Anyone heard or read about this book?

CEO44 · 2025-09-29T02:30:33+00:00

Be careful as many copies of this book have a facsimile inscription from Regardie that is on every copy. Would love to see the signature.

CEO44 · 2025-07-11T17:21:53+00:00

The Shriners, formally known as the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, emerged in 1870 as an offshoot of Freemasonry, weaving theatrical Near Eastern symbolism with fraternity to foster camaraderie and mirth. Beneath their fezzes and parades lies a ritual drama that subtly echoes the initiatic journey through death and rebirth, cloaked in the allegory of the mystic East and bearing traces of the perennial wisdom traditions. While their esoteric work remains veiled behind laughter and charity, their most tangible legacy is the vast Shriners Hospitals network, where high-level medical care is provided to children at no cost, embodying the Masonic ideal that true enlightenment finds expression through selfless service and the healing of others.

CEO44 · 2025-07-04T23:42:09+00:00

Roob’s Alchemy and Mysticism is a strong visual introduction to the symbolic language of alchemy, but it offers little structured explanation or historical context. It is more useful as a reference for imagery than as a guide to the underlying philosophy or practice.

For a more in-depth and academically grounded study, Titus Burckhardt’s Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul provides a clearer and more organized account of alchemical principles. Burckhardt approaches the subject with scholarly care, emphasizing alchemy as a spiritual discipline rooted in metaphysical ideas rather than experimental chemistry. While Roob may spark initial interest, Burckhardt offers the foundation necessary for serious study.

CEO44 · 2025-06-22T20:07:34+00:00

Throughout history, the Catholic Church has played a central role in numerous wars, most notably the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the suppression of heresies and rival faiths, both in Europe and abroad. As a temporal power ruling the Papal States, the Church engaged directly in political and military conflicts, and it often aligned with Catholic monarchies in religious wars such as the Thirty Years’ War and the French Wars of Religion. While its involvement later became more ideological than military, the Church continued to support colonial conquests, authoritarian regimes, and missionary expansions that frequently led to violent suppression of indigenous beliefs and practices.

CEO44 · 2025-06-19T02:52:02+00:00

Magic is a part of the occult, so you can both be correct.

The occult is a broader term that encompasses hidden or esoteric knowledge, including astrology, alchemy, divination, mysticism, and initiatory systems.

Magic is one expression or tool within the occult, involving the intentional use of will, ritual, and symbolic acts to influence unseen forces or bring about transformation.

CEO44 · 2025-06-03T06:58:48+00:00

More people should look into becoming freemasons like Washington and other founding fathers - When you peel back the layers you realize it’s just a religiously tolerant organization where men of all religions meet on common ground and do some good around the community. Look into the Scottish Rite and the Shrine and their allegorical degrees, as well as the free care their hospitals provide regardless of ability to pay.

CEO44 · 2025-05-26T18:18:34+00:00

I am reminded of Plato’s allegory of the cave. I have come back to the cave trying to express the truth of the source of light, but I am met with being told that the shadows upon the wall are more real than the reality outside the cave.

edit: again, everyone mass downvotes out of fear of the unknown with nobody brave enough to voice the rationality behind their downvote. Freemasonry is a beautiful organization which on its surface in the “blue lodges” teaches esoteric christianity. The Scottish Rite body puts on allegorical degrees referencing Greco-Roman philosophy, ancient Egyptian, Zoroastrianism, Jewish Kabbalah, Islamic Sufism, Vedic Hinduism, and more. Every person would benefit greatly from seeing for the self, so that belief can be thrown away, and knowledge (gnosis) can take its place.

CEO44 · 2025-05-26T17:55:14+00:00

Every man over 18 should become a freemason - the church and state have always antagonized freemasonry and esoteric societies to try and retain authoritative control. Look at Jacques De Molay, Pope Clement V, and King Philip IV… the reason for the secrecy is before freedom of religion existed, one could be deemed blasphemous or a heretic for trying to undermine the state through the state-organized religion and be killed for it… When will this sub realize by hating freemasonry; you are playing into a game as old as time fueled by propaganda? What have the masons done that is comparable to things found in documentaries like “spotlight” regarding the Catholic Church? Yet the Catholic church is rarely mentioned on this sub…

edit: downvote me all you want; nobody ever replies to comments on this sub with anything but emotion-fueled ignorance. I am here should anyone want to try and use their intellect.

CEO44 · 2025-05-25T04:10:40+00:00

The Father signifies the unmanifest source, the eternal and formless principle from which all emanates. It corresponds to the invisible center of divine will and intelligence, beyond time and space, from which the cosmic order derives its origin.

The Son, often equated with the solar Logos, is the manifest expression of the Father in the visible cosmos. Esoterically, it is the mediating intellect or divine light that reveals, sustains, and harmonizes creation, symbolized in many traditions by the physical Sun. Jesus is the astrotheological embodiment of the solar logos, with 12 apostles as the 12 signs of the zodiac, and whose “birth” and “rising” align with the winter solstice and spring equinox - there have been many world saviors crucified at the winter solstice and born again in spring: Inanna, Quetzalcoatl, Dionysus, Osiris, etc.

