Farewell Manly Hall

Today, for a nominal amount, I sold about a dozen Manly Hall books and pamphlets to a local bookstore, Fahrenheit 451, in Carlsbad California.

“Manly Hall was a Canadian-born author, lecturer, astrologer and mystic. He is best known for his 1928 work The Secret Teachings of All Ages. Over his 70 year career, he gave thousands of lectures, including two at Carnegie Hall, and published over 150 volumes. In 1934, he founded The Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles, which he dedicated to the “Truth Seekers of All Time”, with a research library, lecture hall and publishing house. Many of his lectures can be found online and his books are still in print.” Wikipedia

My deceased wife’s father was a follower of Manly Hall. When her father died, she inherited about a dozen books and pamphlet. A couple of the books were autographed by the author.
I was really impressed by the The Secret Teachings of All Ages – An Encyclopedia Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolic Philosophy.

A book dedicated to ”the proposition that concealed within the emblematic figures, allegories and rituals of the ancients is a secret doctrine concerning the inner mysteries of life, which doctrine has been preserved in toto among a small band of initiated minds.”[8]:20 As one writer put it: “The result was a gorgeous, dreamlike book of mysterious symbols, concise essays and colorful renderings of mythical beasts rising out of the sea, and angelic beings with lions’ heads presiding over somber initiation rites in torch-lit temples of ancestral civilizations that had mastered latent powers beyond the reach of modern man.” Wikipedia

I still have a copy, but unfortunately it sustained some water damage, and because of that I’m not sure anyone will want it, except perhaps to admire the elaborate renderings.

Although, I never studied the books, it’s evident because of Hall’s influence and the depth of his understanding, that he was metaphysical genius.

If you have any interest in symbolic philosophy, Hall’s work may be of interest, even if you don’t embrace his contributions as the ultimate answer to your quest for understanding and knowledge.