A lot of comic book superheroes have had outlandish powers. But few have had powers that a significant number of people believe actually exist.
And Dr. Stephen Strange is one of those few. On the second page of his first appearance, he took to the skies via astral projection.
“When Doctor Strange debuted in July 1963’s Strange Tales 110, readers met a superhero magician who wasn’t all that unfamiliar to them,” wrote comics historian Brad Ricca. “Cast firmly in the mold of Mandrake, Chandu and Dr. Fate, the new character by Lee and Ditko (Google that debate on your own) didn’t get a back story until issue 115.”
The ancient notion of astral travel can be found in multiple cultures. The 19th century Theosophists, an occult group founded in the U.S. by Russian immigrant Helena Blavatsky, coined the specific term “astral projection.”
“Though Eastern philosophy was popular in the late fifties and early sixties, the first major international bestselling book on the subject was The Third Eye by Lobsang Rampa, first published in 1956,” Ricca wrote. “In the book, Rampa claimed that he lived on the Lhasa plains in Tibet before entering a life of mysticism.”
Like Dr. Strange, Rampa claimed to be a surgeon drawn to mysticism. Like Dr. Strange, Rampa claimed to be able to open a Third Eye, and to travel on astral planes.
Invisible and intangible, Dr. Strange flits across the globe and through alien dimension-scapes of detached hanging pathways and looming, noxious presences.
This power led to those eerie, moody scenes in which Dr. Strange’s astral form is engaged in chases and pitched battles with phantom enemies, flying next to and through oblivious ordinary citizens who are going about their mundane lives.
Things weren’t so romantic for Rampa, though. Newspapers revealed that Rampa was in fact Cyril Henry Hoskin, a former Devon plumber who, when pressed, claimed that his body hosted the spirit of a Tibetan lama called Tuesday Lobsang Rampa.
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