Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews Occult Anatomy of Man & Occult Masonry by Manly P Hall:

The first chapter of this “brochure” (as it calls itself) is a curious text, offering a soundly skeptical, mythicist take on Christian origins, while simultaneously asserting Lemurian and Atlantean sources for esoteric traditions! The next three chapters are organized according to the book’s pattern: brain/spirit, heart/emotions, and generative organs/physical sensation. In the chapter on “The Spinal Column” corresponding to the heart, there is also a discussion of clairvoyance and mediumship, and in the chapter on “The Infernal Worlds” Hall additionally provides an exposition of color symbolism. The final chapter of Occult Anatomy is on “embryology,” which offers readings of religious texts as perinatal allegories. It then continues with a thumbnail description of the seven-year cyclical climacteric pattern of individual human development.

Appended to The Occult Anatomy of Man is an essay on “Occult Masonry,” included with the intention to illustrate an application of the principles of occult anatomy. This “treatise” was written by Hall when he was himself not a Masonic initiate, and it contains some perceptive and inspiring items, alongside howlers about the grip of the lion’s paw, and perverse attempts to rehabilitate references to “riding the goat” and “the greased pole.”

Hall’s style is mostly a scattershot dumping of unsourced data along topical lines. His conclusions are not uniformly worthwhile, but the implicit questions to which they respond are ones that mystical aspirants and true initiates should ask themselves in order to advance their understanding. [via]

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