Witches Abroad

11

This is yet another incarnation of Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, the Ankhian entrepreneur we learn much more about in Moving Pictures, and who also appears in Small Gods as the Omnian businessman Dhblah.

Also, the name is a direct reference to Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, who was one of our world’s more successful psychic hoaxers: actually named Cyril Hoskin, and son of a Devon plumber, Lobsang Rampa claimed to be a Tibetan monk with paranormal powers. He wrote the best-selling 1956 book The Third Eye which, even though Rampa was exposed as a fraud by Time Magazine in 1958, is still being printed and sold as the real thing 30 years later. Rich, gullible people like actress Shirley MacLaine still pay money to have their ‘third eye’ opened up by contemporary Rampa equivalents.

When questioned about the name, Terry answered: “I know all kindsa Tibetan names… Kelsang, Jambel, Tsong, Tenzin, Tupten (drops Tibetan reference book on foot)… but Lobsang is, thanks to Mr Rampa, probably the best known.”