Seth Pancoast, physician, born in Darby, Pennsylvania, 28 July, 1823. He is a descendant of one of three Pancoast brothers who came to this country with William Penn. He received a classical education, engaged in business in 1843, and afterward studied medicine, being graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1852. He became professor of anatomy in Philadelphia female college in 1853, and the following year was called to a chair in Pennsylvania medical college. When, five years later, his private practice compelled his resignation, he was made emeritus professor, and so remained until the close of the college in 1862. In 1877 he wrote "The Kabbala," the first book on the subject in the English language, in which are explained the ten "sephiroths," which are the basis of the Kabbala. 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 (in 1888) approaching completion. The formulation of the latter has required twenty years' search and selection through ancient works in European libraries. Dr. Pancoast has the finest private collection of works on the occult sciences in the United States. His other books include "Consumption" (Philadelphia, 1855); "Ladies' Medical Guide" (1858); "Boyhood's Perils" (1860); and "Bright's Disease" (1882). [Appletons Encyclopedia]
Author of
Red and Blue Light
Kabbala - The True Science of Light
"The old Kabbala," writes Dr. Seth Pancoast, in 'The True Science of Light', "with its curious and comprehensive symbol-language, is at once an elaborate system of natural philosophy, and a profound system of theology; an illuminated exposition of the mysterious truths of nature" (i. e., the hidden things of God) "and of that higher science which the book of nature unfolds to the enlightened eye of the Soul; the science of religion. Our readers would be slow to realize, many even unwilling to recognize, the fact that the grand old Kabbalistic theosophy was the native root, the central trunk, whence all the religions 'the world has ever known sprang as shoots and branches from a parent tree. Yet this is absolutely true. Our Bible is a translation into words of the symbols of the Kabbala. The reader would be astonished if he could read the Bible in the light of the Kabbala; first, to discover this close accordance; second, to find internal evidence, so clear as to be irrefragable, that the book of nature, true science, and the written Word, are one in source and significance; and third, to learn that the Bible is not the book of enigmas that ordinary commentators would make us believe, but is the written revelation of God's work, will, and ultimate purpose in creation; and of His essential attributes as well;" - but only to those who understand its hidden symbolic and esoteric meaning.
This is written of the Hebrew Kabbala, the Hebrew theosophy. The Hindu theosophy is not a religion; it is a system of philosophy derived from the wonderful Kabbala; the teachings of which, concerning nature's Sympathetic Streams (flowing from the central sun of the universe), led Keely into the path of research which has enabled him not only to "hook his machinery on to the machinery of nature," but to disclose the moving power, the vital principle." [What Electricity Is - Bloomfield Moore]
See Also
Bible
Kabbala
Kabbala - The True Science of Light
Light
What Electricity Is - Bloomfield Moore