Prisoners of Shangri-La

by Donald S Lopez, Jr

  He agreed. Rampa told him that he would return in a month to take over his body, providing that the man had grown a beard to hide the damage done to Rampa’s face by the Japanese.

  One month later, accompanied by three lamas, he traveled astrally to London, where he would take over the man’s body. The man was instructed to fall out of a tree again, at which point an operation was performed to sever the man from his silver cord and attach Rampa’s cord to the man’s body. He entered into the Western body with great difficulty, rose to his feet, and was helped inside by the man’s wife. He immediately had to seek employment, and found a job developing photographs. He later had various freelance jobs and did “psychological work” to support his wife and himself. When he inquired about a job as a ghostwriter, the literary agent Cyrus Brooks of A. M. Heather & Company encouraged him to write his own book. He was reluctant. “Me write a book? Crazy! All I wanted was a job providing enough money to keep us alive and a little over so that I could do auric research, and all the offers I had was [sic] to write a silly book about myself” (p. 194). But at the insistence of the agent he undertook the arduous and unpleasant task of writing The Third Eye. After completing the book he suffered a heart attack and moved for health reasons to Ireland, “an island which was once part of the lost continent of Atlantis” (p. 198). There he wrote Doctor from Lhasa.

  He was summoned once more by Lama Mingyar Dondup, who said that he must go to the “Land of the Red Indians,” where he had one final task to accomplish. The lama added: “be not upset by those who would criticize you, for they know not whereof they speak, being blinded by the self-imposed ignorance of the West. When Death shall close their eyes, and they become born to the Great Life, then indeed will they regret the sorrows and troubles they have so needlessly caused” (p. 204). Rampa, his wife, and their two cats flew to New York and then to Windsor, Canada, but the climate did not suit him, and he decided to move as soon as he finished The Rampa Story, which ends with the prediction of a Chinese nuclear attack launched from Lhasa.

  I HAVE RECOUNTED Rampa’s story as, perhaps, he would have wanted it to be told, in a seamless chronology. But that is not of course how it was written or how it was read. Especially in the last two books, the narrative does not proceed smoothly but is interrupted with discussions and instructions on various occult arts, most often on astral travel but also on crystal-ball gazing. There are instructions on breath control and accounts of the earth’s prehistory, the golden age when extraterrestrial giants visited the earth in flying saucers. There are instructions on ancient Egyptian death practices and discourses on “Kharma” characterized as an evolutionary system in which existence is a school in which we must learn before passing on to the next level; people are impoverished or lose their limbs in order to learn a lesson. He explains that the religion of Tibet is a form of Buddhism, but that “there is no word which can be transliterated.” The closest name for the religion of Tibet is, he says, Lamaism, which is different from Buddhism: “ours is a religion of hope and a belief in the future. Buddhism, to us, seems negative, a religion of despair” (p. 115). The prayer of Lamaism is “Om mani pad-me Hum!” which literally means “Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus!” although initiates know that its true meaning is “Hail to Man’s Overself!” (p. 116). Rampa would go on to write more than a dozen other books on these and related topics.

  I have omitted to this point any mention of the prefaces to the first and second editions of The Third Eye, any mention of the persistent claims that everything in the books is true and derives from his personal experience. I have also not made mention of the reception of the book, the criticisms to which Rampa responded with such vehemence.

  In 1955 E. P. Dutton in New York sent the manuscript of The Third Eye to Hugh Richardson. Born in 1905, Richardson had served as officer-in-charge of the British mission in Lhasa for nine years, beginning in 1936.8 He returned the manuscript with many corrections (Rampa’s father could not have been a “monk minister” because monks are celibate; Tibetan officials wear one earring, not two) and offered his opinion that the book was “a fake built from published works and embellished by a fertile imagination.”9 Dutton rejected the manuscript on Richardson’s recommendation. The manuscript was then sent to Secker & Warburg in London. Fredric Warburg met with the author, who read his palm and correctly told him his age and that he had recently been involved in a criminal case. He also informed Warburg that his firm was the karmically appropriate publisher for his book. Secker & Warburg obtained a copy of Richardson’s review. Some of the mistakes were corrected and the manuscript was sent to almost twenty experts on Tibet, including the Tibetologist David Snellgrove and the mountaineers Heinrich Harrer and Marco Pallis. When confronted with their objections, the author was offered the option of publishing the book as a work of fiction, but he insisted that it was entirely factual. Secker & Warburg published the book in 1956, with the following preface:

