In writing of his early life and education as a Tibetan lama, Rampa shuttles between the extraordinary and the commonplace....

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THE THIRD EYE

In writing of his early life and education as a Tibetan lama, Rampa shuttles between the extraordinary and the commonplace. The extraordinary refers most of all to ""opening"" the so-called ""third eye"". When Rampa was a boy of eight, a band of specially treated wood was inserted into his forehead and after it was removed, his inborn, occult powers were set free. From the play and coloring of light emanating from people, a phenomenon equivalent to brain waves but as yet hidden from science, Rampa could penetrate their psychic make-up and their thoughts. His own vocation as priest-surgeon, determined by an astrologer, obliged him to train intensively and to master such techniques as the use of judo and anesthesia. The national sport of kite flying was about his only recreation and Rampa succeeded in making limited flights himself in an aerial contraption based upon the kite principle. There are unquestionably episodes which are apt to oxidize the brass-tack imagination of the western mind-but the prevailing effect is credible and unassuming. Rampa's education up to the time he leaves Lhasa and embarks into the world is bizarre but reasonable and filled with the normal promptings of children everywhere.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1957

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