Manly P. Hall
Peterborough, Ontario, 1901 to Los Angeles 1990; wrote The Secret Teachings of All Ages at twenty-seven, the 1928 folio of symbolism whose colour plates J. Augustus Knapp painted and whose captions are quoted on more pictures in this archive than any other modern source.
Abraxas, a Gnostic Pantheos
The Macrocosm and the Microcosm
Pythagoras of Crotona
The Seven Spinal Chakras
The Key to Dante's Divine Comedy
The Ancient of the Ancients
Occultum Lapidem, the Philosopher's Stone
The Cherub of Ezekiel
The Opening of the Third Eye
The Tree of the Sephiroth
Hermes Standing upon the Back of Typhon
The Contents of the Zodiacal Egg
The Grand Man of the Zohar
Monochordum Mundanum, the Divine Monochord
Systema Sephiroticum, the Tree of the Sephiroth
Readings given
59 passages on 15 pictures in the archive, from The Secret Teachings of All Ages.
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The Ancient Mysteries and Secret Societies, Part II
“Abraxas is usually symbolized as a composite creature, with the body of a human being and the head of a rooster, and with each of his legs ending in a serpent.”
“Basilides taught that the powers of the universe were divided into 365 Æons, or spiritual cycles, and that the sum of all these together was the Supreme Father, and to Him he gave the Qabbalistical appellation Abraxas, as being symbolical, numerologically, of His divine powers, attributes, and emanations.”
plate caption
“The four white horses drawing the chariot of ABRAXAS symbolize the four ethers by means of which the solar power, ABRAXAS, is circulating through all parts of the universe.”
“The seven-lettered name of ABRAXAS is symbolically significant of his seven-rayed power.”
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The Macrocosm and the Microcosm
plate caption
“As the universe is the reflection of the Ancient One, so the human body is the reflection, or inverted image, of man's spirit.”
“Out of the great Sea of Eternity rise the head and shoulders of the Ancient and Holy One, whose inverted image is mirrored in the Deep.”
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The Zodiac and Its Signs
“Pythagoras taught that 10, or the unit of the decimal system, was the most perfect of all numbers, and he symbolized the number ten by the lesser tetractys, an arrangement of ten dots in the form of an upright triangle.”
Pythagorean Mathematics
“Theon of Smyrna declares that the ten dots, or tetractys of Pythagoras, was a symbol of the greatest importance, for to the discerning mind it revealed the mystery of universal nature.”
plate caption
“All too lightly the world has passed over the achievements of the first "philosopher" to whom it is indebted for so many of the basic theorems of mathematics, music, and astronomy.”
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Flowers, Plants, Fruits, and Trees
“The Brahmin and Egyptian initiates, who undoubtedly understood the secret systems of spiritual culture whereby the latent centers of cosmic energy in man may be stimulated, employed the lotus blossoms to represent the spinning vortices of spiritual energy located at various points along the spinal column and called chakras, or whirling wheels, by the Hindus.”
“Seven of these chakras are of prime importance and have their individual correspondences in the nerve ganglia and plexuses.”
plate caption, read from the printed page
“This painting of the CHAKRAS is based upon a number of native drawings brought from India by Mr. Hall in 1924.”
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The Key to Dante's Divine Comedy
plate caption
“As the soul climbs the seven steps of Purgatory it is cleansed of the seven mortal sins, and it then ascends through the seven spheres of the Ptolemaic universe.”
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plate caption
“In the Zohar His robes are said to be white, but they are here shown as red to signify that the garments of Divinity partake of the nature of cosmic activity.”
“He sits upon a throne of flaming light and the flashes of the fire are subject to His will.”
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Occultum Lapidem, the Philosopher's Stone
plate caption
“The Philosopher's Stone is an ancient symbol of the perfected and regenerated man whose divine nature shines forth through a chain of purified and unfolded vehicles.”
“To the mystic, the Philosopher's Stone is perfect love, which transmutes all that is base and raises all that is dead.”
