The Secret Teachings, 20th Century

Manly Palmer Hall (1901-1990) was a Canadian mystic and philosopher author, most famous for his 1928 –he was only 27- work “The Secret Teachings of All Ages” (Original title “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”)

I had the opportunity to investigate Manly Palmer Hall works thanks to an amazing preservation center and digitalization project I recently discovered: The Internet Archive which has been one of best documentation funds –at least in volume- I could check so far. Probably they will have to improve the search engine for anonymous users, but the indexation is excellent. Manly Palmer Hall available resources are hosted on the Getty Research Institute, a well known old friend; that has a subsite on the internet archive project.

About Manly Palmer, being a child he was drawn to the arcane world of mysticism, esoteric philosophies, and their underlying principles. His young interest was solidified by meeting —and becoming a student of— Sydney J. Brownson, a civil war veteran (link to his bio). Hall delved deeply into "teachings of lost and hidden traditions, the golden verses of Hindu gods, Greek philosophers and Christian mystics, and the spiritual treasures waiting to be found within one's own soul."  

In 1934, Manly Palmer Hall founded the Philosophical Research Society (PRS) in Los Angeles, California, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study of religion, mythology, metaphysics, and the occult. This Society is still active, but I had problems to reach their web page; so I found that there's a University of Philosophical Research, same street address (Los Feliz Blvd, Los Angeles CA).

Manly Palmer was also Knight Patron of the Masonic Research Group of San Francisco. On June 28, 1954, Hall initiated as a Freemason into Jewel Lodge No. 374, San Francisco (now the United Lodge)

He took the Scottish Rite Degrees a year later, and received his 32° in the Valley of San Francisco. On 1973 (47 years after writing The Secret Teachings of All Ages), he was recognized as a 33° Mason (the highest honor conferred by the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite) at a ceremony held at the Philosophical Research Society.

John Gould's "Birds of Asia", 19th Century

The greatest figure in bird illustration -as per University of Glasgow description- after JJ Audubon was John Gould (1804 – 1881); an English ornithologist that published a huge number of monographs on birds illustrated by plates, produced with the assistance of his wife, Elizabeth Gould, and several other artists including Edward Lear, Henry Constantine Richter, Joseph Wolf and William Matthew Hart.

When Charles Darwin presented his mammal and bird specimens collected during the second voyage of HMS Beagle to the Geological Society of London at their meeting on 4 January 1837, the bird specimens were given to Gould for identification. He set aside his paying work and at the next meeting on 10 January reported that birds from the Galapagos Islands which Darwin had thought were blackbirds, "gross-bills" and finches were in fact "a series of ground Finches which are so peculiar" as to form "an entirely new group, containing 12 species." This story made the newspapers.

Travels & Other works

• In 1838 the Goulds sailed to Australia, intending to study the birds of that country and be the first to produce a major work on the subject. They took with them the collector John Gilbert. The result of the trip was The Birds of Australia (I DO recommend this link from Glasgow University Library special collections department). It included a total of 600 plates in seven volumes, 328 of which were new to science and named by Gould. He also published A Monograph of the Macropodidae, or Family of Kangaroos (1841–1842) and the three volume work The Mammals of Australia (1849–1861).

• In 1830 a collection of birds arrived from the Himalayas, many not previously described. Gould published these birds in "A Century of Birds" from the Himalaya Mountains (1830–1832). The text was by Nicholas Aylward Vigors and the illustrations were lithographed by Gould's wife Elizabeth, daughter of Nicholas Coxen, of Kent.

