Manly P Hall is one of the greatest American intellectuals of the 20th century hardly a soul in America has ever heard of. He was an historian, philosopher, mystic and a prolific writer. A perusal of his books might give some idea as to why you might never have heard of him. Like most of the entirety of the Western magical tradition, Manly P Hall has been erased from history.
Born in Canada in 1901, he moved to southern California in his early twenties and became an American.
His most famous work is called The Secret Teachings of All Ages, a sprawling, encyclopedic thesis that there is a mystical core to every religion or spiritual tradition across the world, that unites them all, at once a philosophical study and like a textbook resource. He wrote more than 50 books, while his journals and manuscripts are even more extensive.
I have not read widely of his work, but I have long been curious about The Secret Destiny of America. The title is very peculiar, the contents even more so. It is hard to imagine anyone writing such an optimistic book about America, in this cynical, materialist age, not least about a secret spiritual destiny for America. The Christian community has long imagined this as a Christian nation, established by Christians in the name of the Christian God. Progressives seem to be preening for a trans woke utopia named Progress aka the arc of justice bent. Dr Hall is referring to something very different.
The basic premise is, there has been a secret society existing, since long before the time of Plato, dedicated to the creation of a new Atlantis, a Democratic empire of philosophy, a nation one day to firmly model freedom for all people, a guiding light for all nations.
If that sounds somewhat familiar, the myth remains if little of the substance.
The book was published in 1944, though based on some of the language I suspect it existed in some form as early as 1925. The opening chapter has much of the progressive flavor of the early 20th century, when people first began to imagine a world united under a banner of science and progress, a one world government ruled by the experts, led by America.
America can not refuse the challenge of leadership in the post-war world…a new order of world ethics firmly established on a foundation of democratic idealism….If we meet this challenge, we will ensure not only our survival as a nation for centuries to come, but we shall gain the enduring gratitude of our fellowmen and Americans will be remembered to the end of time as a great and enlightened people.
This was not mere speculation for Dr Hall, he truly believed this had long been our destiny.
The book reads like an alternative magical history. The ancient Egyptians, according to Dr Hall, were already aware of a great continent in the West, to be set aside for an empire of philosophy and for democratic freedom for all. An empire of men [and women] trained in the laws of thinking and of nature, having given up selfish materialism for a higher ideal of universal brotherhood and self rule, “that the democratic commonwealth can only be a reality when our world is a world of self-ruling men.”
This has been the dream of a secret society going back many thousands of years, Hall describes as the Order of the Quest.
The first true democrat, according to Hall, was
Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt, born 1388 B.C… the first man in recorded history to exemplify social consciousness in the administration of a great nation. He saw every living thing as having a divine right to live well, to hope and aspire in a world governed by brotherly love.
Gaining the throne at age 18, within two years he set himself opposed to the priesthood of Amon-Ra, bringing down upon himself “the wrath of the religious State.” To escape his persecutors he moved his capital a 160 miles up the Nile to Khut-en-Aton, where he attempted to perfect his mystical doctrine of universal brotherhood. He was not a warrior king, but the “gentle father who loved all his children, of every race and nation; and desired for them that they should live in peace,” a Pharaoh who would “travel alone through the countryside, meeting the peasants, conversing with slaves, eating the food of the poor.”
He was a doting husband to Nefertiti and their seven daughters.
But he was born too soon, in a world full of warriors, and by age 36 he was dead, his empire of Aton overrun by Hittite raiders. But his democratic ideal remained.
The Ancient Greeks were aware of the great Western continent, and according to Plutarch they explored much of the Eastern coast including the St Lawrence seaway and part of the Great Lakes area, according to Hall. It was the land of the Hesperides, a mythic, terrestrial paradise. The writings of Aratus of Soli suggest the constellation of the eagle spread out over north America, a great serpent over Mexico and central America. It was in some traditions the land of the Golden Fleece, and the land of the jeweled temples of the seven cities of Cibola. (For Hall the Declaration of Independence is the golden fleece, printed as it is on animal skin.)
So according to Hall, the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Chinese all landed in the Americas, but none set up any permanent settlement, as it had been agreed since the time of Atlantis that the America’s would be set aside for some future destiny.
