Editing Lobsang Rampa

{{Short description|English writer (1910–1981)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2024}}
{{Expand French|topic=bio|Lobsang Rampa|date=March 2012}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Lobsang Rampa
| image = Lobsang Rampa.jpg
| image_size = 150px
| caption = Lobsang Rampa, born as Cyril Hoskin (1910–1981)
| birth_name = Cyril Henry Hoskin
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1910|04|08}}
| birth_place = [[Plympton]], Devon, United Kingdom
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1981|01|25|1910|04|08}}
| death_place = [[Calgary]], Alberta, Canada
| death_cause = 
| resting_place = 
| nationality = British
| citizenship = {{plainlist|
*[[British people|British]]
*[[Canadians|Canadian]]}}
| other_names = Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, Carl Kuon Suo
| known_for = [[The Third Eye (Rampa book)|''The Third Eye'']]
| education = 
| alma_mater = 
| occupation = Author
| years_active = 1956–1980
| spouse = San Ra'ab Rampa
| partner = 
| children = Sheelagh Rouse (adopted){{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
| parents = 
| relations = 
| signature = 
| website = 
| footnotes = 
}}
{{listen
|filename=Lobsang rampa.ogg
|title=Lobsang Rampa
|description=Rampa discussing being asked about meditation.
}}
'''Lobsang Rampa''' was the pen name of '''Cyril Henry Hoskin''' (8 April 1910&nbsp;– 25 January 1981), an author who wrote books with [[paranormal]] and [[occult]] themes. His best known work is ''[[The Third Eye (Rampa book)|The Third Eye]]'', published in Britain in 1956.

Following the publication of the book, newspapers reported that Rampa had been born Cyril Henry Hoskin, and was a surgical fitter and plumber's son from [[Plympton]] in [[Devon]] who claimed that his body hosted the spirit of a Tibetan [[lama]] going by the name of '''Tuesday Lobsang Rampa''', who is purported to have authored the books. 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''==
Rampa's book ''[[The Third Eye (Rampa book)|The Third Eye]]'' was published in November 1956 in the United Kingdom. The book purported to relate Rampa's experiences while growing up in Chakpori Lamasery,<ref>{{cite book |title= The Third Eye |last= Rampa |first= Lobsang |publisher= Secker & Warburg |year= 1956 |isbn= 9780345340382 |chapter= Chapter 4: At The Temple Gates |title-link= The Third Eye (Rampa book) }}</ref> [[Chokpori]], 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 undergone, in which a small hole was drilled into his forehead to arouse the [[third eye]] and enhance powers of [[clairvoyance]]. The book describes the operation as follows:

{{blockquote|The instrument penetrated the bone. A very hard, clean sliver of wood had been treated by fire and herbs and was slid down so that it just entered the hole in my head. I felt a stinging, tickling sensation apparently in the bridge of my nose. It subsided and I became aware of subtle scents which I could not identify. Suddenly there was a blinding flash. For a moment the pain was intense. It diminished, died and was replaced by spirals of colour. As the projecting sliver was being bound into place so that it could not move, the Lama Mingyar Dondup turned to me and said: "You are now one of us, Lobsang. For the rest of your life you will see people as they are and not as they pretend to be."}}

During the story, Rampa sees [[yeti]]s and eventually encounters a [[mummy|mummified]] body of himself from 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 [[Giant impact hypothesis#Theia|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 (£{{Inflation|UK|800|1956|r=-3|fmt=c}} today). [[Fredric Warburg]] of Secker and Warburg had met the book's author, who at the time appeared in the guise of "Doctor Carl Kuon Suo". Intrigued by the writer's personality, Warburg sent the manuscript 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 ''[[The Times|Times Literary Supplement]]'' said of the book: "It came near to being a work of art."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://i.imgur.com/kOuwPnY.jpg |title= T. Lobsang Rampa |newspaper= [[The Times]] |date= 31 January 1981 |access-date= 23 December 2013 |type= obituary}}</ref>

