Manly Palmer Hall (1901-1990) was a Canadian-born author, lecturer, astrologer and mystic. He was best known for his 1928 work The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic, and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy. He was also the founder of the Philosophical Research Society, Inc., a non-profit organization, dedicated to the dissemination of useful knowledge in the fields of philosophy, comparative religion, and psychology.

Born on March 18, 1901 in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, to William S. Hall, a dentist, and Louise Palmer Hall, a chiropractor and member of the Rosicrucian Fellowship, Hall moved to Los Angeles, California in 1919 and was almost immediately drawn to the arcane world of mysticism, esoteric philosophies, and their underlying principles.

In his long career, spanning more than seventy years of dynamic public activity, Mr. Hall delivered over 8,000 lectures in the United States and abroad, authored over 150 books and essays, and wrote countless magazine articles.

In addition to his Secret Teachings of All Ages, his other major works include The Initiates of the Flame (1922), The Lost Keys of Freemasonry (1923), The Secret Destiny of America (1944), America’s Assignment with Destiny (1951) and Meditation Symbols in Eastern & Western Mysticism-Mysteries of the Mandala (1988).

Hall died on August 29, 1990, aged 89.