Seth Pancoast and the Kabbalah: Medical Pluralism and the Reception of Physics in Late-Nineteenth Century Philadelphia

Seth Pancoast and the Kabbalah: Medical Pluralism and the Reception of Physics in Late-Nineteenth Century Philadelphia1 Julie Chajes Preface: The History and Legacy of Occultist Kabbalah In this special edition on the ‘the roads not taken’ in Kabbalah research, I explore an aspect of the history Kabbalah that been relatively neglected in the scholarly literature: occultist Kabbalah. Developing along trajectories different to those of the Jewish varieties, occultist Kabbalah can teach us a great deal about the historical, cultural, religious contexts in which it formed. It is also fundamental in understanding the roots of the innovative forms of Kabbalah that are so prevalent today in both Jewish and non-Jewish environments. In global ‘alternative’ or New Age spirituality,2 Kabbalah is commonly perceived as a spiritual philosophy that need not be restricted to Jews. It is not seen as a ‘religion’, or as tied to any particular ‘religion’, although its principles can be understood as encompassing elements taken from many different traditions and cultures. It is often associated with spiritual growth, mysticism, magic, divination, and diverse meditative and healing practices that involve visualisations of different images and colours. These approaches have antecedents in the ideas of nineteenth-century occultists.3 Hardly purist in its approach to Kabbalah, central elements of occultism included, inter alia, perennialism, Hermetic philosophy, astrology, magic, Gnosticism, and alchemy. Occultism had roots in Romanticism and Naturphilosophie and it often overlapped with nineteenth-century Swedenborgianism, Mesmerism, and Spiritualism.4 This heady mix often drew as well on the academic study of Kabbalah that emerged at the beginning of the century in the context of the German-Jewish ‘science of Judaism’, the Wissenschaft des Judentums.5 1 The publication of this paper was made possible through an Israel Science foundation grant no 774/10 and a grant from The Blavatsky Trust. With thanks to Yossi Chajes, Marc Demarest, John Patrick Deveney, Boaz Huss, 2 On ‘spirituality’ as a category, see Boaz Huss ‘Spirituality: The Emergence of a New Cultural Category and Its Challenge to the Religious and the Secular’, Journal of Contemporary Religion 29 (2014). On the notion of ‘spiritual but not religious’ see Robert C. Fuller, Spiritual, But Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America, Oxford 2011, especially pp. 4-7. 3 For clarification of the term ‘occultism’, see Wouter J. Hanegraff, ‘Occult/Occultism’ in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism ed. W. Hanegraaff with A. Faivre et. al. Leiden 2006, pp. 884-889. For an introduction to occultism, see Alison Butler, Victorian Occultism and the Making of Modern Magic, Basingstoke 2011. 4 On occultist perspectives on Kabbalah, see Wouter J. Hanegraaff, ‘Jewish Influences V: Occultist Kabbalah,’ Dictionary of Gnosis, pp. 644.647. 5 On the Wissenschaft des Judentums, see George Kohler ‘Judaism Buried or Revitalised? Wissenschaft des Judentums in Nineteenth-Century Germany – Impact, Actuality, and Applicability Today’, Jewish Thought and Jewish Belief ed. D. J. 1 The historical roots of occultist Kabbalah lie in the Christian Kabbalah of the Renaissance. The ‘father’ of Christian Kabbalah is usually considered to have been the Italian nobleman Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), who studied with the humanist priest, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499). Other significant figures include the German humanist Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522), the French linguist Guillaume Postel (1510-1581), and the German polymath and magician, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535). Themes in the Christian Kabbalah of the Renaissance and early-modern periods included the assertion of a perennial philosophy and the reading of Christian doctrines into Jewish Kabbalistic sources.6 Nineteenth-century occultist authors developed many of the ideas of their Christian Kabbalist predecessors in light of their own religious, intellectual, and political needs. They drew mostly on secondary sources, including the handful of specialist studies of Kabbalah available at the time.7 Nineteenth-century occultism and Kabbalah scholarship, in turn, affected the development of post-modern ‘alternative’ and New Age interpretations.8 Thus, despite the very clear differences between perceptions of Kabbalah during each period, there are historical links from Renaissance and early-modern Christian Kabbalah through nineteenth-century occultism to today’s post-modern Kabbalah, each generation reading their sources in light of their own predilections and in their own historical and cultural contexts. Within the Jewish world (which, by and large, can be considered a separate domain from the occultist milieu)9 there has also been a proliferation of innovative Kabbalistic currents. As Jonathan Garb has demonstrated, twentieth- (and twenty-first-) century Jewish interpretations of Lasker, Beer Sheva 2012, pp. 27-63. On the relationship between occultist and scholarly approaches to Kabbalah in the nineteenth century, see Wouter J. Hanegraaff, ‘The Beginnings of Occultist Kabbalah: Adolphe Franck and Eliphas Lévi’, Kabbalah and Modernity: Interpretations, Transformations, Adaptations ed. B. Huss, M. Pasi et al. Leiden and Boston 2010. See also Julie Chajes ‘Construction through Appropriation: Kabbalah in Blavatsky’s Early Works’ in Theosophical Appropriations: Esotericism, Kabbalah, and the Transformation of Traditions ed. J. Chajes and B. Huss, Beer Sheva 2016, pp. 33-72. 6 On Renaissance and early-modern Christian Kabbalah, see Wilhelm Scmidt-Biggermann, with Franck Bohlking and Wolfgang Dickhut, Geschichte der christlichen Kabbala, Band 4, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2015. For an Englishlanguage introduction, see Peter J. Forshaw, ‘Kabbalah’ in The Occult World ed. C. Partridge, pp. 541-551. For a longer treatment: Joseph Dan, The Christian Kabbalah: Jewish Mystical Books & Their Christian Interpreters: A Symposium. Cambridge, Mass. 1997. On perennialism, see Charles Schmidt ‘Perennial Philosophy from Agostino Steuco to Leibniz’ Journal of the History of Ideas 27 (1966) pp. 505-532. On the Jewish adoption of the perennial philosophy, see Moshe Idel, ‘Kabbalah, Platonism and Prisca Theologia: The Case of R. Menasseh ben Israel’ in Menasseh ben Israel and His World, ed. Y. Kaplan, H. Méchoulan et. al. Leiden 1989, pp. 207-219. 