:38–43 Hall’s “first trip around the world to study the lives, customs and religions of countries in Asia and Europe,” which commenced December 5, 1923, was paid for by donations from Carolyn Lloyd and her congregation. ĭuring the early 1920s, Carolyn Lloyd and her daughter Estelle-members of a family that controlled a valuable oil field in Ventura County, California-began “sending a sizeable portion of their oil income to Hall,” who used the money to travel and acquire a substantial personal library of ancient literature. Hall did not become a Freemason until 1954, more than thirty years after this book was published. His first publications consisted of two small pamphlets, “The Breastplate of the High Priest” (1920), and “Wands and Serpents.” Between 19 he wrote three books, The Initiates of the Flame published in October 1922, The Ways of the Lonely Ones published in 1922, and The Lost Keys of Freemasonry published in March 1923. Hall was ordained a minister in the Church of the People on May 17, 1923, and “a few days later, he was elected permanent pastor of the church.” :28

He soon took over as preacher of the Church of the People in 1919, at Trinity Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. 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.” Less than a year later, Hall booked his first lecture, and the topic was reincarnation. In 1919 Hall, who never knew his father, moved from Canada to Los Angeles, California, with his maternal grandmother to reunite with his birth mother, who was living in Santa Monica, and was almost immediately drawn to the arcane world of mysticism, esoteric philosophies, and their underlying principles. Hall, a dentist, and Louise Palmer Hall, a chiropractor and member of the Rosicrucian Fellowship. Hall was born in 1901 in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, to William S.

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