Manly Palmer Hall

Manly Palmer Hall (March 18, 1901 – August 29, 1990) was a Canadian-born author and mystic. He is perhaps most famous for his 1928 work The Secret Teachings of All Ages.

Biography

Early years

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Manly P. Hall was born 1901 in Peterborough, Ontario to William S. Hall, a dentist, and Louise Palmer Hall, a chiropractor. In 1923 Hall moved from Canada to Los Angeles, California. In that year he was ordained to the Church of the People and published his first of over 150 works, The Lost Keys Of Freemasonry. Later in 1928, at the age of 27 years, he published An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy: The Secret Teachings of All Ages, which is more commonly referred to as The Secret Teachings of All Ages.^[1][2]

The original edition of The Secret Teachings of All Ages was an elephant folio book whose pages were 13" wide and 19" tall, printed on Japan Alexandra paper, and privately published for Mr. Hall by H. C. Crocker Company, Incorporated, of San Francisco. There were five numbered editions: the first or Subscribers' Edition, 550 copies; second or King Solomon Edition, 550 copies; third or Theosophical Edition, 200 copies; fourth or Rosicrucian Edition, 100 copies; and the Fifth Edition, 800 copies, making in all 2,200 copies. According to the Preface in various editions, the first four editions were sold by private subscription before delivery from the printer. Only the Subscribers' Edition lists the original subscribers (on three pages at the beginning of the book); however, only 546 subscribers are named.^[3] This may be due to the fact that copies of the book had to be submitted for copyright purposes. Inspection of the Library of Congress catalog in Washington, D.C., discloses that repository is in possession of "Copy A,"^[4] and it may be presumed, based on a statement that the book was registered at Stationer's Hall, London, that there is a copy or copies there as well.

Career as philosopher

In 1934, Hall founded the Philosophical Research Society (PRS) in Los Angeles, California, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization^[5] dedicated to the study of religion, mythology, metaphysics, and the occult.^[6]

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It is claimed that Hall was made a knight patron of the Masonic Research Group of San Francisco in 1953, although he was not raised as a Mason until 22 November 1954 into Jewel Lodge No. 374, San Francisco. He later received his 32° in the Valley of San Francisco AASR (SJ).^[7] 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 (PRS)^[8][9]). The definitive Manly Palmer Hall Archive states that Hall received the 33°, "despite never being initiated into the physical craft."^[10]

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.

Legacy

• The PRS still maintains a research library of over 50,000 volumes,^[11] and also sells and publishes metaphysical and spiritual books, mostly those authored by Hall.^[12]

• It was reported in 2010 that President Ronald Reagan adopted some ideas and phrasing from Hall’s book The Secret Destiny of America (1944), using them in speeches and essays.^[13]

Works

• Selected Major Works
  • The Secret Teachings of All Ages, 1928 PRS
  • Meditation Symbols In Eastern & Western Mysticism-Mysteries of the Mandala, The Philosophical Research Society,Inc.,1988. ISBN 0-89314-543-2
  • The Lost Keys Of Freemasonry, 1923
• Other Books & Texts
  • Lectures in Ancient Philosophy: An Introduction to Practical Ideals
  • The Adepts Series PRS
  • Lady of Dreams: A fable in the manner of the Chinese (Los Angeles, 1943)
  • The Blessed Angels: A Monograph
  • Lectures on Ancient Philosophy—An Introduction to the Study and Application of Rational Procedure, The Hall Publishing Company, Los Angeles, First Edition, 1929, Rosicrucian and Masonic Origins (chapter 19)
  • Introduction to Max Heindel's Blavatsky and The Secret Doctrine, 1933 [2],
  • The Secret Destiny of America (Los Angeles, 1944)
  • America's Assignment with Destiny (Los Angeles, 1994)
  • Unofficial Listing of All Books by Manly P. Hall, with topics [3]
• Journals
  • Catalogs of articles in The All-Seeing Eye, Horizon, and PRS Journal [4]
• Essays
  • Atlantis, An Interpretation
  • Symbolic Essays
  • Noah and His Wonderful Ark
  • The Fraternity of the Rosecross From: The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall. PRS., 1928 ^{www.fraternidaderosacruz.org}

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

References

Further reading

• Sahagun, Louis (2008). Master of the Mysteries: The Life of Manly Palmer Hall. Process. ISBN 1-934170-02-X. 

• Horowitz, Mitch (2009/2010). Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation. New York: Bantam. ISBN 978-0-553-38515-1. 

External links

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• The Manly P. Hall Archive
• Library of Congress holdings
• Philosophical Research Society – Manly Palmer Hall biography
• Fraternidade Rosacruz Max Heindel – Biografia de Manly Palmer Hall
• Video interview with publishers of Hall's Freemasonry books – Tarcher publisher and editor Joel Fotinos and Mitch Horowitz discuss Hall's background, common Freemasonry symbols and famous freemasons
• Manly Palmer Hall collection of alchemical manuscripts, 1500-1825 The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California. A collection of 243 manuscripts detailing the arts of Alchemy, Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, and Masonry, gathered by Manly Palmer Hall, author and researcher in the realms of mysticism and the occult.