Manly P. Hall’s May 1936 Monthly Letter presents a richly embroidered biographical–mythological portrait of Lao‑Tze, blending historical inference with traditional Chinese legend. Hall recounts the sage’s miraculous birth under a comet, his humble origins, and his early life marked by solitude, inward study, and obscurity. As librarian of the Chou dynasty’s Third Ministry, Lao‑Tze encountered the vast archives of annalists and astrologers—an environment that shaped his metaphysical worldview. Hall dramatizes the legendary meeting between Lao‑Tze and Confucius, contrasting the Taoist’s mystical abstraction with the Confucian humanist ethic. The narrative culminates in Lao‑Tze’s departure from China on a green ox, his composition of the Tao Teh King for the gatekeeper Yin Hsi, and his final disappearance into the mountains, later canonized as the “Ancient Master.”

The second half of the letter shifts from biography to doctrine, outlining Taoism’s theoretical and practical foundations. Hall explains Tao as the absolute, self‑existent Principle from which all forms arise and into which they dissolve, with Te (virtue) and Yin–Yang (the intrinsic modes of manifestation) forming the dynamic structure of creation. He emphasizes Taoism’s rejection of extremes, ambition, intellectualism, and social ceremony, advocating instead simplicity, inward realization, detachment, and harmony with the Principle. Practical Taoism involves breath‑control disciplines, non‑action, conservation of energy, and withdrawal from worldly contention. Hall concludes by showing how Lao‑Tze’s radical critique of law, government, and social structures arises from the Taoist conviction that only alignment with the eternal Principle—not human institutions—can produce genuine order and wisdom.