The Secret Teachings of All Ages

Manly P. Hall is the author of one of the most thoroughly researched books ever written on the Western esoteric and occult traditions, The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Reader' Edition, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2003.) This voluminous tome is exhaustive in scope at over seven hundred pages and covers in depth the mysteries of the ancient wisdom teachings, including everything from The Masons and secret societies, to astrology, tarot, kabbalah, the Rosicrucians, alchemy, hermeticism, and even Islam and Native American religious philosophy.

Born on March 18th, 1901 in Canada, Hall was intensely curious and immersed himself in the myth and philosophy of antiquity. He traveled widely for two years in his early twenties throughout Asia, Egypt and Europe, and availed himself of the vast esoteric collection of the British Museum. Throughout this period, Hall was planning his forthcoming master work, and exposure to other cultures convinced him of the idea that there was no one true religion and that in order to understand the mysteries of the universe it was necessary to study all religions comparatively.

The work for which Hall would be best known, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, was published through his own efforts in 1928 before he was in his late twenties. The profound range of his scholarship attests to his genius, which some attributed to past lives, and others to a photographic memory.

In 1934, Hall founded The Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles, California, which he saw as a place for the sharing and community of those seeking to delve into the mysteries of humanity through the study of philosophy and esoteric traditions. The PRS still publishes his books, and in 2003 joined Tarcher Penguin in a reader’s edition of The Secret Teachings which allowed the greater reading public access to this important work.

Manly P. Hall died in 1990, the author of over 200 books on esoteric philosophy and the occult. His extensive collection of rare and antique books and manuscripts can still be found in the Philosophical Research Society’s library.