  The autobiographical account of the experiences of a Tibetan lama is such an exceptional document that it is difficult to establish its authenticity. We tried to obtain confirmation of the author’s claims by submitting his manuscript to twenty readers chosen for their intelligence and experience, among whom were some who possess in-depth knowledge of the subject. Their opinions were so contradictory that we could not obtain a positive result. It was not always the same passages whose accuracy was disputed, and what appeared doubtful to one expert was accepted without reservation by another. But then we asked ourselves, was there any expert in the world who had undergone the full training of a Tibetan lama? Was there anyone who had been brought up in a Tibetan family?

  From the documents furnished by Lobsang Rampa it can be ascertained that he holds a diploma from the Medical University of Chungking [the diploma was in English rather than Chinese, badly typed and festooned with what appeared to be bottle caps] and that he holds the title of Lama of the Monastery of the Potala in Lhasa. In the course of numerous conversations we were able to determine the exceptional character of his faculties and his knowledge. On many points of his personal life he displayed a discretion that was sometimes disconcerting. But each person has the right to a private life and Lobsang Rampa assures us that because Tibet is occupied by the Communists, he is obliged to maintain a certain discretion in order not to compromise the security of his family. That is why some details, such as the real position occupied by his father in the Tibetan hierarchy, for example, are reported in a deliberately inexact way.

  All of this explains why the Author must bear—and willingly takes—sole responsibility for the statements made in his book. We might sometimes think that he stretches the limits of Occidental credulity, although our understanding in this field cannot be held to be definitive. The publishers are nonetheless persuaded that The Third Eye essentially constitutes an authentic document on the education and formation of a young Tibetan in the bosom of his family and in a lamasery. It is for that, and for that alone, that we are publishing this book. We think that those who believe differently will at least agree that one can recognize in the Author a rare talent for storytelling and a capacity of felicitously evoking scenes and characters as exceptional as they are captivating.10

  It was an immediate bestseller and was translated into German and French. The book sold some three hundred thousand copies during the first eighteen months and went through nine hardback printings in the United Kingdom in two years. The small community of European experts on Tibet, most of whom had reviewed the manuscript, was outraged. Snellgrove’s review began, “This is a shameless book.”11 Pallis declared the book to be a wild fabrication and a libel on both Tibet and its religion. Harrer denounced the book in a scathing review, occasioning the threat of a libel suit from the German publisher. Richardson, Britain’s leading expert on Tibet, offered to review the book for the Times Literary Supplement. But the Times had already found a reviewer, who concluded, “There is no doubt that this book was worth publishing, since, though it would be a matter of e
xtraordinary difficulty to say whether it is a work of truth, it comes near to being a work of art. . . . [E]ven those who exclaim ‘magic, moonshine, or worse’ are likely to be moved by the nobility of the ethical system which produces such beliefs and such men as the author.”12 Richardson published his own brief review on the same day (November 30, 1956) in the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post in London. I cite it here in full:

  Imaginary Tibet

  BY HUGH RICHARDSON

  A book which plays up to public eagerness to hear about “Mysterious Tibet” has the advantage that few people have the experience to refute it. But anyone who has lived in Tibet will feel after reading a few pages of “The Third Eye” (Secker & Warburg. 18s) that its author, “T. Lobsang Rampa,” is certainly not a Tibetan.

  Local colour has apparently been borrowed from standard works, but is applied as inappropriately as the decoration of a magpie’s nest. There are innumerable wild inaccuracies about Tibetan life and manners which give the impression of Western suburbia playing charades.