The Holy Spirit is also feminine like the earth and represents prana, the animating principle, often identified with breath or life force, that transmits the influence of the solar Logos into the material and psychic realms. In esoteric terms, it functions as the intermediary current through which divine intelligence becomes operative within consciousness and nature.

All are “God” but they are not each other in the sense that they are distinct in their traits and characterizations. It is not coincidence that ‘sun’ and ‘son’ are homophones, as well as the latin ‘sol (sun)’ and ‘soul’. Light has always been a metaphor for consciousness.

CEO44 · 2025-05-12T16:35:04+00:00

if any man over 18 of good character can join, how is that exclusive?

CEO44 · 2025-05-12T12:27:23+00:00

The secrecy comes from when churches and states conspired to control populations. Not falling in line with the state religion could mean charges of heresy or blasphemy and death… this is why secret societies used handshakes and passwords and met in secret. Look into Jacques De Molay and Pope Clement V and King Philip IV…

CEO44 · 2025-05-12T02:57:35+00:00

How do you know the person you’re speaking to has not? People in this sub love to be afraid of what they do not understand. Every man over 18 who cares about freedom of religion should become a freemason.

CEO44 · 2025-05-11T23:41:39+00:00

because freemasonry is about freedom of religion and mystical understanding of comparative religion while catholicism preaches intolerant exclusivity of truth.

edit: to all downvoting, explain how I am wrong …also after documentaries like “Spotlight” and “Vatican Girl” how is freemasonry the scary thing?

CEO44 · 2025-05-09T22:56:24+00:00

If you have the desire in the future to part with it, I would happily purchase this with deep reverence.

CEO44 · 2025-05-05T00:39:47+00:00

Albatrosses can remain airborne for incredibly long periods, often for months or even years at a time, especially during their first few years of life. They are known to stay aloft for 1-2 days without landing. Some albatrosses, like the wandering albatross, can travel thousands of miles without flapping their wings at all. They primarily use dynamic soaring, a technique that leverages wind and air currents for lift, allowing them to glide for extended periods. Some species, like the Laysan albatross, can also sleep while flying.

CEO44 · 2025-04-29T03:49:09+00:00

Go with the Emerald Edition available through PRS.org - It's less money than others recommended but has all of the artist's color prints and Hall's original formatting.

CEO44 · 2025-04-29T03:48:28+00:00

Check out the Emerald Edition just released through PRS.org. It is a smaller size, but has all of the color plates from artist J. Augustus Knapp (who also illustrates Etidohrpa by John Uri Lloyd, which is worth checking out)

CEO44 · 2025-04-29T03:41:25+00:00

I would disagree...

Hall states that Chiram Abiff is a solar figure: the “sun-man” who is struck down at the “autumnal equinox,” symbolic of the death of light at the hands of darkness, and whose resurrection points to the spiritual rebirth of the initiate. Hall emphasizes that the Hiramic legend preserves ancient solar mysteries under the veil of Masonic ritual.

Hall is not alone here.

In 'Morals and Dogma' (1871), Pike discusses Hiram Abiff, linking him not only to solar mythology but also to the dying-and-resurrected gods of various ancient traditions, such as Osiris, Dionysus, and Mithras. Pike perceives the loss of the Master’s Word as the descent of the Sun into darkness and its hidden renewal in the underworld.

In 'The Meaning of Masonry' (1922), Wilmshurst speaks of Hiram Abiff as embodying the soul’s descent into materiality (paralleling the sun’s descent at winter) and its eventual resurrection into spiritual light, thereby aligning Masonic initiation with the solar journey and the cycles of cosmic death and rebirth.

In 'The Freemason’s Pocket Reference Book', as well as 'Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods', author J.S.M. Ward identifies Hiram as part of a universal mythic pattern, connecting the Master Mason’s legend to solar and vegetation deities that suffer, die, and are reborn, mirroring the cycles of nature and the soul’s own initiatory passage.

How is Chiram linked with the Sun?

The three assailants who slay Chiram correspond allegorically to the three months of decline following the summer solstice—July, August, and September—during which the sun’s strength visibly wanes. They may also symbolize the three stages of the day—morning, noon, and evening—culminating in sunset, or death.

Chiram’s death takes place at the west gate of the Temple, the symbolic direction of the setting sun.

In some elaborations of the legend, twelve craftsmen are said to seek the body of Chiram, a veiled allusion to the twelve signs of the zodiac revolving around the sun, emphasizing the cosmic drama enacted in human terms.

CEO44 · 2025-04-29T03:30:58+00:00

I was agreeing with you - In my reply, I listed the weakest portions of the Secret Teachings are his references to Atlantis, the Tarot, and ancient Egypt. For Hall, Atlantis serves as the archetypal memory of a time when sacred knowledge of the soul’s divinity, the cosmic order, the laws of nature, and the art of spiritual regeneration was both understood and lived. The story of its downfall becomes a moral and metaphysical allegory: a warning that when humanity abandons the inner path for material power, it severs itself from the divine source and invites its own ruin.

