Marilyn Bridges Shares a Bird's-Eye View of Sacred Landscapes in Beautiful B+W Photography

 

Markings: Aerial Views of Sacred Landscapes – Marilyn Bridges (1986)

            What a gorgeous photography book!  The “Library Angels” were kind once again, guiding this amazing book into my hands.  Reader of the Book Journey will note my long-standing interest in ancient megaliths, earthworks, and the civilizations that created them.  Marilyn Bridges, an outstanding photographer, took it upon herself to take to the skies over Peru in the 1970’s to better experience the “Nazca Lines” her indigenous guides described.  The sense of awe engendered by what she saw led her to seek more opportunities to fly and photograph the ancient works of humanity.  Facing her fears, Marilyn Bridges learned to fly small airplanes, allowing her to dictate exactly how she would photograph the overwhelmingly complex lines, images, and ruins left behind by our ancestors.

            In the classic documentarian style of photography, Bridges utilizes stark black and white film, all shot from far above, to showcase the ruins and burial sites better seen from the sky.  This is the “view of the gods” as she describes it.  Her impeccable eye for detail, lighting, framing, and composition make each single image a work of art, regardless of the subject matter. 

            This book begins with an informative and poetic preface by one Haven O’More, detailing  Marilyn Bridge’s methods and the magic she creates.  O’More describes to us to the four sections of this book, each with an engrossing introduction.  The first section details Bridges’ photography of the famous Nazca lines and geoglyphs, some of the first images to draw the attention of the world at large to perhaps the most mysterious and massive earthworks and drawings ever created by our human species.  The stark images perfectly capture the inherent emptiness of the Nazca landscape, contrasted by the almost overwhelming amount of lines and drawings and shapes left behind by the creators, a people we call “Nazca” but of whom we know almost nothing, not even the name they chose to call themselves.   They communicate with us and for all time through their artworks.

            The second section of this book explores the remnants of the greatest non-European, non-Asian, non-African civilization in our human history, the Mayan Empire of Central America, which the book states encompasses “…what is now Guatemala, Belize, western Honduras, El Salvador, and the southern Mexican states of Yucatan, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, and eastern Chiapas.”  Going back to 2,000 BCE, and existing until around 900 CE, the Maya culture flourished in the middle of some of the harshest tropical forest climates around.  In the 1840’s, a traveler and writer named John Lloyd Stephens explored the area and his two seminal books were integral in bringing the knowledge of the Maya empire to the wider world.  Marilyn Bridges’ photographs capture both excavated buildings and cities and completely overgrown pyramids and temples alike, lending the images an otherworldly quality, as if the jungle was erasing our human history, which it most certainly does cover up!  The Mayan language, the only complete written language ever created in the New World, is still nearly indecipherable.  Because of this, and because the fucking ignorant and psychopathic religious fervor of Spanish Roman Catholic priests “forced” them to burn every Maya text they found, much of Maya culture remains decipherable solely through their earthworks and architecture.  Such a pity.  I firmly believe the world would be a far better place today if every single Bible in existence had been burned up around 400 CE, but I digress.

            The third section details the many prehistoric geoglyphs and burial mounds found throughout North America.  From 500-year old figures carved out of the Mojave desert in California, to the ceremonial centers of the Mississippian people, to the effigy mounds of the Adena people who lived in what is now Ohio between 1000 BCE and 30 BCE, North America is littered with evidence of ancient culture and people, far removed from the lies told by white colonists of a barren, history-less landscape given to them by their white god.  What these ignorant assholes called “Indians” and “savages” were a people with culture, cities, agriculture, temples, burial sites, and an involved society.  Marilyn Bridges’ photographs help us remember this fact.

            The final section describes the truly ancient earthworks, henges, and artificial hills created by the ancient people of what is now England.  The most famous of these is Stonehenge, and rightfully so, but my favorite is the Cerne Abbas Giant, a figure created by removing the sod and topsoil above a chalk hill in Dorset.  A 180 foot tall figure, with a massive 30 foot long erect dong, represents either the Celtic god Helith, or his Roman counterpart Hercules.  Either way, the dude is an obvious ass-kicker with his massive war-club held high overhead.  Not discussed much is the fact that in England exists a human built earth pyramid rivaling the size of the pyramids in Egypt, but created maybe one thousand years before.  INSANE!  Silbury Hill , as it is called, was first constructed around 2500 BCE and remains the largest man-made hill in all of Europe.  Our ancestors were mighty, inventive, intelligent bad-asses of the highest caliber!

