The Scorpio did it

 

"When Were You Born" is an American film from 1938. Although made by Warner Brothers, it seems to be a rather low-budget B movie. It´s interesting mostly for some kind of cultural reasons. 

One of the main characters, astrologer Miss Ming, is starred by famous Chinese-American actor Anna May Wong. The story was written by Canadian-American esotericist Manly P Hall, author of "The Secret Teachings of All Ages". I had no idea Hall was into Hollywood movies! (In the film, his name is spelled Manley P Hall.) Hall was a firm believer in astrology, and the film is really propaganda for this ancient superstition, even to the point of Hall himself appearing in an introductory segment, trying to explain the basics of the zodiacal signs. 

The plot of "When Were You Born" revolves around a murder mystery in San Fransisco, with Miss Ming trying to aid the police by casting horoscopes. She also seems to be into some kind of phrenology. While Ming is portrayed sympathetically, it´s a curious trait of the story that she practices *Western* astrology, rather than the Chinese version! 

The characters in the film represent various astrological personality types. The loyal but brooding secretary is a Virgo, the mercurial reporter a Gemini, the hot headed murder suspect is an Aries, and so on. Naturally, the art collector is a Libra. Sometimes, the types make no sense, presumably because 1938 astrology was somewhat different from the 2022 version. The fat and slightly morose Piscean police officer doesn´t strike me as particularly spiritual and new agey, for instance.

I admit that I didn´t quite get the dénouement (I suspected the Scorpio of being the assassin - I mean, who else *could* it be?), but I didn´t watch "When Were You Born" for its dramatic qualities, but due to its "esoteric" connections. Available on YouTube.  

Finding God in Concord

A review of "The Spiritual Teachings of Ralph Waldo Emerson" by Richard Geldard. 

The writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the founder of New England Transcendentalism, are notoriously hard to understand. Due to certain turns of phrase in “Self-Reliance”, his most well known essay, Emerson is often misunderstood as an individualist bordering the egocentric, something along the lines of Ayn Rand. Other interpretations include American nationalist or nature mystic. The author of this book, Richard Geldard, confirms what I long suspected: while Emerson often expressed himself in the idiom of his day, he was really a Neo-Platonist and esotericist. Geldard himself is associated with the University of Philosophical Research, a subdivision of the Philosophical Research Society founded by prominent esotericist Manly P Hall.

Emerson's “individualism” is really a technique by which the individual discards all the established traditions of his society (including purported religious “revelations”) and looks within himself for the truth. By so doing, the individual discovers the Spirit or the Over-Soul, which is (of course) common to all individuals. He also experiences the Platonic ideas or forms, including the idea of the Good, which lies behind all fleeting phenomena. Emerson's emphasis on freeing the mind is also a Gnostic technique, rather than a call to splendid intellectual self-isolation and armchair punditry. The Over-Soul can only be reached through our minds, but the higher we ascend, the more do our minds conform to the universal spiritual laws of the cosmos. We also realize that whatever happens is for the good and that the universe is in perfect karmic balance.

Emerson seldom discussed who influenced his thinking, since every man must establish the connection with Spirit himself moment to moment, but he did recognize the need for a teacher, and bemoaned the fact that he never found one, while acting as a teacher and guide himself within the small circle of Transcendentalists. Geldard believes that Emerson was strongly influenced by Thomas Taylor's translations and commentaries on Plato's dialogues. He met Carlyle, Coleridge and Wordsworth while visiting Britain. The “Geeta” (the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita) was his constant companion.

Interestingly, Emerson wasn't an other-worldly mystic who simply tried to soar the cosmic heights. In many ways, he was a “Descender”, not just an “Ascender”. The material world both hides and reveals the Spirit. In one sense, it's an illusion. In another sense, the world in general and nature in particular, is symbolic and points towards higher truths. This is the ancient Hermetic idea of “as above, so below”, an idea Emerson may have picked up from the writings of Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg. Since the world is God's garment, the mystic doesn't leave the world. Indeed, humans are the incarnations of God in matter. Guided by conscience, authenticity and courage, the mystic tries to save the world by imparting as much Spirit as possible onto his fellow men. The Spirit-filled man doesn't long for Heaven or personal immortality, but pours out the Spirit where he stands.

Emerson has been criticized for not being consistent on this latter point. He usually refrained from making political statements. Emerson's position seems to have been that little can be done, socially speaking, unless the individuals are changed first. His writings do contain turns which could be interpreted as a callous “Randian” opposition to poor relief and, by extension, the welfare state. However, Emerson wasn't a political reactionary. He opposed slavery and spoke with admiration of John Brown (whom he had met). Emerson's most well known follower Henry Thoreau has been credited with inspiring Gandhi and Martin Luther King. In conversation with Carlyle, Emerson had expressed sentiments similar to those usually associated with Thoreau.