===Controversy over authorship===
[[File:thirdeye.jpg|thumb|right|Original 1950s cover of ''[[The Third Eye (Rampa book)|The Third Eye]]'']]
Explorer and Tibetologist [[Heinrich Harrer]] was unconvinced about the book's origins and hired a private detective from [[Liverpool]] named Clifford Burgess to investigate Rampa. "In January 1957, Scotland Yard asked him to present a Tibetan passport or a residence permit. Rampa moved to Ireland. One year later, the scholars retained the services of Clifford Burgess, a leading Liverpool private detective. Burgess's report, when it came in, was terse. Lama Lobsang Rampa of Tibet, he determined after one month of inquiries, was none other than Cyril Henry Hoskin, a native of Plympton, Devonshire, the son of the village plumber and a high school dropout."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://tricycle.org/magazine/lobsang-rampa-mystery-three-eyed-lama/|title=Lobsang Rampa: The Mystery of the Three-Eyed Lama|last=Lopez|first=Donald S. Jr.|date=1 December 1998|work=Tricycle: The Buddhist Review|access-date=2018-01-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160412182926/https://tricycle.org/magazine/lobsang-rampa-mystery-three-eyed-lama/|archive-date=12 April 2016|language=en-US|ref=none}}</ref> The findings of Burgess' investigation were published in the ''[[Daily Mail]]'' in February 1958.<ref>Donald S. Lopez, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=mjUHF7kQfVAC&pg=PA101 Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West]'', University of Chicago Press, 1999, 294 pages, p.99-100: "Pallis, acting on behalf of a group of European experts on Tibet, retained the services of Clifford Burgess, a leading Liverpool private detective, in an effort to discover the true identity of T. Lobsabng Rampa. By the end of the month and three thousand miles of travel, Burgess had produced the following report: CYRIL HENRY HOSKIN - BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS [...] the February 3 Daily Express ran the headline 'The FULL truth about the Bogus Lama.'"</ref> 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.<ref>Donald S. Lopez, ''Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West]'', op. cit., p.101.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite news |url= http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/obituaries/article2080924.ece |title= Fra Andrew Bertie  |newspaper= [[The Times]] |date= 23 February 2008 |type= obituary |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

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.<ref>Agehananda Bharati (aka Leopold Fischer), Fictitious Tibet: the Origin and Persistence of Rampaism, in ''Tibet Society Bulletin'', Vol. 7, 1974: "Hoskin had a ready explanation for his predicament: yes, he had indeed been born Cyril Henry Hoskin. That good gentleman's soul, however, had long since fled its corporeal form, so that the soul of a Tibetan lama, namely Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, could move in."</ref> 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 (following the events of his second book ''Doctor From Lhasa'' where, as a doctor in charge, he was questioned and tortured to the brink of death by the Japanese after being seized in the advance following the capture of [[Nanning]] as part of the [[Battle of South Guangxi]]), he took over Hoskin's body in a process of [[transmigration of the soul]].<ref>Chapter 8, ''The Rampa Story''. Rampa says that this incident occurred at a house called Rose Croft in [[Thames Ditton]].</ref>

Rampa maintained for the rest of his life that ''[[The Third Eye (Rampa book)|The Third Eye]]'' was a true story. In the foreword to the 1964 edition of the book, he wrote: "I am Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, that is my only name, now my legal name, and I answer to no other."

To [[Donald S. Lopez, Jr.]], an American Tibetologist, the books of Lobsang Rampa are "the works of an unemployed surgical fitter, the son of a plumber, seeking to support himself as a ghostwriter."<ref>{{cite book |first= Donald S. Jr. |last= Lopez |author-link= Donald S. Lopez, Jr. |title= Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West |url= https://archive.org/details/prisonersshangri00jrdo |url-access= limited |publisher= University of Chicago Press |year= 1998 |page= [https://archive.org/details/prisonersshangri00jrdo/page/n121 112] }}</ref>

The authorship controversy was dramatised in a radio play, ''The Third Eye and the Private Eye'', by David Lemon and Mark Ecclestone, first broadcast by [[BBC Radio 4]] in August 2012.<ref>[http://www.mandatory.com/wrestlezone/news/758277-johnny-mundo-talks-about-his-rivalry-with-prince-puma-i-think-it-has-really-defined-lucha-underground The Third Eye and the Private Eye] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20180108220338/http://www.mandatory.com/wrestlezone/news/758277-johnny-mundo-talks-about-his-rivalry-with-prince-puma-i-think-it-has-really-defined-lucha-underground |date=8 January 2018 }} BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 29 April 2015.</ref>

===Influence on Tibetologists' callings===
Donald S. Lopez, Jr., in ''Prisoners of Shangri-La'' (1998), points out that when discussing Rampa with other Tibetologists and Buddhologists in Europe, he found that ''[[The Third Eye (Rampa book)|The Third Eye]]'' was the first book many of them had read about Tibet: "For some it was a fascination with the world Rampa described that had led them to become professional scholars of Tibet."

Lopez adds that when he gave ''The Third Eye'' to a class of his at the University of Michigan without telling them about its history, the "students were unanimous in their praise of the book, and despite six prior weeks of lectures and readings on Tibetan history and religion, [...] they found it entirely credible and compelling, judging it more realistic than anything they had previously read about Tibet."{{sfn|Lopez|1998|pp= 104, 112}}

== Role in the Tibetan cause ==
Lobsang Rampa was a supporter of the Tibetan cause despite criticism of his books. In 1972, Rampa's French language agent Alain Stanké wrote to the [[14th Dalai Lama|Dalai Lama]] and asked for his opinion about Rampa's identity. He received a reply from the Dalai Lama's deputy secretary stating "I wish to inform you that we do not place credence in the books written by the so-called Dr. T. Lobsang Rampa. His works are highly imaginative and fictional in nature." The Dalai Lama had previously admitted that although the books were fictitious, they had created good publicity for Tibet.<ref>{{cite book |title= T. Lobsang Rampa: New Age Trailblazer |last= Mutton |first= Karen |publisher= TGS Publishing |year= 2006 |pages= [https://www.box.com/s/n7bxpreatecy4vkgqjlm 166–7] |isbn= 9780971316607 }}</ref>