In keeping with the notion of a secret order dedicated to an empire of philosophy, the greatest statesman of antiquity, Solon of Athens, was said to have traveled to Egypt after his term as the Greek Archon, to Sais. The High Priest of Sais led him to a subterranean chamber, where a portion of the Nile ran underground. They took a boat to a small island, where stood two pillars made of an unknown metal that did not rust or deteriorate, on which were written laws of governance in a mysterious language. The Priests said there had been a global empire, 9000 years before the siege of Troy. These laws were not made by men, but were of the will of Eternal Nature. Those who live by these laws live in peace and prosperity. Atlantis betrayed these laws and was torn asunder by the gods. Solon returned to Athens to write an epic poem, but he never did, merely telling his tale to his friend Dropis, who told it to his son Critias, who told it to his grandson also named Critias, who became a disciple of Socrates, about whom Plato wrote a dialogue called Critias.
It was not merely that a secret society of enlightened men maintained a dream of democracy for the Americas, Democracy existed in America before Europeans settled here. The Mayan civilization, which we have disparaged because of the way it descended into pathology before it collapsed entirely, maintained a 500 year peace, the longest known peace of any high civilization anywhere in the world. The mythology of the Mayans, of the later civilization of central Mexico, and the Incas, told of a seafaring people who brought them the knowledge of civilization building. Quezalcoatl the half man half serpent god of central America came to the Americas by boat and left by boat, to return one day when he would be needed. Many have theorized he was a man of Atlantis.
According to Hall, Columbus was not a Spaniard of humble birth but a Greek prince who kept with him an unknown traveler/advisor. The democratic ideal was beginning to assert itself over decadent aristocracy, and a new continent was needed. Nostradamus prophesied a land of religious tolerance. Sir Fancis Bacon was not just the father of the scientific method, but a member of the Order of the Quest who’s dream of an empire of democracy helped establish the Order in the American colonies. The life of George Washington was prophesied by Sir William Hope forty years before the birth of George Washington. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine were both agents of the Order of the Quest, who did not make laws but influenced lawmakers and the people generally. An unknown “professor” led the committee appointed by the Continental Congress to design the flag. An unknown orator broke the stalemate inspiring the delegates to sign the Declaration of Independence.
If all of this sounds a little far fetched, outlandish and unverifiable, consider how everywhere in the the 21st century the myths that have sustained America and our view of history have been torn apart, to be replaced by a myth that America was designed as a white supremacist, racist, genocidal nation, which must be utterly destroyed and remade (through genocide) a Marxist, equitable, multicultural, trans utopia. I will take Hall’s view any day, before that bit of nasty, miserable mean-spritedness.
If Hall sounded a little like a globalist in the introduction, in the final chapter he makes it clear the future of America is self rule, that he has nothing in common with the globalist technocrats so keen these days to enslave an entire world.
Philosophy teaches that the completion of the great work of social regeneration must be accomplished not in society but in man himself.
The democratic commonwealth can never be legislated into existence. Nor can it result from formal treaties or conferences….
Religion, science and philosophy are the three parts of essential learning. A government based upon one or even two of these parts must ultimately degenerate into a tyranny, either of men or opinion. These three realize the unity of knowledge; they are the orders of the Quest.
Tyranny? What of our Federal government, in this regard? Religion? Woke neo-marxism? Covidianism? Philosophy? Pathological propaganda to prop up a fake reality? Science? The Science only considers that possibility which will give the practitioners and purveyors of The Science more power. The Science manufactures the data to fit the ideology/pharmaceutical/mandate. Our tyrannical Federal government fails all three tests, with prejudice.
In the introduction, Hall says “the American nation desperately needs a vision of it’s own purpose,” implying that we did not really have one.
What we got post-war was raw materialism, a consumer ideal conflating wealth and morality, causing division, breaking up community, then family and now the greater nation, systemically polluting the body of the individual and the body of the earth. Our government wants to let violent criminals roam the streets without fear of incarceration, will let violent criminals cross the border illegally, unvetted, but wants to outlaw free speech, the right to self-defense and fossil energy (for you, not them).
