The Elements and their Inhabitants E-Book

Manly Palmer Hall

• Herausgeber: Edizioni Aurora Boreale
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Just as visible Nature is populated by an infinite number of living creatures, so, according to Paracelsus, the invisible, spiritual counterpart of visible Nature (composed of the tenuous principles of the visible elements) is inhabited by a host of peculiar beings, to whom he has given the name elementals, and which have later been termed the Nature spirits. Paracelsus divided these people of the elements into four distinct groups, which he called gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders. He taught that they were really living entities, many resembling human beings in shape, and inhabiting worlds of their own, unknown to man because his undeveloped senses were incapable of functioning beyond the limitations of the grosser elements.
The civilizations of Greece, Rome, Egypt, China, and India believed implicitly in satyrs, sprites, and goblins. They peopled the sea with mermaids, the rivers and fountains with nymphs, the air with fairies, the fire with Lares and Penates, and the earth with fauns, dryads, and hamadryads. These Nature spirits were held in the highest esteem, and propitiatory offerings were made to them.
Occasionally, as the result of atmospheric conditions or the peculiar sensitiveness of the devotee, they became visible. Many authors wrote concerning them in terms which signify that they had actually beheld these inhabitants of Nature’s finer realms. A number of authorities are of the opinion that many of the Gods worshiped by the pagans were elementals, for some of these invisibles were believed to be of commanding stature and magnificent deportment.
The Greeks gave the name dæmon to some of these elementals, especially those of the higher orders, and worshiped them. Probably the most famous of these dæmons is the mysterious spirit which instructed Socrates, and of whom that great philosopher spoke in the highest terms. Those who have devoted much study to the invisible constitution of man realize that it is quite probable the dæmon of Socrates and the angel of Jakob Böhme were in reality not elementals, but the overshadowing divine natures of these philosophers themselves.

Leseprobe

Τεληστήριον

MANLY PALMER HALL

THE ELEMENTS

AND THEIR INHABITANTS

Edizioni Aurora Boreale

Title: The Elements and their Inhabitants

Author: Manly Palmer Hall

From The Secret Teachings of all Ages, 1928

Publishing Series: Telestèrion

Editing and preface by Nicola Bizzi

ISBN e-book version: 979-12-5504-091-0

Cover image: Edwin Landseer: Titania and Bottom, 1851. Scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream

(Merbourne, National Gallery of Victoria)

Edizioni Aurora Boreale

© 2022 Edizioni Aurora Boreale

Via del Fiordaliso 14 - 59100 Prato

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www.auroraboreale-edizioni.com

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MANLY PALMER HALL

AND THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF ALL AGES

By Nicola Bizzi

Manly Palmer Hall, writer, lecturer, Freemason and one of the greatest mystics and esotericists of the last two centuries, was born on March 18 1901 in Peterborough, Ontario (Canada) to Louise Palmer Hall, a chiropractor and member of the Rosicrucian Fellowship, and William S. Hall, a dentist. The younger Hall is said to have never known his father.

In 1919, Hall moved from Canada to Los Angeles, California, with his maternal grandmother to reunite with his birth mother who was living in Santa Monica. Upon meeting her, he was almost immediately drawn to the arcane world of mysticism, esoteric philosophies, and their underlying principles. Hall delved deeply into «teachings of lost and hidden traditions, the golden verses of Hindu Gods, Greek philosophers and Christian mystics, and the spiritual treasures waiting to be found within one’s own soul».

In 1919, Hall took over as preacher of the Church of the People, located at Trinity Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. Less than a year later, Hall booked his first lecture on the topic of reincarnation and on 17 May 1923 was ordained a minister in the Church of the People. Only a few days later, he was elected “permanent pastor” of the church. His first publications consisted of two small pamphlets, The Breastplate of the High Priest (1920), and Wands and Serpents (1927). Between 1922 and 1923 he wrote three books: The Initiates of the Flame (1922), The Ways of the Lonely Ones (1922), and The Lost Keys of Freemasonry (1923).

During the early 1920s, Carolyn Lloyd and her daughter Estelle, members of a family who controlled an oil field in Ventura County, California, began sending a sizeable portion of their oil income to Hall. With these donated funds, Hall traveled within Europe and Asia to study the lives, customs and religions of the people there. While visiting England in the early 1930’s, Hall acquired a substantial collection of rare books and manuscripts about alchemy and esotericism from an auction agent at Sotheby’s. Due to economic conditions resulting from the Great Depression, he acquired the collection for a much lower than normal price. Caroline Lloyd died in 1946 and in her will, she left Hall a house, $15,000 in cash, and an annual percentage of her family’s oil field shares, valued at approximately $10,000 per year for the next 38 years.

By 1928, Hall had become sufficiently known and respected as an interpreter and lecturer of many ancient writings. He utilized print and word-of-mouth advertising to solicit public funding to finance his magnus opus, The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928),consisting of about 200 legal-sized pages in 8 point type, concerning subjects such as the Qabbala, Alchemy, Astrology, Symbolism, Tarot, Ceremonial Magic, Neo-Platonic Philosophy, Mystery Religions and the theory of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry (each of the nearly 50 chapters is so dense with information that it is the equivalent of an entire short book!). He dedicated his book to «the proposition that concealed within the emblematic figures, allegories and rituals of the ancients is a secret doctrine concerning the inner mysteries of life, which doctrine has been preserved in toto among a small band of initiated minds». As the writer Louis Sahagun pointed out in 2008, «the result was a gorgeous, dreamlike book of mysterious symbols, concise essays and colorful renderings of mythical beasts rising out of the sea, and angelic beings with lions’ heads presiding over somber initiation rites in torch-lit temples of ancestral civilizations that had mastered latent powers beyond the reach of modern man».