The foreign writer called T. Lobsang Rampa used to be quite popular in Nigeria especially in the 1970s and 80s. T. (for Tuesday) Lobsang Rampa wrote mystical books that claimed to imbue people with occult powers such as helping mere mortals to undertake what he called “Astral Travel”.
The spiritual concoctions of Lobsang Rampa were quite captivating and his books have sold in vast quantities across the world, Nigeria being in the top league of acquiring these books. Even as at today, not many Nigerians have bothered to know the true story of Lobsang Rampa and his antics.
The fact on ground is that Lobsang Rampa was from the very beginning a fraudulent fellow who claimed to be what he was not. It all started in the 1950s when the then unknown Lobsang Rampa wrote to the publishers, Secker and Warburg, about a book he wanted to be published. He claimed that his real name was Dr Kuan-suo, and that he had authored his autobiography that told the “true” story of his life as a lama in Tibet from the age of seven.
According to the self-styled Lobsang Rampa, his search for higher knowledge in Tibet led to his being operated on to open a “Third Eye” in his forehead. This unprecedented operation was done, as he asserted, by boring a hole through his forehead! The book, The Third Eye by T. Lobsang Rampa, was eventually published in 1956 to considerable acclaim. Lobsang Rampa’s book quickly sold about 50,000 copies, and was translated into a handful of languages.
Then there started ringing alarm bells about the dubiousness of the book called The Third Eye and its author. The Daily Mail of London scooped that the so-called Lobsang Rampa was not a Tibetan after all. The author was, in fact, an Englishman named Cyril Henry Hoskins, the son of a plumber from Devon. It was discovered that he had never ever visited Tibet, let alone being a lama or whatever he claimed to be. The dubious bloke was in real life a surgical goods maker and an ungainly part-time photographer.
After he was exposed for the fraud he was, Lobsang Rampa was traced to a hotel in Dublin where he was hiding. It was after he was found out that Lobsang Rampa made some very interesting explanations to the newspaper reporters. The exposed man readily agreed that he was truly an Englishman but added the dimension that his body was inhabited by a Tibetan lama!
Lobsang Rampa, also known as Dr Kuan-suo and Cyril Henry Hoskins, further explained that the lama took possession of his body on one inauspicious day in which he fell down from a tree while attempting to take photographs of an owl! According to him, it was while he lay on the ground that a lama in blue and saffron robes floated in the air toward him and then suddenly took possession of his body! This cock-and-bull story is deserving of the ultimate prize in advance fee 419 writing that hardly any Nigerian can manufacture.
Lobsang Rampa, even as he was exposed as a hoax, went on to publish other books, claiming that one of his books, Living with the Lama, published in 1964, was dictated to him by his cat!
It’s interesting that the hoax of Lobsang Rampa was never really exposed to Nigerians, and many kept on buying his books and trying to outdo themselves in undertaking the recommended “Astral Travel”. Well, it’s never too late to learn, as they say.
The writer called Lobsang Rampa was a crook!
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a renowned poet, journalist and author.
Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.