            Books like this fill me with awe, with a feeling of overwhelming unity and love for my fellow man, and for all our ancestors trying to make sense of a seemingly random and violent world.  Humans understand pattern better than almost any other creature on Earth.  Because of this, through careful, extended observation, our ancient forebears realized that the seeming permanence of the night sky, along with the solar and lunar cycles, allowed us to experience the passage of time without fear, for we could predict when the rains would come, when an eclipse happened, when the winter solstice came, etc. In all parts of our world, different humans looked at the same skies and came up with the same realizations, creating calendars, observatories, and other tools to measure our world and the passage of time.  To know that this was mostly done by people with no means of writing, no alphabets or glyphs to record information, humbles me greatly.  We stand on the shoulders of every single human that came before us, and every human after us will stand on our shoulders.  This is a responsibility that most of us ignore.  I am deeply thankful our ancestors did not, and that people like Marilyn Bridges, through her insight and emotion, saw the importance of capturing these images and sharing them with the world at large.  I am eternally grateful, as we all should be.

(This amazing book can be purchased used here: https://www.abebooks.com/9780893814236/Marilyn-Bridges-Markings-Sacred-Landscapes-0893814237/plp )

Mircea Eliade Guides Us Through Humanity's Use of Initiations' Rites and Symbols

 

Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth – Mircea Eliade (1958)

 

            Sometimes the smallest books can be the most gratifying and educational.  This slim, 136-page volume (not counting the large Notes and Index sections) is loaded with extra jelly. Translated from the original French by one Willard R. Trask, Mircea Eliade’s writing shines as it explores and compiles our knowledge of Initiations, and the various rites and symbols used by all of humanity for this purpose.  It is an amazing piece of writing by the man who was Chairman of the Department of the History of Religion at the University of Chicago.

            As Eliade differentiates at the start of this book, there are essentially two types of initiations.  Both seek to “kill” the previous version of the initiate, in order to rebuild, teach, and create a new human being. The most primordial type is the “puberty” initiation.  In this type of initiation, whether for a male or a female child, the purpose is to end the period of childhood, with its lack of responsibility and participation in adult society, and to “create” a full adult, capable of participating and perpetuating the sociocultural knowledge of the tribe.

            Male and female children are removed from their families for an extended period of time, ranging from several days to over a year in some tribes.  The earliest, simplest initiation rituals for boys consist of the separation from the mothers, whose children are then led away from the tribe by the shaman and elders.  The children are symbolically “buried” under branches and blankets, where they must sit and wait.  This is the time of symbolic death.  All around them, their male elders dance, ritualistically, and through the songs and dances teach the children what is happening.  They are experiencing a death, the death of their carefree childhoods.  They learn that in this death they are taken up to the abode of the gods, and private, secret knowledge is given to them.  This knowledge is what makes them new men in the eyes of their tribe, giving them a cosmology and reason for existence.  After a period of time, they are released from their “grave” and return to the world of their people, assuming the full role of an adult male in the tribe. Their mothers mourn them as if they truly died, for they no longer reside with their moms and aunts and cousins and sisters.  Instead, they now belong to the men of the tribe, until such a time as they themselves marry.  Most simple initiations function in this manner, with the exact details of the instruction and lessons given changing depending on the tribe.

            The more complex puberty initiations of men take on far more danger and pain.  There is the addition of deprivation, such as long days spent in the wild without clothing, or without fire or food.  There is the use of pain, or ritualistic surgeries, such as circumcision and scarification, or even the risk of death against animals or the elements themselves.  Whereas the simpler initiations explain the cosmology of the respective tribe involved, the more complex ones seek to recreate the cosmology, with the initiates taking the place of the initial hero who, through either the will of the gods or his own human intelligence, attains wisdom and knowledge equal to the gods and shares it with his fellow men.  These initiations help the men inculcate the new generation with the history and ancient truths of their tribe.  The young men who return from initiation are reborn as full humans, ready to participate in the world around them.

            The initiations of females differ from the initiations of males, both in method and purpose.  Females have a special clock which dictates their maturity, unlike men.  This clock being the initial start of menstruation.  Female initiations are even more secretive and esoteric than the male ones, for it was the ability of the females of any species to perpetuate life that provided humanity with its first taste of the infinite.  Women and their bodies were the initial symbols used to explain the world around us.  The world of women required a separate initiation. 

