“The Secret Teachings of All

Ages”: The Ultimate Reference in

Occult Symbolism
An in-depth look at the most important book
about occultism of the 20th century The Secret
Teachings of All Ages and its author Manly P.
Hall.
By Vigilant Citizen December 4, 2018

Regular readers of this site probably noticed that I often quote this
1927 book in my articles. There is a good reason for this: The Secret
Teachings of All Ages is, simply put, the ultimate reference in occult
symbolism available today. Unlike most “modern” books about
occultism and secret societies – which are mainly about “dispelling
myths” and disinforming the public – The Secret Teachings of All
Ages is a genuine effort at transmitting unfiltered knowledge.

Through his meticulous yet colorful exploration of occult schools

through the ages, Manly P. Hall highlights the common esoteric
philosophy that has been handed down from generation to
generation – and from civilization to civilization – since antiquity. The
ultimate goal: Spiritual illumination through the activation of the
pineal gland (also known as the “third eye”). As Hall explores secret
societies from past to present, ancient symbols suddenly make
sense, folk legends take on a new dimension, and historical
mysteries begin to reveal their secrets.

Hall dedicated The Secret Teachings of All Ages to the idea 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”.

As stated above, this book differs greatly from your Freemasonry

For Dummies-style books of the 21st Century. The Secret Teachings
of All Ages is not for dummies. It is written by an occultist for
occultists. In fact, for decades, the book was not marketed to the
general public at all. Until recently, The Secret Teachings of All Ages
was only available in oversized, very expensive editions that were
only sought after by dedicated occult researchers.

Inside the first edition of The Secret Teachings of All Ages.

Unlike modern “occult” authors, Manly P. Hall did not shy away from
exposing the great influence of Freemasonry and other secret
societies on the world today. Furthermore, Hall also did not shy
away from explaining how occultism can be used for nefarious
purposes through demonology and black magic.

In short, there is no agenda or condescension in this book – only

years of research compiled in an original, skillfully written and
beautifully illustrated volume. Here are some of the topics discussed
in The Secret Teachings of All Ages:

The Ancient Mysteries and Secret Societies Which Have

Influenced Modern Masonic Symbolism
Atlantis and the Gods of Antiquity
The Life and Teachings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus
The Initiation of the Pyramid
Isis, the Virgin of the World
The Sun, A Universal Deity
The Zodiac and Its Signs
The Bembine Table of Isis
Wonders of Antiquity
The Life and Philosophy of Pythagoras
Pythagorean Mathematics
The Human Body in Symbolism
The Hiramic Legend
The Pythagorean Theory of Music and Color
Fishes, Insects, Animals, Reptiles and Birds (Part One)
Flowers, Plants, Fruits, and Trees
Stones, Metals and Gems
Ceremonial Magic and Sorcery
The Elements and Their Inhabitants
Hermetic Pharmacology, Chemistry, and Therapeutics
The Qabbalah, the Secret Doctrine of Israel
Fundamentals of Qabbalistic Cosmogony
The Tree of the Sephiroth
Qabbalistic Keys to the Creation of Man
An Analysis of Tarot Cards
The Tabernacle in the Wilderness
The Fraternity of the Rose Cross
 Rosicrucian Doctrines and Tenets
Fifteen Rosicrucian and Qabbalistic Diagrams
Alchemy and Its Exponents
The Theory and Practice of Alchemy
The Hermetic And Alchemical Figures of Claudius De Dominico
Celentano Vallis Novi
The Chemical Marriage
Bacon, Shakspere, and the Rosicrucians
The Cryptogram as a factor in Symbolic Philosophy
Freemasonic Symbolism
Mystic Christianity
The Cross and the Crucifixion
The Mystery of the Apocalypse
The Faith of Islam
American Indian Symbolism
The Mysteries and Their Emissaries

Manly P. Hall: A Mysterious Yet Influential

Figure

Manly P. Hall

Manly P. Hall was a Canadian-born author, lecturer, astrologer

and mystic, who had an important, yet subdued, influence on
American History. In the 1920s, Hall was in his early 20s and
obtained a significant sum of money from members of a family that
controlled a valuable oil field in California. These funds were used by
Hall to travel around the world and acquire a substantial personal
library of ancient literature. This collection formed the knowledge
base of his future works.

In 1928, Hall published Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic,

Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy: Being an
Interpretation of the Secret Teachings concealed within the Rituals,
Allegories and Mysteries of all Ages – more commonly referred to
as The Secret Teachings of All Ages.

