Occult American
The real story behind Manly P. Hall, Ronald Reagan, and the “secret destiny” of America
I’ll never forget the first time I heard the stately name: Manly P. Hall. It was a summer day about twenty years before this writing. I was having lunch with friends in New York City, where the esoteric scholar Hall (1901–1990) once lived and began researching his “Great Book,” The Secret Teachings of All Ages, at the city’s cathedral-like public library, where I am a writer-in-residence today.
It was early in my studies of occult and esoteric traditions. “Who should I be reading?” I asked my friends, both longtime seekers. One, named Pythia — the same name, I later learned from Hall’s work, as the oracle at Delphi — said: “Manly P. Hall,” lingering over every syllable. I felt the kind of electrical charge you sometimes experience when you know you’re about to make a life-shifting discovery. I had to learn who was behind that imposing name; I felt an inner conviction that such knowledge would prove personally meaningful. My conviction turned out right: Hall’s work helped chart the course of my career.
Hall was the first writer who moved me to understand that studying the metaphysical dimensions of history could form a vocation in itself. In fall of 2005, I delivered my first full-scale talk, “The Occult Philosophy in…
