Feature: The Man Who Claimed To Teach Astral Travelling

Published on: 22 Feb, 2026
Updated on: 22 Feb, 2026

T Lobsang Rampa – a colourful character who claimed he had a spiritual destiny. Source: Corgi Books and eBay UK.

An esoteric manual purchased in a Guildford bookshop in 1970; a Tibetan monk with a mission to save the world; and a West Country plumber…the unlikely ingredients of a strange-but-true story from 56 years ago recounted by Dragon reporter David Reading

Picture this: I am lying on my back in my bed, breathing deeply with my eyes closed, concentrating on a point six feet above me. I am using the full force of my willpower in the hope of achieving the result outlined in the pages of the book I’ve just been reading. What I am doing is willing myself to think that I am not here on the bed at all, but six feet above it. The book tells me that if I am successful my sense of location will suddenly change.

What I am learning to do is travel in my astral body.

According to the book, every time we fall asleep each night, our astral bodies – “our spirit bodies” – separate from our physical bodies, drift upwards above the bed and are free to travel anywhere they want to go: anywhere in the world or beyond. It’s something hospital patients have occasionally reported – watching from above as their prone bodies lie on the operating table below.

Thomas Thorp bookseller’s shop in the upper High Street. Picture: David Rose collection.

To go back to the beginning: it was in 1970, while I was looking around Thomas Thorp’s second-hand bookshop in Guildford High Street one Saturday morning (a shop long since closed) that the words You Forever caught my eye. This was the title of a paperback on a shelf labelled Esoteric Literature. The author was T. Lobsang Rampa – a name that sounded eastern and mystical, which appealed to me at that time. I bought the book for two shillings and sixpence and read the entire 300 pages over the weekend. It was an instruction manual for the development of psychic powers.

Rampa’s teachings were spectacularly far-fetched and yet they were magnetic to many young people whose teen years had been adorned by a backdrop of Sgt Pepper, psychedelia and esoteric ideas; and who were looking for a significance to life beyond the material world.

The background story Rampa presented to the world was of a child born to fulfil a spiritual destiny. His full name was said to be Tuesday Lobsang Rampa – the name Tuesday relating to his claim that Tibetans are named after the day of the week on which they were born.

The son of wealthy Tibetan parents, he was said to have left home at the age of seven to join a monastery in Lhasa. He was welcomed by the monks and under their instruction he learned a range of esoteric arts.

The pivotal moment in his life came, he said, when he underwent an operation to open up the “third eye” – the centre of spiritual power that supposedly resides in each one of us. Describing the operation in detail, Rampa maintained that it was performed while he was fully conscious by a Tibetan priest using a sterilized steel instrument.

According to Rampa, it was this medical procedure that opened up his powers of clairvoyance. Between 1956 and 1980, the year before he died, Rampa wrote 22 books based on the knowledge he claimed to have gained from that operation.

He said his objective was simple: he wanted to further people’s spiritual development, show where humankind was going wrong and enhance their psychic abilities. “You Forever” was marketed as an instruction manual for the development of mysterious abilities such as clairvoyance, the capacity to see auras and astral travel.

Many people in my circle were fascinated. The word gullible comes to mind. Later on we learned the true story about this preposterous character and his connection with West Country plumbing. But we’ll get to that.

For many thousands of fans (and yes, he was a global best-seller), Rampa’s message gave life purpose and direction. If our spiritual selves are incarnated on Earth to learn lessons, then all of our experiences – the painful ones as well as the happy ones – make some kind of sense.

If our actions in this life determine the nature of our existence after death, in a reincarnated state, then there is justice in the Universe. By following a spiritual path, we can learn the lessons that will lead to a higher plane of existence. That was the gist of Rampa’s message.

Equally enthralling was the idea inherent in the title of Rampa’s book – that we live forever. Surely that’s what many people want. Even those with miserable lives seem to dread the idea of dying. Eternal life is quite an attraction for some people and any religion wanting to sign up recruits should remember that.

Writing about astral travel, Rampa claimed each one of us does this when we fall asleep at night. Our memories of these experiences are muddled and incoherent. We call them dreams.

On the subject of telepathy, Rampa claimed he had meaningful conversations with his Siamese cats.

It may have been at that point that I began to have doubts. It seemed that Rampa had crossed a line of credibility. And a bit of digging revealed a different story to the one he had told his readers.

Heinrich Harrer: he uncovered the truth about Rampa

This alternative story had begun with an explorer and Tibet expert named Heinrich Harrer. Unconvinced of the origins of Rampa’s books, Harrer had hired a private detective to look into his background.

Harrer revealed that Rampa had never been to Tibet, nor had he ever had any operation done to his forehead. T. Lobsang Rampa was actually Cyril Henry Hoskin, born in Devon and the son of a plumber.

He had worked first as an assistant to his father, then as an employee of a surgical implements firm, and later as a clerk in a correspondence school. The man who wrote “You Forever”, it was claimed, was a fraud.

Perhaps the word fraud is a little harsh. There is no doubt that Hoskin’s enthusiasm for spiritual and psychic development was genuine and it is likely his desire to help the world was sincere. Perhaps he felt his message would sound more convincing coming from someone with Tibetan credentials rather than a plumber’s son named Cyril.

Under questioning, Hoskin came clean and admitted his true identity. By way of an explanation, he said the soul of T Lobsang Rampa had transmigrated into his body – therefore all the information in his books was true.

A market continued for Rampa’s books and he carried on writing until his death in 1981. I have to confess that despite my temporary interest in his work, I never did learn to travel at will on the astral plane. Nor have I ever seen another person’s aura. And communication with my cat goes no further than banging her dish with a fork and crying out: “Dinner time, Ruby.”