7 Nineteenth century works that mention earlier Christian Kabbalists include Emma Hardinge Britten, Art Magic; Or, Mundane, Sub-mundane and super-mundane Spiritism, New York 1876 and the works of Helena Blavatsky: Isis Unveiled: A Master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology, 2 volumes, New York 1877 and The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, 2 volumes, London 1888. See Chajes, ‘Construction Through Appropriation’ on Blavatsky’s use of the works of Samuel Fales Dunlap as sources for her knowledge of Kabbalah. 8 On the New Age and its connection to occultism, see Wouter Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture: Western Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought, Leiden 1996; ‘The New Age Movement and Western Esotericism’, Handbook of New Age ed. D. Kemp and J. R. Lewis, Leiden 2007, pp. 25-50 and Olav Hammer Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age Leiden and Boston, 2004. 9 On overlaps between Jewish and occultist Kabbalah, see Boaz Huss, ‘Kabbalah, The Theo-Sophia of the Jews’, Theosophical Appropriations, pp. 137-166. 2 Kabbalah have a distinctly modern or post-modern character.10 Boaz Huss has argued there is an overlap between New Age Kabbalah (which is heavily indebted to nineteenth-century occultism) and contemporary Jewish Kabbalistic movements (which, as opposed to the New Age versions, are often perceived as presenting a more ‘traditional’ interpretation). Huss noted certain themes shared by New Age and contemporary Jewish Kabbalah, such as the anticipation of an impending cosmic transformation, the use of meditative and healing techniques, psychological interpretations associated with a sanctification of the self, and belief in the compatibility of spirituality and science.11 Take note of these, for they will come up again when we consider one of New Age Kabbalah’s intellectual ancestors. Huss maintained that the similarities between today’s Jewish and New Age interpretations of Kabbalah are not usually the result of direct connections but rather of the shared postmodern contexts of both movements.12 Nevertheless, occultism did exercise ‘some (direct or indirect) influence on movements that operate mostly in a Jewish context’.13 As an example, we may mention the contemporary Jewish Kabbalist Michael Laitman, leader of Bnei Barukh, a movement prominent in Israel, Latin America, and Russia. On Laitman’s website, we find reference to an almost-unknown late-nineteenth century Christian Kabbalist from Philadelphia.14 His name was Seth Pancoast, and he will be the subject of this paper. Introduction: Kabbalah as ‘The True Science of Light’ Seth Pancoast was the author of The Kabbala, Or, The True Science of Light (1877), a book that elucidated a form of therapy based on the administration of rays of light in colours corresponding to Kabbalistic sephiroth15 (the ‘emanations’ or characteristics of God).16 Like many 10 Jonathan Garb, The Chosen Will Become Herds: Studies in Twentieth-Century Kabbalah, New Haven and London 2009, p. 2. 11 Boaz Huss, ‘The New Age of Kabbalah’, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 6, 107-125, p. 111. Huss discusses contemporary Jewish Kabbalistic interpretations of these ideas in turn. On the ‘therapeutic’ discourse in contemporary Kabbalah, see Nicole Maria Bauer, ‘Zwischen Tradition und Transformation – kabbalistische Vorstellungen und Praktiken in der religiösen Gegenwartskultur’, Zeitschrift für Anomalistik, 14 (2014), pp. 224-247. 12 On one of the most prominent Ashlagian movements, the Kabbalah Centre, and its post-modern characteristics, see Jody Myers, ‘Marriage and Sexual Behavior in the Teachings of the Kabbalah Centre’ in Kabbalah and Modernity. See also Boaz Huss, ‘All you need is LAV: Madonna and Postmodern Kabbalah’, The Jewish Quarterly Review 95 (2005), pp. 611-624. 13 Huss, New Age, p. 110. 14 Laitman writes: ‘Dr Seth Pancoast wrote that “Isaac Newton was led to the discovery of physical laws (forces of gravitation and repulsion) through the study of Kabbalah.”’ http://laitman.com/2008/03/isaac-newton-andkabbalah/ [accessed 23 August 2016]. Laitman was (mis) quoting the work discussed in this article, Pancoast’s Kabbala, Philadelphia 1877, p. 50. Pancoast writes: ‘Newton was led to the discovery of these forces by his studies of the Kabbala’. The force alluded to is what Pancoast termed ‘attraction and repulsion’. On Laitman, see Garb, The Chosen. 15 All transliterations of Hebrew terms are spelled here as Pancoast spelled them. 3 contemporaneous medical practitioners of all persuasions, he argued disease was the result of disequilibrium. 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.17 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 associated En Soph with the highest sephirah, situated at the top of the Kabbalistic ‘tree’ of ten sephiroth. The sephiroth were said to receive the light of En Soph and were each associated with a different colour. Pancoast explained the pure white light of En Soph manifested itself in Binah (described as masculine and active) and Chochmah (described as feminine and passive).18 Pancoast gave the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth sephiroth respectively as Chesed (red), Geburah (yellow), Netsah (green) and Hod (blue).19 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.20 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.21 Blue and red rays Pancoast considered especially curative. They were respectively associated with the 16 This work had an alternative title: Blue and Red Light: Or, Light and its Rays as Medicine. The text of the books printed under these titles was identical. Both works were entered according to Act of Congress (i.e. Pancoast sought copyright) in 1877. We can only speculate on the reason for the change of title, one of which emphasised the Kabbalistic contexts while the other hid it. Apparently Pancoast intended to publish a second book, which he ‘intended to be one of the most important of [the] century’. William Quan Judge, ‘Obituary of Seth Pancoast’ The Path 4/10 January 1890, p. 328. Unfortunately, the new work never appeared. It is possible it remained in manuscript form. The wealthy Philadelphia woman Clara Bloomfield Moore stated she had tried to buy Pancoast’s manuscripts from his widow, who had refused to sell them. Later, Bloomfield Moore received a letter from Pancoast’s son, who wanted to sell his father’s manuscripts to fund his college course. By that time, she was unable to undertake the project of editing Pancoast’s papers and passed Pancoast’s son on to a Dr. Lounders ‘who would revise and edit the work, if it proved to be what I had reason to think it was’. Letter from Clara Bloomfield-Moore dated 9 September 1894 quoted in Theo Paijmans, Free Energy Pioneer: John Worrell Keely, Kempton 2004, p. 264. Clara Bloomfield Moore wrote a book on Keeley, Keeley and His Discoveries: Aerial Navegation London 1893. She discussed Pancoast’s ideas on pp. 92 and 250. 