AtN,
About 12-14 years ago I read all 18 of the Rampa books. My friend's mom had collected them all back in the 60's and 70's. She had the four Mama San books too, but I never read them for some reason. I read the books in the order they were published, so I was proabably Rampa-ed out by the time I got to the Mama Sans. I can tell you from experience that if you read the first 6-7, you'll have read all of them. Whoever wrote them is, if nothing else, a great story teller in the first few, but the further you read the more redundant they are. The Third Eye and Doctor From Lhasa (the first two books) were fascinating stories, I just don't know if they belong in the fiction, the metaphysical, or a "fictional metaphysical" section of the book stores.
There are lots of people who think they've debunked Rampa, supposedly exposing him for being the plumber he is. I don't know. I think anyone on this forum would agree that the truth doesn't always belong to skeptics who seek to debunk. I've read a couple articles supposedly written by real Tibetan Buddhist Lamas who lived in Lhasa prior to their exile who said that based on Rampa's descriptions of Lhasa it was obvious to them that he had never been there - that among other things everything was far too embellished. Lot's of literature on Tibetan Buddhism and life in Tibet were available before the Rampa books were written (the first edition of The Third Eye was 1956, I believe), and some of them say some of the exact same things as in the Rampa books. This could mean a few things, but still nothing conclusive. Rampa came along in 1956, about the time useful idiots spreading new-age nonsense began to appear, but some of the older books I referred to that concur with Rampa (one I recall was by David-Neel - titled "Mystery in Tibet" or something like that) were written long before the new-age infestation and seemed to me to be reliable.
After giving it a lot of thought back when I read them I was inclined to think that the author might have been a western student of Tibetan Buddhism who wrote the books as fascinating parables to pique some people's interest in the occult and make some bucks at the same time (not necessarily in that order). That's just a notion I came up with based upon the evidence I saw at the time. I don't think there is any hard evidence available that an old worn out Tibetan Lama really did switch physical bodies with a suicidal middle-aged plumber, so a notion of what may have taken place is the best I can muster up regarding Rampa.
I'd say that if you want to read Rampa to read with discretion and enjoy the stories. There were some things in the books that left me feeling incredulous, but most of the stuff seemed plausible. Lots of the plausible things seemed like they may have been exaggerated due to artistic license to make the books more interesting. Face it, nobody will but the books if they're boring.
K
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