Seth Pancoast

Dr. Seth Pancoast

Dr. Seth Pancoast

Dr. Seth Pancoast, M.D., of Philadelphia was a professor of medicine, mystic, and occultist. He was one of the founding members of the Theosophical Society.

Personal life and career

Seth Pancoast was born to Stephen and Ann Pancoast in Darby, Pennsylvania on July 28, 1823. His was a Quaker family; he was descended from one of three Pancoast brothers who accompanied William Penn in establishing the colony of Pennsylvania.

After a classical education, Pancoast engaged in business in 1843, and then studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He was graduated in 1852 and entered into medical practice in Philadelphia.

Henry Khunrath Pancoast

He was married three times, to Sarah Saunders Osborn, Susan George Osborn, and finally, Carrie. Pancoast had at least five daughters and three sons, some of whom attended the Friends' Middle School. The middle son, Henry Khunrath Pancoast, was born on February 26, 1875. His name must be a tribute to the great German alchemist Heinrich Khunrath (1560–1605) Henry followed his father into medical practice, and became a pioneer in the field of radiology.

Dr. Pancoast's personal library was described as "the finest private collection of works on the occult sciences in the United States." One of the books was Cabala, Speculum Artis Et Naturae, in Alchemia printed by Andrea Erffurt in Augusburg Germany in 1654. It is clear from Pancoast's literary references that he was familiar with the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and German languages.

The doctor died on December 16, 1889 of heart disease and was buried in the Darby Friends Cemetery in Philadelphia.

Another early member, Benjamin Franklin Pancoast, seems not to have been related closely to Seth Pancoast. Benjamin was a tinsmith in Cambridge, Massachusetts who joined the TS in Boston on May 12, 1894.

Medical career

After completing his medical education, the new doctor became a professor of anatomy in a "female college" in 1853, and the next year was named a professor of "Microscopic Anatomy and Physiology" at the Institute of Medicine at Penn Medical University in Philadelphia. After five years he entered private practice and was given emeritus status. He wrote medical books and articles, including one on the therapeutic qualities of the light spectrum.

Dr. Pancoast seems to have been proficient at his chosen profession. He and another doctor successfully removed a growth containing the remains of a parasitic twin from a seven-month-old infant in 1859, using ether and opium and the surgical tools of that time. He documented the case in a chapter on birth abnormalities in his hugely popular book, The Ladies' Medical Guide.

Theosophical Society involvement

Col. Olcott described Dr. Pancoast as "a most erudite Kabbalist". The doctor was present at the meeting of September 7, 1875, that eventually led to the forming of the Theosophical Society. Although his name is not among the sixteen people that the next day met to form the Society, he was elected as Vice-President on the meeting held on October 30, previous to the inaugural one on November 17.

According to Josephine Ransom,

DR. SETH PANCOAST, of Philadelphia, was a theistic mystic and a great alchemist... He was present at Felt's lecture and questioned him closely. H.P.B. always spoke with great respect of his erudition. But when it came to putting theory to the test by evoking the unseen elemental races which guard the threshold of knowledge, he confessed he lacked courage, though H.P.B. frequently offered to assist in the ceremonies and, if necessary, face the worst of the phantoms alone. Under the names of "Lex" and "Lex et Lux" he wrote for the Spiritualistic papers on kabalistic and other matters. He remained a member till he passed away in 1889.

He was among the Theosophists present at the cremation of Baron de Palm.

Occult predictions

A biographical sketch of Dr. Pancoast in Appletons' Cyclopedia described his predictions of a revival of interest in the occult:

In 1875 Dr. Pancoast calculated the return of the seventh cycle of Trithemius in 1878, announcing that if the calculation were correct there would be a revival in theosophy and other occult studies, which has since occurred. His work was merely a prelude to a much larger one, which is now (1888) approaching completion. The formulation of the latter has required twenty years' search and selection through ancient works in European libraries.

Whether this work was ever completed is not known.

Writings

Dr. Pancoast's writings were erudite and well-researched.