  The samples of the Tibetan language betray ignorance of both colloquial and literary forms; there is a series of wholly un-Tibetan obsessions with cruelty, fuss and bustle and, strangely, with cats. Moreover, the turn of phrase in the slick colloquial English is quite unconvincing when attributed to a Tibetan writer.

  Given that this is the work of a non-Asian mind—and if I am mistaken, I should be happy to make amends to the author in person and in Tibetan—one can regard only as indifferent juvenile fiction the catchpenny accoutrements of magic and mystery: the surgical opening of “the third eye”; the man-lifting kites; the Abominable Snowman; the Shangri-la valley and eerie goings-on in caverns below the Potala.13

  But most reviews were positive, with Kirkus finding that “the prevailing effect is credible and unassuming,”14 and Library Journal observing that “Very few books have been written by ‘insiders,’ born and educated there, hence every such publication is of great interest. Recommended for specialized libraries, though the taste of the public for books of this nature seems to be increasing.”15

  In January 1957, the author was interviewed by Scotland Yard, which asked to see a Tibetan passport or residence permit, which he was unable to produce. Shortly thereafter he moved to Ireland. On January 7, 1958, Marco 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. Lobsang Rampa. By the end of the month and three thousand miles of travel, Burgess had produced the following report:

  CYRIL HENRY HOSKIN—BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

  Born 8th April, 1910, at Plympton, St. Maurice, Devonshire, England.

  Father—Joseph Henry Hoskin, Master Plumber (born 1878 in Plymouth).

  Mother—Eva Hoskin (name before marriage—Martin).

  Sister—Dorothy Winifred Hoskin, born 21st March, 1905, Plympton, St. Maurice, Devonshire.

  This sister is now married to the Rev. Illingsworth-Butler, rector of Linby, Nottinghamshire.

  Hoskin’s father kept a plumber’s shop in the Ridgeway, Plympton, Devon.

  He attended Plympton village school. Left at the age of 15.

  He was always a delicate child. He never did any work after leaving school, except to potter around his father’s shop, supposed to be helping his father. He was a very odd child. People considered him a complete crank. He was always experimenting with electrical things and insects. As a child he never played with other children. He was considered by people who knew him to be a spoilt child. As a teenager he helped in his father’s shop occasionally, but would lay in bed for days at a time and was considered lazy.

  The mother sold the property in Plympton and took Cyril to live at the married daughter’s house.

  In 1940 the mother and Cyril left Annesley and went to live at 13, Warwick Avenue, London, W. 2. Hoskin was then employed by a Surgical Goods Manufacturing Company and described as a Works Manager.

  Later in 1940, he obtained a job as a Correspondence Clerk for a London firm offering education by correspondence courses. As a result of bombing, this firm moved to Weybridge, Surrey, and Hoskin went there, living in a flat provided by the Company.

  On 13th August, 1940, he married Sarah Anne Pattinson, a nurse at a Richmond hospital. She is a native of Cumberland.

  During his time with the Correspondence firm at Weybridge, he became more and more peculiar in his manner, and among many strange things he did was:—(1) he used to take his cat out for walks on a lead (2) during this period he began to call himself KUAN-SUO and he had all the hair shaved off his head.

  He left his firm in September, 1948. After which he lived in rooms near Weybridge for some months and then went to South London where he was subsequently seen carrying on business of sorts as a photographer. His activities between 1950 and 1954 are somewhat vague, but he was seen by one person who knew him and said that he was “A Criminal and Accident Photographer.”

  He next appears living in Bayswater in 1954 calling himself Dr. Kuan-Suo and is about to write “The Third Eye.”

  Until he went to live in Dublin there is no evidence of his ever having left the British Isles.16

  The report presents the picture of a man who grew up in a rural village, the son of a master plumber and thus a member of the working gentry and financially comfortable, sufficiently so that his son was able to attend school until the age of fifteen. The son seems to have been something of a disappointment, especially compared with his sister, who married above her station. He did not join the family business, but held a variety of jobs, including that of making “surgical fittings” (corsets, trusses, and other unmentionables). He seems also not to have served in the war.