In 1934, Hall founded the Philosophical Research Society (PRS) in

Los Angeles, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study of
religion, mythology, metaphysics, and the occult. US President
Franklin Roosevelt, a prominent Freemason, was a known member
of the PRS. Some researchers believe that the PRS influenced
Roosevelt in adopting the Great Seal of the United States (the
unfinished pyramid and the all-seeing eye) on the dollar bill in 1935.

Although Hall had close ties with Freemasonry, he only officially

joined the order 23 years after writing The Secret Teachings of All
Ages. Indeed, on June 28, 1954, Hall was initiated as
a Freemason into Jewel Lodge No. 374 in San Francisco (now the
United Lodge). On December 8, 1973, 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 PRS.

While he projected the image of a mystic sage, Manly P. Hall’s

personal life was rather troublesome. Hall was married twice, the
first ending with his wife’s suicide; the second, almost 20 years
later, was to a woman who was classified by the FBI as a certifiable
“nuisance”. Both marriages were childless.

Hall’s second wife, Marie Schweikert Bauer, claimed that Hall had
numerous affairs with men. She also believed that his last male
interest, an occultist by the name of Daniel Fritz, might have been
responsible for Manly P. Hall’s bizarre death in 1990. Indeed, Hall’s
life ended in tragedy: His body was found under suspicious and
horrifying circumstances: He had been dead for hours and had
thousands of ants streaming from his nose and mouth. The case
was never solved. Were the “dark arts” involved in his death?

An older Manly P. Hall in Masonic garments.

Although Hall wrote numerous books and gave hundreds of lectures

throughout his life, The Secret Teachings of All Ages remains his
magnum opus.

Interesting Theories Found in The Secret

Teachings of All Ages
The Secret Teachings of All Ages is not merely a dictionary defining
the meaning of symbols. It is a full and thorough revision of world
history as seen by occultists. Through the chapters of his book, Hall
sometimes proposes surprising theories that are, to this day, highly
controversial. Here are two examples.

Occult Schools Originate from Atlantis

A depiction of Atlantis according to accounts from Ancient Greece.

On several occasions, Hall asserted that most of humanity’s occult

knowledge originates from Atlantis, a lost continent that existed
West of Greece thousands of years ago. During its Golden Age,
Atlantis was the home of a highly advanced civilization that
flourished until it was completely submerged in a gigantic
cataclysm. Hall argued that this “Great Flood” was an important
historical event that was recorded in the lore of several cultures
around the world.
According to him, the Biblical stories of the race of Cain, of the
Giants (Nephilim) and Noah’s Ark are all allusions to the deluge of
Atlantis. Forced to evacuate their island, Atlanteans sailed to several
parts of the planet, where they imparted their evolved knowledge to
the locals.

“May it not have been that these demigods of a fabulous age

who, Esdras-like, came out of the sea were Atlantean priests? All
that primitive man remembered of the Atlanteans was the glory
of their golden ornaments, the transcendency of their wisdom,
and the sanctity of their symbols – the cross and the serpent.
That they came in ships was soon forgotten, for untutored minds
considered even boats as supernatural.

Wherever the Atlanteans proselyted they erected pyramids and

temples patterned after the great sanctuary in the City of the
Golden Gates. Such is the origin of the pyramids of Egypt,
Mexico, and Central America. The mounds in Normandy and
Britain, as well as those of the American Indians, are remnants of
a similar culture. In the midst of the Atlantean program of world
colonization and conversion, the cataclysms which sank Atlantis
began. The Initiate-Priests of the Sacred Feather who promised
to come back to their missionary settlements never returned,
and after the lapse of centuries tradition preserved only a
fantastic account of gods who came from a place where the sea
now is.”

Although Atlanteans imparted great knowledge to the civilizations

they encountered, they also introduced them to their darker
impulses:

“From the Atlanteans the world has received not only the
heritage of arts and crafts, philosophies and sciences, ethics and
 religions, but also the heritage of hate, strife, and perversion. The
Atlanteans instigated the first war; and it has been said that all
subsequent wars were fought in a fruitless effort to justify the
first one and right the wrong which it caused. Before Atlantis
sank, its spiritually illumined Initiates, who realized that their land
was doomed because it had departed from the Path of Light,
withdrew from the ill-fated continent. Carrying with them the
sacred and secret doctrine, these Atlanteans established
themselves in Egypt, where they became its first “divine” rulers.
Nearly all the great cosmologic myths forming the foundation of
the various sacred books of the world are based upon the
Atlantean Mystery rituals.”

The existence of Atlantis would indeed explain lots of unexplainable

mysteries. However, concrete proof of its existence has never been
found … or at least has never been revealed to non-initiates.

