTube.

It was not until the 80s that I leaned he was an out right fraud and had a history of con scams.

What a coincidence: I learned in the 1980s that Christianity is an outright fraud and that it had a history of scamming people.

He claimed he was the reincarnation of a Tibetan monk sent to bring it the west.

Jesus said that John the Baptist was Elijah reincarnated sent to prophesy God's revelation.

Under pressure he claimed he fell out of a tree, hit his head, and realized who he was.

But that's when he saw the ghostly lama!

He still has a following today.

Some people will never learn. James Randi demonstrated that faith-healer Peter Popoff is a fraud, but that didn't keep people from giving Popoff money to be healed by him. Religion, whether it is Buddhism or Christianity, is the biggest scam ever cooked up by crafty men. Do you notice that when we can get a close-up look at a supposed religious prophet, somebody who lived recently whom we have abundant and strong evidence for, then we see what a huckster he is? Other prophets like Moses, Jesus, and Buddha lived in the distant past, and we "see (them) in a mirror dimly." They are insulated from our close scrutiny by much time, and maybe that's why so many still believe them.

Anyway, I'm glad you posted this information. It's odd that the other members here haven't responded. Some of the best topics they tend to ignore.

 

[steve_bank]

I rad Evans-Wentz's books on Tiberan culture and Buddhism. One was a translation of Tibetan scripture, Tibetan Yoga And Secret Doctrines. Tibetan Book Of The Dead.

Heavy on te paranormal.