Liber XV · History & Scholarship · Chapter I: Biographies
Manly P. Hall: The Secret Teachings of All Ages and His Legacy
Manly P. Hall (1901–1990), author of The Secret Teachings of All Ages and founder of the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles: life, work and legacy.
Manly Palmer Hall (1901–1990) was a Canadian-born American writer and lecturer whose illustrated folio The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928) became one of the most widely read books on Western esotericism of the twentieth century. In 1934 he founded the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles, where he lectured for more than half a century, and his death in August 1990 is often used as the closing event of popular chronologies of modern occultism.
Early life and arrival in Los Angeles§
Hall was born on 18 March 1901 in Peterborough, Ontario. His parents separated when he was young and he was raised largely by his grandmother, with whom he moved to the United States. After a period in New York he went to Los Angeles around 1919, at a time when Southern California was a centre of alternative religion: Theosophists at Point Loma and Krotona, New Thought congregations, astrologers and yogis all found audiences there.
He had little formal education, but he read widely and began speaking in public while still a teenager. Within a few years he was preaching at the Church of the People, a liberal, non-denominational congregation in Los Angeles, and he soon became its regular speaker. Lecturing was to remain his main activity for the rest of his life; by most estimates he gave many thousands of talks.
The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928)§
Hall's reputation rests above all on a single book. Its full title describes it as an encyclopedic outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian symbolical philosophy. Financed by advance subscriptions from his audiences, it was printed in San Francisco as a large folio by the fine printer John Henry Nash, with colour plates by the artist J. Augustus Knapp and many reproductions of older engravings. Hall was twenty-seven when it appeared.
The book surveys a vast range of subjects in short chapters: the ancient mysteries, Hermes Trismegistus and the Hermetic texts, Pythagorean number theory, the Kabbalah and the Tree of Life, alchemy, the Rosicrucians, Freemasonry, the tarot, the symbolism of plants, animals and stones, and the theory that Francis Bacon was connected with the Rosicrucians and the works of Shakespeare. It drew heavily on nineteenth-century compilers, among them Albert Pike, whose Morals and Dogma Hall admired, and on Theosophical writers in the line of Helena Blavatsky.
Its organising idea is perennialist: behind the world's religions and mystery schools lies a single ancient wisdom, preserved in symbols and transmitted by initiates. This conviction gives the book its sweep and its appeal, but it also explains its weaknesses as history. Hall seldom distinguished ancient sources from modern speculation, repeated legends of continuous secret transmission, and gave references unevenly. Read as a guide to how early twentieth-century occultists understood their own heritage, rather than as a history of that heritage, the book remains valuable. Reprinted many times, it introduced generations of readers to esoteric symbolism.
The Philosophical Research Society§
In 1934 Hall founded the Philosophical Research Society (PRS) in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles. Its buildings, completed in the following years to designs by the architect Robert Stacy-Judd, combined Mayan Revival and Egyptianising motifs and housed an auditorium, offices, a bookshop and a library. The society described its purpose as the study of philosophy, comparative religion and psychology, approached as a quest for wisdom rather than as academic specialism.
The PRS library became one of the society's treasures. Hall collected rare books, alchemical and Rosicrucian manuscripts, Asian religious art and Masonic material over many decades. Financial difficulties after his death led the society to sell parts of the collection; in 2018 a large group of alchemical and esoteric manuscripts formerly owned by Hall passed to the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, where they became available to scholars.
From the PRS Hall published a quarterly journal and a steady flow of books and lecture transcripts on subjects ranging from Neoplatonism and Buddhism to astrology, dreams and self-help. He also wrote for radio and film; he is credited with the story of the Warner Bros. mystery When Were You Born (1938), which turns on astrology.
Hall and Freemasonry§
Masonic symbolism fascinated Hall long before he became a Mason. His The Lost Keys of Freemasonry (1923) interpreted the craft as the heir of the ancient mysteries, an idea popular with esoteric Masons of the period. He was initiated in 1954 in San Francisco and in 1973 was given the honorary 33rd degree by the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite.
His Masonic writings are widely read among Freemasons with esoteric interests, but they represent one interpretation of the fraternity, not its official doctrine. Historians of Freemasonry generally trace the craft to the stonemasons' lodges and gentlemen's clubs of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain rather than to antiquity; our guide to Freemasonry sets out that history. Hall also popularised the idea that the founding of the United States fulfilled an esoteric plan, notably in The Secret Destiny of America (1944), a theme later taken up in conspiracy literature.
Private life and death in 1990§
Hall married Fay B. deRussey in 1930; she died in 1941. In 1950 he married Marie Bauer, who shared his interest in Francis Bacon and pursued her own research on a supposed Baconian vault at Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Hall died at his home in Los Angeles on 29 August 1990, aged 89. The circumstances surrounding his last months became the subject of controversy and civil litigation: changes to his will and the control of his estate were contested by his widow and by the society, and the courts largely found in their favour. Suggestions that his death was not natural circulated in the press, but no criminal charges were brought, and the matter remains disputed. Because his death came at the end of a long career that linked the occultism of the 1920s with the New Age movement of the 1980s, many older chronologies of modern esotericism end with it.
Hall's legacy and scholarly assessment§
Hall's influence on popular esotericism in the English-speaking world was very great. The Secret Teachings of All Ages has remained in print for nearly a century, and its images circulate widely. He helped to shape the image of the occult as a single, ancient, initiatory wisdom, an image that fed into the New Age movement and into much later popular literature.
Academic historians of esotericism treat him as an important primary source for twentieth-century American occultism rather than as a scholarly authority. His work illustrates the "religionist" or perennialist approach that the academic field, from the 1990s, deliberately set aside in favour of historical method. At the same time scholars acknowledge his role as a collector, publisher and educator who kept rare traditions in public view at a time when universities ignored them, and the PRS continues as an educational institution.
Frequently asked questions§
Who was Manly P. Hall?§
Manly P. Hall (1901–1990) was a Canadian-born American author, lecturer and collector who wrote The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928) and founded the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles in 1934.
What is The Secret Teachings of All Ages about?§
It is a large illustrated survey of esoteric symbolism, covering the ancient mysteries, Hermeticism, Kabbalah, alchemy, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry and more. It presents these traditions as expressions of one ancient wisdom, a view modern historians do not share.
Was Manly P. Hall a Freemason?§
Yes. He wrote on Masonic symbolism from the 1920s, was initiated in 1954 and received the honorary 33rd degree of the Scottish Rite in 1973. His interpretations are personal and esoteric rather than official Masonic teaching.
When and how did Manly P. Hall die?§
He died at his home in Los Angeles on 29 August 1990. His final months and the handling of his estate led to litigation, and rumours about his death circulated, but no criminal charges were ever brought.
Sources and further reading§
- The Secret Teachings of All Ages — Manly P. Hall, 1928
- The Lost Keys of Freemasonry — Manly P. Hall, 1923
- Morals and Dogma — Albert Pike, 1871
- Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation — Mitch Horowitz, 2009
- The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction — Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, 2008