Newly Published: T. Lobsang Rampa by R.B. Russell

  

In a post in November 2014, 'The Naming of the Rows', I discussed the various terms used by second-hand booksellers to describe the subjects of books, and how it is often worth looking in unlikely categories for books that do not belong there. One of the most variously named subjects, I suggested,  was one 'which I have seen designated by some at least of the following terms in my forays among second hand bookshops: Paranormal, The Unexplained, New Age, Alternative, Esoteric, Occult and Folklore', to which I could have added 'Mind, Body, Spirit' and several others. For obvious reasons these may sometimes harbour books of fantastic literature, especially literary ghost stories, so should not be overlooked by the assiduous collector in this field. 

Any reader who does consult these shelves, however, is sure to find sooner or later  one or more of the books of T. Lobsang Rampa, which were prevalent in paperback in the psychedelic Sixties and Seventies, but actually began with The Third Eye (1956). This ostensibly revealed the mystic secrets of Tibet, but some of the details would have been somewhat surprising to savants of the subject. Subsequent volumes, such as My Visit to Venus (1957) broadened the author's spiritual pilgrimage into even more unusual regions. It is perhaps for these reasons that Mr Rampa's books are more usually found in the Paranormal and New Age sections than in History, Religion or Topography.

The full remarkable story of T. Lobsang Rampa (earlier known as Cyril Henry  Hoskin) is now told by R.B. Russell in a new definitive biography, T. Lobsang Rampa and Other Characters of Questionable Faith (Tartarus Press). This may seem an unusual endeavour after the author's thorough and critically acute biography of Robert Aickman, but in both cases his subjects were enigmatic individuals with significant aspects of rather Corvine mystery about them. As with Aickman, R.B. Russell aims to sift the claims and counter-claims and arrive at a judicious analysis, and his approach has the thrill of the detective story as well as the intrinsic interest of the remarkable individuals he describes. The book also offers three further essays about modern prophetic figures.

This is a limited edition hardback of 300 signed copies with all the usual Tartarus attention to fine detail and will offer fascinating reading to connoisseurs of the recondite.