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under the plate The Vision of Ezekiel, on Ezekiel's creatures and not on this painting of them
“The prophet beheld four strange creatures, each having four heads, four wings, and brazen hoofs like those of a calf.”
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plate caption, read from the printed page
“This painting of the head of Minerva shows, in part, the activities of the pineal gland and the pituitary body at the time of the phenomenon commonly termed the opening of the Third Eye.”
The Hiramic Legend
“In the human brain there is a tiny gland called the pineal body, which is the sacred eye of the ancients, and corresponds to the third eye of the Cyclops.”
“As its name signifies, the pineal gland is the sacred pine cone in man - the eye single, which cannot be opened until CHiram (the Spirit Fire) is raised through the sacred seals which are called the Seven Churches in Asia.”
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Flowers, Plants, Fruits, and Trees
“The medieval Qabbalists represented creation as a tree with its roots in the reality of spirit and its branches in the illusion of tangible existence. The Sephirothic tree of the Qabbalah was therefore inverted, with its roots in heaven and its branches upon the earth.”
“The Qabbalistic tree of the Jews also consists of nine branches, or worlds, emanating from the First Cause or Crown, which surrounds its emanations as the shell surrounds the egg.”
“The tree has also been accepted as symbolic of the Microcosm, that is, man.”
The Tree of the Sephiroth
“The Sephirothic Tree consists of ten globes of luminous splendor arranged in three vertical columns and connected by 22 channels or paths. The ten globes are called the Sephiroth and to them are assigned the numbers 1 to 10.”
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Hermes Standing upon the Back of Typhon
The Life and Writings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus
“In Its hand this mysterious Being bore a winged rod, entwined with serpents.”
“Suddenly Hermes struck the advancing reptile with the serpent-wound staff and with snarling cry the dragon fell over upon its side, while the flames about it slowly died away.”
“At the same instant a lurid writhing dragon appeared - a hideous monster, part serpent, part crocodile, and part hog. From its mouth and nostrils poured sheets of flame and horrible sounds echoed through the vaulted chambers.”
“Hermes placed His foot upon the skull of the vanquished Typhon.”
“From its mouth and nostrils poured sheets of flame and horrible sounds echoed through the vaulted chambers.”
“As the candidate watched, the heart changed into an ibis, and the brain into a flashing emerald.”
“Suddenly, through the gleaming mist a figure appeared, surrounded by a flickering greenish sheen.”
“The Form before him was considerably larger than that of a mortal man. The body seemed partly transparent so that the heart and brain could be seen pulsating and radiant.”
“The candidate, in his plain white robe, gazed into the utter blackness framed by the two great Lotus-headed columns between which the veil had hung.”
“"All hail Thee, Thoth Hermes, Thrice Greatest; all hail Thee, Prince of Men; all hail Thee who standeth upon the head of Typhon!"”
Isis, the Virgin of the World
“Typhon, the Egyptian Demon or Spirit of the Adversary, was born upon the third day. Typhon is often symbolized by a crocodile; sometimes his body is a combination of crocodile and hog. Isis stands for knowledge and wisdom, and according to Plutarch the word Typhon means insolence and pride.”
Fishes, Insects, Animals, Reptiles, and Birds, Part I
“The ibis was sacred to Thoth, and when its head and neck were tucked under its wing its body closely resembled a human heart.”
Hermetic Pharmacology, Chemistry, and Therapeutics
“The Smaragdine, or Emerald Tablet found in the valley of Ebron and generally accredited to Hermes, is in reality a chemical formula of a high and secret order.”
The Life and Writings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus, the caption to the figure from the Historia Deorum Fatidicorum
“Master of all arts and sciences, perfect in all crafts. Ruler of the Three Worlds, Scribe of the Gods, and Keeper of the Books of Life, Thoth Hermes Trismegistus - the Three Times Greatest, the "First Intelligencer" - was regarded by the ancient Egyptians as the embodiment of the Universal Mind.”
An Analysis of the Tarot Cards, on the Wheel of Fortune
“To its rim cling Anubis and Typhon - the principles of good and evil.”
