Manly P. Hall (1901–1990)

I'm still slowly reading through The Secret Teachings of All Ages, about halfway through this gargantuan compendium of all things arcane in the disciplines of religious mythology and mystical religions, with their always intriguing ancient rites, symbols, and of course, "secret teachings". The book, I'm discovering, is really more of a reference work than a book to pick up and read from start to finish, though finish it I happily will.

The lengthy introduction provides abstracts of just about show more every philosophic movement in history, and serves as an excellent refresher course for students of philosophy. Someday I'd like to itemize the founders and features of each philosophy with maybe an abstract of my own, for later reference, just for fun.

I can't say I believe much of what I'm reading in this book, however, at least regarding the history and veracity of the ancient gnostic's vast (and complexly convoluted) underworld network of behind-the-scenes movers and shakers in world politics, religion, and thought.

The core conception of The Secret Teachings of All Ages -- that an "Elect" few denizens of ancient secret societies have existed from time immemorial, and are still operating today, covertly shaping and re-shaping and preserving in the process, through the eons, the world's major movements (and advances) in mathematics, the sciences, philosophies, and religions -- I find dubious at best. Too conspiratorial for my taste, like The Da Vinci Code. Guess I'm just a Doubting Tomás.

Nevertheless, as a fan of good books like Foucault's Pendulum -- that contain their own unique compendium of secret societies -- I'm inevitably fascinated by and attracted toward what Manly P. Hall has termed "The Mysteries" that are veiled within the symbolism and creeds and esoterica of secret societies.

Manly P. Hall authored somehow, what in less skilled hands might have become a tedious and too-recondite reference work, a remarkably readable tome. In fact, The Secret Teachings of All Ages is not just plain readable, but pretty darned unputdownable. show less

Here I go again, putting up a review based on initial impressions. I'm not even 100 pages in.

My first impulse was to crow "hoo-boy, here is a dopey-ass book," but I think I'll half resist that impulse. For now.

This looks like it will be a good compendium of weird sh*t -- which is, really, what I'd hoped for. I didn't pick this up thinking I'd ultimately wind up an initiate into gosh-darn bona fide mystical knowledge. My initial impression of Hall is that he's kind of a latter-day Pliny the show more Elder. Pliny sorta stuffed everything he could find into his vast Naturalis Historia, appearing (at least) to pretty much credit everything he heard as true. Hall shows a similar tendency to just accept stuff as long as it furthers his mission.

So if you're looking for rigorous scholarship, you won't find it here. Rigorous scholars do not cite the Encyclopedia Britannica (which is not, despite appearances, a knock on the E. B.), nor do they blandly accept that Atlantis was a real thing, at least not without giving good reasons for it. My own belief is that rigorous scholarship would have shown Hall that most of the stuff he was presenting was downright goofy.

Still, as I've already pretty much said, compendia of weird sh*t are not gonna get sneezed at -- not by me. Just know what you're getting into, here.

UPDATE: I'm having qualms about continuing with this book. There's just so much bland averral of outlandish crap as fact I can take. Every time Hall comes out with something really nutty, like a statement that the Great Pyramid is some tens of thousands of years old, my eyes do an uncomfortable dance, and I find myself dreaming of actual coherent argument.

UPDATE UPDATE: yeah, this book is sitting on my head, but I'm close enough to being done with it that I can't feature tossing it aside. A couple of the more egregious things (in my opinion) that Hall does here: 1) he tries to mash everything together, to ... well, have everything connect to everything else, so that all the contributions of different cultures feed into this ... one big overall 'thing'. This is insulting, though not so insulting as, say, Erich Von Daniken's claim that ancient cultures were too stupid to do stuff without the help of 'ancient astronauts.' 2) OMFG he is one of those people who think Shakespeare couldn't have written Shakespeare! If I had known this earlier, I might have thrown this volume against the wall. show less

The first chapter of this "brochure" (as it calls itself) is a curious text, offering a soundly skeptical, mythicist take on Christian origins, while simultaneously asserting Lemurian and Atlantean sources for esoteric traditions! The next three chapters are organized according to the book's pattern: brain/spirit, heart/emotions, and generative organs/physical sensation. In the chapter on "The Spinal Column" corresponding to the heart, there is also a discussion of clairvoyance and show more mediumship, and in the chapter on "The Infernal Worlds" Hall additionally provides an exposition of color symbolism. The final chapter of Occult Anatomy is on "embryology," which offers readings of religious texts as perinatal allegories. It then continues with a thumbnail description of the seven-year cyclical climacteric pattern of individual human development.

Appended to The Occult Anatomy of Man is an essay on "Occult Masonry," included with the intention to illustrate an application of the principles of occult anatomy. This "treatise" was written by Hall when he was himself not a Masonic initiate, and it contains some perceptive and inspiring items, alongside howlers about the grip of the lion's paw, and perverse attempts to rehabilitate references to "riding the goat" and "the greased pole."

Hall's style is mostly a scattershot dumping of unsourced data along topical lines. His conclusions are not uniformly worthwhile, but the implicit questions to which they respond are ones that mystical aspirants and true initiates should ask themselves in order to advance their understanding. show less

The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall languished in my to-be-read pile for several years. I didn't really expect to find any secrets revealed. I bought it because I find belief systems and their origins fascinating. The Secret Teachings of All Ages doesn't so much reveal "secret teachings" as draw connections between current belief systems and ancient belief systems. While there is some supposition that what is being presented obscures the secret teachings, it feels like the show more books tries too hard to connect ancient mythologies, scientific discovery, and religion. The Secret Teachings of All Time uses stories of gods and goddesses as well as scientific and mathematical discoveries to show the development of modern day religion. Often as I read, I felt like the book disproved the theories it attempted to support. Overall, Hall provides an interesting assembly of teachings through the ages that will have readers questioning what they have long been sure they know for sure. Basically, I would describe The Secret Teachings of All Ages as attempting to document the evolution of religion in the world. Parts of The Secret Teachings of All Ages were certainly interesting making it worth the read, but it failed to convince me it revealed any true secrets of which the world is unaware. show less