Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by professorpan » Fri Jun 20, 2008 10:09 pm
by Jeff » Fri Jun 20, 2008 10:50 pm
by Cosmic Cowbell » Fri Jun 20, 2008 11:31 pm
by 8bitagent » Sat Jun 21, 2008 6:40 am
Yet for all his mental discipline, Hall was in terrible physical shape, with great folds of sagging flesh around his middle (Sahagun describes him as "avocado shaped"). According to Sahagun, Hall, when asked what he would wish for if he were given one wish, said that he would like to be placed in a swimming pool full of chocolate pudding so that he could eat his way out.
Jeff wrote:
The second half of the night was devoted to films that reflected the Southland's profound role in transforming and transmitting Aleister Crowley's Thelemic religion. Between the time of Crowley's decline and death, and the subsequent occult publishing book of the late Sixties and early Seventies, LA kept the Beast's words and practices alive like nowhere on earth. The now famous tale of Jack Parsons—JPL rocket scientist by day, hedonic thaumaturge by endless night—is also very much the tale of Marjorie Cameron, Parson's partner is love and sex magick and later an underground artist and witch who influenced Berman, George Herms, and other beat visionaries. Cameron makes a stunning appearance in Kenneth Anger's 1954 ritualistic drug-fete fever-dream "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, " which we showed before Anger crony Brian Butler introduced Curtis Harrington's 1956 "Wormwood Star," a marvelous short film that features Cameron's poetry and paintings, all of which she subsequently destroyed. We ended the evening with a clip from Craig Baldwin's recent film "Mock Up on Mu," which I wrote about here. The film, which uses the Parson/Cameron/L Ron Hubbard story to launch into Sci Fi political and cultural critique, showed how the stories and magical energies fluctuating through these underground films is still alive today, when we need an "army of mutants and warlocks" to carve out some creative space in the ominous shadow of the military-industrial-entertainment complex.
by OP ED » Sat Jun 21, 2008 8:31 pm
by 8bitagent » Sat Jun 21, 2008 8:59 pm
OP ED wrote:Marilyn Manson only lives in California now. He's from Ohio.
by cptmarginal » Wed May 27, 2015 5:39 pm
CHAPTER EIGHT
Manly Palmer Hall: The Secret Teacher
You may not recognize the name, but Manly Palmer Hall (1901-1990) was one of the twentieth century's most prolific popularizers of all things mystical, esoteric, and occult. Along with writing more than fifty books on everything from astrology to the afterlife, for more than half a century Hall was the leading light behind the Philosophical Research Society, a spiritual organization devoted to promoting "ancient philosophy," whose fantastic Egyptian-Mayan styled headquarters still stands on Los Feliz Boulevard at the foot of the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles. Here Hall lectured weekly to packed houses on dozens of arcane topics and maintained a unique collection of mystical objets d'art, famed among cognoscenti, and a library of rare alchemical and magical texts that attracted luminaries like C. G. Jung and Aldous Huxley. With his suave, leading-man looks, cultured manner, and rhetorical flare, Hall was a persuasive and inspiring speaker, and his influence and following spanned generations. Over the years, Hall's devotees included actors and actresses such as Bela Lugosi, Glenn Ford, Burl Ives, and Gloria Swanson; Hollywood bigwigs such as Sid Grauman, Cecil B. DeMille, and Samuel Goldwyn; politicians such as Harry S. Truman; scientists such as Luther Burbank; and other notables such as Elvis Presley, Sirhan Sirhan (Robert F. Kennedy's assassin), and the Apollo 14 moonwalker Edgar Mitchell.
Less known today than he was in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, Hall made his name in 1928 with the publication of his encyclopedic Secret Teachings of All Ages, a remarkable compendium of Hermetic, Kabbalistic, Masonic, Rosicrucian, and generally obscure lore, which remains a treasure trove for researchers into all forms of arcana and still sells thousands of copies a year. The year 2008 marked the eightieth anniversary of the publication of this important work, but it also marked the release of the first biography of Hall, Master of the Mysteries: The Life of Manly Palmer Hall by Louis Sahagun. The coincidence—if that's what it is—of Sahagun's book appearing on the anniversary of Hall's masterwork seems significant enough to prompt a look at the strange life and even stranger death of one of California's most long-lived gurus.
