The Philosophical Research Society

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Plenty of days this week and next to stop by PRS and shop our bookstore! Peruse incredible items and spend time on our b...
12/24/2025

Plenty of days this week and next to stop by PRS and shop our bookstore! Peruse incredible items and spend time on our beautiful campus. We’ll be happy to see you!

View our holiday hours above to see which days we’ll be open and our hours during this holiday season.

“As the solar light symbolically is said to die as it approaches the winter solstice, so the physical world may be terme...
12/23/2025

“As the solar light symbolically is said to die as it approaches the winter solstice, so the physical world may be termed the winter solstice of the spirit. Reaching the winter solstice, the sun apparently stands still for three days and then, rolling away the stone of winter, begins its triumphal march north cowards the summer solstice. The condition of ignorance may be likened to the winter solstice of philosophy; spiritual understanding to the summer solstice. ”
— L X X X

🐪

“The true story of the life of Jesus of Nazareth has never been unfolded to the world, either in the accepted Gospels or in the Apocrypha, although a few stray hints may be found in some of the commentaries written by the ante-Nicene Fathers. The facts concerning His identity and mission are among the priceless mysteries preserved to this day in the secret vaults beneath the “Houses of the Brethren.”
To a few of the Knights Templars, who were initiated into the arcana of the Druses, Nazarenes, Essenes, Johannites, and other sects still inhabiting the remote and inaccessible vastnesses of the Holy Land, part of the strange story was told.”

— C L C X V I I

Collectible and Rare Publications - NOT found in store or on shelves. Only available on our ETSY page. Art Books - + - B...
12/22/2025

Collectible and Rare Publications - NOT found in store or on shelves. Only available on our ETSY page.

Art Books - + - Biographies - + - Occult - + - Magick

And even more esoteric and niche genres toward the Paranormal 🌬️🎐


Jesus stood for humanity and not merely as a symbol of divinity. — p. 76☀️“Our own growth is revealed through our concep...
12/20/2025

Jesus stood for humanity and not merely as a symbol of divinity.
— p. 76
☀️
“Our own growth is revealed through our concept of the hero. We know him now as one meek and gentle, patient and ever-loving. He wears no crown or armor, but the simple white robe of the dedicated Nazarene. He is patient under adversity, and, having renounced the things of this world, establishes his kingdom, not in the city of his fathers, but in the hearts of his fellow men. Can we not understand that this concept is ourselves?”
— p. 77

🥼

“Jesus taught by example the way of spiritual union.
He gave the laws by which the tranquillity of the inner nature is available to all who honestly and earnestly seek truth. Even though generation after generation of human beings rejects or ignores the good example, the facts remain unchanged. We cannot change the universal plan for our redemption; we must change ourselves to meet the requirements of that plan. It sometimes seems that we are asked to sacrifice too much for something that we cannot understand, but as we grow we realize that all we renounce is our sovereign right to be miserable.”
— p. 95

💥

“Mysticism, by transforming the core of human atti-tudes, can prevent the tragedies which all too often cannot later be remedied. The failure of human nature to defend and maintain a high level of integrity underlies most of the news that is banner-headed in the local press. We read the morning paper and, for a moment at least, we are profoundly concerned. We say that times are bad, but they will remain bad until we learn the lesson and mend our own ways.”
— p. 245
🫆

philosophicalresearchsociety

LIBRARY DAY ORACLE by damaManly P. Hall’s reflections on this time of the year reveals the birth of light as not a histo...
12/18/2025

LIBRARY DAY ORACLE by dama

Manly P. Hall’s reflections on this time of the year reveals the birth of light as not a historical reenactment but a recurring event about consciousness entering matter at its coldest, densest point. The vessel of interior consciousness where we learn to follow through study, ethical refinement, gratitude and silence. A place in time where nothing arrives fully formed and light must be tended to.

And in Blavatsky’s theosophical view On the New Year, we meet with her insistence that time itself is impressionable and that the astral life of the earth, she emphasizes, is especially receptive between Christmas and Easter. This makes the season less a celebration than a responsibility. What we think, study, and consecrate now quietly imprints the cycle ahead.

In every way you celebrate and reflect on during this season, the miracle is not abundance but endurance. A measured flame, lit again and again, refusing extinction.

Moving toward the New Year, we see various traditions converging into a teaching of renewal that does not come from severance, but from careful continuity. Among Blavatsky, Hall, and the astrological world of Corinne’s Star Gates, we meet these cycles turning not forward, but inward and asking what kind of light we are willing to carry, protect, and pass on.

