Petroglyph Lithograph on Paper. National Gallery of Art.
American Indian Ritualism
By Manly P. Hall
First published in the PRS Journal, Spring 1978, 41 - 52
Most of the religions of the ancient world included in their sacred observances rites and ceremonies dramatizing the essential concepts and doctrines peculiar to their numerous sects. Later, groups of the laity for various purposes also employed ritualism as a means of moral instruction or to contribute to the impressiveness of important occasions. The guilds of medieval England performed mystery plays as did the members of learned societies, especially those of law and medicine. During the Middle Ages, the graduation exercises of large universities were presented with the solemnity of a High Mass; miracle plays were performed in the open squares before cathedrals. More recently, secret societies and fraternal orders reviving ancient practices confer membership with ritualistic procedure. Although there is a broad tendency away from the pomp and circumstance of elaborate ceremonialism at the present time, vestiges of the older forms are not uncommon...
Subscribe to the New PRS Journal to read on...
Subscribe to the New PRS Journal to read on...
Nothing comes from nothing. Manly Hall’s vision for the All-Seeing Eye was entirely supported by contributions from its readers who paid for their subscription with gifts made according to their means. Manly Hall wrote,
“This magazine is published and distributed privately to those who make possible with their financial support its publication. The magazine cannot be bought and has no fixed value. Like all of the ancient teachings which it seeks to promulgate, it has no comparative value, but the students must support it for its own intrinsic merit.”