17 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 62. 18 This was the opposite to how these sephiroth were usually depicted in Jewish, Christian, and occultist Kabbalistic sources, which usually associated Binah with the feminine and Chochmah with the masculine. For some reason, Pancoast switched them around. It is possible he arrived at this by interpreting a passage from the French occultist Eliphas Lévi, although Lévi’s descriptions of the tree are somewhat inconsistent and ambiguous. 19 Chesed and Netsah were placed in the masculine active column, together with Binah. Geburah and Hod were in the feminine passive column, together with Chochmah. Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 33. Gershom Scholem pointed out the importance of colour symbolism in Kabbalah, but there is nothing in the Jewish sources discussed by Scholem that corresponds to Pancoast’s associations. Gershom Scholem, ‘Colours and Their Symbolism in Jewish Tradition and Mysticism’ Diogenes 108 (1979) pp. 84-111 and 109 (1980) pp. 64-76. 20 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 51. 21 Pancoast, Kabbala, pp. 265 f. 4 sephiroth of Geburah and Chesed. Pancoast discussed ‘sympathetic’ approaches (by which he meant – counter-intuitively – treating something with its opposite) and antipathetic approaches (by which he meant treating ‘like with like’, as in homeopathy), and he preferred the ‘sympathetic’ approach. According to his sympathetic approach, red Chesed was used to excite the nervous system and blue Geburah to counter excessive excitement.22 Pancoast’s Historical Importance Pancoast’s work was a late-nineteenth century mélange of occultist Kabbalah with aspects of Quakerism, Mesmerism, Theosophy, and chromotherapy (the use of colour in healing), as well as contemporary medicine and scientific theories in orthodox and unorthodox varieties. It was a unique and very distinctive coalescence; I know of no other work of nineteenth-century occultist Kabbalah that is quite like it. Nevertheless, it found some resonance with the ideas of a few of Pancoast’s contemporaries. As a nineteenth-century American member of the Theosophical Society who applied his Kabbalistic ideas to in the field of medicine, Pancoast stands alongside other early Theosophists who combined their Kabbalistic pursuits with scientific and mathematical ones.23 These include the lawyer and Freemason James Ralston Skinner (18301893) and the mechanical engineer, inventor, and amateur Egyptologist, George Henry Felt (1831-1895), both of whom were especially interested in “Kabbalistic” geometry. These figures are all barely mentioned in academic studies, yet they were important actors in early Theosophy, the emergence of modern interpretations of Kabbalah, and the development of modern forms of religion more generally. Their perceptions of Kabbalah illustrate important facets of the cultural and religious history of the nineteenth century as well as the emergence of trends that can still felt today. In what follows, I will focus on discussing the relevance of Pancoast’s Kabbalah to two important historiographical issues. First, Pancoast’s Kabbalistic therapy must be understood in the context of the medical pluralism that characterised late-1870s Philadelphia.24 The professionalization of medicine was well underway, but the process was not complete. There were some unlicensed practitioners and it was easy to obtain a medical license. Debates raged 22 Pancoast, Kabbala, pp. 271-272. This was reminiscent of the Galenic approach – associated with orthodox medicine – which saw illness as caused by an imbalance in the ‘humours’ or the temperament of the patient. The imbalance could be remedied by something that caused the opposite effect. Andrew Wear ‘Medicine in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700’ in The Western Medical Tradition, ed. L. I. Conrad, M. Neve et. al. Cambridge 1995, p. 260. On Galen, see Lois N. Magner, A History of Medicine, Boca Raton 2005, pp. 121-132. 23 The Theosophical Society was the most influential occultist organisation of the nineteenth century. It was established by Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) and others in New York City in 1875. 24 I borrow the term ‘medical pluralism’ from Peter Burke, ‘Rituals of Healing in Early Modern Italy’ The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy: Essays on Perception and Communication, Cambridge 1987, pp. 207-220. 5 between different schools of thought that designated themselves, and each other, as either ‘regular’ or ‘irregular’. Homeopathy and eclectic medicine (a medical sect that drew on herbalism and diverse other theories) had their own institutions (and sometimes licensing boards) and successfully competed with the regulars, whom they termed ‘allopaths’. Most ‘regular’ physicians considered homeopathy and eclecticism ‘irregular’ and hoped to eliminate them from the profession. Pancoast qualified from a solidly ‘regular’ medical school, but he was interested in homeopathy, eclecticism, and chromotherapy. His medical application of Kabbalah occurred in the context of what we may conceive of as a cultural ‘middle ground’, within which regular physicians gave credence to methodologies deemed ‘irregular’ by their colleagues. Pancoast believed true medicine lay beyond what he saw as a dogmatic medical establishment. He was convinced the regulars would eventually accept his Kabbalistic innovations and that this would lead to a therapeutic revolution and superior union of medical methodologies. Pancoast’s Kabbala therefore encapsulates the heterogeneity and somewhat blurred boundaries of a specific juncture in the history of American medicine. Occurring at the conclusion of a long period during which regular medicine had little advantage over its irregular competitors, to a thinker like Pancoast, it could still seem conceivable that heterodox methodologies would soon be proven scientifically sound, heralding a ‘new age’. A second historiographical issue that emerges from Pancoast’s Kabbala involves the public reception of physics. Pancoast explicitly rejected the wave theory of light, which had already been accepted in mainstream physics for around forty years. This anachronism was probably due to the centrality of the notion of the ray of light in Pancoast’s thought. The wave theory had replaced the ray with the idea of light as disturbances or wave crests in the ether, but, as Jed Buchwald has shown, this was an advance that was difficult for many to accept. Seemingly at odds with his rejection of wave theory, Pancoast nevertheless embraced the concept of the ether, which, paradoxically, went hand in hand with wave theory. The apparent inconsistency makes more sense when we understand Pancoast’s theological understanding of light, which was probably influenced by the Quaker doctrine