Hall's career as a mystic sage began in 1919, when he came to California to be reunited with his mother. Both parents had abandoned their son at an early age—Hall never knew his father—and although he was born in Canada, Hall's early manhood has all the hallmarks of an archetypal American success story. He led a peripatetic childhood with his eccentric maternal grandmother, living in hotel rooms and train compartments, and was set for a career on Wall Street when her sudden death freed him from this path. Quitting his clerk's job, the eighteen-year-old left New York City; days later he exited the train in Los Angeles and headed for his mother's house in the sleepy Pacific coast community of Santa Monica. According to his biographer, Hall seemed to have had few hard feelings toward the mother who abandoned him, or at least he didn't mention them. Throughout his life Hall avoided confrontation with those close to him, preferring to acquiesce to their demands rather than risk an argument.
The California that Hall discovered was rife with "spirituality" and what we would call "New Age consciousness:' In the early twentieth century, Theosophists, Freemasons, Vedantists, and Rosicrucians of varying authenticity prospered in the warm California sun. As one historian of new religious movements put it, "Hollywood is built on occult foundations?' The fact that Sid Grauman, responsible for such Hollywood landmarks as Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the El Capitan, and the very Hermetic Egyptian Theatre was, with Hall, a staunch Freemason, suggests this isn't an exaggeration. Young Manly haunted the amusement arcades on Santa Monica's beachfront, and one day was attracted by a sign advertising phrenology, the discipline that reads human psychology through the shape and contours of the skull. Intrigued by the diagrams of the brain and the anatomical charts he saw through the shop window, Hall went inside and asked the proprietor, Sydney J. Brownson, a Civil War veteran in his seventies, if he would like to "read his bumps:' Brownson explained that phrenologists "make calculations by measuring the radial length of brain fibers from the pons of the medulla oblongata?' Impressed, Hall listened as Brownson explained about magnetism, reincarnation, the aura, the wisdom of the ancients, the mysteries of India and the East, and the secret teachings of the church. Brownson quickly became Hall's guru, and his young student was entranced, eager to learn everything he could from the master.
Hall proved an excellent pupil, with a photographic memory and a talent for speaking, and a year later Brownson invited him to speak to a select audience who met weekly in a room above a bank. Hall was a success, his lecture on reincarnation dazzling the handful of elderly women who attended and rewarded the two with an offering of sixty-five cents, which the men quickly spent on chocolate sundaes. Thus Hall, who was an impressive six feet, four inches tall, began two activities that would last his lifetime: getting paid for speaking and indulging in sweets. Throughout his career, Hall maintained a secret life dedicated to binge-eating doughnuts; in later years, as he shunned exercise, his body grew to gargantuan proportions. The core message of his life's work, too, appeared at this time. For the next seventy years, in a variety of ways, Hall told his audiences that the universe was the creation of an invisible, living intelligence, and that in the remote past this truth had been hidden in the myths, symbols, and rituals of ancient societies. It was our task in the modern world to rediscover this secret and to benefit by it. It was a message that, in different ways, would be repeated by many others over the years.
Hall was so impressive a speaker that he was invited to address an audience at the Church of the People, one of Hollywood's most popular progressive religious forums. The lectures, held at the Blanchard Hall Building in downtown LA, were followed by lunch at Clifton's Cafeteria, a site later famous as the watering hole of the Los Angeles Fantasy and Science Fiction Society, whose members included L. Ron Hubbard, Robert Heinlein, and the Crowleyite rocket scientist, Jack Parsons. Hall became the church's main speaker, charging a dollar admission, an extravagant fee at the time. He also became the church's pastor and at nineteen was counseling men and women three times his age on the difficulties of life, becoming a "one stop source of an astonishing range of eclectic spiritual material."