Emerson never “defended” his views through debate or apologetics, believing them to be based on an intuition most people simply didn't posses. He was a “spiritual aristocrat” in that sense. This may explain why he never wrote a popularized introduction to his ideas. Nor did he write a how-to-guide about, say, meditation. We are left with his difficult and hard-to-decode essays. Perhaps the sage of Concord had a point in doing so, but personally, I feel Geldard's book fills a gap. It's not an easy read, unless you happen to be somewhat “tuned in” to these issues, but it definitely does make Ralph Waldo Emerson's Yankee Platonism easier to comprehend. I therefore give it four stars.

Crypto-Theosophical teasers

Manly P. Hall's "Unseen Forces" is a short text dealing with elementals, our etheric and astral bodies, the Dweller on the Threshold, and the need to cultivate non-attachment and various virtues to further the evolution of man. In passing, he also mentions "initiations", which seem to be kundalini-related. Hall discusses the perils of Spiritualism, claiming that most spirits conjured up during séances are elementals occupying the astral shells of the dead, who has long since passed on to other realms. Thought forms are also discussed. I got the impression that most of Hall's ideas in "Unseen Forces" come straight from Blavatsky's and Besant's Theosophy, and perhaps from Bailey. Hall's own group had the neutral-sounding name Philosophical Resarch Society. "Unseen Forces" could be seen as a kind of esoteric teaser trailer, but people more widely read will probably find little new here.

The promised land

"Facing the future" is a book authored by Manly P. Hall, most known as a writer on various esoteric subjects. In this text, published in 1934, Hall ventures into politics. His ideas turn out to be elitist, anti-democratic and "socialist". Hall's sources of inspiration are unclear, but he quotes Plato and claims that the pyramidal structure of government he wants implemented is symbolized by the Egyptian pyramid found on the Great Seal of the United States (the pyramid is also a Masonic symbol).

Hall explicitly calls for a planned economy. The government should own and control public utilities, communications and banks. It should balance production and consumption through a plan, and abolish unemployment through a program of public works. The government should also decide what crops the farmers should grow on their land. Capitalism is tearing the nation apart through competition and unemployment, while turning those still employed into obsessive consumers. It must therefore be abolished. For some reason, Hall never actually uses the term "capitalism", preferring instead to speak about "competition" or "individualism". Nor does he ever use the term "socialism" for his own preferred system. Yet, I think it's obvious that the main thrust of his little book is anti-capitalist and socialist (or perhaps pseudo-socialist, depending on how you define "socialism").

Hall's ideal system turns out to be non-democratic. Only people educated in statecraft and administration should be eligible to become politicians. They should be appointed rather than elected. No more incompetent, corrupt politicians! Local and state governments should be abolished, with all power being in the hands of the federal government. Congress should be abolished in favour of an assembly of 48 state governors, one of whom should be appointed president. Under him, the president will have a huge federal administration. No political parties or lobby groups will be allowed. Like many isolated elite reformers, Hall fulminates against pretty much everyone: bankers, industrialists, politicians and the common man. Nobody can be trusted, least of all the people, who are easy prey for corrupted demagogues and simply don't know their own good. Rationality and common sense is represented by the disinterested administrators, who have the good of society as their only ideal. Hall even proposes the establishment of an international federation or world government. It's not clear how this far-reaching program should be implemented. Hall liked Roosevelt, so perhaps he hoped that FDR would go much further than the New Deal?

While Hall doesn't sound explicitly "Green", there is nevertheless an anti-technological streak in his book. He wants to tax corporations that use labour-saving machinery (see further below), and attacks the commercialization and vulgarization of American culture. While attacking capitalism for making people unemployed, he also dislikes the consumerist dreams (or habits) of the common man. Instead, Hall wants a society where people live frugally, at a lower standard of living than modern industrial society. Somehow, he manages to square this with a call for a national pension plan and substantial remuneration for inventors, scientists, etc. I wonder what they are supposed to be inventing?

"Facing the future" also contain a number of other contradictions. The author calls for local community control of the economy, which doesn't square with the centralist vision in other parts of the book. At one point, he proposes that the local communities buy out the private business owners. Where should the community find the necessary money? And why should the private entrepreneurs even want to sell? Hall makes a strange distinction between useful machinery (such as the radio) and useless machinery (labour-saving devices). The latter should be heavily taxed, since it creates unemployment by making workers redundant. But what if the only way to efficiently build useful machinery is by using labour-saving devices? What if useful machinery creates unemployment? Surely, the telegraph (or computers, or e-mail) could make many people redundant.

