The “possible sexual component” of Water Angels

On vacation, I finally found the time to finish the biography Master of the Mysteries: The Life of Manly Palmer Hall by Louis Saragun (Process 2008). I knew little about this “huge avocado of a man” (3) and I mainly chose the book because of the pictures, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a highly entertaining biography of a person who in himself is an important piece of the puzzle that is American occulture.

Manly Palmer Hall is not so much an original thinker; he is rather a mediator (or “teacher” in his own words) of “practical wisdom”, mainly through lectures and core texts such as The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928), Lectures on Ancient Philosophy (1929) and Meditation Symbols in Eastern and Western Mysticism (1988).  His impressive career spans 70 years – he arrives in Los Angeles in 1919 and dies in 1990 – producing some 50 books, 8000 stenographed lectures and several journals while networking with celebrities in both entertainment, business, politics and esotericism. Ideologically, he follows the development within the cultic milieu from New Thought and Theosophy over violet rays and other funny tech-stuff to self-help, with a good dash of patriotic apocalyptics thrown in (112). This makes brilliant reading in itself, but there is more…

In a sense, Hall’s total persona (central works, mythic biography, connections, activities) is a microcosmos mirroring the cultic milieu in the same way his introductory volumes seem to work as gateways into the network by mimicking the associative mind map structure of the milieu itself. I have been working a lot with the concept of the cultic milieu now, and I find the de-territorialized, virtual space of practitioners, media and audiences helpful when dealing with global flows of occulture; at the same time, local manifestations of this virtual milieu, such as the Californian esoteric milieu around Hall and his Philosophical Research Society (now an accredited university) are necessary empirical re-territorializations of the total concept. In essence, we can choose to study one or the other (or both, if we’re overly ambitious), but we have to relate them in order to explain the total process encapsulated in the theory of “milieus”. Thus popular studies such as Saragun’s supply valuable material for theoretical reflection, and Hall could be considered a “critical case” study; he is a well-funded nook in the cultic milieu, supported by the Lloyd family and thus able to produce and network in an entirely different league than our “ordinary seeker”. I developed three embryonic projects along these lines while reading the book.

First off, Hall’s extensive archive of newspaper clippings is a goldmine in understanding the cultic milieu in a genealogical light. We are only introduced to a few examples, but he apparently collected the ads of all competitors as a clever trendspotter (see chapt. 1 and 2, especially pp. 26-34); for example, Pneumandros, the “World’s Ablest Philosophic Critic”, would surely be forgotten if not for the diligence of Hall. Although a teacher and not a Teacher, I have done the same for some years now (my personal favorite is Bettina, the holistic hair stylist), and I think a book is waiting to be written on the connection between confidentials and advertisements and the cultic milieu as mediatized network, tracing the development from newspapers, journals and books over ads in occult shops to meta-sites on the Internet.

Secondly, Hall is more of a conservative esotericist, advocating discipline, patriotism and the “secret destiny of America” during the war; later, he was squarely at odds with the counter-culture as he was pro-Vietnam (196-97), anti-drugs (191-92) and anti-modern art (187-88) (perhaps an esoteric Elvis is an apt metaphor?). As with a lot of pre-WW2 esotericism, he also entertained occult racism and dreamed of eugenics and meritocracy (104-5, chap. 4, 167-171). Because of the Summer of Love and the myth of the counter-culture promoted by commentators and participants (with roots in eg. Annie Besant’s political engagement, perhaps?), popular esotericism and New Age discourse has this vague smell of Leftist egalitarian engagement about it. It is easy to forget the connections that can be made between perennialism and political currents: liberalism, patriotism, fascism, conservatism. Or social Darwinism, racism, nationalism, traditionalism and evolutionism, ideologies that span the entire political spectrum. 

In fact, evolutionist occulture is not odd at all; I think it is the norm when we move back in time. Perhaps this is actually found in embryonic form in the Romantic project with its dual focus on the spiritual aristocrat or genius artist (that develops the self) and the folk with a soul and voice, connected to blood and soil. Indeed, the combination of evolutionism and individualism can explain much about modern-day esotericism. Crowley, for example, was definitely counter-cultural and quite transgressive, but he also practiced patriotism and a moral re-orientation that needs some explanation and understanding not to dismiss as elitist fascism. Early Theosophy’s talk of root races, The Great White Brotherhood and the complicated hierarchy of beings also seems somewhat … problematic today, and is at odds with their humanistic goals of unifying mankind unless you accept the ideological framework. Paganism in the various pagan revivals is intimately connected to nationalist movements, as were the völkisch currents in continental Europe before and between the wars. Much modern New Age is rather crass, condemning Jews and Muslims as “undeveloped souls” slated for karmic destruction (see eg. Damian Thompsons The End of Time). Naturally, esotericism has something inherently elitist and essentialist about it; self-development, secrecy, initiation… but it often flows into vast catastrophic scenarios for the undeveloped masses.