But Hall wasn't alone; in a Hollywood filled with savants and swamis, he competed with other mystic seers. There were, for example, Princess Zoraida, "The Greatest Living Egyptian"; Pneumandros, "the Spirit Man"; Edwin J. Dwingle, founder of "Mentalphysics"; and the pyramidologist, "Professor" J. W. Parker, who claimed that the Great Pyramid of Egypt was "the Bible in stone." As today, when repackaged "secrets" of "mental science" top bestseller lists—witness the unsurprising success of The Secret—Hall's contemporaries blended mystic hokum with a get-rich-quick sensibility. But Hall wanted to be known as a philosopher and thinker, not merely a self-help huckster. He produced a series of pamphlets and newsletters like The All-Seeing Eye, spelling out his ideas on the spiritual and cultural future of America. His message reached important readers, some of whom made substantial financial contributions to his cause. One result was a trip around the world in order to study its sacred sites. Another was The Secret Teachings of All Ages, which Hall claimed was seven years in the making.
Described by Sahagun as a "gorgeous, dreamlike book of mysterious symbols, concise essays and colorful renderings of mythical beasts .. . and angelic beings' it appeared when Hall was just twenty-seven, and it made him nationally famous. It was an impressive tome. Weighing fourteen and a half pounds, between its thirteen- by nineteen-inch covers the reader found fifty-four original full color plates and two hundred black-and-white illustrations, and its double-columned fine font pages contained articulate essays drawing on more than six hundred sources. Seductively browsable, it remains a thrilling if not always reliable sourcebook on practically every aspect of the Western esoteric tradition. Selling at a hundred dollars a copy, its first two editions of eleven hundred copies sold out in advance, and further editions did equally well. For decades it was available only in its unwieldy "biblical" format—at the PRS Library today, a visitor's copy sits on an impressive lectern, and it's difficult to avoid thinking of the Ten Commandments. In recent years, however, a reader-friendly paperback has introduced the work to a new generation of seekers.
Hall's success made him a target for female Hollywood hopefuls wishing to share his mystic spotlight, if not his bed; for years Hall had promoted celibacy, and the tacit assumption was that any liaison with him would be sexless. But his sudden celebrity changed his mind, and it became known that Hall was looking for a real wife. While he could have had his choice of society women, in 1930 Hall married his secretary, Fay B. Ravenne, an attractive brunette astrologer from Texas. But the marriage soon proved difficult. Fay was subject to several illnesses—their exact nature is unknown—and she resented her husband's growing fame and success. In their decade together Hall's public star rose. Warner Brothers pumped him for film ideas, his library and art collection grew, and he traveled widely, befriending important people like the explorer Sir Francis Younghusband, the artist-mystic Nicholas Roerich, the mystical adventure writer Talbot Mundy, and the escape artist Harry Houdini. In 1934, he purchased a plot of land in Hollywood's Los Feliz district, near Griffith Park; here he planned to build the headquarters for his newly founded Philosophical Research Society, designing the "temple" in a fantastic "Atlantean" style. Troubled by fraudsters who preyed on naive seekers, the public-spirited Hall received death threats after exposing a quasi-fascist self-help organization called Mankind United. Yet his home life (in a house built by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright) was disastrous. Hall suffered from numerous ailments, his relentless overeating his only relief from the misery of married life. Fay retreated deeper into depression; then, in 1941, she committed suicide, gassing herself in her car. Hall was devastated, but after a short period of mourning, he purged all record of Fay from his files, never mentioned her again, and got on with his career.