Strangely, Hall is very individualist when discussing housing, calling for every family to own their own house. He therefore wants to abolish property taxes, and even bemoans the fact that people who don't own property have a say in deciding about such taxes (such as people living in rented flats). This, of course, is an anti-socialist argument, yet Hall somehow wants to square it with his socialist vision. He promises a society without any taxes at all, presumably because the government will get all its revenue from taxing private businesses. Or nationalizing them?

Despite this muddle, the main thrust of "Facing the future" is the centralist one. To sum up its argument: Hall wants a society rationally controlled by a hierarchic administrative apparatus, which does away with all special interest groups and promotes national unity, peace and (perhaps) prosperity. The government apparatus isn't an entirely closed caste, since everyone can enter the proper educational facilities for future politicians and administrators. But there is no democracy, not even on paper.

Of course, it's easy to mock a proposal like this. Even Hall should have known better, writing in 1934, during the heyday of Joseph Stalin (or Hitler and Mussolini). The disinterested, rational administrators in the Soviet Union became an oligarchic ruling class, just as corrupt as Tammany Hall. Today, it's obvious that the West European combination of democracy and a "welfare state" was more civilized than Hall's pyramidal vision. Yet, one cannot entirely dismiss Manly P. Hall either. The democratic welfare states were built on the promise of sustained economic growth and permanent progress for both the working class and the middle classes. Today, these propositions look very problematic - yet, both the people and the establishment want to continue as before. Unless "we the people" manage to revamp our democracy somehow, Hall's authoritarian promised land might become the only option left...

Lost in America

Manly P. Hall's "Mysticism of Colonial America" is relatively uninteresting. It contains two short lectures by Hall, a well-known American esotericist. One is titled "The Society of the Mustard Seed", and deals with Johannes Kelpius, a German Pietist and mystic who founded a mystical-eschatological community in Pennsylvania during the 17th century. Some of the statements in the article don't correspond to what I've read elsewhere about Kelpius, who I presume was a somewhat reclusive and mysterious character. The other article, "Transcendentalists of Alexandria, Athens and Boston" is a short exegesis of Ralph Waldo Emerson's spiritual ideas. Vaguely interesting and reassuring, but hardly an in-depth study. Not sure how to rate this product. Two stars? Two-and-a-half?

Fundamentals of Theosophy

I was somewhat surprised by this book, "Fundamentals of the Esoteric Sciences" by Manly P Hall. The author was a well known American esotericist.

I assumed that his message was some kind of Hermetic-inspired Masonry. Judging by this work, however, Hall's ideas were derived from Theosophy. Indeed, they *are* Theosophy. The messages are virtually identical: mystery religions, cosmic evolution, root-races, Mahatmas, even the sunken continents of Atlantis and Lemuria!

I'm not sure why Hall didn't simply join one of the main branches of Theosophy. Perhaps he couldn't stand Tingley or the Besant-Leadbeater-Krishnamurti axis?

Hall's book could be considered an introduction, in question and answer format, to the fundamentals of...Theosophy.

Not very funny, I'm afraid

“Initiation of Plato” is a surprisingly bland, boring and uninteresting text, apparently first published in France in 1867. It was translated to English by Masonic occultist John Yarker. This edition was published by Manly P Hall in the United States, whose occultism seems to have been close to Theosophy, despite the Masonic trappings.

Hall admits that “Initiation of Plato” is a modern work, apparently part of a Masonic comedy, but still claims that it contains authentic, ancient Egyptian and Greek ritual. Maybe it does – I haven't read “The Golden Ass” by Apuleius, so I wouldn't know. However, the message of the article is painfully modern, with Plato opposing priests, capital punishment, and gender inequality. The Egyptian priests are scandalized by Plato's opposition to priests, the only comic relief in this supposed “comedy”. A call is then made for the universal brotherhood of man. Apparently, Plato also quotes Confucius.

Not really worth the effort.

Dissing Gemini

This is a short pamphlet on astrology, written by Manly P Hall, an American esotericist with ideas broadly similar to those of Theosophy. It's not clear to me when this short text was written. The pamphlet mentions Hitler and Mussolini, and by implication Mussolini's death, but Pluto had not yet become the ruler of Scorpio. Perhaps it was written shortly after World War II? The current edition is from 1982. A Kindle edition also exists, but lacks the illustrations.

