Message #17487

[Bianca]

IMPACT OF THE THIRD EYE



In 1955, Sheelagh Rouse's husband John Rouse wrote a letter of introduction on behalf of Dr Carl Kuan to Charles Gibbs-Smith of the Victoria and Albert Museum, in the hope that he could recommend him for employment. Impressed by the doctor's personality, Gibbs-Smith sent him to Cyrus Brooks, a literary agent of A. M. Heath Publishers. Dr Kuan, possessing a "certificate of considerable elaboration stating that he held degrees in both medicine and surgery from the University of Chungking" (Warburg, p. 221), wanted to find work writing advertising material for medical supplies. Brooks, however, was far more interested in Dr Kuan's recollections as a lama and persuaded him to write his autobiography. On the edge of destitution, Kuan reluctantly sat down and started typing The Third Eye under the pen name of T. Lobsang Rampa.

Brooks approached Frederic Warburg of the respected publishers Secker and Warburg, asking if he would be interested in an autobiography of a Tibetan lama. Warburg expressed interest, and the following day received 100 pages of flimsy yellow typescript. "My excitement was intense; I read it greedily," he recalled. "It had everything it takes to become the world best-seller it is today… But other doubts were there…" (Daily Express, 3 February 1958) Years later in his memoirs, Warburg recalled: "From the beginning there emanated from Dr Kuan's masterpiece a magical aroma of enchantment. The book was literally bewitching. It cast a spell over me. In the months and years to come, it was to cast this spell with an equal potency over millions of readers." (Warburg, p. 222)

Before meeting the mysterious Dr Kuan, Warburg received the rather discouraging news that the manuscript had been rejected by other firms such as Gollancz, Robert Hale and William Collins. Mark Bonham-Carter of Collins showed an "unimaginative scepticism for the author's credentials". (Warburg, p. 223) However, the American publishing house E. P. Dutton accepted the manuscript and signed an agreement for it with a big advance.

Secker and Warburg also signed a contract with Dr Kuan and paid an advance of 800 pounds, divided into increments. Warburg then arranged to meet the enigmatic doctor. His staff were in a flurry of excitement as they tried to spruce themselves up for the occasion! Warburg was impressed with the author. "I took a real fancy to him. Short, slim, dark hair cut into a tonsure, penetrating eyes, aquiline nose, simply dressed in a lounge suit, he was a most unusual figure…" Years later, his description included "...a long nose and full mouth, a swarthy face with prominent ears. Nothing remarkable, nothing which I could wholly associate with what I knew of Tibetan physiognomy. But the eyes were strange, large, luminous, penetrating, under heavy lids and heavy bushy eyebrows. Between the eyes, slightly to the left of centre, a small purplish-red mark could be seen, almost the size of a collar button, the scar no doubt of that remarkable incision." (Warburg, p. 225)

Eventually The Third Eye was finished and Eliott Macrae of E. P. Dutton sent the manuscript to 20 critics, some with reputations as "Far Eastern experts". Their reviews were puzzling and contradictory: what one claimed was impossible was accepted by another. Agehananda Bharati, a German anthropologist (a.k.a. Leopold Fischer) who had converted to Hinduism, wrote scathingly: "I was suspicious before I opened the wrapper; The Third Eye smacked of Blavatskyan hogwash." ("The Persistence of Rampaism", Tibet Society Bulletin, vol. 7, 1974)

Warburg sent the galleys to Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian Tibetologist, to read and informed him that the author was probably a fraud. Harrer had lived in Tibet during and after World War II and had been the current Dalai Lama's personal tutor in Lhasa. His book Seven Years in Tibet had been published in 1953 and was a bestseller. In 1997 it was turned into a movie, with Brad Pitt playing the Austrian mountaineer who had been captured by the British in India before escaping to Tibet with fellow mountaineer Peter Aufschnaiter.