By 1944, America was at war, and Hall responded with patriotic fervor, his book The Secret Destiny of America promoting an esoteric version of Manifest Destiny that Bush-era theo-cons would have loved (one wonders if Hall was on their reading lists). Hall argued that the "seeds of democracy" had been planted on American soil millennia before the Christian era and that this "plan of the ancients" had been preserved through the centuries by secret societies, "pledged to condition America to its destiny for leadership in a free world." True or not, it was good propaganda in wartime, but one of Hall's readers took his idea and ran with it. In fact, she had already been running with it for some time. Marie Bauer, a petite German immigrant and mother of two, scoured Hall's writings and haunted his library, searching for confirmation of her own mystical-political insight. She was convinced that Sir Francis Bacon (who really was a Rosicrucian) had traveled to America, and while there had buried a vault beneath a church tower in Williamsburg, Virginia. In the vault were, Marie claimed, a fortune in gold, several unknown works of Shakespeare that proved he was really Bacon (Hall, too, accepted this idea), a plan to end war, and the location of similarly hidden vaults. God, Marie believed, had chosen her to uncover the vault; if she didn't, humanity was doomed. Her passion proved powerful enough to convince the proper authorities, and in the fall of 1938, Marie and her crew dug deep beneath Williamsburg's Bruton Parish Episcopal Church. Predictably, they found nothing; at least unbiased witnesses said the excavation was a failure. Marie thought otherwise and carried on, writing several books about the "Bruton vault" and its part in the coming "United Brotherhood of Earth:' She did, however, give thought to her family, who were increasingly troubled by her bizarre behavior and her obsession with Hall, whose work, she believed, was of immense importance to her life purpose. The only fair thing to do, she concluded, was to get a divorce and abandon her children. After that, the next step was obvious. In December 1950, Hall and Marie were married. Her obsession with Bacon's vaults continued for the rest of her life, and at one point she was investigated by the FBI after she doggedly pestered every government agency she could think of to support her mission. This, along with her frequent hallucinations, fits of violence, and grandiose claims—at one point she bragged that she had mastered a means of controlling atomic energy—suggest that Marie was at least occasionally psychotic. Hall, it seems, tended to attract disturbed women.
By the 1950s, America's destiny as the protector and promoter of world democracy seemed secure, and an affluent society began to focus on other issues. From mystical insights into world politics, Hairs concern, and that of his audience, passed to health. Hall's own had always been shaky, and as other popular self-help programs like Dianetics promised miraculous results, Hall investigated a few eccentric approaches to alternative health. One was the work of the Hungarian émigré Edmond Bordeaux Szekely, cofounder of the International Biogenic Society, which was then operating out of Tecate, in Baja California. Szekely claimed to have a PhD from the University of Paris, to be fluent in ten languages, and to have developed a regime that promised "wholesome, meaningful, and spiritual fulfilment" through "nutrition, meditation, and self-analysis." Szekely based his ideas on a book he claimed to have translated from an Aramaic text, discovered in a secret archive in the Vatican. In his Essene Gospel of Peace (1936), Jesus apparently urges his followers to cleanse their "hinder parts" with an "angel of water;' a kind of first-century colonies tool made from a gourd. Other of Szekely's works have an equal focus on the spiritual virtues of enemas. He also marketed a "biogenic battery" made of bound leaves of grass, which was to be brushed over the genitals. Whether this too was endorsed by Jesus is unclear.
Needless to say, the Aramaic text kept hidden by the Vatican existed only in Szekely's imagination, but the idea of being cleansed by an "angel of water" appealed to Hall, as did the regime of a strict fruit juice diet. In his last days, an updated "angel of water" was cleansing Hall twice daily, and its ministrations very likely contributed to his death in 1990, according to his family physician. By this time, however, Hall had come under the influence of an "alternative health expert" who hoped to capitalize on Szekely's dubious claims.
The 1960s and early '70s were a low point for Hall. Although the impressive headquarters, library, and lecture hall of the PRS was finally completed in 1959, and Hall, keeping his nose to the wind, augmented his discourses on ancient philosophy with insights into UFOs, by the mid-'60s it was clear that his rather conservative values were out of step with the Swinging Decade. His diatribes against the modern world, rock music, free love, hedonism, and drugs seemed the whining of a grumpy senior citizen, and indeed by this time Hall himself was in his sixties. Yet even in the threatening world of rock 'n' roll, Hall had followers. According to Larry Geller, Elvis's spiritual advisor in the '60s, the King once sent Priscilla to one of Hall's lectures so that she might develop an interest in the esoteric. Geller also claims that in the early '70s he bought a new deluxe edition of the Secret Teachings for Elvis at the PRS bookshop. When Hall overheard whom the copy was for, he signed it. Elvis reportedly asked Geller to tell "Mr. Hall how much I appreciate this."