Hall's pamphlet is pretty basic astrology 101. It's interesting only in the sense that it establishes Hall's own belief in a fairly modern interpretation of natal astrology. While there are 12 basic personality types corresponding to the sun signs, Hall does believe that a person can change with hard work and determination. All signs have both negative and positive qualities. The pamphlet emphasizes the negative ones, the author at one point saying that he doesn't want to be too indulgent to the readers (more specifically, readers born in Cancer!). His interpretations of the various signs are more or less the standard ones. I won't reveal what interesting insights I might have gleaned even from this little work. ;-)

However, I feel I just have to share the author's “dissing” of Gemini . Here goes!

“It is from the ranks of the neo-intellectuals that we develop our parlor socialists, our “modernists” in poetry and letters, and those arm-chair anarchists who have theoretical explanations for every circumstance of living. (…) We are forced to remind the reader that Gemini is unusually conspicuous in the annals of certain types of crime. In the lower scale, Gemini, ruling the fingers, bestows a certain lightness upon them, resulting in pickpockets and forgers. Truthfulness in particular is difficult to Gemini people.”

For the record, I'm not a Gemini, while Hall was (of course) a Piscean! While “Psychoanalyzing the Twelve Zodiacal Types” isn't very deep as astrology goes (you will find more information in many commercial and glossy volumes on the birth signs), it feels somewhat unfair to give it two stars, so therefore I give it three. After all, even an “initiate” like Hall had to explain the basics sometimes…

Past karma

This is a short pamphlet written by esotericist Manly P Hall, mostly known for his books “The Secret Teachings of All Ages” and “The Secret Destiny of America”. I admit that I haven't read them (yet), but I did peruse his “Questions and Answers: Fundamentals of the Esoteric Sciences” some time ago. I was struck by its similarity to the message of the Theosophical Society.

In “Astrology and Reincarnation”, Hall argues that the human soul is successively reborn in all 12 signs of the zodiac. If we wish to know the horoscope of our previous life, we should look at the sun sign and ascendant sign immediately preceding the ones we have at present. Thus, an Aries with a Taurus ascendant is presumably a reborn Pisces with an Aries ascendant. In the same way, our future life will be influenced by the next sun sign and ascendant sign, in this case Taurus and Gemini. However, Hall also mentions a Tibetan system which is somewhat different, since some of the zodiacal signs symbolize non-human realms. Apparently, I was a human in my previous life, too, but I might just as well have been an animal or a hungry ghost (or a god, for that matter).

Hall's main point is that our birth isn't a co-incidence, but the result of past karma. Indeed, all star signs carry unresolved karmic issues from the signs immediately preceding them, the only exception being Aries which is a blank slate of sorts, since it initiates a new cycle. He also presents an alternative theory, where the South Node of the Moon symbolizes our karmic debts while the North Node shows our future possibilities. It's not clear how Hall wants to harmonize the different theories, or if he even wants to.

Hall then demonstrates how a horoscope can be used as a (partial) road map of the evolutionary journey of the soul, by attempting to prove that Alexander the Great was reborn as Julian the Apostate!

Whether or not you find these speculations useful might be the result of your past karma, I suppose, but I will give this article three stars.

No fear

Manly P Hall was an American esotericist. He founded a group called the Philosophical Research Society, which still exists, disseminating Hall's writings. “Basic Fears and How to Correct Them” contains a short lecture on fear.

Most of the lecture contains self-help tips 101, such as the importance of positive thinking, the necessity to face our fears squarely instead of running from them, the need to give our empty lives purpose, etc. The lecture was given at the height of the Cold War, when many feared nuclear war. Hall had met several people who had taken to the hills in response. One of them had gotten his wilderness compound confiscated by the authorities, who wanted to clear the ground for a – wait for it – nuclear testing site! Hall calls on people to stay put in the cities and work for positive social change instead…

Hall's main point, however, is that religion and philosophy is the basic tonic against fear. Humans need faith in a higher law which providentially works itself out for the good of all. Our lives should be based on moral values grounded on this faith. We also need to believe in the immortality of the soul. Not even a nuclear blast can kill us! Hall calls for the reform of the old religious traditions, without specifying what this means. As for philosophy, he wants to replace materialism with “idealism”, a term which seems to cover both a belief in a spiritual reality and the need to be idealistic. (It doesn't seem to be a technical philosophical term.) Thus, Hall's main remedy for fear is more spirituality.

I end with a quote:

“We can recognize, if we are philosophically minded, the importance of our belief in the immortality of man, and in the total rulership of Good in the great universe of which we are a part. We can prepare ourselves for our citizenship in eternity with the full realization that, regardless of whether immediate things are better or worse, ultimate things remain the same. Whether we are allowed to live eighty-five years and die in the midst of our relatives, or whether, years before this, we might be victims of atomic speculation—in the end we are going to gather our trailing robes of glory.”