🧠 “It is a mistake to infer that the pineal gland as a physical body literally possesses all the occult virtues ascribed...
12/18/2025

🧠
“It is a mistake to infer that the pineal gland as a physical body literally possesses all the occult virtues ascribed to it by the sages. The gland itself is not the third eye, but only the reflection of that organ— its counterpart or symbol in the material constitution. It is a relic bearing witness to an ancient faculty, and because it has endured through these eras of spiritual obscuration, promises the ultimate restoration of the function to which it bears witness.

“The true power of the gland is in its spiritual counter-
part, even as the whole strength of man abides in his invisible nature. The true third eye cannot be seen by the ordinary vision, but is visible to the clairvoyant as a vibrant spectromatic aura surrounding the outer body of the gland and pulsating with an electrical light.

“The special physical organ of perception in the brain,.” writes H. P. Blavatsky, “is located in the aura of the
pineal gland. This aura answers in vibration to any impression, but it can only be sensed, not perceived, in the living man.

“During the process of thought, manifesting in consciousness, a constant vibration occurs in the light of this aura, and a clairvoyant looking at the brain of a living man may almost count, see with the spiritual eye, the seven scales, the seven shades of light, passing from the dullest to the brightest. You touch your hand; before you touch it the vibration is already in the aura of the pineal gland, and has its own shade of color. It is this aura which causes the wear and tear of the organ, by the vibrations it sets up.

“The fires are always playing around the pineal gland but when the Kundalini illuminates them for a brief instant the whole universe is seen. Even in deep sleep the third eye opens. This is good for Manas, who profits by it, though we ourselves do not remember.”

▫️MACROCOSM \ Microcosm ◼️Both words primarily signify wholeness and correspond to the Leibnitzian theory of monads and...
12/16/2025

▫️MACROCOSM \ Microcosm ◼️

Both words primarily signify wholeness and correspond to the Leibnitzian theory of monads and the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus. The Macrocosm is a vast monad, the microcosm a relatively smaller monad similar in design but less in quantity and contained within the larger organism.

The terms macrocosm and microcosm do not necessarily imply the world and man, but rather signify such correspondences as exist between two such constitutions. Man is a microcosm when compared to the universe, but a macrocosm when compared to some single organ within himself.

According to the Pythagorean doctrine, “wholes” are not actually composed of parts in the sense of fractions or fragments, but in reality of lesser “wholes,” which are termed “parts” only when compared to the greater unity which they conspire to make up.

Hence, every atom is a wholeness bearing within it the stamp and signature of the whole world, every grain of sand an image of the universe. When man is termed a microcosm, it is not to be inferred that he is merely a “part” of the world but, rather, like all other “parts” so-called, is in reality a miniature of the world.

A somewhat more adequate idea of this can be secured from a study of the symbolic tetrahedron of the Pythagoreans.”

Art by J. Augustus Knapp
Words by Manly P. Hall

“MACROCOSM - MICROCOSM”
Man, The Grand Symbol of the Mysteries (1972)

BOOKSTORE picks 🌹 Symbolorum revives the Baroque emblem book, a 17th-century form that wove image, motto, and meditation...
12/13/2025

BOOKSTORE picks 🌹

Symbolorum revives the Baroque emblem book, a 17th-century form that wove image, motto, and meditation into a single contemplative device. Neither purely literary nor purely visual, emblems were meant to be lived with and studied slowly, sensed intuitively, and returned to over time. In this way, they feel like a long-lost cousin of the tarot, the artist’s book, and the symbolic systems many of us turn to now for meaning-making beyond linear reason.

Drawing from centuries-old engravings of plants, animals, and elemental forces, she invites us into a worldview where nature is animate and mysterious. Her background as a perfumer and historian of scent subtly inflects the book, reminding us that knowledge once moved through the body as much as the intellect.

We’re excited to welcome Mandy Aftel to PRS for a conversation around this book, followed by a q&a with artist and educator Eliza Swann, opening space to reflect on how these antique symbols might still speak to our present moment.

RSVP via prs.org DECEMBER 14, 2025 (ONLINE EVENT) 11AM (PST)




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Dedicated to the Truth-Seekers of All Time

The Philosophical Research Society (PRS) was founded in 1934 by wisdom scholar and prolific author Manly P. Hall as a repository of the world’s wisdom. His international travels culminated in the collection of manuscripts, rare books, artwork, and esoterica that became the foundation for the library, designed by architect Robert Stacy-Judd in 1935. The historic Mayan-inspired campus is home as well to an art gallery, auditorium, bookstore, and lecture room. A nonprofit institution, PRS offers a full calendar of lectures, online courses, workshops, wellness classes, concerts, and special events to the general public. As the 1959 inscription on the cornerstone of Hall's auditorium reads, PRS is "Dedicated to the truth seekers of all time."