Master of the Mysteries. Louis Sahagun

to include private counseling and public service. In late 1930, a six-month lecture campaign carried him to the nation’s largest cities including Chicago and New York, where he attracted capacity audiences at Town Hall, the Pythian Temple and Carnegie Hall. He also spoke regularly on New York radio station WOR, and began preparing for a trip to Mexico and Central America.

      In the spring of 1931, he left New York by boat for the entry port of Progresso on the peninsula of Yucatán to conduct research at Mayan ruins on the myth of the snake-bird god Quetzalcoatl. Then he proceeded by train to Mexico City, where he made short trips to the region’s Toltec and Aztec archeological sites, where he hoped to confirm flamboyant American political reformer Ignatius Donnelly’s claims of a submerged paradise that existed eons ago.

      Later that year, Hall’s name cropped up in a story published in the New York World-Telegram under the headline “Head of Supreme Government of the World Inc. Wants His $1,400 Back.” A man identified as “Brother Thomas” had invested in an occult bookstore owned by a transplanted California mystic. Thomas wanted out of the arrangement immediately after reading an article in Hall’s magazine All-Seeing Eye, which he hoped to use as evidence in a jury trial. It warned, in part, “Not a few sincere but sentimental people have impoverished themselves, hazarded the future of their families and wasted the best years of their lives in ill-advised attempts to attain that abstract state commonly denominated ‘spirituality.’” [17]

      The same could be said about astrology. But Hall reserved a special fondness for the storied association between the planets and human characteristics. Hall was an admirer of Evangeline Adams, astrologer to the rich, famous and powerful, who by 1914 had gained enough leverage to challenge and have modified New York’s statute against fortune telling as it applied to astrologers. Her clientele ranged from working folks to powerbroker financier John Pierpont Morgan, who reportedly boasted, “Millionaires don’t use astrology, billionaires do.” Tenor Enrico Caruso reportedly never crossed the Atlantic during World War I without first consulting Adams to get the safest times and dates for traveling.

      In late October 1932, Adams was about to undertake a risky business venture in the depths of the Great Depression: writing a book listing the good and bad astrological aspects to watch for during each month of the following year. Her prospective publisher felt that sales would have to be strong right away, given that the book would be of no use in 1934. Adams offered to pay Hall $100 if he would write an introduction to the book, an endorsement, she explained, that “would help the sale of the book here in the East, as well as in California.” [18]

      Adams died in New York about a month later. Her book, The Evangeline Adams Guide for 1933, was published posthumously. The introduction by Hall begins:

      “The right of a branch of learning to exist is determined from its use-value, and the distinguished position always occupied by astrology in the history of nations is due largely to its practical value in unraveling the tangled skein of circumstance.”

      The book sold well, earning warm reviews in venues including the Saturday Review of Literature. In any case, Hall generally ignored the Guide for 1933’s New Year’s admonition for those who, like himself, were born on March 18: “This is not likely to be a favorable time for making purchases, for there will be a tendency toward extravagance,” and, “Avoid catering to your love of the good things of life, and especially avoid over-eating and drinking.” [19] Instead, he binged on sweets and avoided exercise, personal failings exacerbated by long hours of sedentary research and thyroid problems that were making him obese. To cover up his physical problems, Hall ordered up tailored coats that draped over his expanding waistline like navy-blue parachutes. Some of his congregants contrived a story to explain his sagging stomach: He’d contracted elephantiasis, a disease characterized by thickening of the skin and underlying tissue, during a trip to India.

      With the financial assistance of the Lloyds, the early 1930s were Hall’s most intensive years of book and artifact collecting, a quest he called rich in adventures that brought him in contact with many unusual individuals and institutions. Hall traveled to France and England, where he acquired his most extensive collection of rare books and manuscripts on alchemy and esoteric fields from London auctioneers, Sotheby & Company. [20] Because of the serious economic depression afflicting the world at the time, bidding was relatively conservative, and Hall, through an agent, was able to acquire dozens of books and manuscripts at reasonable prices. They included an original triangle-shaped manuscript by 18th-century magician Compte de St. Germain purporting to hide clues to the locations of all treasures lost at sea; instructions for finding diamond, gold and silver mines; and formulas for living longer than a century with the freshness of a man of 50. [21]

      In 1934, Hall attended a special meeting of the World Fellowship of Faiths in London, where he met explorer and political administrator Sir Francis Younghusband, who was instrumental in opening Tibet to British trade after the turn of the 20th century. Through contacts provided by Younghusband, Hall secured the Ripley Scroll, a 20-foot-long, hand-painted manuscript considered one of the outstanding artistic alchemical works. In Atlantis, an obscure bookshop on a street leading to the main entrance of the British Museum, he bought several choice items including a manuscript on vellum explaining intricate diagrams drawn from the Kabbalah, a Jewish mystical tradition passed lip to ear. At an auction of the holdings of the late movie idol Rudolph Valentino, Hall secured a bishop’s silver ring of the 12th century, which Valentino had worn in the film The Son of the Sheik.

       Letter from Luther Burbank, 1926

      Browsing Mexican bookshops around this time he was able to make an especially valuable addition to his research collection: a post-Columbian work on the early societies of Mexico and Central America known as the Florentine Codex of Friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Hall made photographic copies of the Codex for use by university libraries. [22]

      His circle of friends expanded along with his collection and included some of the nation’s most famous thinkers and mystics. One was famed botanist Luther Burbank, a short, gentle man with a shock of white hair who taught him that “if we meet the challenge of the future with the simple wisdom bestowed by nature and exemplified through cooperation and brotherly love, we can build a strong new people in America, and the children of the future will have a better chance to fulfill the destiny which nature and nature’s God have decreed.” [23]

      In his lectures, Hall attributed much of the Santa Rosa plant breeder’s strides developing new, economically important varieties of fruits and flowers to the fact that he often got down on all fours and prodded them with kind words. “He was not sure that the shrubs and flowers understood his words,” Hall recalled in an essay, “but he was convinced that by some telepathy, they could comprehend his meaning.” [24]

      At an Authors Club meeting at the Hollywood Athletic Club, English scholar, scientist, and gentleman naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton talked about his books, which brought the wonders of nature to city-dwelling children. No sooner had the big rangy man with long gray hair and bright, humorous eyes completed his talk than Manly Hall strode up, extended his hand and said, “Mr. Seton, I want to know you.” [25] Seton, who was nicknamed “Chief” because of his affinity for American Indians and their culture, had an iron grip. They took to each other easily. Over the years, Hall was a frequent guest at Seton’s huge estate in New Mexico, which was topped with a rambling house dubbed “The Castle.” From there, Hall and Seton rode out on horseback to watch Hopi ceremonies and rain dances, and witness the flagellant rites of Penitentes reenacting