Although it is claimed by the author to be an authentic autobiography of Rampa's education as a monk born in Tibet, the book's emphasis on the occult made scholars doubtful about its origins. The book includes a description of a surgical operation similar to trepanation in which a third eye is drilled into the forehead of Rampa, allegedly in order to enhance his psychic powers. After the book became a bestseller, selling 500,000 copies in its first two years, Heinrich Harrer, explorer and Tibetologist, hired the private detective Clifford Burgess to investigate the background of the author.Tibballs, Geoff. (2006). The World's Greatest Hoaxes. Barnes & Noble. pp. 27-29. "A number of Tibetan scholars, including explorer Heinrich Harrer who had personally tutored the Dalai Lama, remained convinced that the book was pure fiction, containing, as it did, certain statements inconsistent with Buddhist beliefs. So they hired private detective Clifford Burgess to delve into the background of Tuesday Lobsang Rampa. What Burgess came up with was Cyril Hoskins, a man who had never been anywhere near Tibet, had no real knowledge of the country's language or indeed of Buddhism and had certainly never had a hole drilled in his forehead. Any expertise had been gleaned from reading books in London libraries." In February 1958 the results of the investigation were published in the Daily Mail. The author of the book turned out to be a man named Cyril Henry Hoskin, who came from Plympton in Devon and was the son of a plumber. Hoskin had never been to Tibet and spoke no Tibetan. When interviewed by the British press, Hoskin (who had legally changed his name to Carl Kuon So in 1948) admitted that he had written the book. He claimed in his 1960 book The Rampa Story that his body had been taken over by the Tibetan monk's spirit after falling out of an apple tree in the garden of his home. Hoskin always maintained that his books were true stories and denied any suggestions of a hoax.