            The initiations of young women do not revolve around death and rebirth, but instead focus on attainment.  The onset of maturity is a time for celebration, and the young women are gathered together within a space reserved solely for females.  One of the greatest taboos in the world of tribal humans is that of a man entering the sacred spaces of a woman.  The punishments are severe and swift.  In many tribes, if a man interferes with the initiations of the women, the women have the right to kill that man in order to protect their secrets. 

            The young women are taught about their cosmology and how the universe/earth is a womb, producing the life seen all around.  They are taught to understand that the process of life is universal, which is evident after studying the animals and plants around them.  The initiates learn of their cosmic role in the process of life, and how to care for each other.  These initiations also helped bond all of the tribe’s women together, helping foster mutual altruism.  Women likely held the secret of biological procreation for centuries before males found out.

            One of the critical ideas that Eliade brings is that the rituals and symbols used during these initiations were not just mimics of the initial creation process, but were intended to manifest the sacred and allow the initiate to recreate the very events that created the world around them.  Each initiation is a recreation, literally, of the initial birth of our universe.

            The other type of initiation is that of the shaman.  There are three ways to become a shaman.  The first is when the elders or elder shamans choose an individual child (usually male, and the offspring of a shaman) to be taught and trained.  Another is when a child actively seeks to learn the ways and wisdom of the shamans, as if born to do so.  The third method is when the child’s mental state, attitude, and behavior is so erratic and bizarre that they are then pushed to shamanism so that they may learn to control their minds.  This last method is tribal human’s way of dealing with the mentally ill or unstable among them, allowing that person to have a place in their society, even if it is one removed from the day-to-day world of the tribe, such as the shaman’s.

            Most cultures keep their shaman separate.  They live in privation, do not take part in hunts, and rarely interact with the rest of the tribe.  The shaman’s life is spent fine-tuning their connection to the divine, whether through prayer, fasting, drug use, chanting, or any other such method.  It is this rigor which allows them to commune with the spirit world, detect malicious entities causing harm or illness among the tribe, see the far past and the far future, and travel out of their bodies to what mystics refer to as the Astral Plane.  The shaman is feared as much as he is needed.  Their respective initiation ceremonies shed light on this.

            Whereas in puberty initiations the initiate spiritually “dies” and is “reborn,” the shamanistic initiate is instead fully recreated.  The shamans speak of how, during their initiation, their skin, muscle, and sinew are stripped away, leaving just a skeleton, which their god then re-creates, adding new material until the shaman is reconstituted as a new type of being, one capable of existing in the profane, material world (symbolized by his keeping his initial skeleton), and in the supernatural divine world (symbolized by the new organs, muscle, and skin grafted onto him by the gods).  Once recast as a shaman, they climb the World Tree, the Axis Mundi, and have access to the upper worlds of the gods and the lower worlds of demons and spirits.  Shamanistic initiation is mentally traumatic, and some initiates do not make it back from their foray into the divine.  Recreating the mythical death and rebirth of their god’s/universe’s creation has that effect on some people.

            I found this book fascinating, and resonant to my previous readings on the topic.  By focusing solely on initiations, Mircea Eliade avoids discussions of theology, allowing the reader to think about initiations as a continuing human endeavor.  Eliade describes how, even after the advent of revelatory religion, and monotheism, initiations for other organizations/groups continued to use the framework described above, that of a symbolic death, and a rebirth into a new state of being, a more truly “human” state.  Anyone with knowledge of the Masonic initiations into their 3^rd degree will see the correlations.  Books such as this provide us with knowledge that expands our minds, and helps us understand that human consciousness is an ongoing process, constantly drawing from the deep wells of our past shared humanity, and providing deeper and richer meaning for our lives.