The Greek law giver, Solon, declared that in the ideal State laws are few and simple, because they have been derived from certainties. In the corrupt State, laws are many and confused, because they have been derived from uncertainties. These laws are like the web of the spider that catches small insects but permits the larger creatures to break through.
Where there are many laws there is much lawlessness, and men come to despise and ridicule the restraints that are imposed upon freedom of action. Corrupt laws, resulting from efforts to amend inadequate legislation by further inadequate legislation, reveal a general ignorance of right and wrong. Where such ignorance exists the ideal function of democracy is impossible, and liberty degenerates into license.
The half-truth is the most dangerous form of lie, because it can be defended in part by incontestable logic. Wherever the body of learning is broken up, the fragments become partial truths. We live in a day of partial truths; and until we remedy the condition we must suffer the inevitable consequences of division.
But this can be remedied by a combination of religion, philosophy and science.
Religion is the spiritual part of learning, philosophy the mental part, the sciences, including the arts and crafts, the physical part. As man himself has a spiritual, mental and physical nature, and all of these natures manifest in his daily living, he must become equally informed in all the parts of his nature if he is to be self governing….
Religion is the quest for truth by means of the mystical powers latent in the consciousness of man. Philosophy is the quest for truth by the extension of the intellectual powers toward the substance of reality. Science is the quest for truth by the study of the anatomy and the physiology of the body of truth, as it is revealed in the material creation.
This false materialist empire that has been transposed on top of the destiny of America as the empire of the Quest, the philosophical empire of democracy,
willfully ignores the Universal Laws which govern it’s destiny. Nature has devious ways of pressing home it’s lessons. Civilization after civilization has been built up by human courage and destroyed by human ignorance. We stand again on the threshold of a great decision. Once more the workings of time have revealed the weaknesses of our social structure. Once more we have come to a day of reckoning.
Centuries ago, one of the secret masters of the Quest wrote: “ the Eternal Good, reveals it’s will and pleasure through the body of Nature and the motions of Eternal Law. Within the body of Nature and Law there is a soul that must be discovered by great thoughtfulness. And within the soul of Nature and Law there is a spirit which must be sought with great understanding.”
This, then, is the design of our foundations: that men shall abide together in peace and shall devote their energies to the common cause of discovery.
Man is superior [to the animal] because he contains within himself the faculties and powers by which he can perceive his true place in a divine order of life….
But as Man has locked within him, hidden from the public gaze, this diviner part, so it is true that society has within itself concealed from our common view a nobler part composed of the idealists and dreamers of all ages and of all races who have been bound together by their common vision of man’s necessity. This is the secret empire of the poets, this is the order of the Unknown Philosophers, this is the Brotherhood of the Quest.
And never will these dreamers cease their silent working until that dream is perfected in our daily life. They are resolved that the Word which was made flesh shall become the Word made soul….
About this shrine to Universal Truth shall rise the democratic Commonwealth - the wealth of all mankind.
This is the destiny for which we were brought into being.
America in my estimation is the last good place to take a stand against global authoritarian governance. I’ve long felt a sense of destiny about America, not the pathological empire we have become, but the idea of America, the Republic of self-rule we were meant to be. Whatever the madness of the day, a government and elite who are insane, who live in a false reality of their own making, the future of America is freedom, not surveillance, liberty, not censorship, sovereignty, not authoritarianism. That future of a true Republic might be distant, it might not come in our lifetime or any time of the living, but it will come. This Faustian empire will fall, and a civilization wholly new, wholly American will rise in it’s place. That is our destiny in the Americas.
I continue to be impressed with your breadth of reading and your ability to write about it with poignancy. ( if you saw my chart, you'd know I don't blow smoke up anyone's skirts...).
I think I still have Halls most famous tome, but it's been SO long since I read it that, ashamedly, I remember little.
Until your last paragraph, I'd settled myself on not bothering to pick this book up- warring occult factions and the Good Guys lost? I wondered...
However now I may let the optimistic Taurus temperament have its way and pick it up.
Thanks for that! :)
The destiny of the global population is relevant too.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/xOTsDuvmgsI5/