The Secret Teachings of All Ages

The Secret Teachings of All Ages
1928 AD published

By 1928, Hall had become sufficiently known and respected as an interpreter and lecturer of many ancient writings. He utilized print and word-of-mouth advertising to solicit public funding to finance his book The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928), and hired John Augustus Knapp to create full color illustrations, and black and white drawings.

The HS Crocker Company of San Francisco agreed to publish his work if he could secure the interest of book designer John Henry Nash, who had worked as a printer for the Vatican.

After The Secret Teachings of All Ages circulated, Hall became increasingly influential on the metaphysical movement sweeping the United States. His book challenged assumptions about society's spiritual roots making readers view their spirituality in new and diverse ways.

He subtitled his book to "the proposition that concealed within the emblematic figures, allegories and rituals of the ancients is a secret doctrine concerning the inner mysteries of life, which doctrine has been preserved in toto among a small band of initiated minds."  As one writer put it: "The result was a gorgeous, dreamlike book of mysterious symbols, concise essays and colorful renderings of mythical beasts rising out of the sea, and angelic beings with lions' heads presiding over somber initiation rites in torch-lit temples of ancestral civilizations that had mastered latent powers beyond the reach of modern man."

In 1988, Hall wrote: "The greatest knowledge of all time should be available to the twentieth century not only in the one shilling editions of the Bohn Library in small type and shabby binding, but in a book that would be a monument, not merely a coffin. John Henry Nash agreed with me."

San Francisco, CA

Lattitude: 37.7832° N
Longitude: 122.4166° W
Region: North America

Modern Day United States

Events in 1928 MORE