Manly Palmer Hall

Writer and lecturer on astrology and the occult. He was born on March 18, 1901, in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, and moved to the United States in 1904. He had an early interest in matters occult and as a young man joined the Theosophical Society, the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, and the American Federation of Astrologers.

Hall moved to California in 1923 and was ordained to the ministry in a metaphysical church. He became the pastor of the Church of the People, an independent occult and metaphysical congregation in Los Angeles, California; established the Hall Publishing Company; and began a magazine, The All-Seeing Eye. Hall, though lacking formal higher education, wrote a series of occult titles that became known for their erudition. Possibly the most important book from his early writings is An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabalistic, and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy (1928) in which he attempted to correlate the teachings of various alternative occult traditions.

In 1934, Hall, who had harbored a dream of creating a school modeled on the ancient one headed by Pythagoras, founded the Philosophical Research Society, which he hoped would become a major center for the dissemination of ancient wisdom throughout North America. It became the home to a large library, including many rare texts, collected by Hall.

Through the last 60 years of his life Hall lectured and wrote widely, his texts ranging over the broad field of the occult and topics relative to it, including history and comparative religion. He died on August 29, 1990, in Los Angeles, and his work is being continued by the society. Hall avoided writing autobiographical material during his life, and his volume on his grandmother is the only autobiographical information he left.

Sources:

Hall, Manly Palmer. Growing Up with Grandmother. Los Angeles: Philosophical Research Society, 1985.

——. The Little World of PRS. Los Angeles: Philosophical Research Society, 1982.

——. Reincarnation: The Cycle of Necessity. Los Angeles: Philosophical Research Society, 1942.

——. Self-Unfoldment by Disciplines of Realization. Los Angeles: Philosophical Research Society, 1945.

Melton, J. Gordon. Religious Leaders of America. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991.

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Manly Palmer Hall (March 18, 1901 - August 29, 1990) was a Canadian-born author and mystic. He is perhaps most famous for his work The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy, which is widely regarded as his magnum opus, published in 1928^[1][2]when he was just 27 years old.

He has been widely recognized as a leading scholar in the fields of religion, mythology, mysticism, and the occult.

Carl Jung, when writing Psychology and Alchemy, borrowed material from Hall's private collection.

In 1934, Hall founded the Philosophical Research Society (PRS) in Los Angeles, California, dedicating it to an idealistic approach to the solution of human problems. The PRS claims to be non-sectarian and entirely free from educational, political, or ecclesiastical control, and the Society's programs stress the need for the integration of philosophy, religion, and science into one system of instruction. The PRS Library, a public facility devoted to source materials in obscure fields, has many rare and scarce items now impossible to obtain elsewhere.

In 1973 (47 years after writing The Secret Teachings of All Ages), Hall was recognized as a 33º Mason (the highest honor conferred by the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite), at a ceremony held at PRS on December 8th,^[3][4]), despite never being initiated into the physical craft.^[5]

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.

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
• Other Books & Texts
  • • LECTURES ON 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 [3],
• Essays
  • ATLANTIS, An Interpretation
  • Symbolic Essays
  • Noah and His Wonderful Ark [4]

The references in this article would be clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking.

Notes

1. ^ Sub Rosa Magazine - Issue 6, October 2006, includes a profile of Hall that mentions a "sole biographical record" called Growing Up With Grandmother; ISBN 0893144207.
2. ^ Manly P Hall, "The Secret Teachings of All Ages , The Diamond Jubilee Edition" ISBN 0-89314-830-X, page VI
3. ^ [1]
4. ^ Manly P. Hall's Obituary, Scottish Rite Journal, November, 1990, p. 22. [2]. (Note: archives don't go back this far so this reference is in question. However, the Philosophical Research Society Manly Palmer Hall biography states this (word-for-word) except the text on this page claimed the 33º was the second highest honor, which has since been corrected. The Supreme Council - Is It True What They Say About Freemasonry? - The Methods of Anti-Masons questions Hall's Mason authority status.
5. ^ (Hall, The Lost Keys of Fremasonry p. 6)

References

• The Manly P. Hall Archive
• Hall, Manly P. The Lost Keys of Freemasonry. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. Originally published 1923.
• Library of Congress holdings
• Philosophical Research Society - Manly Palmer Hall biography
• The Lost Keys of Freemasonry

External links

- The Secret Teachings Of All Ages at sacred-texts.com

• - Manly Palmer Hall

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