of the Inner Light as well as Mesmerism and occultist theories of the ‘astral light’. For Pancoast, these elements fused into a vitalist notion of the ether as a ‘universal hyle’ that carried and disseminated light in its visible and spiritual forms. Rays of this light could be directed by the physician, just as Mesmerists and occultists directed the Mesmeric fluid or astral light. The success of his treatments, Pancoast believed, proved the science behind them. His positive results curing patients of a variety of ailments disproved a central tenet of the scientific establishment (the 6 wave theory) and justified Pancoast’s ‘pick and choose’ attitude to scientific and medical theories. His anti-authoritarianism and empiricism in medicine as well as physics may have been influenced by Pancoast’s dissenting Quaker heritage, which emphasised personal experience of the Inner Light. Such qualified inclusivism, such as Pancoast’s, was an attractive option for those faced with an increasing over-abundance of contradictory scientific and religious positions. Be that as it may, many of the domains brought together in Pancoast’s Kabbala were not as disparate as they might seem. There were historical overlaps between occultism, Theosophy, Mesmerism, Spiritualism, and even Quakerism, and Pancoast seems to have found it quite easily to harmonise chosen components of them with certain scientific and medical discourses. Pancoast’s Kabbala thus represents one man’s attempt to navigate through an ocean of ideas by following what we might think of as a particular current of thought. Like the real current on which the metaphor is based, it is not separate from the rest of the waters, although it has its a momentum and direction of its own. Pancoast exclaimed that soon, differing conceptions of pathology and therapeutics, and divergent branches of science and theology would be ‘swept away’, and the ‘Light of Truth’ would ‘illuminate the whole earth’.25 In Pancoast’s vision, Kabbalah would overcome belligerent religious and scientific factions and disagreeing sects would converge. This conviction was the root of considerable optimism for him, although as is often the case, this was held in tension with optimism’s mirror image: pessimism. He hoped ‘just appreciation and knowledge of the Kabbala would stop the terrible Infidelity that is defiantly stalking through the world, uprooting, tearing down, razing, actually burying, Faith in God and His salvation’.26 For Pancoast, not only would Kabbalah reveal the correct approach in physics and medicine, it would harmonise science and religion in general and literally rescue Christianity from the onslaughts of secularisation. Pancoast’s Kabbalah is therefore of central historical importance. It reveals central preoccupations of its period at the same time as it discloses some of the under-acknowledged nineteenth-century cultural and historical roots of today’s influential New Age forms of Kabbalah. 25 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 304. 26 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 12. 7 Pancoast and Recent Scholarship References to Pancoast in the scholarly literature are few and far between. In the history of medicine, he has been touched upon in a recent scholarly work for his discussions of a woman’s role in shaping her unborn children, emphasising the importance of food, exercise, and psychological elements.27 In another, Pancoast has been brought up in the context of antiCatholicism for his medical objections to celibacy as stated in his Ladies Medical Guide.28 Pancoast is sometimes remembered as an early advocate of the use of colour in healing, and it is in this capacity that we find him referred to briefly in The Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology (2001).29 He is often mentioned in passing in treatments the history of the Theosophical Society thanks to his presence at the founding meeting.30 As a Kabbalist, he has been noted by Marco Pasi, who observed that Pancoast’s Kabbala is ‘a curious book, in which speculations about the divine and cosmic light are intermingled with considerations based on the latest scientific discoveries, while it seems to ignore any original source of Jewish Kabbalah’.31 These references hint at the historical importance of Pancoast in a variety of historical contexts, but they are all rather fleeting. He is not commented on at all in the Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, the most comprehensive treatment to date of esoteric and occult topics.32 As Theo Paijmans lamented, ‘Pancoast is almost completely forgotten and is sadly absent in most studies of occult history’.33 Furthermore, references to Pancoast usually only relate to him in one of two contexts: medicine or Theosophy. To date, no study has brought together Pancoast’s Theosophy, Kabbalah, occultism, Quakerism, and Christianity in general with his medical and scientific perspectives. This will be one of the contributions of this paper. 27 A section of Pancoast’s Ladies Medical Guide that discussed such matters was copied by Pancoast almost verbatim from a sixteenth-century French medical work by Ambroise Paré, On Monsters and Marvals. See Lisa Forman Cody, ‘Eating for Two: Shaping Mothers’ Figures and Babies Futures in Modern American Culture’, Gender, Health, and Popular Culture: Historical Perspectives ed. C. K. Warsh, Warterloo, Ontario 2011, 23-46, pp. 26-28 and footnote, p. 44. 28 Timothy Verhoeven, Transatlantic Anti-Catholicism: France and the United States in the Nineteenth Century, New York 2010, pp. 79 and 87. 29 ‘Chromotherapy’ in Encyclopedia of the Occult and Parapsychology, ed. J. Gordon Melton, p. 286. 30 For example, see James A. Santucci ‘George Henry Felt: The Life Unknown’, Theosophical History 6 (1997), p. 256, Robert Mathiesen, The Unseen Worlds of Emma Hardinge Britten: Some Chapters in the History of Western Occultism Fullerton, California 2001, p. 36, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Western Esoteric Traditions, Oxford 2008, p. 217, and Joscelyn Godwin, ‘Blavatsky and the First Generation of Theosophy’, in Handbook of the Theosophical Current ed. O. Hammer and M. Rothstein Leiden and Boston 2013, p. 20, and Wouter Hanegraaff ‘Western Esotericism and the Orient in the First Theosophical Society’ forthcoming. 31 Marco Pasi, ‘Oriental Kabbalah and the Parting of East and West in the Early Theosophical Society’, in Kabbalah and Modernity, p. 157. 32 Hanegraaff ed. Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. 33 Paijmans, Free Energy Pioneer, p. 263. 