Macrae also sent the manuscript to Hugh Richardson, who had served in the British mission in Lhasa during the 1930s and 1940s. Richardson was fluent in both written and oral Tibetan and had lectured at many academic institutions. He reviewed the manuscript and returned it with some minor corrections which were eventually incorporated into the final version. These concerned the number of earrings worn by Tibetan nobles and the improbability of Rampa's father being an ecclesiastic. He offered the opinion that the book was "a fake built from published works and embellished by a fertile imagination". (Lopez, p. 96)

Other contacts in America were ambivalent in their criticism. While they recognised many inaccuracies in the manuscript, one believed that the author may have come from one of the outlying provinces of Tibet. Another, orientalist John Morris, wrote: "This is a curious mixture of fact and fancy. The descriptions of Lhasa and of Tibetan family life are completely authentic…there is not the slightest doubt that he was brought up in Tibet from an early age… I think there is, however, an element of truth about the author's life in a lamasery, but I feel he has embroidered it…" However, his review took a curious and disturbing turn when he reported: "My own opinion is that the author is some sort of psychopath living in a private neurotic world of his own. It is even likely that he has persuaded himself that all this occult nonsense is true…" (Warburg, p. 235)

British oriental scholars David Snellgrove and Marco Pallis, a practising Buddhist, were also critical. Snellgrove's language was highly emotive. "This fellow is a complete imposter, and has probably never ever been to Tibet… He should be properly unmasked, as such men may be dangerous." (Warburg, p. 234) The word "dangerous" was echoed by critic Chen Chi Chang, who had lectured in Tibetan Tantra at Nanking University. It is a surprising and disquieting adjective, hinting that perhaps Rampa had divulged secret knowledge taught only to initiates and adepts. How else could The Third Eye be considered as dangerous?

Warburg's doubts became overwhelming and he sent for Dr Kuan, accusing him of being a fake. The doctor adamantly denied being a fraud, even when Warburg offered to publish the book as fiction. "Playing the role of cross-examining counsel with a difficult witness, I gave the reasons why I did not believe he could speak or write Tibetan. The reasons were irrefutable. Dr Kuan admitted this. 'When I was captured by the Japanese,' he said, 'they tortured me for secret information about my country. I put a hypnotic block on my knowledge of Tibetan and have never fully recovered my native tongue.'"

Warburg was in a quandary. The criticisms were so contradictory. A few weeks later he cancelled the contract and demanded the advance from Dr Kuan, receiving a sad response: "I am leaving England today—a very sick man indeed. What any of you think of the book does not matter to me now. I wrote the TRUTH." (Warburg, p. 235) On the other hand, The Third Eye was so plausible and "so full of information which many experts confirmed". And there was the company's reputation at stake. He reconsidered his decision and decided to publish and be damned, covering himself with a publisher's foreword.

The Third Eye was published in November 1956, and, after a slow start, sales snowballed. Edition followed edition rapidly. It was quickly translated into German, French and Norwegian. In the first year it sold over 60,000 copies, netting the author over £20,000 in royalties.

Dr Kuan/Rampa, however, suffered his first attack of coronary thrombosis at that time and was strongly advised to leave London for a better climate. With his wife Sarah and Sheelagh Rouse, he moved to Ireland because of its lower taxation. After living in the grounds of Trinity College, the family settled into a rented house overlooking the sea in Howth, near Dublin. The author found peace and happiness amongst the Irish who were both friendly and protective. However, the author's ill health and a constant stream of sightseers to their rented property caused considerable problems and anxiety to the family.

The critics, with the exception of the "Far Eastern experts" who had originally reviewed the manuscript, were generally positive. The old guard of Tibetan and Asian scholars, composed of Richardson, Harrer, Snellgrove and Pallis, were icy in their reviews.

Richardson's review, "Imaginary Tibet", published in the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post on 30 November 1956, began as follows:

"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 that its author T. Lobsang Rampa is certainly not a Tibetan... There are innumerable inaccuracies about Tibetan life and manners which give the impression of Western suburbia playing charades.

"The samples of 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..."