(This book can be downloaded and read here: https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.6032/page/n9/mode/2up )

Major Arthur de Bles Explains How to Tell Who is Who in Classic christian Art

 

How to Distinguish Saints in Art by Their Costumes, Symbols, and Attributes – Major Arthur de Bles (1925)

 

            Our modernity prevents us from understanding the meanings and messages behind most of the christian artwork used as the foundation for western fine art. A visit to any large museum will expose one to dozens, if not hundreds, of exquisitely painted images, each one portraying moments in the lives of christian deities, saints, and martyrs.  From a time when reading itself was kept from many of the common people, these images helped to foster religious beliefs and feelings in those who viewed them.  Despite widespread illiteracy, the people who viewed these artworks understood them based on their communal knowledge of the life stories of Jesus, his family and friends, his followers, and the many saints and martyrs upon which the stories and legends of the christian church rest.  This great book helps explain and instruct on how to look at these artworks to better understand them and the times in which they were created.

            This is a reference work, and because of that, it is not something that most people would read straight through.  I am not most people.  I adore reference books.  The more data the better!  Arthur de Bles worked on this material for a long time.  This is evident in the exhaustive and engrossing information contained within.  Not only does the author explain in detail the specific visual cues and symbols utilized in religious paintings, but he immerses the reader in the times these paintings were created.

            The first distinction that Arthur de Bles shares is between the two main types of christian religious art.  The first kind is “narrative.”  These images describe specific moments from the Bible, including the many apocrypha books, as well as historic events relating the lives of the people from the Bible and the many saints and martyrs that followed.  For example, a painting which shows Joseph and Mary being turned away from shelter, and having to rest and birth Jesus in a manger, is a narrative painting.  The details included would correlate, at least in the artist’s or patron’s mind, with the actual events described.  The Bible tells of how a group of shepherds saw the bright star signaling Jesus’ birth, and went to pay homage.  There are many paintings showing this “adoration of the shepherds,” and they include sheep, the shepherds, a manger/stable, and the holy family. 

            Other examples of narrative religious painting may show the martyrdoms of early christians.  For example, many paintings show the crucifixion of St. Peter, who, as the legend says, was crucified upside down in deference to Jesus, who was crucified the “normal,” way.  Paintings such as these helped to share the stories from christianity with the general population, many of whom could not read, not to mention the many who were not ALLOWED to read the Bible because the Roman Catholic church loved to keep regular people ignorant and subservient to their sacerdotal lackeys.  In fact, in many of the poorer nations, Roman Catholics today continue to provide church services in Latin, in order to keep the parishioners from actually understanding what is happening, thereby remaining in awe of the priest and his fancy mumbo-jumbo.  Pathetic.

            The other type of christian religious painting is the “devotional” one.  In these artworks, the purpose is not to tell a historical tale, or to describe events.  Devotional artworks are meant to be understood internally, as visual representations of the goodness of the saints, martyrs, religious figures, etc.  Paintings of Mary, holding the infant Jesus, surrounded by angels, saints, and other representations of the divinity, are innumerable.  In these artworks, the intent is to strengthen the religious ardor of the viewer, by symbolically portraying the goodness of someone such as Mary or John the Baptist, or by symbolically rendering the strength of will and faith needed to endure the horrible tortures and deaths of the christian martyrs.  Devotional images are meant to inspire religious fervor, as opposed to the narrative religious paintings which seek to instruct on facts and details.

            Once de Bles describes these types, he divides the rest of the book into sections detailing specifically the visual clues and symbols used in art for the holy family, and the prophets and saints in the Bible.  Other sections explore the symbols and imagery used to depict the many saints and martyrs of the early christian church.  Each topic is heavily illustrated and annotated, allowing the reader to seek these artworks out in person, or to look for further resources with which to study these pieces of art history.

            One thing that Arthur de Bles makes perfectly clear, is how few of these artworks were created because the artist themselves was a deeply religious and devotional person whose personal faith insisted that they paint religious pictures.  Most of the tens of thousands of paintings and images included in this book were commissioned by either churches, religious orders, wealthy bishops, or rich and powerful men seeking to curry favor with the “Lort,” or to at least look like devout, faithful christians.  It is an old trick, covering and surrounding oneself in the symbols and images of faith, all the while ignoring the actual commandments of that faith and behaving like a fucking waste of humanity.

            In a very real sense, every religious image is propaganda, selling the idea that the faith depicted is the one that is true and real, to the exclusion of the others.  Images of martyrs cannot help but inculcate an ignorant, illiterate population into admiring the martyr’s devotion and faith, and, in return, to consider themselves as beneath these saints, as someone nearly irredeemable whose soul can only be saved by the intercession of some priest or church.  It is the oldest scam in the word, and differs not at all from a tribal shaman covering themselves in dung, ingesting psychoactive substances, and scaring the general crap out of their tribe, all to make sure they behave and fall in line with whatever the shaman/priest wants the people to believe.   The idea that a “picture is worth a thousand words” is very true, and it is used to this very day by despots, tyrants, and wastes of humanity in order to control the people with fear.

