Manly P Hall - '
The Secret Teachings of
All Ages'
Manly Palmer Hall (March 18,
1901 – August 29,
1990) was a
Canadian-born author and mystic
. He is best known for his 1928 work The Secret Teachings of All Ages.
During the early
1930s, using money from the Lloyds,
Hall traveled to
France and
England, where he acquired his most extensive collection of rare books and manuscripts in alchemy and esoteric fields from
London auctioneer,
Sotheby &
Company.
Through an agent, due to the depressed economic conditions of the era, Hall was able to buy a substantial number of rare books and manuscripts at reasonable prices. When
Caroline Lloyd died in 1946, she bequeathed Hall a home, $15,000 in cash,
and a roughly $10,000 portion of her estate's annual income from shares in the world's largest oil companies for 38 years.
In 1934, Hall founded the
Philosophical Research Society (
PRS) in
Los Angeles, California, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study of religion, mythology, metaphysics, and the occult.
He was a
Knight Patron of the Masonic
Research Group of
San Francisco, with which he was associated for a number of years prior to his Masonic affiliations. On June 28,
1954, Hall initiated as a Freemason into
Jewel Lodge No. 374, San Francisco (now the
United Lodge); passed
September 20, 1954; and raised
November 22, 1954. He took the
Scottish Rite Degrees a year later. He later received his 32° in the
Valley of San Francisco
AASR (SJ).
On
December 8,
1973 (47 years after writing The Secret Teachings of All Ages), Hall was recognized as a 33°
Mason (the highest honor conferred by the
Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite) at a ceremony held at the Philosophical Research Society.
In his over 70-year career, Hall delivered approximately 8,000 lectures in the
United States and abroad, authored over
150 books and essays, and wrote countless magazine articles. He appears in the introduction to the
1938 film When Were You Born, a murder mystery that uses astrology as a key plot
point. It is also noteworthy that
Manly Hall wrote the original story for the film, (screenplay by
Anthony Coldeway) and is also credited as the narrator.
In
1942, Manly Hall spoke to an attendance-setting audience at
Carnegie Hall, on "The Secret
Destiny of
America," which later became a book of the same title. He returned in
1945 for another well-attended lecture at the famous venue, titled: "
Plato's
Prophecy of
Worldwide Democracy"
- published: 09 Dec 2014
- views: 18734