Manly P. Hall was born in 1901 in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, to William S. Hall, a dentist, and Louise Palmer Hall, a chiropractor and member of the Rosicrucian Fellowship. I should point out here that "chiropractors" were taken as seriously by the general public in 1901 as a Shaman Ayahuasca Healers is today, and well, "Rosicrucian Fellowship," meant Hall had all the right vibes that allowed him to wax poetically on all ancient things from Egyptian magic to the wife of Jesus.
In 1919 Hall, who never knew his father, moved from Canada to Los Angeles, California, with his maternal grandmother to reunite with his birth mother, who was living in Santa Monica, and was almost immediately drawn to the arcane world of mysticism, esoteric philosophies, and their underlying principles. Hall delved deeply into teachings of lost and hidden traditions, the golden verses of Hindu gods, Greek philosophers and Christian mystics, and the spiritual treasures waiting to be found within one's own soul. Less than a year later, Hall booked his first lecture, and the topic was reincarnation.
A tall, imposing, confident and charismatic speaker who soon took over as preacher of the Church of the People in 1919, at Trinity Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles, he read voraciously on comparative religion, philosophy, sociology and psychology, and seemingly overnight . . . became a one-stop source of an astonishing range of eclectic spiritual material that resonates with the intellect, and the subconscious.
During the early 1920s, Carolyn Lloyd and her daughter Estelle—members of a family that controlled a valuable oil field in Ventura County, California—began sending a sizeable portion of their oil income to Hall, who used the money to travel and acquire a substantial personal library of ancient literature.
The Secret Teachings of All Ages
Hall became sufficiently known and respected as a lecturer and interpreter of the writings of the ancients, and the most useful and practical elements of classical idealism, that he successfully appealed, through advertisements and word of mouth, for funds to finance the book that became The Secret Teachings of All Ages - An Encyclopedia Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolic Philosophy. Much like Madame Blavatsky who came on strong with her 30lbs book "Isis Unveiled," which spoke of an ancient knowledge she had to receive from a higher plane, Hall's first book "The Secret Teaching of All Ages" had to have been delivered to him from another means than human learning. Just read it and you will see what I mean. Better yet, listen to one of his many lectures you can find on the web, and be ready to take notes.
After The Secret Teachings of All Ages was published, Hall went from being just another earnest young preacher in the City of Angels to becoming an icon of the increasingly influential metaphysical movement sweeping the country in the 1920s. His book challenged assumptions about society's spiritual roots and made people look at them in new ways.
Personal life
Hall and his followers went to extreme lengths to keep any gossip or information that could tarnish his image from being publicized, and little is known about his first marriage, on April 28, 1930, to Fay B. deRavenne, then 28, who had been his secretary during the preceding five years. The marriage was not a happy one; his friends never discussed it, and Hall removed virtually all information about her from his papers following her suicide on February 22, 1941. Following a long friendship, on December 5, 1950, Hall married Marie Schweikert Bauer, who had Hall sold on finding the lost manuscripts of Francis Bacon, which she believed was buried somewhere in Ohio. From my readings I believe Hall only went along with the expensive search to make her happy; still, this marriage was better than his first one.
Career as philosopher
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 (PRS)).
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. 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."
Legacy
The PRS still maintains a research library of over 50,000 volumes, and also sells and publishes metaphysical and spiritual books, mostly those authored by Hall.
After his death, some of Manly Hall's rare alchemy books were sold to keep the PRS in operation. Acquisition of the Manly Palmer Hall Collection in 1995 provided the Getty Research Institute with one of the world's leading collections of alchemy, esoterica, and hermetica.
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.
His Ending
The ending of Hall's life is sad. He was overweight, lost the respect of the Philosophical Research Society he had founded, and most sad is that he was hustled by his caretaker and executive director, Dan Fritz, who manipulated Hall as his health declined, taking control of his affairs, introducing questionable "healing" schemes, and ultimately engineering a situation leading to Hall's death and gaining influence over his will. Another notable instance involved a man known as "Max" McLaren, who posed as a genius trader to steal significant money from Hall, highlighting how figures preyed on the mystic's later-life vulnerabilities and wealth. Yes, Hall's genius which allowed him to talk hours on esoteric subjects quoting facts down to page numbers, left him blinded to the corruptions of every-day life.
Finally
Much as Madame Blavatsky, Hall has been labeled a quack by those who couldn't see the truth. Those without eyes to see, who are blind to the truth.
~~ Dr TV Boogie
