[image courtesy The Manly P Hall Archive]
Young Manly, accompanied by his maternal grandmother, moved to California to reunite with his mother in
1919. (He never knew his father.) California then was just as much
Hippieland USA as it was in the 1960s, maybe even more:
The Victorian Era started the ball rolling with Spiritualism, Theosophy
and The Golden Dawn. Between these, all the concepts that would grow and be
experimented with through the 20th century emerged: mediuimship/channeling,
clairovoyance, astral projection, astrology, mixtures of eastern and western
religious concepts, past lives, ceremonial magick, cabalic esotericism for non
Jews, the list is endless.
During the 1800s Lodges were how it was done. But in the new 20th
century things were changing. People with interesting systems of alternative
spirituality were discovering a way to actually achieve stability was to form a
little hub in LA...[o]ver the decade as Los Angeles’ reputation grew, it
attracted droves of occultists and those wanting to start their own systems of
alternative spirituality as well as all the young Hollywood fodder. ["Los
Angeles and the 1920s Occult Explosion", A STEAMPUNK OPERA]
Mom fit in perfectly -- she was a Rosicrucian (a secret philosophical
society, Wiki definition here) and a
practicing chiropractor. Chiropractic was still in its infancy then, having
only been founded in 1895; early on it was still considered a pseudoscience of
sorts, containing heavy doses of
metaphysics and spiritualism, so it fit in beautifully to the cosmic Cali
atmosphere.
Manly was fascinated and jumped in with both feet, becoming a student of Sydney J Brownson, a "doctor" of phrenology (yup, the "bumps on the head" thing). Although he only possessed a sixth grade education, he was extremely bright, with a voracious appetite
for all things occult and esoteric. The
intense young man took over as preacher for Church of the People in 1919, and
became permanent pastor only a few days after his ordination in 1923.
Hall was already a well-regarded lecturer before the age of 21, and
wrote over 200 books and pamphlets on mystical and spiritual topics between
1920 and 1950. It was one such book that
created his legacy: The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928), a GIGANTIC volume spanning almost every metaphysical topic known to man. It is still incredibly popular -- over one million copies have sold to date -- and it has never been out of print. Manly was brilliant, not only in the book's contents, but in its marketing; he created one of the first Kickstarter campaigns, offering copies at a reduced rate for contributions. He funded Secret's $150,000 publication fees purely through these ads and word of mouth.
[image courtesy Amazon]
The book made Hall a superstar. He continued collecting metaphysical knowledge, crossing the globe for rare books and manuscripts. His trips were funded by benefactors and members of his congregation. One such benefactor, Carolyn Lloyd (and her daughter Estelle), had been sponsoring Hall since the early 1920s, and upon her death left him a home, $15,000 in cash, and a $10,000 annuity.
He founded the Philosophical Research Society in 1934 -- an organization devoted to "providing resources for the study and research of the world’s wisdom literature". It is still active today. Click the logo to visit.
"But Jen," I hear you asking, "where's the Hollywood connection?"
Ah, dear Readers, it's in the stars...
WHEN WERE YOU BORN? (1938) is a crime mystery starring Anna May Wong as Mei Lee Ling, an astrologer who uses her knowledge of the zodiac to solve one murder and possibly prevent others. Hall wrote the original story for the film, which did terribly on release but has since become quite the cult movie (as you can imagine -- I mean, look at that glorious prologue!). TCM shows it from time to time, I really want to catch this one.
Hollywood not only knew him, he was friends with most of them Elvis was a huge fan. Ronald Reagan borrowed much of his later political posturing from him. He even officiated at Bela Lugosi's wedding!
[image courtesy The Wild Hunt]
Hall's private life was nowhere near as successful; he married twice, the first ending in suicide, the second an unhappy one with a woman biographer Louis Sahagun refers to as "emotionally abusive".
Manly P Hall died August 29, 1990, aged 89, under grotesque and suspicious circumstances:
In the ultimate, final tragedy, this man who believed in reincarnation and who had planned to leave the earthly plane consciously, might have been the victim of a greedy plot devised by his assistant Daniel Fritz, who rewrote Hall's will. Hall's body was found under suspicious and horrifying circumstances, apparently dead for hours and with thousands of ants streaming from his nose and mouth. The case was never solved. [Steffie Nelson, "Charting the Man Behind a Mystical City", Los Angeles Times, June 21 2008]
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