By the late '70s, when I heard Hall speak at more than one of his Sunday morning lectures, the PRS had gained a new lease on life, rejuvenated by the burgeoning New Age movement and the new speakers its excellent facilities attracted. Stephan Hoeller, another Hungarian émigré and bishop of the Ecclesia Gnostica, a Gnostic church in Hollywood; Huston Smith, the MIT professor of religion and philosophy; Stanley Krippner, professor of psychology at the Saybrook Institute in San Francisco; the psychologist Bruno Bettelheim; Edgar Mitchell; and Willis Harman, of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, all became familiar speakers and fellow travelers of Hall's society. Others, like the "psychic archaeologist" Stephan Schwartz, also became closely involved with Hall.
While the new interest in metaphysics, spirituality, and a more holistic science found a welcome forum at the FRS, its own politics were in disarray. Its finances were a shambles, its files disorderly, maintenance minimal, security practically nonexistent. Hall's copyrights had lapsed, his priceless library wasn't even insured, and the building itself needed extensive repairs. The aging Hall had difficulty delegating authority and obliged assistants to facilitate his binges on sweets. Marie fluctuated between dictatorialness and evident dementia. And her imprudent boasts about the combined value of the PRS's and Hall's considerable assets attracted precisely the kind of spiritual con men he had battled in years gone by.
One of these was "Dr." Daniel Fritz, a 1980s adherent of Edmond Szekely's colonic philosophy. Among other beliefs, "Dr." Fritz—he had no real medical qualifications—claimed that giving birth near dolphins would ensure a highly evolved child. That many of the women taken in by this idea sued him after attending his clinic in Hawaii suggests just how feasible this practice was. However, Fritz, like most con men, was undeterred by setbacks, and at a New Age event in Santa Monica he wheedled his way into Marie's confidence. Although Manly was at first suspicious, for the less than savvy Marie, Fritz was a "godsend," and he quickly made himself indispensable to the pair, enjoying a dangerous intimacy with and access to both the Halls' and their society's wealth. Aged, ill, and at times confused, Hall's reluctance to confront associates gave Fritz almost carte blanche. An antique coin dealer who knew Hall grew suspicious when the "Doctor" presented several valuable coins claiming he was selling on Hall's behalf; when the dealer mentioned this to Hall, he merely said to "let it go." This was only one incident. Soon Fritz was helping himself daily to the several cookie jars left open by the increasingly senile Hall, and it wasn't long before the "Doctor" had the run of both the society and Hall's life.
Fritz became as much a fixture at the PRS as Hall, and as the latter's health grew increasingly fragile, the "Doctor" took charge of his treatment. For the most part this consisted of repeated doses of Szekely's "angel of water" combined with a rigorous fruit juice diet. As Dr. Sterling Pollack, Hall's family physician, later argued, this regime more than likely pushed Hall closer to his death, increasing his heart problems (brought on by his obesity) by depleting his electrolytes. Although Pollack repeatedly warned Hall of this danger, the philosopher found it impossible to refuse Fritz's treatments.
By this time Fritz was in charge of both Hall and Marie, blocking any direct access to them and vetting all contacts. Recognizing that Hall was more than likely heading for the afterlife, Fritz decided that he might as well make his control of both Hall's and the PRS's assets—valued then at around $5 million—official. There was, however, that problem of the will Hall had drawn up some years before, leaving everything to Marie and his stepchildren. Fritz's solution was to draw up a new will.