Sir Francis Bacon Edited the King James

Version of the Bible … And Was Actually
Shakespeare
Sir Francis Bacon.

Sir Francis Bacon was a philosopher and statesmen who served

as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England in the 17th
century. Dubbed the “father of empiricism”, Bacon is credited with
developing the scientific method.

However, not unlike other influential figures in History, Bacon’s was

also rumored to be a powerful occultist associated with the
Rosicrucians and the Freemasons. Manly P. Hall believed that Bacon
was one of the powerful figures sent by a “hidden order” to
influence human history.

“Father of modern science, remodeler of modern law, editor of

the modern Bible, patron of modem democracy, and one of the
founders of modern Freemasonry, Sir Francis Bacon was a man
of many aims and purposes. He was a Rosicrucian, some have
intimated the Rosicrucian. If not actually the Illustrious Father
C.R.C. referred to in the Rosicrucian manifestoes, he was
 certainly a high initiate of the Rosicrucian Order, and it is his
activities in connection with this secret body that are of prime
importance to students of symbolism, philosophy, and literature.”

In The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Hall dedicates an entire chapter

to Sir Francis Bacon and the many ways he purportedly influenced
Western civilization. First, Hall asserts that Bacon was given the task
to oversee the translation of a new version of the Bible by King
James himself – with whom he was very close.

“It was in recognition of Bacon’s intellectual accomplishments

that King James turned over to him the translators’ manuscripts
of what is now known as the King James Bible for the
presumable purpose of checking, editing, and revising them. The
documents remained in his hands for nearly a year, but no
information is to be had concerning what occurred in that time.
Regarding this work, William T. Smedley writes: “It will eventually
be proved that the whole scheme of the Authorised Version of
the Bible was Francis Bacon’s.”

The first edition of the King James Bible contains a cryptic

Baconian headpiece. Did Bacon cryptographically conceal in the
Authorized Bible that which he dared not literally reveal in the
text – the secret Rosicrucian key to mystic and Masonic
Christianity?”

As stated in this last paragraph, the cover of the first edition of the
King James version contained various esoteric symbols associated
with the Rosicrucian Order.
The frontispiece of the first edition of the King James version.

At the bottom of the cover is a unique symbol: A pelican feeding its

young with its own blood.
This ancient symbol representing self-sacrifice is an important part Rosicrucian
imagery (notice the rose on the cross).

Hall also believed that Sir Francis Bacon was actually Shakespeare –
a theory that has been floating around for centuries.

“Scores of volumes have been written to establish Sir Francis

Bacon as the real author of the plays and sonnets popularly
ascribed to William Shakspere. An impartial consideration of
these documents cannot but convince the open-minded of the
verisimilitude of the Baconian theory. In fact those enthusiasts
 who for years have struggled to identify Sir Francis Bacon as the
true “Bard of Avon” might long since have won their case had
they emphasized its most important angle, namely, that Sir
Francis Bacon, the Rosicrucian initiate, wrote into the
Shakespearian plays the secret teachings of the Fraternity of
R.C. and the true rituals of the Freemasonic Order, of which order
it may yet be discovered that he was the actual founder.”

In the following paragraphs, Hall explains the many similarities

between Bacon and the mysterious artist known as Shakespeare.
While he presents a compelling case, he does not stop there. Hall
also asserts that Bacon, like other important figures in History, faked
his death to serve humanity under various pseudonyms.

“According to material available, the supreme council of the

Fraternity of R.C. was composed of a certain number of
individuals who had died what is known as the “philosophic
death.” When the time came for an initiate to enter upon his
labors for the Order, he conveniently “died” under somewhat
mysterious circumstances. In reality he changed his name and
place of residence, and a box of rocks or a body secured for the
purpose was buried in his stead. It is believed that this happened
in the case of Sir Francis Bacon who, like all servants of the
Mysteries, renounced all personal credit and permitted others to
be considered as the authors of the documents which he wrote
or inspired.”

The Secret Teaching of All Ages contains many other theories that
cause its readers to rethink human history as a whole.

In Conclusion
Manly P. Hall’s The Secret Teachings of All Ages is not only a “good
read”: It is an eye-opening experience. It provides a much-needed
look at an entire side of history that is all but ignored in everyday
life. While one might not agree with Hall’s unabashed admiration of
secret societies, the information his book imparts remains
invaluable.

After decades of semi-obscurity, The Secret Teachings of All Ages

is finding a new readership in the 21st century, as a growing number
of people find themselves thirsty for occult truth. Far from fading
into irrelevancy, this 91-year old book provides the knowledge
necessary to better understand the forces at work today.

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