            Books such as these, crammed full of information, are invaluable.  They provide us with a means to understand the past, while allowing us to learn the details which those in power seek to keep from us.  Information is freedom.  Knowledge is freedom.  Ignorance is the easiest way to keep someone enslaved.  Always look to see who is out there seeking to educate and inform, and who is out there trying to indoctrinate and control.  This is the easiest way to differentiate good from evil in this world.

(This book can be downloaded and read here: https://archive.org/details/howtodistinguish00debl_0 )

C.F. Volney Shared the Truth With Us Over Two Centuries Ago

 

The Ruins: Or, Meditation on the Revolution of Empires and the Law of Nature – C.F. Volney (1890)

SUN RA Reading List

            Every once in a while I come across a book that not only explores specific topics I am very interested in, but whose author has already processed the information available and reached conclusions that mirror my very own, even if it is an author writing almost a century before I was born.  I love the magic of literature!  Such is the case with Constantin-Francois Chassebeuf De Volney’s The Ruins, a dense and insightful work.

            Count Volney was a lifelong learner, seeking to find the truth.  He spent his youth learning classic languages, reading, and studying.  Once he entered adulthood, he learned Arabic and proceeded to travel to the parts of the world which, at the time, were forgotten and ignored.  He gazed upon the ancient marvels, mostly covered by desert sands, and thought hard about the cultures and people that created such wonders.  It led him to insights that are as valuable today as ever.

            Volney’s journey began in the Ottoman Empire, through areas that are now Syria and Egypt.  Everywhere he went he saw desolation, ruin, and human suffering.  He noted people living barely better than ancient tribal man did.  Upon exploring the ancient sepulchers of Egypt, a revelation occurred, and he asked himself questions that led to the creation of this work. 

“How has so much glory been eclipsed?” 

“How have so many labors been annihilated?”

            Volney asked himself how the works of man perish, empires vanish, and cultures and empires become lost into the mists of time.  Every ancient kingdom and culture he had studied was gone, with many of them forgotten by the world at large.  One large thought that occurred to him, living in the time of Christian nations, was that every one of these ancient and magnificent empires were peopled with what his contemporaries would describe as heretics, infidels, heathens of the worst type.  None of them followed the tenets of Christianity, yet their splendor outshone modern Christian nations.  It made little sense to him that, in the same lands that heathens created high culture and architecture, modern Muslims, Christians and Hebrews barely eked a subsistence. 

            Volney then spends time remembering his France, and Europe, which at the time considered themselves the heights of culture and sophistication.  He remembered the beauty of Parisian streets, and then thought about the far future, where the wonders of his age would be but dust-filled ruins, and all the beauty would be lost forever.  This is a sobering thought, and something that most people never consider.  Most people live their lives as if the present world will remain unchanging for all time, and are then shocked when the changes come.

            The bulk of The Ruins proceeds like a conversation between Volney himself, and an apparition that speaks to him, which Volney calls the Genius, as he gazes on the destroyed temples and buildings of ancient cultures.  This Genius hears Volney’s anguish about humanity’s past and proceeds to explain exactly how man has fallen low and the reasons why.   The Genius patiently explains the ancient history of humanity, the rise from base animal nature to consciousness.   He talks about how humanity first understood the world, Nature, as a thing external to himself.  He then proceeds to detail how this leads to every single theological idea we are all still fighting and killing each other over.

            Each chapter title describes the contents therein, such as The Primitive State of Man, The Sources of Evil in Society, The Origin of Government and Laws, The General Causes of the Revolutions and Ruins of Ancient States, to The Lessons of Times Past Repeated on The Present.  These topics are explored as the Genius describes the development of humanity.