8 Seth Pancoast: An Eclectic Friend Dr. Seth Pancoast (28 July 1823- 16 December 1889) lived and worked in Philadelphia. He was born in Darby, Pennsylvania, and was probably a life-long Quaker.34 Many early Quakers had settled in Darby and the surrounding areas from the seventeenth century and Pennsylvania – established in 1681 by the Quaker William Penn (1644-1718) – was a major Quaker colony.35 In fact, Pancoast’s obituary affirms he was a descendant of one of three Pancoast brothers who came to America with William Penn.36 Around the time of Pancoast’s third marriage, he and his family attended the 4th & Green St. Hicksite Friends Meeting House.37 The Hicksites were Quakers aligned with the thought of Elias Hicks (1748-1830) who, in the 1820s, had argued that Jesus became the Christ by living in perfect obedience to the Inner Light (rather than being born the Christ). This was a view many other Quakers considered heretical. The Hicksites split, forming a subsection of Quakerism that included those of a more conservative persuasion as well as liberals who were open to ideas from wider society.38 Many Hicksites (but not all) were attracted to the women’s rights movement and abolitionism.39 Some were even drawn to Spiritualism.40 Liberal Hicksites were especially abundant around the Philadelphia area, and it seems likely Pancoast came from their ranks, or, at the very least, associated with them later in life. As a Dissenting Protestant movement famous for its anti-authoritarianism, Pancoast’s Quaker heritage is a crucial factor in understanding his unconventional interpretations of light. Seth Pancoast’s entry in the Dictionary of American Biography states he was the son of Stephen Pancoast, a paper manufacturer, and Anna Stroud. Seth was married three times, first to Sarah Saunders Osborn, then to Susan George Osborn (Sarah’s sister), and finally to Carrie Almena Fernald. He had children with all three women.41 He was probably educated in local schools and began his career in business. When he was twenty-seven years old (in October 1850) he began his medical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He was graduated M. D. in 1852. The following year he took a position as professor of anatomy at the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania (later renamed the ‘Woman’s College of Pennsylvania’), one of the very first 34 With thanks to Marc Demarest for bringing to my attention the Darby Quaker Monthly Meeting record for Seth Pancoast’s death. 35 Thomas D. Hamm, The Quakers in America, New York 2003, p. 27. 36 Obituary of Seth Pancoast, The New York Times, 17 December 1889. 37 Joseph Donald Tyson, Madame Blavatsky Revisited, Lincoln 2007, p. 121. 38 On the Hicksite separation, see Hamm, Quakers, pp. 39-48. 39 Hamm, Quakers, pp. 44, 186-187. 40 Hamm, Quakers, pp. 45. 41 Joseph McFarland, ‘Seth Pancoast’ in Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 14, ed. D. Malone, New York 1934, p. 199. Joseph Howard Tyson states his second wife was Sarah and that she died in 1878. The following year, he married a much younger woman, Carrie Almena Fernald and a daughter was born in 1880. Tyson mentions two daughters from one of the previous marriages who were outraged at the union. Tyson, Blavatsky Revisited, p. 155. 9 institutions to confer medical degrees upon women (it had been founded 1850). In 1853, he taught at the North East Female Medical College in Boston.42 He also participated in the establishment of Penn Medical University (also known as Penn Medical College), an institution dedicated to eclectic medicine.43 Pancoast also held private practice. Some of his clients were long distance, and he accepted letters describing ailments and payment by post.44 According to his obituary in the Pennsylvania Ledger, it was Pancoast’s private practice that had caused him to resign from the medical college in 1859, although he was made emeritus professor and so remained until the close of that college in 1862.45 Pancoast’s medical works include The Cholera: Its History, Cause, Symptoms, and Treatment (1846),46 Consumption (1855),47 Ladies’ Medical Guide (1859),48 Boyhood’s Perils (1858)49 – on the dangers of masturbation – What is Bright’s Disease? (1882),50 An Original Treatise on the Curability of Consumption (1855),51 and The Family Guide in Diseases of the Throat and Chest (1856).52 These were all regular/allopathic medical works. His obituary declares he was a ‘homeopathist’, although in Kabbala he argued against homeopathy despite his praise for its founder, Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843). Nevertheless, homeopathy was a subject he clearly understood, in keeping with his eclectic medical interests. Pancoast’s Heterodox Kabbalah Pancoast was reputed to have owned a ‘collection of books upon Kabalism and other occult subjects’ that was ‘unexcelled’.53 There is little in his writing, however, to suggest extensive knowledge of contemporary literature of Kabbalah. He stated that ‘within the present century, the Germans have given the subject […] much thoughtful investigation, but as yet have not 42 Boston Herald, 2 May 1853, p. 2. With thanks to Marc Demarest for bringing this to my attention. 43 The Medical and Surgical Directory of the State of Iowa for 1880 and 1881, Clinton 1880, p. 80. With thanks to Pat Deveney. 44 In the re-print of Boyhood’s Perils, Pancoast’s address was given as 916 Spring Garden St. Philadelphia. 45 Warren, ‘Obituary of Seth Pancoast’, Pennsylvania Ledger, 12 May 1882. With thanks to Marc Demarest. According to the title page of his works, in 1858, Pancoast’s title was ‘professor of microscopic anatomy, physiology, and the Institute of medicine’. For example, this is stated on the cover pages of the Ladies Medical Guide and Boyhood’s Perils. 46 Seth Pancoast, The Cholera: Its History, Cause, Symptoms, Philadelphia 1873. 47 This work and publication date are mentioned in Pancoast’s entry in McFarland, Dictionary of American Biography, p. 199. 48 The first publication date appears as 1859 in Pancoast’s entry in McFarland, Dictionary of American Biography, p. 199. It states subsequent editions were published in 1864 and 1876. The one I found was dated 1875. Seth Pancoast, Ladies’ Medical Guide, Philadelphia 1875. 49 Seth Pancoast, Boyhood’s Perils and Manhood’s Curse: An Earnest Appeal to Young America, Philadelphia 1858. 50 Seth Pancoast, What is Bright’s Disease? Its Curability. Philadelphia 1882. 51 Seth Pancoast, An Original Treatise on the Curability of Consumption by Medicated Inhalation and Adjunct Remedies Philadelphia 1855. 52 Seth Pancoast, Family Guide in Diseases of the Throat and Chest. Philadelphia 1856 (pamphlet). 53 William Quan Judge, ‘Obituary of Seth Pancoast’, The Path 4/10, January 1890, p. 328. 