Rigorous scholars do not cite the Encyclopedia Britannica (which is not, despite appearances, a knock on the E. So if you're looking for rigorous scholarship, you won't find it here. Hall shows a similar tendency to just accept stuff as long as it furthers his mission. Pliny sorta stuffed everything he could find into his vast Naturalis Historia, appearing (at least) to pretty much credit everything he heard as true. My initial impression of Hall is that he's kind of a latter-day Pliny the Elder. I didn't pick this up thinking I'd ultimately wind up an initiate into gosh-darn bona fide mystical knowledge. This looks like it will be a good compendium of weird sh*t - which is, really, what I'd hoped for. My first impulse was to crow 'hoo-boy, here is a dopey-ass book,' but I think I'll half resist that impulse. Here I go again, putting up a review based on initial impressions. More than one hundred line drawings and a sixteen-page color insert reproduce some of the finest illustrations of the original book, while reset and reformatted text makes this edition of The Secret Teachings of All Ages newly accessible to readers everywhere. Literally hundreds of entries shine a rare light on some of the most fascinating and closely held aspects of myth, religion, and philosophy from throughout the centuries. For the first time, Hall's celebrated classic is now published in an affordable trade paperback volume. While many thousands of copies have sold since its initial publication in 1928, The Secret Teachings of All Ages has previously been available only in oversized, expensive editions. Students of hidden wisdom, ancient symbols, and arcane practices treasure Hall's magnum opus above all other works. Hall's legendary The Secret Teachings of All Ages is a codex to the ancient occult and esoteric traditions of the world. A classic since 1928, this masterly encyclopedia of ancient mythology, ritual, symbolism, and the arcane mysteries of the ages is available for the first time in a compact 'reader's edition.' Like no other book of the twentieth century, Manly P.

The secret teachings of all ages 1928