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The Contents of the Zodiacal Egg
plate caption, read from the plate; the caption runs on past what the archive's copy can resolve
“In the midst of Cosmos stands the fiery altar of Divinity, its most familiar analogue being the life germ in an egg.”
“Three Holy Powers--the triune aspect of the central One--represented as aged men with flames on their heads, continually adore their own Source.”
The Zodiac and Its Signs, the caption to the figure from the Margarita Philosophica
“The pagans believed that the zodiac formed the body of the Grand Man of the Universe. This body, which they called the Macrocosm (the Great World), was divided into twelve major parts, one of which was under the control of the celestial powers reposing in each of the zodiacal constellations.”
Fishes, Insects, Animals, Reptiles, and Birds, Part I
“In the Mysteries, the universe was likened to an egg which the Cosmic Goose had laid in space.”
Fundamentals of Qabbalistic Cosmogony
“The first condition is the central point - the primitive objectified radiance of the eternal, subjectified life. About this radiance is darkness caused by the deprivation of the life which is drawn to the center to create the first point, or universal germ.”
“In the secret teachings of the Qabbalah it is taught that man's body is enveloped in an ovoid of bubble-like iridescence, which is called the Auric Egg. This is the causal sphere of man. It bears the same relationship to man's physical body that the globe of AIN SOPH bears to Its created universes.”
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The Zodiac and Its Signs, the caption to the figure from the Margarita Philosophica
“The pagans believed that the zodiac formed the body of the Grand Man of the Universe. This body, which they called the Macrocosm (the Great World), was divided into twelve major parts, one of which was under the control of the celestial powers reposing in each of the zodiacal constellations.”
Fundamentals of Qabbalistic Cosmogony
“This is probably the secret significance of the great figure of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, with its head in the World of Atziluth, its arms and hands in the World of Briah, its generative system in the World of Yetzirah, and its legs and feet in the World of Assiah. This is the Grand Man of the Zohar”
The Sun, a Universal Deity
“The pagan priests always considered the solar system as a Grand Man, and drew their analogy of these three centers of activity from the three main centers of life in the human body: the brain, the heart, and the generative system.”
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Monochordum Mundanum, the Divine Monochord
The Pythagorean Theory of Music and Color, the caption to this figure, reproduced there as The Mundane Monochord with its Proportions and Intervals
“The interval between the element of earth and the highest heaven is considered as a double octave, thus showing the two extremes of existence to be in disdiapason harmony.”
the same caption; Hall's paraphrase of the passage on generation and regeneration on page 87
“'If struck in the more spiritual part,' writes Fludd, 'the monochord will give eternal life; if in the more material part, transitory life.'”
The Pythagorean Theory of Music and Color, the caption to this figure
“The sun is the lower octave of the highest heaven and the earth the lower octave of the sun.”
“In this chart is set forth a summary of Fludd's theory of universal music.”
The Pythagorean Theory of Music and Color, his caption to a neighbouring Fludd figure, The Four Elements and their Consonantal Intervals
“Fludd emphasizes the fact that as the elements ascend in series of two and a half tones, the diatessaron is the dominating harmonic interval of the elements.”
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Systema Sephiroticum, the Tree of the Sephiroth
The Tree of the Sephiroth
“The Sephirothic Tree consists of ten globes of luminous splendor arranged in three vertical columns and connected by 22 channels or paths.”
“The three columns are called Mercy (on the right), Severity (on the left), and, between them, Mildness, as the reconciling power.”
“The column on the right, which is called Jachin, has its foundation on Chochmah, the outpouring Wisdom of God; the three globes suspended from it are all masculine potencies. The column at the left is called Boaz. The three globes upon it are feminine and receptive potencies, for it is founded in Understanding, a receptive and maternal potency.”
“In Kircher's Sephirothic Tree it should be especially noted that the ornaments of the Tabernacle appear in the various parts of the diagram.”
The Tree of the Sephiroth, the caption to his translation of this plate, The Sephirothic Tree of the Later Qabbalists
“Letters and numbers, according to the Qabbalists, are the keys to all knowledge, for by a secret system of arranging them the mysteries of creation are revealed.”