10 shown a clear perception of the magnitude and grandeur of the Kabbalistic Theosophy’.54 This gives the impression that Pancoast was familiar with German Kabbalah scholarship, but there is not much evidence Pancoast’s work to back this up. He did mention a ‘Dr Zurns’, to whom he attributed the view that the Sepher Yetzirah originated in the eight or ninth century, but he probably meant Leopold Zunz (1784-1886), a central figure of the Wissenschaft des Judentums, who did indeed assign such a date to the Sepher Yetzirah, in contrast to other scholars. The mistaken spelling and the brevity of the reference, however, do not offer much evidence of Pancoast’s familiarity with Zunz’s scholarship. Pancoast stated he had obtained three editions of the Sepher Jetzera [sic]: the Latin translation of Johann Stephan Rittangel (1606-1652) – which Pancoast said was published in Amsterdam in 1660 but whose first edition actually dates from 1642 – the Latin and German edition of Johann Friedrich von Meyer (1772-1849) published in Leipzig in 1830, and ‘an edition bearing neither name nor date’.55 Pancoast discussed the Sepher Yetzirah briefly, concluding: The Sepher Jetzera is regarded as the basis of, and key to, the teachings of the Sohar, though the arrangement and plan of the two works differ somewhat. In the Sohar, the Sephiroth, of which we shall speak fully directly, are unfolded with care and in detail. ‘The Sohar, or the Book of Light’, dwells with great emphasis upon the Kabbalistic doctrinal teachings on Light. The Kabbala declares that Light is the primordial essence of the Universe, and that all life and motion proceed from it – it is the vital dynamic force of Nature. It also declares that it is by the study of Light that we are enabled to acquire a knowledge of the unknowable or causal world. Light is Jacob’s Ladder by which we ascend to Celestial knowledge, the upper rundle being in the fourth Sephira, represented by the Pentagram.56 There is nothing in this statement that indicates much familiarity with either the Zohar or the Sepher Yetzirah. Although Pancoast was correct that the ideas of the Sepher Yetzirah are often in the background of Zoharic discussions, in the Sepher Yetzirah, the sephiroth are described very differently to their depiction in the Zohar.57 Later Kabbalists adopted some of the terminology of 54 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 18. 55 Pancoast, Kabbala, pp. 21-22. 56 Pancoast, Kabbala, pp. 22-23. 57 The Sepher Yetzirah describes the sephiroth in two different ways. First, they are named as ‘beginning’, ‘end’, ‘good’, ‘evil’, ‘above’, ‘below’, ‘east’, ‘west’, ‘north’, ‘south’. They are given in that order. The translation is A. Peter Hayman’s. A. Peter Hayman, Sefer Yesira: Edition, Translation and Text-Critical Commentary Tübingen 2004, p. 76. Later in the text, they are described as ‘The Spirit of the Living God, ‘Air from the Holy Spirit, ‘water from air’, and ‘fire from water’ in addition to ‘above’, ‘below’, ‘east’, ‘west’, ‘north’, and ‘south’. Hayman, Sefer Yesira, p. 82. 11 the Sepher Yetzirah but interpreted the ten sephiroth very differently, identifying them with intellective and emotive qualities, divine attributes, or different parts of the divine ‘system’. To say that ‘the arrangement and plan’ of the Zohar and the Sepher Yetzirah ‘differ somewhat’ is an understatement of such magnitude that it makes it unlikely Pancoast had even seen the primary sources. (The Sepher Yetzirah is a very short text and the Zohar fills many volumes.) In sum, there is no evidence of Pancoast’s knowledge of these primary Kabbalistic sources and very limited evidence of his knowledge of contemporary Kabbalah scholarship. There is more substantial evidence of his reliance on non-Jewish and heterodox sources, however. Quakerism One of the earliest influences on Pancoast’s Kabbalistic theory of light healing must have been the Quaker doctrine of the ‘Inner Light’,58 a teaching Quakers had interpreted in different ways since its introduction by the founder of Quakerism, George Fox (1624-1691). Simply put, the idea was that all people (not only Quakers or even Christians) have within them a portion of the light of Christ that enables communion with God. Heeding the Inner Light allows one to recognise one’s sinful condition, need for Christ, and the path to salvation.59 The Inner Light, therefore, was something to be tapped into. Geoffrey Cantor argued that Quaker attitudes to science were influenced by the doctrine of Inner Light. Since it emphasized the centrality of personal experience, Quakers tended to have an empiricist view of science.60 With their background in religious dissent, Quakers also undermined authority, and Quaker scientists often rejected scientific orthodoxies.61 Cantor observed, While there existed a generally positive attitude towards science, the Quaker belief system – and especially the commitment to the Inner Light – favoured certain sciences and scientific methods. Thus Quakers tended to pursue observational science, such as botany and astronomy, rather than physics. Moreover, they championed an ad hominem form of empiricism, rejected ready-made scientific systems, and treated speculative hypotheses with caution.62 58 Tyson, Blavatsky Revisited, p. 121. 59 Hamm, Quakers in America, p. 15. 60 Geoffrey Cantor, Quakers, Jews, and Science: Religious Responses to Modernity and the Sciences in Britain 1650-1900. Oxford 2005, p. 11. 61 Cantor, Quakers, Jews, Science, p. 239. 62 Cantor Quakers, Jews, Science, p.247 12 Pancoast’s ideas about light as described in Kabbala fit this description well. They reveal an ambivalent attitude towards contemporaneous scientific theory and an ‘ad hominem’ form of empiricism, in which Pancoast described at length his observations of the efficacy of his coloured light treatments. The success of his Kabbalistic healing among his patients was enough to convince him of the science that lay behind his ideas and it gave him the confidence to dedicate his book to the ‘true scientists’ of the entire world whose minds are ‘not clouded by preconceived notions and theories’.63 The wave theory he considered a form of ‘ready-made’ science, a speculative hypothesis backed by the weight of the scientific establishment, not the weight of therapeutic success. The existence of the ray and the beam, on the other hand, was self-evident and supported by his experiments. Mesmerism and the Od-Force Pancoast’s ideas about the application of light in therapy were significantly indebted to Mesmerism.64 Established during the previous century by the Viennese physician, Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), Mesmerism was based on the principle that the human body contains a magnetic fluid and that any blockage to the normal flow of this fluid results in illness. Mesmeric techniques were said to restore the normal flow and were developed through reference to contemporaneous scientific theories of magnetism and electricity.65 Mesmer’s theories were advanced by his followers and spread from mainland Europe to Britain and America, where Mesmerism reached a high point in the 1850s.66 Mesmerism had always included a variety of medical, speculative, and humanitarian elements and in America it merged with further currents, in particular Spiritualism and Swedenborgianism, eventually playing an important role in the development of Christian Science and New Thought.67 Most specifically, Pancoast was influenced the work of the Civil War general and pioneer of chromotherapy, Augustus James Pleasonton (1801-1894). Pleasonton had set up a greenhouse in Philadelphia with alternating plates of blue and clear glass, writing about his experiments in his 63 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 3. 