  The detective reported elsewhere that after he changed his name, the former Hoskin wrote a rhyme to the managing director of the career-counseling firm where he worked: “You may wonder why I go on so / But will you please remember I am Kuan Suo.” He was fired shortly thereafter and some time later approached a literary agent with two manuscripts, one on corsets and one on Tibet.17

  On February 1, 1958, the Scottish Daily Mail ran the story “Third Eye Lama Exposed as Fake,” and for the next week it was the main story in the British press; the February 3 Daily Express ran the headline “The FULL truth about the Bogus Lama.” The same edition carried an article by Fredric J. Warburg of Secker & Warburg, who claimed to have had doubts all along; he recounts that to test Rampa he had a Tibetologist phoneticize the phrase “Did you have a nice journey, Mr. Rampa?” which he read to Rampa. When Rampa did not reply, Warburg informed him that it was Tibetan. Rampa then fell on the floor in apparent agony, rising to explain that when he was tortured by the Japanese, who sought secret information about Tibet, he had hypnotically blocked his knowledge of Tibetan (as well as Chinese and Japanese) and had never recovered his native tongue. Even hearing Tibetan caused him torment, and he warned Warburg that it would be unwise to press him further on the matter.18 In Germany, the February 6 issue of Die Zeit ran the story “Der Pseudotibetaner.” On February 17, 1958, Time magazine ran the article “Private v. Third Eye.” In response to reporters’ questions, the lama’s wife explained that her husband had written the book for the real Dr. Ku’an, a Tibetan whose family was in hiding from the Chinese Communists. For his safety, Dr. Kuan’s whereabouts could not be revealed. Hoskin, who could not meet with reporters because of his health, sent a message: “This story is true, but for very special reasons the identity of the Tibetan author cannot be revealed.”19 Shortly thereafter, however, he made a tape recording for a British television program in which he said, “Some time ago, I had the strangest premonition, the strangest urges, and even against my will I was compelled to change my name. . . . I had a slight concussion. And my body was actually taken over by the spirit of an Easterner.”20

  When The Third Eye was reprinted it contained “A Statement by the Author,” which begins, “In the East it is commonly acknowledged t
hat the stronger mind can take possession of another body” (p. 7). It goes on to recount that in late 1947 Cyril Hoskin felt a strange and irresistible compulsion to adopt Eastern ways of living. Some months later he legally changed his name to Carl Kuon Suo (later to Carl Ku’an, to make it easier to pronounce in England). He quit his job and left for a “fairly remote district,” where he was beset by hallucinations. His memories of his own life began to fade as impressions of “an Eastern entity” increased. On June 13, 1949, he sustained a concussion in an accident in his garden, after which he had no memory of his earlier life but “the full memory of a Tibetan from babyhood onwards.” His wife told him enough about his previous identity that he could still pretend to be an Englishman. Furthermore, he declares, “with my Eastern memory I knew where I had papers, and I sent for them to prove my identity. Now I have sent away those papers again because I am not prepared to have them sullied by such doubts as have been caused in this case” (p. 8). He says that the book was written hurriedly and that nothing was copied from another book. Further, “No two ‘experts’ have been able to agree on any particular fault. The ‘experts,’ in fact, have managed to contradict each other thoroughly, and that should prove the authenticity of the book because none of them has lived in Tibet as a lama—has entered a lamasery at the age of seven as I have done” (p. 8). Toward the end he notes that there is a great deal of Theosophical literature about possession and that his publishers have a letter from an Indian swami stating that possession is quite common in the East. In closing he writes, “I state most definitely that my books, The Third Eye and Medical Lama [apparently the working title of Doctor from Lhasa] are true.” Signed “T. Lobsang Rampa (C. Ku’an).”