THE DAY THE LAMA CAME TO TEA SIR,—Mr. John Irwin's
article in your issue of February 28, 'The Day the Lama Came to Tea,' is clearly intended to be entertaining rather than accurate and contains a number of obvious fictional embellishments. None the less, one can demand a minimum of authenticity in a piece which purports to comment on the authenticity of another man's work.
Mr. Irwin describes the author of The Third Eye as 'over six feet high, bald and clean shaven.' Of these three statements one is true : he is bald. The other two are false : he is not more than five feet ten inches in height and is conspicuously bearded.
But when Mr. Irwin proceeds to speculate about the book and its author he is equally wide of the mark. 'Either he did write the book or had control of some other person who can write.' The author of The Third Eye brought the book to me (as his literary agent) chapter by chapter while he was writing it. There is not one scrap of evidence known to me or his publishers to suggest a suspicion that the book was not written entirely by him.
Again, 'I am sure he had no magic powers.' If this phrase is intended to designate telepathy and clairvoyance, which, I believe, most Western psy- chologists accept today as objectively proved phenomena, I must reply that a number of instances are known to me personally in which the author of The Third Eye has given convincing proof of possessing these gifts.
'Is the man . . . a pathetic puppet at the centre of an organised deception?' This, I submit, is no more than an irresponsible flight of fancy, which Mr. Irwin should take the first opportunity to withdraw. But there is an aspect of this matter %fell worth the serious attention of a journal which concerns itself with current literature. How comes it that a man in his late forties, who has never attempted literary composition, can, in a matter of a few weeks, write a book which has been described by a re- sponsible reviewer as making two-thirds of the books on Tibet superfluous, which has brought delight to literally millions of readers throughout the world and which many experts have accepted—and still accept—as an accurate account of a childhood in Tibet?
The author's own explanation is difficult for sceptical Western minds to accept, but the alterna- tives are not much more easily credible.—Yours
35 Dover Street, WI
[John Irwin writes: "Dr." Rampa was taller than I am and I am five feet eleven inches high. He was clean shaven on the day he visited me, although he did give me a photograph of himself in which he was bearded. But these are not the vital statistics in this curious situation. The Third Eye was sold to the public as the work of a Lama of Tibet.
`Can Mr. Brooks supply "one scrap of evidence" to show that his author is Tibetan? If he can, let him please do so. If not, I think he would be wise to avoid words like "authenticity."
`I would like to withdraw just one word from my article. For "my publishers, Seeker and Warburg," please read "the publishers." For this slip I offer apologies to you, to Messrs. Seeker and Warburg, and to my own publisher, Max Parrish.'—Editor, Spectator.]
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