Ancestor · 1901–1990

Manly P. Hall

Author of the reference encyclopedia of symbolism the whole scene draws on.

Source — supplied the encyclopedic decoding of symbols every later figure cites.

Manly P. Hall gave the tradition its reference book. In 1928, at twenty-seven, he self-published The Secret Teachings of All Ages — an encyclopedic outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic, and Rosicrucian symbolism — and later founded the Philosophical Research Society to house the lineage of that learning. Hall teaches that the world’s mysteries and religions share one symbolic philosophy, that symbols conceal a perennial wisdom meant for initiates, and that a hidden order of philosophers shaped the founding of America. When a later researcher decodes the eye, the pillars, or the seal, they are usually reading from Hall.

Core claims

Hall teaches that the world's mythologies, mysteries, and religions share a single symbolic philosophy — Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic, and Rosicrucian.
Hall reads symbols, rituals, and allegories as concealing a perennial wisdom intended for initiates.
Hall teaches, in The Secret Destiny of America, that a secret order of philosophers guided the founding of the nation.

Key works

The Secret Teachings of All Ages · 1928
The Secret Destiny of America · 1944
The Lost Keys of Freemasonry · 1923

Signature decodes

The encyclopedic decoding of Masonic, Rosicrucian, and Hermetic symbols across a single 1928 volume written when Hall was 27.
His reading of the all-seeing eye and the Great Seal as the 'signature of the Mysteries' in the founders' design.

Worked decodes

Influenced