Sometimes Hall is more of a classical liberal; self-help means doing it yourself, and nobody has the right to interfere. Other times, he is more of a conservative patriot (I was frequently reminded of the National Treasure movies, especially when reading about the search for Bruton vault and the lost Shakespeare-manuscripts made by Francis Bacon) or a social Darwinist racist (as when he implies Canadians to be a proto-sixth root race. A good test is to see whether the evolution raises one race/ethnicity above the rest or actively denigrates others). So while it is easy to conflate and confuse political positions and esoteric goals, at least we shouldn’t accept the combination “benign Leftist New Age discourse” as the only expression of esoteric politics – aristocratic perennialist conservatism, egalitarian bourgeois DIY-occulture or neo-fascist nationalism are other possibilities. (Important inspiration can be found in Mark Sedgwick’s Against the Modern World on Traditionalism, N. Goodrick Clarke’s The Occult Roots of Nazism and Black Sun, Michael Barkun’s A Culture of Conspiracy and Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism).

Thirdly, Hall himself and the various odd characters around him are well represented in the book and give a good impression of the changing styles from the occult 1920s over the patriotic 1940s to the New Age of the 1980s. Look at the picture above; the “Byronic pose” and dramatic cape are indicative of the flamboyance in his life (and yes, it is a William Mortensen and they were friends in the 1930s). He dated Hollywood, doing film treatments and hypnotizing Bela Lugosi. He mingled with the Roerich’s in New York. His career started in a phrenology shop in Santa Monica. While reading the book, you just have to share anecdotes and insanities. And this is where the water angels come in.

You see, Hall had an addiction to enemas late in life. He was also into donuts and malted milk balls, vitamins and cathode ray therapy, healing and blood crystals, but apparently enemas – up to two a day – was the thing. While being a personal health project with his wife Marie early on, they assumed center stage from the late 1980s, supplied by Dr. Fritz and his son (if you need a personal colon cleaner, “Dr. Fritz” sounds safe). This is quite relevant for the “wellness revolution” of today (chronicled by Paul Heelas and Christopher Partridge, for example); as with other elements, Hall was in the avant-garde of spiritual enemas (or perhaps practical spirituality, chap. 5). Which by the way aided in killing him in the end by softening the mucous membranes of the rectal tissue and upsetting the electrolyte balance, as his personal physician, Sterling Pollock, comments (165, 254, 271).

But I digress. What I find very interesting is the double legitimation of so-called “Water Angels”, a colon cleanser marketed by the International Bionics Society (later promoted by Biogenics under Dr. Fritz), and invented by Edmund B. Szekely (163-166). The Water Angel is not just legitimized through pseudo-scientific rational discourse of nutrition, detoxification and other health issues – Szekely claimed that Jesus himself stood behind the spiritual enemas. Using a private translation from Aramaic of a secret Vatican manuscript called The Essene Gospel of Peace (published in 1936), he argued the antiquity and traditional authority of the Son of God vouched for his apparatus:

In that gospel, Jesus urges a group of followers to cleanse their “hinder parts” with an “angel of water”: a colonics device made from a hollowed-out gourd filled with “river water warmed by the sun.” “No man may come before the face of God,” Szekely quotes Jesus as saying, “whom the angel of water does not let pass.” (163)

Thus, the rational authority of “science” is supported by the traditional authority of age and provenance. And Hall, who ironically claimed that modern medicine “was in it for the money”, dutifully submitted to “internal douches” to treat his various ailments. Of course, this type of alternative medicine is part of a wider current; another of Hall’s healers, William Gray, claimed that female indigestion, eczema, bronchial trouble, shortness of breath and heart strain resulted from a “dormant clitoris nerve” (159). Luckily, Gray could channel an electric current through his hand, always under the blouse or skirt: “Close friends of the Halls said that upon contact, the muscles between Gray’s left shoulder and elbow would expand and contract like an electric pump”. Well, yes. But then again, Hall’s wife’s sister Agnes states that the water angel had a “possible sexual component”.

Dr. Fritz, by the way, who was definitely in it for the money, ran a pre-natal dolphin retreat in Hawaii before being Hall’s personal colon cleaner. “The Hawaiian Prenatal Cultural Center”, aka “The Stairway to the Stars”, nearly killed off 1 of 10 white middle-class women submitting to various spiritual health exercises (245-48); reacting to the drama of emergency rescue by helicopter, he exclaimed:

I blew it in Atlantis, but I’m not going to blow it here!

What a beauty.