Manly Palmer Hall was one of the many players in Los Angeles in the early 20th century..
If you are not familiar with him already he is the man who wrote a book called The Secret Teachings of All Ages. This work came out in 1928. It has been among the top sources of information on the occult for a few generations.
In 1934 the Los Angeles based Philosophical Research Society was founded by Manly P Hall. Around this same time period another person, Harvey Spencer Lewis, was founding the AMORC location in San Jose California. This location also became home to volumes of ancient works and is still open to the public. I have visited this library on several occaisions. I also visited the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles in 2013, but sadly it wasn't open. A man opened the door and let us peek in, but that was all.
Manly Hall wrote and lectured much about ancient mysteries, but on the surface information it appears there are also mysteries which still surround his own life and career. While some of these are interesting, the focus of this short article is less about his life and career and more about what he wrote in 1988, sixty years after publishing The Secret Teachings of All Ages.
This image header of this article is from the 1988 Diamond Jubilee Edition of The Secret Teachings... 1988 publication.
He says,...in 1988, 36 years ago,
" the great materialistic progress which we have venerated for so long is on the verge of bankruptcy. We can no longer believe..... "
"We see the dangers and realize that we have been exploited for centuries."
"We were told that the twentieth century was the most progressive that the world has ever known, but unfortunately the progression was in the direction of self destruction." -Manly P Hall 1901-1990
In 1988 MPH had lived out 87 years of life and apparently witnessed many decades of decadence. He died in Los Angeles in 1990. He apparently came from Canada, his birth place, to Los Angeles in 1919. He would have witnessed seven decades of change in Los Angeles.
But what about now? More than three decades have passed since 1988. What would he say of the 21st century. Moreover, what did the Ancients say of this time ...
Let me simply offer, as most useful and practical elements, what he says here.
"...the individual must begin to plan his own destiny, and the best source of the necessary information comes down to us through the writings of the ancients." -MPH
And, I would add, through those who have studied and preserved the actual sources of these texts, temples, cathedrals and powers. Another writer of encyclopedic ancient wisdom is Rene Adolphe Schwaller de Lubicz, aka R A Schwaller, living 1887 to 1961.
Manly P Hall introduces secret teachings in a rather broad perspective. Schwaller studied and lived 15 years in Egypt and was allowed access to the Temple of Luxor and other ancient sources of the very teachings. The works of MPH are approachable and foundational. Schwaller's work is of great depth, experience, long study and practice.
I didn't know that MPH had "a brief career on Wall Street" during the era of 1929. He certainly seems to have managed many things and travels in the decade between his 18th and 28th birthdays. He was 27 years old in 1928 when this encyclopedic volume of secret teachings, symbols and writings of ancient days was published.
He states in the preface if the 1975 Golden Anniversary Edition of this classic work, that the first and second editions of the book, "were completely prescribed in the Fall of 1925", at which tine he would have been age 24.