David Snellgrove, of London University, wrote his review for the magazine Oriental Art (Summer 1957). He began with "[t]his is a shameless book" and then launched into all the inaccuracies portrayed in The Third Eye. He criticised Rampa's descriptions of Buddhism, the scriptures, mathematics and Tibetan language.

"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 a threat of a libel suit from the German publisher." (Lopez, p. 97)
Behind the scenes, however, Pallis, Harrer and Richardson were working diligently to dethrone Rampa from the best-seller list.

Meanwhile, journalist John Pitt of the Psychic Times tracked down neighbours of the Kuans who could still recall Cyril Hoskin over 10 years after he had moved from the district. Mrs Ablett from Weybridge remembered him as "...full of strange stories about China where he had been taken as a child. He had been very interested in occult matters, would cast horoscopes for all and sundry and was generally a good conversationalist, if a bit inclined to tell contradictory stories about his past." Mr Boxall recalled, "He told me in 1943 or '44 that he had been a flying instructor in the Chinese air force and badly smashed up in a plane crash when the parachute failed to open." Mr Sutton of East Moseley met Hoskin in 1948 after he had changed his name, and recalled that he was describing himself as Dr Kuan and saying he was born in Tibet, which surprised Mr Sutton. (Evans)

When The Third Eye was reprinted it contained a "statement by the author" which began thus: "In the east it is commonly acknowledged that the stronger mind can take possession of another body." He ended with: "I state most definitely that my books The Third Eye and Medical Lama are true. (Signed) T. Lobsang Rampa" (Lopez, pp. 100-101)
This account was followed by one from his wife Sarah, who wrote of how her husband had completely changed after suffering a concussion, and how he had in fact assumed the identity of a Tibetan lama. "When I discussed an event in the past he would have no recollection of it. Instead he spoke of life in a lamasery, or his experiences in the war, prison camp life or Japanese tortures. Since 1949 his whole makeup and manner have been those of an easterner, and his general appearance and colouring have also shown marked change."

The second edition of The Third Eye in 1964 contained a foreword ending with this statement: "My specific reason for insisting that all this is true is that in the near future other people like me will appear, and I do not desire that they should have the suffering that I have had through spite and hatred."

Kenneth Rayner Johnson, in his essay "The Strange Case of Lobsang Rampa" in Rapid Eye 2, said he believed that Rampa obtained the bulk of his material from Harrer's Seven Years in Tibet which had furnished lots of detail about Lhasa, its people, terrain and culture. He felt Rampa had stolen his Tibetan-sounding names from the Dalai Lama, whose birth name was Lhamo Dondup and whose brother was Lobsang Samten. However, this did not account for the other names Rampa used nor the fact that Lobsang and Dondup were common Tibetan names.

In 1997, Heinrich Harrer himself became the victim of the press when Die Stern exposed him as a former member of the Nazi Party and SS. When his inglorious past was revealed during the shooting of the movie Seven Years in Tibet, the author at first indignantly denied it, admitting to it only after documentary evidence was produced. Both he and the Dalai Lama were forced to make emergency revisions to the script, while the Tibetan leader tried to deflect public attention from Harrer. In 1998, Harrer publicly expressed regret for his Nazi affiliations, leaving the public to wonder how much influence he might have had upon the impressionable teenage Dalai Lama when he was his tutor in the 1940s.

In 1999, both Heinrich Harrer and Hugh Richardson responded to my enquiries about Rampa, his sources and their "exposé" of him. Both were still very opposed to Rampa and his books and believed that he had copied other authors and invented much of his material. However, Richardson did concede that Rampa had correctly reproduced the Prophecy in The Third Eye from the Waddell original (Lhasa and Its Mysteries), while Harrer wrote that "[a]ll he copied was correct, but not his visions".

Criticisms by Richardson, Harrer, Pallis and Snellgrove ensured that The Third Eye and subsequent Rampa books would never be endorsed as authentic autobiographical documents by the Tibetan and Buddhist establishments. But is it so simple to dismiss the highly detailed accounts of life in Tibet and China? Even Rampa's most strident critics grudgingly acknowledged that much of his information was correct, although they justified this by accusing him of plagiarism.