A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery

A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery

Manly P. Hall examines Mary Anne Atwood's A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, published anonymously in 1850 and largely destroyed by its author. He recounts its origins in her collaboration with her father Thomas South, the burning of the edition and the rumors surrounding it, and then expounds its thesis that alchemy is a spiritual art: light as the universal transforming agent, man as the true laboratory, and the union of purified elements as the philosopher's stone.

1. 0:05 — Mary Atwood and an Enigmatic Book
2. 10:47 — Burning the First Edition
3. 20:17 — Reprints, Rumors and Atwood's Marriage
4. 29:36 — Anonymous Publication and the Lost Poem
5. 39:30 — Scripture as Alchemical Fable and Light
6. 49:49 — Light as Healer and the Sealed Vessel
7. 59:23 — Digestion and the Language of Scientific Salvation
8. 1:09:03 — Chemistry's By-Products and the Two Laboratories
9. 1:18:24 — Light Descending Into Darkness
10. 1:28:23 — Elias the Artist and Hermetic Mercury
11. 1:38:05 — Suspending the Senses and the Philosopher's Stone

Manly P. Hall — 1 recording in the archive.

Related reading: The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall.

The book we will be examining this evening is one of the most enigmatic written in the modern era. It is a mystery more complex than the most scientific secret. And even after more than a hundred years, most of the relevant facts remain unknown to us . Sometimes we find one of those episodes where the truth is stranger than fiction. And this is precisely the problem with the history of alchemy revealed in the works of Mary Atwood. Perhaps the best way to begin considering this situation is to approach it as an average reader would by examining the book itself. This is the only known literary work by its author. the story of the book is probably one of the most interesting in the annals of literature. It was written by a young woman who is not without a well-known background for this kind of endeavor. However, the work is so carefully crafted that we cannot view it as simply a mystical work. There is no evidence that the author obtained this book through any metaphysical means. This is simply the work of a very interesting and extraordinary young woman in the most extraordinary circumstances. Marianne South was born in 1817, the daughter of a country gentleman, Thomas South, a wealthy man with a naturally serious and inquisitive mind. It is obvious that S. was a fairly experienced expert in the Hermetic arts, alchemy, mesmerism, and psychic phenomena. This in itself was unusual for his time, as he is also known to have been a very devout member of the Church of England . He was a staunchly orthodox member of the Anglican Church. It would be unnatural to assume that a person with such strong orthodoxy, like a self-confident person, could deviate greatly from traditional views and opinions. But he definitely deviated, and this is perhaps the beginning of a mystery that will have to be solved one way or another later. From early childhood, Marianne South was her father's almost constant companion. It seemed like they were one soul in two bodies. Their interests were almost identical. The younger girl had a precocious talent for learning, equal to her father's scholarship. By the time she was 15 or 16, she was deeply immersed in the things that most concerned him. By the age of 20, she was already his secretary. By the age of 30,…