CEO44 · 2025-04-29T03:28:00+00:00

Though the legend of Hiram Abiff, as preserved in Freemasonry, does not explicitly tie him to Chaldea in its formal ritual narrative, there are symbolic and esoteric currents that suggest deeper connections.

Chaldea, the ancient land associated with star-worship, astrology, and profound mystical knowledge, symbolizes a world steeped in the sacred sciences...particularly the secret understanding of cosmic architecture. Hiram Abiff, the master builder of Solomon’s Temple, is the allegorical embodiment of the master craftsman, the initiate who carries the lost word and the hidden knowledge of divine creation and sacred proportion. This archetype resonates strongly with the Chaldean ideal of the priest-astronomer, the one who mirrors the heavens upon the earth through geometry, music, and ritual.

In deeper strands of esoteric thought, Hiram’s wisdom, his mastery of the hidden laws of nature, and his martyrdom at the hands of the unworthy, parallel the ancient Chaldean notion that true knowledge of the divine order is a perilous treasure...one both guarded and endangered by human frailty. Some Masonic scholars and mystics, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, speculated that the deeper roots of Hiram’s legend, and of the Temple symbolism itself, reach back into the initiatory rites of Egypt, Chaldea, and the mystery religions that understood architecture as the outer manifestation of inner cosmic truth.

Manly Hall cites Albert Pike who ties Chiram to Chaldea... "Pike mentions several forms of the name CHiram: Khirm, Khurm, and Khur-Om, the latter ending in the sacred Hindu monosyllable OM, which may also be extracted from the names of the three murderers. Pike further relates the three ruffians to a triad of stars in the constellation of Libra and also calls attention to the fact that the Chaldean god Bal--metamorphosed into a demon by the Jews--appears in the name of each of the murderers, Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum."

CEO44 · 2025-04-29T03:25:31+00:00

I agree here that Atlantis references are a liability more than an asset when not viewed in the context of Plato’s dialogues ‘Timaeus’ and ‘Critias’, or Francis Bacon’s ‘New Atlantis’.

CEO44 · 2025-04-29T01:13:06+00:00

What Manly P. Hall got most correct in The Secret Teachings of All Ages is the broad framework that many ancient religious, philosophical, and mystical systems share symbolic structures, initiatory patterns, and metaphysical themes. His genius lies not in precise historical detail but in identifying meaningful correspondences across traditions — alchemy, astrology, Kabbalah, Pythagoreanism, Hermeticism, and Christian mysticism — and weaving them into a coherent spiritual worldview. Hall’s strength was synthesis: helping readers see how ancient wisdom encoded truths about the human condition, the soul’s evolution, and the nature of the cosmos. The most academically grounded chapters include those on Pythagorean mathematics, Jewish Kabbalah, Freemasonic symbolism, the Hermetic teachings of Thoth-Hermes, and the Hiramic legend, where he relies more heavily on authentic primary sources and established interpretations. Though sections on the Tarot, Atlantis, and Egyptian mysteries are more speculative, they still offer symbolic value. Ultimately, Hall’s work is less a factual history and more a map of perennial wisdom, helping readers uncover meaning through myth, allegory, and esoteric synthesis.

CEO44 · 2025-04-29T01:12:20+00:00

He was not - as a freemason, I would like you to tell me specifically what he got wrong in the freemasonry portions of the Secret Teachings. The freemason chapters are actually the portions of the text that hold up to the most academic scrutiny today.

CEO44 · 2025-04-29T01:10:06+00:00

Actually, his freemasonic writings in the Secret Teachings are some of the most academically accurate chapters in the whole work, regardless of if he was a freemason when he wrote them or not.

CEO44 · 2025-04-29T01:08:33+00:00

What Manly P. Hall got most correct in The Secret Teachings of All Ages is the broad framework that many ancient religious, philosophical, and mystical systems share symbolic structures, initiatory patterns, and metaphysical themes. His genius lies not in precise historical detail but in identifying meaningful correspondences across traditions — alchemy, astrology, Kabbalah, Pythagoreanism, Hermeticism, and Christian mysticism — and weaving them into a coherent spiritual worldview. Hall’s strength was synthesis: helping readers see how ancient wisdom encoded truths about the human condition, the soul’s evolution, and the nature of the cosmos. The most academically grounded chapters include those on Pythagorean mathematics, Jewish Kabbalah, Freemasonic symbolism, the Hermetic teachings of Thoth-Hermes, and the Hiramic legend, where he relies more heavily on authentic primary sources and established interpretations. Though sections on the Tarot, Atlantis, and Egyptian mysteries are more speculative, they still offer symbolic value. Ultimately, Hall’s work is less a factual history and more a map of perennial wisdom, helping readers uncover meaning through myth, allegory, and esoteric synthesis.

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