Manly Palmer Hall, a Canadian-born author and mystic, is renowned for his extensive work in religion, mythology, mysticism, and the occult. He is most famous for his magnum opus, “The Secret Teachings of All Ages,” published at 27, which delves into Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic, and Rosicrucian philosophy.
The Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles gives his dates as March 18, 1901 to August 29, 1990, and dates The Secret Teachings of All Ages to 1928. It describes the book as an “encyclopedic outline of symbolical philosophy.” The Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, gives the full title as “An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy: Being an Interpretation of the Secret Teachings Concealed by the Rituals, Allegories, and Mysteries of All Ages” (Stuart C. Pool, “What is the most requested or asked about book in the Temple’s Library?”, scottishrite.org, 2015). Hall founded the society in 1934 and remained its first president until his death in 1990. In the society’s own account, its mission is to study, conserve, teach and publish the principles of philosophy, religion, science and art from all cultures, “in a universal and nonsectarian way.” Its library, built from the rare books and artifacts Hall gathered on his travels, holds over 30,000 rare volumes, according to the society.
The society credits Hall with over 150 books and essays and over 8,000 lectures, in Los Angeles and elsewhere, across a teaching career of seventy years. In its account, he gave his lectures without notes, and many ran two hours. (Philosophical Research Society, prs.org, “Manly P. Hall” page and home page.)
Hall’s talks on this site include Manly P. Hall on the Book of the Dead and Manly P. Hall on Babylonian Star Lore.
