The Secret Teachings of All Ages. An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy
The Secret Teachings of All Ages is an encyclopaedic survey of ancient religion, mystery traditions, occult philosophy and symbolic systems by the American writer and esotericist Manly Palmer Hall. First published in San Francisco in 1928, the work ranges across the ancient Mysteries, Hermeticism, Pythagoreanism, Neoplatonism, alchemy, Qabbalah, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Christianity and other religious and esoteric traditions.
Hall presents these diverse materials as surviving expressions of an ancient body of symbolic and initiatory wisdom. Rather than approaching them through historical or archaeological scholarship alone, he interprets myths, rituals and religious symbols through an explicitly esoteric framework and frequently connects ancient mystery traditions with later occult and Masonic thought.
Mithras occupies a significant place in Hall’s treatment of the ancient Mysteries. In sections devoted to “The Rites of Mithras” and the comparison of Mithraic and Christian mysteries, Hall discusses Mithraic initiation, solar symbolism, the tauroctony, the grades of initiation and the cult’s diffusion through the Roman world. His account reflects the occult and comparative-religious interpretations current in the early twentieth century and is therefore particularly valuable as a document in the modern esoteric reception of Mithraism.
