An Esoteric Quest for Inner America Faculty Spotlight- Louis Sahagun

Louis Sahagun is the author of Master of the Mysteries: The Life of Manly P. Hall. He is a senior staff writer at the Los Angeles Times where he covers religion, politics, the environment, law enforcement, and race relations. He is also current president of the L.A. chapter of Latino Journalists of California Association. 

Louis Sahagan will be part of the faculty at the Esoteric Quest for Inner America taking place in Phoenicia, NY (8/24-28)

Manly P Hall was an extraordinary influential figure in 20th century American esotericism, he influenced figures as diverse as Cecil B. DeMille and Elvis Presley. Tell us about his early life and how he came to write his book, Secret Teachings of All Ages.

When Hall was born on March 18, 1901, his parents were already living part. His father, dentist William S. Hall, moved away from Ontario when Hall was three years old and was never heard from again. His mother, Louise, handed him over to his grandmother when he was two years old, then went off to work as a chiropractic healer in the Alaska gold fields. Over the next 18 years, Hall bounced from town to town with his peripatetic grandmother. Together, by lamplight, they read classics and adventure novels, which is where Hall first encountered words and concepts such as “Hindu” and “Buddha.” Hall, who had dropped out of school in the 6th grade, turned his back on a business career in New York City ‘s Wall Street after his grandmother died suddenly. While in New York , he had a fascinating, life-changing relationship with escape artist Harry Houdini. He came to California in 1919 to be reunited with his mother, who was living in Santa Monica at the time. At the Santa Monica Pier, Hall — six feet four inches tall and wide in the center, with piercing blue eyes and chiseled features worthy of a Barrymore — befriended a diminutive horse-and-buggy doctor and Civil war veteran in his early 70s who enthralled him with talk of auras, the magnetic fields of the body and reincarnation. Hall went on to become the metaphysical equivalent of the American Dream. Within a decade, Hall would take over a prominent Los Angeles church with an incredibly diverse congregation of 600 people — single tax enthusiasts, socialists, spiritualists, utopians, Rosicrucians, healers — and then transform himself into a world-renowned philosopher and student of the occult. At 21, Hall was ordained a minister of that church. Among his followers were heiresses of a wealthy California oil dynasty who later subsidized his journeys to spiritual centers around the world, and the founding of his Philosophical Research Center in Los Angeles . In 1928, at the age of 27, he published his magnum opus, An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy. Overnight, the book, which is also known as The Secret Teachings of All Ages, catapulted him to the top of the list of America ‘s scholars of mysticism and magic. Seven years in the making at a stunning production cost of $150,000, the 13-inch by 19-inch book is a summation of the more than 600 volumes of occult traditions and ancient history in his library at the time. He dictated portions of the book four hours each day to a stenographer at the southwest Los Angeles home of an older married couple who were devoted followers. Legendary publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst wrote Hall to tell him that he had discovered a single typographical error in the index; Madam Helena Blavatsky’s first name was spelled Helen.

Manly P. Hall came to LA in the 20′s, what kind of a world did he find in California in terms of its receptivity to esoteric matters?

Fascination with astrology, sorcery and ancient philosophy flourished in Southern California , the birthplace for an entire subculture of mystically-inclined newcomers such as Hall. He called the region the spiritual “greenhouse of America ,” and he hoped to be its high priest. Back then, many civic and business leaders, judges, architects, physicians, engineers and entertainment industry figures were members of Masonic lodges or other esoteric schools whose Neoclassical temples were among the most imposing buildings on the landscape surrounded by orange groves and oil derricks.

In Hollywood , developer Charles E. Toberman, for example, motivated Sid Grauman to create the Egyptian, Chinese and El Capitan theaters. Toberman built the Hollywood Bowl and Max Factor Building , among others. The founder of the Broadway department store was a Mason, as was famed film director Cecil B. DeMille.

Other than the Secret Teachings of all Ages, what other books captured the essence of Manly P. Hall’s work?

Hall was the most prolific occult philosopher of the 20th century. His output includes more than 50 books, hundreds of essays and 8,000 public lectures, which introduced untold thousands to the works of sages and seers from Plato to George Santayana. Standouts, in my opinion, include First Principals of Philosophy , a practical primer course on logic, ethics and epistemology; Journey in Truth: Idealistic Philosophy from Orpheus to St. Augustine , a very readable survey of constructive philosophy, and Meditation Symbols in Eastern and Western Mysticism: Mysteries of the Mandala, which echoes themes of his Secret Teachings of All Ages.

How does his legacy continue today through the Philosophical Research Society?

PRS was founded in 1934 with a goal of providing rare public access to the depth and breadth of the world’s philosophical literature, and establishing a school of wisdom teachings. The public is welcome to explore Hall’s spacious, wood-paneled library, which hasn’t changed in 70 years. Today, the library’s 30,000 volumes serve the newly formed University of Philosophical Research , which offers a Master’s Degree Program in Consciousness Studies.

Your book Master of the Mysteries is the first book to cover the life and career of MPH. What were the most fascinating facts that emerged for you as your research progressed on the book?

Over the eight years I spent digging into the complex truth about Hall and his myth, it was one surprise after another. Some of the most intriguing facts that emerged were about the suspicious circumstances surrounding Hall’s tragic and bizarre death, which police believe was a homicide; about his first wife, the sultry astrologer Fay Bernice Hall, who committed suicide in 1941; about the oil clan heiress who donated millions of dollars to call and his causes; about Hall’s work as a confidential informant for federal investigators who were trying to take down a Los Angeles cult in the late 1930s that was bilking followers out of millions of dollars; about Hall’s close relationships with influential leaders including his close friend and fellow astrologer California Gov. Goodwin Knight, and about the distressingly weird fantasies projected on Hall by his followers and closest friends and about Hall actively encouraging young men to join the military and fight for their country during World War II and The Vietnam War. I’ve always been intrigued by men and women who, without formal education, training or influential family ties carved out high-profile careers that changed the world around them. Among them, writer Henry Miller; impressionist painter Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin, Bob Dylan, Labor Leader Henry Bridges and Manly Palmer Hall.

At the conference Louis will be presenting a plenary – Master of the Mysteries: The Life of Manly P. Hall and a workshop – Esoteric Los Angeles

For complete conference information visit www.estotericquest.org