On August 23, 1990, Fritz impressed on Hall that he needed his signature on a document that would relieve him of any burdensome business regarding the many changes needed at the PRS. Hall, who had no idea what he was signing, was too tired and ill to resist and took the pen. Perhaps the "Doctor" even helped him move it across the page? In any case, it was done. Six days later, Fritz called Forest Lawn mortuary and Dr. Pollack to tell them that Hall had died peacefully in his sleep. When Pollack and the undertakers arrived to retrieve the body, they were stunned. Hall's pale, huge form lay on a creaseless bed, and out of his mouth, ears, and nose streamed thousands of ants. A cleaning crew was busy scrubbing out reddish-brown stains on the carpet, and Fritz and his son, who had also helped "care" for Hall, were carting his valuables out to their car. When Pollack asked where the ants came from, Fritz replied, "I don't know." Understandably suspicious, Pollack immediately canceled the death certificate he had written out. When asked what he was doing with Hall's belongings, Fritz mentioned the new will. It was the first Pollack had heard of it, and when he informed Marie, she finally twigged to what was going on.
Hall, Marie, Fritz, and his son are all dead, and the case remains, as Sahagun writes, "an open-ended unsolved Hollywood murder mystery" worthy of Raymond Chandler. When she realized that Fritz had pulled a fast one, Marie waged a tenacious legal battle against him, challenging the new will. She eventually regained control over most of Hall's personal assets, most of which she had to use to cover legal fees. The PRS, however, remained in Fritz's control, and cronies he had placed on its board of directors did all they could to keep the honey pot open. Botched autopsies, recalcitrant coroners, lack of decisive evidence, and standard bureaucracy impeded police attempts to nail Hall's murder on Fritz. But they were sure he did it. The ants - an Argentine variety, it turned out, after one was discovered stuck between Hall's teeth - could not possibly have been in Hall's home, an expert testified, and could only have entered Hall's body after death, and only outside in open country.
A second autopsy revealed several bruises, smudges of soil, and evidence of trauma on Hall's body and argued that Hall had asphyxiated face down in the dirt and hadn't died peacefully in bed. This could only have happened during the bizarre expeditions to Santa Barbara that Fritz insisted Manly and Marie make in a motor home owned by the PRS a week before. On two occasions the engine supposedly overheated, although there was no evidence of this, and Marie was advised to join Fritz's son, who was following them in a separate car, leaving Hall alone with Fritz. The first time she refused; miraculously, the trouble disappeared, and the motor home returned to LA. The next day the same thing happened. This time Fritz insisted Marie go on while he and Hall waited. This time she reluctantly agreed. She never saw her husband alive again. Police believed that while Marie went on to Santa Barbara, Fritz either left the severely fragile Hall to die of exposure in the hot California sun or helped him along. The ants, they believe, seeking water, would have been attracted to Hall's body fluids and entered him through various orifices while he was lying on the ground. The carpet stains were traces of soil. Weakened by his "angels of water," a severely ill Hall would not have lasted long in the Southern California heat.
Hall's end, bizarre and macabre that it was, shouldn't overshadow the significance of his early masterwork. The Secret Teachings of All Ages remains an indisputable classic. The PRS, under new management, remains a vital center for metaphysical investigation and in recent years received academic accreditation. And though not sparing of warts or skeletons in closets, Sahagun's gripping biography is an insightful look at the life and times of one of the last century's most important mystical teachers.
by seemslikeadream » Wed May 27, 2015 6:02 pm
by Freitag » Wed May 27, 2015 6:09 pm
cptmarginal » Wed May 27, 2015 10:39 am wrote:Hall was so impressive a speaker that he was invited to address an audience at the Church of the People, one of Hollywood's most popular progressive religious forums. The lectures, held at the Blanchard Hall Building in downtown LA, were followed by lunch at Clifton's Cafeteria, a site later famous as the watering hole of the Los Angeles Fantasy and Science Fiction Society, whose members included L. Ron Hubbard, Robert Heinlein, and the Crowleyite rocket scientist, Jack Parsons. Hall became the church's main speaker, charging a dollar admission, an extravagant fee at the time. He also became the church's pastor and at nineteen was counseling men and women three times his age on the difficulties of life, becoming a "one stop source of an astonishing range of eclectic spiritual material."
by Luther Blissett » Thu May 28, 2015 12:47 pm
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