Theos-Talk Archives (February 2002 Message tt00153)

Amazing that the Lobsang Rampa hoax has been so well
documented, and yet people are still taken in by it.

Some even feel disgusted that anyone would disbelieve
it and call it a hoax.

--- bri_mue <bri_mue@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Steve: "That character is a fiction
> concocted by an English writer named Cyril Hoskins
> who
> has allegedly never been to Tibet and knows nothing
> about the place.
> Besides, haven't you read the "dead woman" theory of
> Dallas TenBroek?"
> 
> Brigitte: Ah, you blew "Tuesday Lobsang Rampa's"
> cover, he almost had 
> a few more Theosophical converts. Notice Theosophist
> always say about 
> people that work hard to try and look if possible
> objectivly at 
> things, "they are just voicing their opinion". 
> 
> In 1955 E. P. Dutton in New York sent the manuscript
> of The Third Eye 
> to Hugh Richardson. Born in 19o5, Richardson had
> served as officer in 
> charge of the British mission in Lhasa for nine
> years, beginning in 
> 1936.11 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." 
> 
> 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."
> 
> 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."" 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 
> extraordinary difficulty to say whether it is a work
> of truth. 
> 
> 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:
> 
> 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. 
=== message truncated ===


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send FREE Valentine eCards with Yahoo! Greetings!
http://greetings.yahoo.com