==Later career==
Lobsang Rampa went on to write another 18 books containing a mixture of religious and [[occult]] 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 his companion and secretary Sheelagh Rouse ("Buttercup"), described by the writer [[Eric Newby]], sent by Rampa's publisher [[Secker and Warburg]] to meet Rampa in Ireland, as "a fresh-faced, very English-looking girl who told me that she had left her husband (who was a member of [[Lloyd's of London|Lloyd's]]) and her three children in order to live as a disciple in the Lama's house".<ref>A Traveller's Life, Eric Newby, Picador, 1983, p. 177</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://abcbookworld.com/writer/rampa-t-lobsang | title=Rampa T. Lobsang }}</ref> Lobsang Rampa died in [[Calgary]] on 25 January 1981, at the age of 70.

==Writings==
[[File:Rampa greywhiskers.jpg|upright|thumb|right|Rampa claimed that his 1964 book, ''Living with the Lama'', was dictated to him by his cat]]

* ''[[The Third Eye (Rampa book)|The Third Eye]]'' (1956)
* ''My Visit to Venus'' (1957){{refn|group=n|''My Visit to Venus'' is based on work which 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 and published by Saucerian Books in 1966 who used Rampa's name and manuscript without his permission. Rampa finally gave his permission for the book to be published provided two alterations were made and ten per cent of the profits were sent to the Save A Cat League in New York City (letter to Gray Barker, dated 31 October 1966)<ref>{{cite book |title= Feeding the Flame |page= 140 |last= Rampa |first= Tuesday Lobsang |year= 1971 |publisher= Corgi Books |isbn= 9780552086110}}</ref>}}
* ''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)

==See also==
* [[Grey Owl]]
* [[Mediumship]]
* [[Third eye]]
* [[Trepanation]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=n}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
*Lobsang Rampa – New Age Trailblazer by Karen Mutton. {{ISBN|0-9713166-0-0}}
*Newnham, Richard (1991). ''The Guinness Book of Fakes, Frauds and Forgeries''. {{ISBN|0-85112-975-7}}
*Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West by Donald S. Lopez Jr., {{ISBN|0-226-49311-3}}
* ''25 years with T. Lobsang Rampa'' (2005) by Sheelagh Rouse {{ISBN|9781411674325}}
* ''Grace, The World of Rampa'' (2007) by Sheelagh Rouse

==External links==
{{Wikisource|The Rampa Story}}

===Excerpts from Rampa's writings, advocacy of his views===
* [http://www.lobsangrampa.org/index.html Tuesday Lobsang Rampa] Multilingual website in 36 languages, including a very comprehensive book lists for Rampa, Sheelagh, and Ra'ab.
*[http://galactic.to/rampa/#english T. Lobsang Rampa – extracts from his writings]
*[http://www.lobsangrampa.net LobsangRampa.net] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061222055938/http://www.lobsangrampa.net/ |date=22 December 2006 }} – website maintained by followers of Rampa, containing links to a mailgroup and other Rampa-themed websites

===Criticism/scepticism===
*{{cite book |chapter-url= http://skepdic.com/rampa.html |chapter= T. Lobsang Rampa |title= The Skeptic's Dictionary |edition= online |last= Carroll |first= Robert Todd |author-link= Robert Todd Carroll|title-link= The Skeptic's Dictionary }}
*{{cite book |chapter-url= http://web.randi.org/r---encyclopedia-of-claims.html |chapter= Rampa, Tuesday Lobsang Rampa |title= An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural |orig-date= 1995 |year= 2006 |edition= online |last= Randi |first= James |author-link= James Randi|title-link= An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural }}
*{{cite journal |last= Bharati |first= Agehananda |author-link= Agehananda Bharati |title= Fictitious Tibet: The origin and persistence of Rampaism |journal= Tibet Society Bulletin |volume= 7 |year= 1974}} {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090202153517/http://www.dc-international.org/index.php?view=article&catid=143&id=337 |date=2 February 2009 }}.


{{DEFAULTSORT:Rampa, Lobsang}}
[[Category:1910 births]]
[[Category:1981 deaths]]
[[Category:British spiritual writers]]
[[Category:Canadian spiritual writers]]
[[Category:English emigrants to Canada]]
[[Category:New Age writers]]
[[Category:Paranormal hoaxes]]
[[Category:Pseudohistorians]]
[[Category:Literary forgeries]]
[[Category:Impostors]]
[[Category:Hoaxes in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:1950s hoaxes]]
[[Category:Tibet freedom activists]]