            The second half of The Ruins is even more mind-blowing, as the Genius lifts Volney up and away, to heights where he can see the whole Earth both past and future.  He describes the various religious groups and sects gathering from all the world to listen to the Genius.  The Genius proceeds to question each group as to their beliefs.  It points out the many ways that the core beliefs of each religion get quickly buried under dogma, priesthoods, and the endless bickering of mortal man.  Each religion ends up in actuality directly opposite of the tenets they claim to preach.  One example, which applies to most religions, is this – God is unknowable, and all encompassing.  Instead of acting upon this Truth, every single Religion constantly seeks to tell their followers exactly what “god” is thinking, what “god” likes, what “god” does not like, etc., all in an effort to control the people.  They seek to diminish their “all-knowing” god with every proclamation and decree of dogma their followers must subscribe to, or else the “god” will send them to hell for eternal punishment.

            After doing so, the Genius then starts to get to basics, asking how the humans determine truth, and how, most of their religious beliefs are not based on truth but on human extrapolation and assumptions, all leading down a path away from the actual truth.  The way that religions warp their initial truths is near universal, especially once a governing power sees how easily religion can be used to control the actions of the populace.  The initial, ancient human “religions” were nothing more than the then-current descriptions of the natural world around them, especially the heavens which were cyclical, and whose close study allowed early humans to understand the coming of the seasons, the path of our Sun through the sky, and the cycles that are created.  These ancient humans did not have telescopes or scientific instruments as we possess today, but their observations alone were invaluable.  These observations, written in the poetic language of their time, were then misinterpreted by later generations who read their symbolism and, like simple-mined folk everywhere, took them literally.  This section of The Ruins is perfect for a student of comparative religion like myself.

            One of the coolest anecdotes about The Ruins is that, as the original is in French, the English translation came from the hand of Thomas Jefferson, that eminent Freethinker and U.S.A. “Founding Father.”  He managed to translate around 4/5 of it, and it must have been truly a dangerous proposition to do so.  In the late 1700’s the Roman Catholic Church still controlled much of the western world’s religious ideas, and to have this book available in English must have been a threat.  Parts of it were left untranslated for this very reason.  For every truth any religion claims, they force upon their followers a thousand lies.  These lies take over, and force the various Christian factions to war against each other, or the various Muslim factions to war against each other.  They especially force one Religion to fight against the others, as all of them claim they are the One True Faith, instead of recognizing that the core tenets and foundations of all religious belief are simple, common to all, and universal in every sense.  I highly recommend this book.

(This book can be read or downloaded for free here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1397/1397-h/1397-h.htm )

An Exploration of Symbols and Teachings from all of Human History

 

The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy, Being an Interpretation of the Secret Teachings concealed within the Rituals, Allegories, and Mysteries of all Ages – Manly P. Hall (1928)

             

            As can be surmised from the title above, this is one of those books that appeal to me above all others.  In these collected pages, Mr. Manly P. Hall digs into the lifetime of esoteric and comparative religion studies which he concentrates and arranges for my pleasure.  There is nothing I love more than a human being smart enough to read widely on any given subject, who proceeds to then coalesce everything they have put into their brains into a work of literature.  This is one such book, and due to both the density and depth of the subject, it has taken me a good while to complete.

Writing about such a book is very difficult.  Not only is the subject matter one that requires both rigor and imagination to understand, but Mr. Hall is discussing the entirety of human symbolical philosophy, going as far back as possible into our collective human past.  Even 5 years ago I do not think I was mentally prepared to absorb what Mr. Hall has provided.

This is one of those books used by countless other writers as source material.  It is encyclopedic in scope, and everything is explored with an honest and logical demeanor.  The myths and symbols described by Mr. Hall, whether pertaining to ancient Greek Mystery Schools, the Egyptian traditions, Freemasonry, Hebrew mysticism, or mystic Christian theology are explored without bias, and always with an eye on the hidden truths contained therein, truths which at many times in human development were either scandalous, dangerous, or subversive enough to be jailed or killed for.

Many people of recent times have sought to “discover” these ancient truths, either by personal study, seeking a guru of some kind, or joining organizations like the Freemasons or other fraternal bodies still using the ancient symbology.  While wisdom is to be found in all things, the search for these hidden truths requires a lifelong passion for learning and the ability to see beyond the basic definitions and interpretations offered by other seekers. Manly P. Hall is great at this. 

Often, the truths that must be hidden from the masses are not mystical or supernatural.  They are instead truths about the reality and world we all exist in but which the powers-that-be at any given time in history see as dangerous to either their respective status quo (i.e. the divine right of kingship, the infallibility of religious leaders, etc.), or to the mental “well-being” of the masses, usually treated as ignorant sheep, barely conscious enough to warrant the title Human.

