Theos Bernard, the White Lama

Little known among today's Buddhist community, Theos Bernard (1908–47) was one of the most outrageous characters to have graced the early Western pursuit of Tibetan Buddhism. Hackett (editor, American Inst. of Buddhist Studies, Columbia Univ.; A Tibetan Verb Lexicon) examines that extraordinary life in this revision of his 2008 dissertation. Influenced by an eccentric father and uncle who dabbled in the esoteric arts of yoga, Bernard sought both life's meaning and his share of fame and fortune through academic study and his 1936–37 travels to India and Tibet, both endeavors funded by wealthy women. In spite of British opinion that he was a charlatan, Bernard was able to parlay his extended stay in the Tibetan capital into claims that he had been initiated into the secrets of Tantric Buddhism and to the title of "white lama." Bernard produced two books based on his adventures, Heaven Lies Within Us and Penthouse of the Gods, both published in 1939, and completed his Ph.D. at Columbia before disappearing in the Himalayas in 1947.