Occult works

Dr. Pancoast wrote two articles for The Path, according to the Union Index of Theosophical Periodicals, and he wrote for spiritualist periodicals as well under pseudonyms. His book The Cabala was "the first book on the subject in the English language," according to Appleton's Cyclopedia, 642, although what the Appleton's editor meant by that is unclear. The full title was The Kabbalah: or, The True Science of Light; an Introduction to the Philosophy and Theosophy of the Ancient Sages. According to scholar Julie Chajes,

He considered his Kabbalistic coloured light techniques – which were designed to restore equilibrium – especially efficacious in the treatment of diseases of the nervous system. Pancoast saw light as a mysterious, all-pervading, all-producing, all-controlling, all-invigorating power, indeed, the manifestation of God Himself. He argued there were two types of light: visible light and celestial light, which was the invisible power behind visible light. Celestial light was associated with the Kabbalistic En Soph, conceived by Pancoast as the source of all creation...

He claimed rays of light in these colours had curative effects that corresponded to the characteristics of the relevant sephirah. Kabbalists, he claimed, understood these colours’ influence in light and in nature, their distinctive properties and their action together and separately. His methods involved the treatment of medicines with different coloured lights and the application of a coloured ‘sun bath’ to the patient through the use of coloured glass. Blue and red rays Pancoast considered especially curative.

• The Kabbalah: or, The True Science of Light; an Introduction to the Philosophy and Theosophy of the Ancient Sages. Philadelphia: J. M. Stoddart & Co., 1877. 312 pages. Subtitled "Together with a Chapter on Light in the Vegetable Kingdom." The book was printed in blue with red line border, which is especially appropriated because this text provides instruction on the effects of red and blue lights in healing. Available at Google Books, Internet Archive, and IAPSOP.
  • Apparently offered by the same publisher in 1877 as Blue and Red Light, or, Light and Its Rays as Medicine. Subtitled: showing that light is the original and sole source of life, as it is the source of all the physical and vital forces of nature, and that light is nature's own and only remedy for disease, and explaining how to apply the red and blue rays in curing the sick and feeble: together with a chapter on light in the vegetable kingdom." 312 pages. Available from Google Books.
  • Reprinted New York: R. Worthington, 1883.

Medical works

• Curability of Consumption. Philadelphia, 1855.
• Boyhood's Perils and Man's Curse. 1858 and 1860. Above the title in 1860 was printed Startling Sexual Secrets!.
• Bright's Disease. 1882.
• The Ladies' Medical Guide. 1859?
  • Philadelphia: John E. Potter, 1865. Sixth 1865 edition available at Hathitrust and also at University of Michigan. According the 1865 sixth edition, Dr. Pancoast applied for copyright in 1859.
  • Published 1869 under title: The Ladies' Medical Guide and Marriage Friend. Includes a portrait of the author. 1869 edition available at Wellcome Library. 1875 edition was subtitled: "a complete instructor and counsellor, embracing a full and exhaustive account of the structure and functions of the reproductive organs, the diseases of females and children, with their causes, symptoms and treatment, the toilet considered in reference to female health, beauty and longevity, etc., etc., etc., with an appendix containing startling facts in plain words for mothers and the young." At 600 pages, with 122 engravings, this was for decades the most complete popular work of its type. The writing style was matter-of-fact, based in scientific evidence and never crude or sallacious. In addition to details of women's anatomy and physiology, the author discussed genetic predispositionssuggested remedies for numerous health problems, and included a lengthy chapter on hair styles.
  • Other editions were published in St. Louis and San Francisco.
  • The 1901 edition of this book is still being printed as Pancoast's Tokology and Ladies Medical Guide, A Complete Instructor in All the Delicate and Wonderful Matters Pertaining to Women.

Biographies and other resources

• Austin, Benjamin W. Autograph Collection, 1885-1894. "Collection assembled by Benjamin W. Austin as secretary of Trinity Historical Society, Dallas, Tex., 1885-1894, includes letters from physicians, several eclectic or homeopathic, accepting honorary or non-resident membership in society."

• Chajes, Julia. Seth Pancoast and the Kabbalah: Medical Pluralism and the Reception of Physics in Late Nineteenth Century Philadelphia on Academia.edu.

• Herringshaw, Thomas William. "Pancoast, Seth" in Herringshaw's national library of American biography: contains thirty-five thousand biographies of the acknowledged leaders of life and thought of the United States V4.. Chicago: American Publishers' Association, 1914. Illustrated with three thousand vignette portraits.