Most amazing anecdote on his BIO -at least in my opinion-: Gould had a strong interest in hummingbirds. He accumulated a collection of 320 species, which he exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851. But he had never seen a live hummingbird, even when he actively tried

List of publications

"The birds of Asia"; 1850-83 7 vols. 530 plates, Artists: J. Gould, H. C. Richter, W. Hart and J. Wolf; Lithographers: H. C. Richter and W. Hart; Parts 33-55 completed after Gould's death by R. Bowdler Sharpe; Vol VI :Artist and lithographer: W. Hart

"The birds of Australia"; 1840-48. 7 vols. 600 plates; Artists: J. Gould and E. Gould; Lithographer: E. Gould. There is a later Supplement published in 1851. 1 vol. 81 plates; Artists: J. Gould and H. C. Richter; Lithographer: H. C. Richter

"The Birds of Great Britain"; 1862-73. 5 vols. 367 plates; Artists: J. Gould, J. Wolf, H.C. Richter and W. Hart; Lithographers: H. C. Richter and W. Hart

"Birds of Europe"; 1832–37. 5 vols. Drawn from nature & on stone by J. & E. Gould. Printed by Hullmandel.

"The birds of New Guinea and the adjacent Papuan Islands, including many new species recently discovered in Australia"; 1875-88. 5 vols. 300 plates; Parts 13-25 completed after Gould's death by R. Bowdler Sharpe; Artists: J. Gould and W. Hart; Lithographer: W. Hart

"A monograph of the Odontophorinae", or partridges of America; 1844-50 1 vol. 32 plates; Artists: J. Gould and H. C. Richter; Lithographer: H. C. Richter

"A monograph of the Ramphastidae", or family of toucans; 1833-35. 1 vol. 34 plates; Artists: J. Gould, E. Gould, E. Lear and G. Scharf; Lithographers: E. Gould and E. Lear;

"A monograph of the Trochilidae", or family of humming-birds Supplement, completed after Gould's death by R. Bowdler Sharpe; 1880-87. 5 parts. 58 plates; Artists: J. Gould and W. Hart; Lithographer: W. Hart

"A synopsis of the birds of Australia", and the adjacent islands; 1837-38 1 vol. 73 plates; Artist and lithographer: E. Gould

"Historiae Animalium", 16th Century

Conrad Gessner (1516–died in 1565, aged only 49) was a Swiss naturalist author of the great "Historiae animalium", considered the beginning of modern zoology and the first attempt to describe all of the world’s known animals. The collection appeared in 4 vols. (2 for quadrupeds, birds and fishes). A fifth volume (for snakes) was being issued in 1587. As Gessner was protestant, there was extreme religious tension at the time "Historiae animalium" came out, and finally this amazing collection was added to the Roman Catholic Church's list of prohibited books (Under Pope Paul IV). Wikipedia as an excellent article about the "Index Librorum Prohibitorum"

Title page of the first Papal Index, Index Auctorum et Librorum, published in 1557. Conrad Gessner and his book "Historiae Animalium" were included even before the diffusion of the codex...

Imagine the wonder of an European average citizen of the 16th century would have felt at seeing pictures of Elephants, Rhinos and Lions or even myth animals that were included as real or existing animals... Illustrations are of remarkable quality and charm

 

Seven head hydra was included by Gessner on his animal compilation



To his contemporaries, conrad Gessner was best known as a botanist, although his botanical manuscripts were not published long after his death, the “Historiae plantarum” (1541, direct link to the digitized copy provided, hosted on Google Books-good job google!- but still have to improve...) and the “Catalogus plantarum” (1542, again link to the digitized copy provided, in this case hosted on BSB -a classic digital library for me- under their "MDZ-reader" which I don´t like but is what they have, so far).

In 1545 Konrad Gessner published his remarkable “Bibliotheca universalis”, supposedly a catalogue of all writers who had ever lived (!!), with the titles of their works. A second part, “Pandectarum sive partitionum universalium libri”, appeared in 1548. The last, a theological encyclopaedia, was published in 1549, but the last but one, intended to include his medical work, was never finished.

References:

• "Conrad Gessner," in Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution from Copernicus to Newton, ed. Wilbur Applebaum, New York, Garland, 2000, 265-266.

• "Conrad Gessner" in Europe 1450-1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, Ed. Jonathan Dewald, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 2004.

Links for Conrad Gessner... well I recommend his BIO at wikipedia, link here. Funny thing, there's a Conrad-Gessner dot com domain registered (¿?) (link) but there's not too much info on it.