The criers of the Mysteries speak again, bidding all men welcome to the House of Light. The great institution of materiality has failed. The false civilization built by man has turned, and like the monster of Frankenstein, is destroying its creator. Religion wanders aimlessly in the maze of theological speculation. Science batters itself impotently against the barriers of the unknown. Only transcendental philosophy knows the path. Only the illumined reason can carry the understanding part of man upward to the light. Only philosophy can teach man to be born well, to live well, to die well, and in perfect measure be born again. Into this band of the elect–those who have chosen the life of knowledge, of virtue, and of utility–the philosophers of the ages invite YOU.
Manly P. Hall
The Secret Teachings Of All Ages
Manly P. Hall is one of those figures who turns up repeatedly in my journey. I took a course in alchemy from the Librarian at the Philosophical Research Society that he founded in Los Angeles, an austere and lovely facility in Los Feliz that always had a powerful and positive vibration about it. The Librarian has gone on to publish a number of important and illuminating works herself all of which I’m honored to own.
The Seer In The Pet Shop
One night I had the great fortune of encountering a renowned English empath in a holistic pet shop on Ventura Boulevard. She was the real deal and one of the legacies she left to me was a particular Manly Hall volume that she suggested could always be opened to any page where answers would be to whatever conundrum life happened to be presenting at the times. There was also an extraordinary deck of cards she used to use, that I was finally able to track down for myself. She returned to England when her mom got sick and I really miss her, but that book is always within arm’s reach of the nightstand at CentComm.
Feral & Amok
I also had the pleasure of meeting Hall’s biographer Louis Sahugun at a party at The Castle owned by Adam Parfrey of the infamous Amok Press, Feral Press, and Process. So many of the books from those catalogs are incomparable, and Adam’s untimely death a few years ago is still being felt with hard grief by those who appreciate the rarity of daring publishing.
The biography, Master Of The Mysteries, is maybe the best available summary of this extraordinary philosopher, but Manly P. Hall must have written a hundred books, or more, and lectures galore. The way to go is dive in to the primary source, and Secret Teachings Of All Ages is more than arguably the touchstone masterpiece.
I assure you will be immensely furthered more than you can possibly imagine.
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