64 Pancoast mentioned Mesmer, arguing that Mesmer did not ‘discover’ but rather ‘rediscovered’ an aspect of the science of light. Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 214. 65 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, ‘The Esoteric Uses of Electricity: Theologies of Electricity from Swabian Pietism to Ariosophy’, Aries 4 (2004) pp. 69-90. 66 Betsy van Schlun, Science and the Imagination: Mesmerism, Media, and the Mind in Nineteenth-Century English and American Literature, Berlin and Wisconsin 2007, p. 60. 67 See Schlun, Science and the Imagination, pp. 14-15 and 61. On American Mesmerism, see Robert C. Fuller, Mesmerism and the American Cure of Souls, Philadelphia 1982. On the Mesmeric background of New Thought, see Haller, History of New Thought. 13 work in two books. The first was On The Influence of the Blue Color of the Sky in Developing Animal and Vegetable Life (1871).68 Pleasonton’s second book was called The Influence Of The Blue Ray Of The Sunlight and of the Blue Colour of the Sky (1876). He argued that the colour blue could improve the growth of crops and livestock and heal diseases in humans and his book included much discussion of contemporaneous scientific theory in the context of his experiments. Drawing on Mesmeric themes, Pleasonton argued that a ‘current of electromagnetism’ (meaning light and heat) when directed to the spinal cord of an animal would be conducted by the nerves to the brain and distributed to the whole nervous system invigorating the whole body and restoring health.69 Pleasonton’s theory drew on the idea of the ‘Od-force’ developed by the German chemist and metallurgist Baron Karl von Reichenbach (1788-1869).70 Reichenbach argued that there was an Odic or Odyllic force within the ether and that the magnetic fluid of the Mesmerists is just one manifestation of Od.71 Reichenbach maintained the Od-force radiates from everything, that it has a positive and a negative form, and that it can be collected in suitable objects.72 Reichenbach discussed imbuing water with different qualities through the use of coloured light, an idea highly reminiscent of Pancoast’s Kabbala.73 Spiritualism Although less directly relevant to Pancoast’s interpretation of Kabbalah than some of the other currents discussed here, Spiritualism is important in understanding the sorts of circles Pancoast moved in. Strongly influenced by Mesmerism, the one belief all Spiritualists can definitively be said to have had in common was the conviction that it is possible to contact the dead through mediums and séances. Although the highpoint of American enthusiasm for Spiritualism had been in the 1850s, it was still very fashionable in the 70s. As Sarah Wilburn and Tatiana Kontou recently concluded, Spiritualism arose in the context of ‘a widespread cultural grappling with 68 Philadelphia 1871. 69 See Gen. A. J. Pleasonton, The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and of the Blue Colour of the Sky, Philadelphia 1877, p. 27. 70 Pleasonton, The Influence of the Blue Ray, p. 20. 71 Alan Gauld, A History of Hypnotism, Cambridge 1995, p. 229. 72 John S. Haller Jr. The History of New Thought, West Chester, Pennsylvania 2012, p. 30. 73 ‘Put a small glass vessel filled with water in the blue light of the spectrum, and another one in the orange; or put one of them at the pointed end of a large mountain- crystal, and the other at the butt-end. In all these cases you may be sure that the sensitive will find the water that has been in the blue light pleasant, and lightly acidulated, and that which has been in the orange nauseating, rather bitter, and crude.’ Reichenbach’s Letters on Od and Magnetism (1852) translated by F. D. O’Byrne, London 1926, p. 22. The sensitive was the sensitive person Reichenbach used in his experiments. 14 what it meant to be a modern individual who was curious, scientifically-minded, technologically current, and spiritually advanced’.74 Pancoast belonged to the Pennsylvania Spiritualist Association.75 On 2-5 June 1854, he attended the Hartford Bible Convention in Hartford, Connecticut.76 The convention was organised by the ‘Poughkeepsie Seer’, the Spiritualist theologian Andrew Jackson Davies (18261910), and has been described as a landmark in the history of organised freethought.77 Sceptics, abolitionists, and women’s rights activists attended the convention. Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly, Hicksite Quakers such as Isaac (1798-1872) and Amy Post (1802-1889) were among the first to embrace Spiritualism,78 and Amy Post attended the Hartford Bible Convention. Among those who considered Spiritualism credible, some believed it was evidence of the supernatural, while others were convinced it was perfectly natural; science simply hadn’t explained it yet.79 This is an important context for understanding Pancoast’s views. In much the same way that he believed mainstream regular medicine would eventually incorporate his Kabbalistic chromotherapy, many commentators believed modern science would eventually comprehend Spiritualism. As with medicine, this was symptomatic of a time when conceptual boundaries were more fluid than they would later become, and during which there were competing definitions of science. Some nineteenth-century conceptualisations of the scope of science included what would later be most commonly associated with the category of the ‘supernatural’. 74 Kontou and Wilburn, Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth Century Spiritualism and the Occult, Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, VT 2012, p. 4. The beginning of Spiritualism – at least as a public movement – is usually dated to the Hydesville Rappings of 1848, in Upstate New York. From America, Spiritualism quickly spread to Britain, Europe, and beyond. It was a movement with no centralised authority or creed and it was only very loosely organised. Spiritualism developed in Protestant as well as Catholic contexts and although many Spiritualists considered themselves Christian, Spiritualism could exist in non- or even anti-Christian forms too.In Britain, antiChristian Spiritualism was associated with a working-class, secularist context, especially in the north of England. On Christian and non-Christian Spiritualism, see Janet Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England 1850-1914, Cambridge 1985, pp. 63-110. 