Many of the key “secrets” of the ancient Mystery Schools actually dealt with what we would now call scientific data or mathematics.  For example, the ancient Greeks understood somehow that the Earth was a sphere travelling around our Sun, that human life was in no way separate from animal or plant life and that all life was in its various stages of development, and that the primacy of the “human” is an illusion.  These were not facts you could disseminate on pamphlets or by orators.  These facts lay outside the “truths” espoused by the political, social, and religious powers of the time, (sadly, in our modern world, they still do for many people). 

Shining beacons of human thought such as Aristotle and Pythagoras saw through the lies, and sought to understand the world based on their pure rational thought.  They created schools where hand-chosen successors would be taught these truths, once the veil of ignorance had been removed by proper education.  These students would then become learned “masters” and proceed to teach a select few in the next generation.  By this method, timeless knowledge and wisdom was transmitted secretly, while the masses of humanity remained ignorant.  These “illuminated” humans were so respected that after death they passed into legend and myth, alongside Prometheus, the being who took fire from the Gods and gave it to humanity.

Because of the volatility of the knowledge involved, symbols and allegory became the main methods of transmitting the information.  “For those with eyes to see and ears to hear...” is how many ancient texts begin.  Implied is that, within the text provided, are secret and important truths only understandable to those who have been taught the meaning of the symbols and the history of human understanding.  Using this knowledge, Mr. Hall explores our collective history.  Whole chapters are devoted to Qabbalistic symbolism, the New Testament and Christian mysticism, The Hermetic mysteries, and the development of the Tarot, just to provide a few examples.

Understanding the symbols and myths Mr. Hall describes opens the mind to the interconnectedness of all human thought.  This does not just cover facts and data, but the esoteric studies of human consciousness as understood by our ancient predecessors.  Many religions besides Christianity discuss a concept of the Trinity, or the triune nature of a “god.”  Manly P. Hall describes how this is actually a description of the human being themselves.  According to the ancients and the mystics, each human is composed of three parts.  There is the physical mind and body, built from the same components as the Earth around us (ashes to ashes, dust to dust).  There is the “soul,” which describes the individual ego contained within our physical minds.  There is also the “spirit,” which designates the part of each of us that is imbued with a small piece of the divine, for as we are of the universe, the universe is of us.  As has been stated by many, “we are the Universe seeing, studying, and trying to understand itself.”  This is a deep truth, and something which shatters the dogmatic lies imprinted on much of humanity by religions.  It means we are all part of the divine.  The divine is part of all of us, and it does not stop at humans.  All animals, plants, fungi, rocks, minerals, and chemicals are divine as well, possessing their own path through what we call “life.”  The same applies to aggregations of matter, such as planets, stars, galaxies, etc. 

The cells in your body are alive.  The cells in your body are mostly replaced after 6-8 years have passed.  You are alive, regardless of whether the cells in your body are the ones you had at 11 years old, or the ones you have now at your current age.  Something apart from the physical stayed in your body and keeps it being YOU.  You are not alone in life.  You interact with everything around you in so many ways that the human mind ignores around 99% of all stimuli.  We are filters for the Universe.  The problem lies in that too many of us believe that only the stuff we “filter” out is real.  We rely on our frankly inadequate minds to process an infinite Universe.  The ancient Masters were hoping to improve humanity by sharing this information.  They just understood that one must be ready for learning, for learning is change, and change can be very disruptive, even when for the best.  Even today, in our “modern” world, most people are not ready to receive true wisdom.

I could write on and on about this book, but it is best for you to read it yourself if it sounds interesting.   Quite often, I would find myself reading a passage or sentence which led my mind to connect ideas/thoughts previously unaffiliated. Manly P. Hall has a way of guiding his readers, much like the old masters did their students.  He sometimes does not flatly state things, as much as provide the reader with a starting point for their own exploration.  I love this.  I read to be enlightened, and to have my mind think new thoughts.  In that, this book was a glorious triumph.  I expect to hunt down a physical copy and re-read this work again sometime.  Much like classic literature, there will always be something new to discover about myself, and my fellow humans in this book.

(This book can be read online here: https://www.teerpaakofficial.hu/_files/200000685-62e3262e34/Manly%20P.%20Hall%20-%20TheSecretTeachingsOfAllAges.pdf )