The Secret Teachings of All Ages - Softcover

"He who has not even a knowledge of common things is a brute among men. He who has an accurate knowledge of human concerns alone is a man among brutes. But he who knows all that can be known by intellectual energy, is a God among men." Through mental perversity some men do not desire pleasure. In reality, however, pleasure (especially of a physical nature) is the true end of existence and exceeds in every way mental and spiritual enjoyments. Pleasure, furthermore, is limited wholly to the moment; now is the only time. The past cannot be regarded without regret and the future cannot be faced without misgiving; therefore neither is conducive to pleasure. No man should grieve, for grief is the most serious of all diseases. Nature permits man to do anything he desires; he is limited only by his own laws and customs. A philosopher is one free from envy, love, and superstition, and whose days are one long round of pleasure. Philosophers differ markedly from other men in that they alone would not change the order of their lives if all the laws of men were abolished. The object of his philosophy is the elevation of the mind to the point where it is capable of controlling the will. There is no higher pursuit.

Manly Palmer Hall (March 18, 1901 - August 29, 1990) was a Canadian-born author and mystic. He is perhaps most famous for his work The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy, published in 1928 when he was 27 years old. It is claimed that Hall was made a knight patron of the Masonic Research Group of San Francisco in 1953, although he was not raised as a Mason until 22 November 1954 into Jewel Lodge No. 374 , San Francisco. He later received his 32° in the Valley of San Francisco AASR (SJ). In 1973 (47 years after writing The Secret Teachings of All Ages), Hall was recognized as a 33° Mason (the highest honor conferred by the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite), at a ceremony held at the Philosophical Research Society (PRS) on December 8,1973.). The definitive Manly Palmer Hall Archive states that Hall received the 33°, "despite never being initiated into the physical craft." In his over 70-year career, Hall delivered approximately 8,000 lectures in the United States and abroad, authored over 150 books and essays, and wrote countless magazine articles.