Master of the Mysteries. Louis Sahagun

In a version he told often over the years, Hall said he was born a premature blue baby on the morning of March 18, 1901, in one of the first Caesarean operations ever conducted at Nicholls Hospital in Peterborough, in the Canadian province of Ontario. He said the attending physician, a Dr. Lapp, deciding he was dead, placed the infant in a basket, wrote a death certificate, then turned his attention to the infant’s mother, who was in critical condition. Some time later, the baby let out an urgent howl, as though suddenly enlivened by a soul that had dived into the infant’s body from the great beyond. The doctor held him up by his feet and said, “If he lives he’ll be a big fella.” [48]

      An improbable story? When questioned, Hall said his birth records were destroyed in a hospital fire. [49] But according to documents, census reports and Peterborough historians, Hall’s mother entered Nicholls Hospital on March 15, and delivered her son three days later at 5:30 a.m. with the assistance of resident physician and nursing school lecturer Dr. William Dixon Scott. She was discharged on March 29. [50] Although one record noting Mrs. Hall’s admission to the hospital lists the word “miscarriage” under a column titled “Disease,” historian John Walter Martyn said, “miscarriage” was used in error to mean premature labor. There is no record of a surgical procedure of any kind. The hospital’s bill for services was $20. [51]

      Hall also liked to say that his mother was a physician who launched a career in medicine in 1903 after handing him over to his grandmother when he was two years old. [52] Close family relatives now say Louise was a chiropractic healer who hoped to make a business out of treating miners in the Alaskan gold fields.

      The facts about Hall’s confused and insecure childhood are unusual enough. When Hall was born, his parents already were living apart. His father, 29-year-old dentist William S. Hall, was living alone in downtown Peterborough’s finest hotel, the Oriental, and earning a respectable annual salary of about $2,400, according to census records. He moved away from Ontario in 1904 when Manly was three years old and was never heard from again, family members say. [53]

      The failed marriage sent Louise spinning into a downward spiral that ended with her decision to leave it all behind and seek her fortune in Alaska. Hall was raised by his grandmother, Florence Louise Palmer, a Victorian-era widow whose husband had owned a varnish factory. [54] After her husband’s death, she sold their assets and then set out to discover America. With Hall in tow, they traveled from town to town, seldom staying in any one of them longer than six months.

      Clad in knickerbockers and ribbed cotton stockings, Hall was four years old when his 50-year-old grandmother had him admitted into the U.S. as a Canadian immigrant in July, 1905, in the District of Chicago. [55] They settled briefly in a hotel in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

      There, they attended Native American Indian dances, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, and circuses. When Secretary of War William Taft was campaigning for president and made a stop in town, she took her grandson to meet the candidate. The tall man in a starched white vest and long black coat leaned over, patted the young boy on the head and shook his hand. [56]

      In 1907, they lived briefly in the California cities of San Francisco, Santa Rosa and San Diego, where their next-door neighbor was the son of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Next they lived in Germantown, Pennsylvania, an old stronghold of Quakers and Mennonites. Then, in Chicago, the young boy began to read voraciously. He and his grandmother, who loved good books, read together by lamplight. Their favorite author was G.A. Henty, whose well-written adventure yarns first introduced Hall to words like “guru” and “astrology.” [57]

       Manly and his grandmother, Florence Palmer

      When he reached school age, Hall’s grandmother decided he was too advanced for kindergarten and enrolled him into the first grade, where he opened a textbook to find the letters of the alphabet an inch high in various bold colors. “When I was asked to identify these letters and pronounce them in class, I was decidedly embarrassed,” Hall recalled in an essay years later. “At home at that particular period, grandmother and I were deep into Victor Hugo.”

      Hall was quickly promoted to third grade, where he was confronted with multiplication tables. “This did not hold my attention,” he said, “for at that time I was handling most of grand-mother’s bank accounts.” [58]

      His grandmother enjoyed entertaining friends. On rainy evenings, when she wanted to impress them, she would select curios from a little cabinet chock-full of interesting items collected over the years and present them with the skill of a professional curator. It was a pastime that Hall would eventually make an important part of his own life.

      In 1914, Woodrow Wilson was president and Hall’s grandmother moved into a genteel boarding house about three blocks from the White House in Washington. [59] Among the boarders was Señora Carenza, a Spanish woman who used her mysterious gift as a “burn stroker” to cure second- and third-degree burns of others at no charge. “We noticed that Señora Carenza always stroked the burn very lightly and toward her own heart,” Hall recalled. “While doing so, she whispered a little verse. With my natural curiosity, I finally persuaded her to recite the verse for me in English.” Her secret of Spanish folk healing, which Hall said worked wonders, was this: “Three wise men come out of the East, Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthazar. Go heat, come cold. Come cold, go heat. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” [60]

      In 1917, Hall and his grandmother moved again, this time to New York, where Hall joined a military training program and found work as a clerk at an insurance company in the financial district of lower Manhattan. [61] Along with a starting salary of $30 a month, he received some stern advice from the firm’s vice president: When a young man becomes associated with an old and reputable firm, it is his duty to live an exemplary life. His associates should be chosen for their respectability. He should attend church and have a savings account. He should select a girl of good character and avoid debt. Loyalty to the company established a bond that would last a lifetime.

      One day, the head bookkeeper with a spotless record of 47 years was found dead at his desk. A standing clock was delivered to the man’s home by way of appreciation for his services. Within a few weeks, he was never mentioned again. [62]

      Hall quit, believing there must be a better way to earn a living.

      His next job, which was slightly better than the first, involved clerical work at a Wall Street firm. Disillusionment with that company turned to deep depression with the sudden death of his grandmother. “Here I was starting out in life with no background that would give any particular support or strength to the problems I was facing and would face,” Hall recalled. “I looked around and could not see any way in which I could get the instruction and help I needed. There did not seem to be anyone to turn to.” [63]

      All that changed the day he wandered into the dilapidated “House of a Thousand Memories” at 493 Sixth Avenue. The Martinka brothers, Antonio and Francis, presided over this emporium for stage magicians, who were all the rage on vaudeville stages. Among its frequent patrons was escape artist and stage magician Harry Houdini, one of the greatest showmen of all time.

      The front door opened to store counters and glass cases stacked high with magician’s equipment. Behind the store was a large room with a small stage surrounded by chairs