two Masters of this Ancient Wisdom—one usually identified by the initials K.H. (Koot Hoomi), the other by the initial M. (Morya)—led to the writing of her two great works, Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, works that partially revealed the Ancient Wisdom in a modern form.”
Her Theosophical Society’s mission included investigating higher powers she believed were innate in man, and teaching that everything in the universe, even human souls, races and nations are subject to progressive and cyclical evolutionary development.
One of the most prolific writers within the broader Theosophical movement was Max Heindel, a Christian mystic and German immigrant who established a spiritual commune in 1907 on a scenic bluff called Mt. Ecclesia in Oceanside, about 80 miles south of Los Angeles. Heindel subscribed to a mystical interpretation of human evolution that placed blacks and Jews behind Anglo-Saxons. Such views hardly raised an eyebrow among California’s new immigrants, most of whom were white like Hall and much of the rest of the country at the time. [21]
Dedicated to Jesus, astrology, the power of prayer and providing an explanation for the origin, evolution and future development of the world and man, Heindel’s Rosicrucian Fellowship soon became a favorite vacation spot for young Hall and his mother.
Their first trip to Mt. Ecclesia was in 1920, a year after Heindel’s death. [22] His widow, Augusta, was struck by Manly’s talent as a writer, his youthful pastoral work at the Church of the People, his graciousness and his intense interest in her husband’s complex books, which essentially taught that Earth is a great school to which ever-evolving individuals come by way of reincarnation, life after life.
At Mt. Ecclesia, Hall grew so attached to Heindel’s temperamental heavy-set widow that he started calling her “mother.” She and her followers taught him astrology and the fundamentals of typesetting, printing and binding. From them, he also learned to avoid writing in longhand with an ink pen because it siphoned off one’s vitality, an admonishment he obeyed for most of his life, preferring instead to dictate his books. He showed her how to play backgammon, and was her connection to prospective younger converts. Together, they wrote numerous articles for the fellowship’s newsletter, Rays from the Rosy Cross, which compared life on the bluff to heaven on Earth.
“Why does this spot seem so beautiful?” Hall wrote under the title “Echoes from Mt. Ecclesia” in mid-1921. “There are many other places where the stars may be seen and studied, and thousands of people see the same glorious sunsets, and enjoy the same wonderful climate. But there is something here that is not to be found in any other part of the world. There is something here that is restful and different; it seems almost like holy ground. It is because of the love that is sent here by thousands of members and the lives of self-forgetting service that the workers are living day by day, that makes this the beauty spot of the earth.” [23]
Mrs. Heindel would become distressed by Hall’s active interest in hypnotism, which she considered one of the “black arts.” [24] None of that, however, reached the ears of Hall’s own Los Angeles congregation, which regarded his ties to the Rosicrucian Fellowship and its founder’s widow as impressive spiritual credentials.
Hall’s cross necklace
The mainstream press responded to the first of California’s seekers with articles that were by turns tolerant and skeptical of the modern spiritual urges and metaphysical forces. Some perceived them to be undermining traditional faiths.
On March 18, 1922, the day Hall turned 21, the Los Angeles Times’ front page featured a story about a Philadelphia psychologist who had proved that an episode of spirit knockings and ghostly visions had been a fraud. Yet, inside the same issue, the religion page carried advertisements by the United Lodge of Theosophists, which had scheduled a lecture on “states after death,” and Hall’s Church of the People, which offered a talk called “The Religion of H.G. Wells.”
A few months later, The Times printed a front-page story about a trend-setting “all-night psychic pharmacy” in Chicago operated by three shifts of “love healers,” a lengthy book review of Maurice Maeterlinck’s compendium of enduring doctrines titled The Great Secret, and an above-the-fold news column called “Your Hidden Powers,” which claimed, “There is a purpose in every man. In each there is a seed, the seed of the soul. . . We water it with sweat and tears, around it we fertilize it with our agonies, our joys and our struggles. . . and we are not unaided. Nature helps us. In the conscience of every man there is a guidance.”
Hall entranced his Church of the People audiences with folksy interpretations of Pythagoras, Confucius, Lao-Tsu, Buddha, Plato, Jesus Christ, St. Paul, Moses ben Maimonides, St. Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz, William James, and Herbert Spencer, as well as of such obscure 19th-century writers on the occult as Albert Churchward, Arthur Dyott Thomson, Charles William Heckethorn and Arthur Edward Waite. The turn-of-the-century works of Irish biblical archeologist Elizabeth Anna Gordon inspired lectures on the religious traditions of Japan.
“It soon became clear,” Hall wrote years later, “that almost every problem brought to me in the course of a day or a month or a year had been handled by someone long ago. . . So it was very much safer for a novice like me to quote somebody who seemed to know, than to quote myself and realize that I didn’t know. For me it was just guesswork, but Confucius had worked it out.”
On March 17, 1923, Hall was ordained a minister in the Church of the People. [25] A few days later, he was elected permanent pastor of the church, and the congregation honored him with a Rosicrucian-style cross that was based on a design of his own and made of diamonds, platinum, gold and white enamel. Etched with emblems and symbols of astrology and ancient religious schools, it represented the ideals shared by all spiritual quests. Dangling from a chain around his neck, Hall proudly wore the flashy fist-sized cross as a symbol of spiritual authority in a state where alternative spiritual movements were becoming significant cultural forces.
The belief in reincarnation had become especially popular. One day around this time, Hall met an old chum on the street and noticed a large book under his arm. “What are you reading today?” Hall asked. With a twinkle in his eye, Hall’s friend answered, “First-year Spanish. I don’t expect to learn much of the language now, but I figure it will be more popular when I come back next time, so I might as well get a little start.”
Even flamboyant holy roller Aimie Semple MacPherson, who arrived in Los Angeles in 1918, was milquetoast compared to others setting up religious shops in town.
Hall kept track of the competition by collecting the advertisements they posted in local newspapers and magazines.
Dr. Nephi Cottam pitched “the great discovery of the new age, Craniopathy.” Manneck of India promised “triumph through the wheels of adversity.” Mystic Edwin J. Dingle, founder of the still-active Institute for Mentalphysics in the desert community of Joshua Tree, exhorted, “you, too, can have lots of pull!”
Charles Robert Wilson concluded his lectures on “esoteric meditation” with astrological forecasts for the week to come. The National Academy of Metaphysics offered courses on “ancient teachings modernized.”