75 Tyson, Blavatsky Revisited, p. 121. On Pancoast attending séances, see p. 60. 76 Proceedings of the Hartford Bible Convention, reported phonographically by Andrew J. Graham. New York 1854. Pancoast’s name appears on the list of participants on page 11. 77 Timothy Larsen, Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England, Oxford 2006, p. 149. 78 Ann Braude, Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth-Century America. Bloomington 2001, pp. 1215 and 59-60. Catherine Tumber, American Feminism and the Birth of New Age Spirituality: Searching fro the Higher Self 1875-1915 Lanham, Boulder, New York, and Oxford 2002. 79 The Society for Psychical Research was established in Britain in 1882 to investigate Spiritualistic and related phenomena. Richard Noakes, ‘Spiritualism, Science, and the Supernatural in mid-Victorian Britain’ in The Victorian Supernatural ed. N. Bown, C. Burdett et al. Cambridge 2004. 15 Freemasonry and Occultism Another heterodox influence on Pancoast’s understanding of Kabbalah was Freemasonry. In Kabbala, he referred to the Freemasonic story of Hiram Abif (the master builder of Solomon’s Temple), writing that Hiram ‘was a Kabbalist of the clearest type. He who exactly understands Solomon’s Temple, in its details and in its entirety, is a true Mason and a true Kabbalist – therefore, an initiate of the highest order’.80 In Freemasonic style, Pancoast gave the names of the active and passive pillars of the Kabbalistic tree of life as ‘Jokan and Boaz’ [sic].81 But he chided Masons for their misinterpretations. ‘The philosophy of the Kabbala was expressed in symbols, some of which are in use among the Masonic and other secret fraternities of our day, though much of their olden force and beauty, which depended very largely, and in some cases entirely, upon their occult meanings, is lost by erroneous interpretations’.82 All of this might lead one to assume Pancoast was a Mason. Indeed, there had been a revival of Freemasonry in America since the 1840s, and by the 1860s and 1870s, it had attained great popularity. Yet Pancoast denied he was a member of any ‘modern secret order’.83 Of course, this did not rule out his membership of an order he did not consider ‘modern’, although we have no further information. Pancoast’s reference to the pentagram, above, suggests the French occultist Eliphas Lévi (1810-1875) as an influence, and Pancoast’s ideas display a general rapport with themes in Lévi’s works. In several books beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Lévi described the ‘astral light’ as an all-pervading subtle fluid the magician taps into when directing his will through the use of his imagination.84 The parallels are clear, although Pancoast did not mention Lévi by name. It was the American ‘fringe’ Freemason Albert Pike (1809-1891) who popularised Lévi’s ideas for an English-speaking audience.85 Similarities make it likely Pike’s work Morals and Dogmas of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (1871) inspired Pancoast, although again, he did not mention it by name. As part of an interpretation of the symbols and practices of Freemasonry, Pike’s book contains numerous references to light, En Soph, the ten sephiroth, and a balance between active and passive.86 These elements were presented in the context of a universalism in which Kabbalah 80 Seth Pancoast, The Kabbala: Or, The True Science of Light, Philadelphia 1877,19 81 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 246. He may have been inspired here by Hargrave Jennings, The Rosicrucians: Their Rites and Mysteries, London 1870, pp. 241 and 328. For more on Jennings, see below. 82 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 18 83 Pancoast, Kabala, p. 19. 84 Marieke J. E. van den Doel and Wouter J. Hanegraaff, ‘Imagination’, in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, p. 614. 85 See Hanegraaff, ‘Jewish Influences V’, in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, pp. 645. 86 See Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Charleston 1881, pp. 13-14, 202. 16 was associated with Oriental philosophy. Like Pancoast, Pike emphasised the Gospel of John alongside the Zohar and the Sepher Yetzirah as sources for Kabbalah and occultism. Pancoast’s ideas about the contents of the Zohar may well have been taken from Pike, who wrote ‘The sources of our knowledge of the Kabalistic doctrines, are the books of Jezirah and Sohar […] In them […] everything that exists emanated from a source of infinite LIGHT. Before everything, existed THE ANCIENT OF DAYS, the KING OF LIGHT’.87 The only author Pancoast did mention by name was Hargrave Jennings (1817-1890), a British writer on Freemasonic and mythological themes.88 Pancoast cited Jennings’ work The Rosicrucians (1870), which traced the source of religions to the worship of fire and light and contained numerous references to Kabbalah. Here, Pancoast acknowledged his debt obliquely as well as explicitly. The present writer gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to [the Rosicrucians], and to their careful and intelligent researches, for many of the Kabbalistic ideas of Light and Heat herein to be stated, as well as for a clearer insight into the religious and scientific system of the Kabbala.89 Pancoast seemed to be crediting the Rosicrucians as individuals, rather than the title of Jennings’s book, which was the true source. Jennings Rosicrucians explained the Kabbalists were the ‘oldest Theosophists, the founders of magical knowledge in the East’. According to Jennings, the Rosicrucians, or Illuminati – the illuminated ones – ‘taught that all knowable things (both of the soul and of the body) were evolved out of Fire, and finally resolvable into it; and that Fire was the last and only-to-beknown God.90 Most importantly, Jennings argued the fire he claimed the ancients worshipped was not ‘our vulgar, gross fire’, but rather an occult, mysterious, or inner fire, ‘the only possible Mind, or God, as containing all things, and as the soul of all things’.91 This is the closest parallel I have found so far to Pancoast’s idea about visible and invisible light. 87 Pike, Morals and Dogma, pp. 266-267. 88 Pancoast quoted Jennings as follows: ‘Hargrave Jennings says: ‘There is a singular and mysterious alliance between color and sound’. Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 79. Pancoast quoted Jennings accurately. The passage can be found on p. 151 of the first edition of Jenning’s Rosicrucians. For more on Jennings, see Joscelyn Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment, Albany 1994, pp. 261-262 and 271. Incidentally, Jennings was also an influence on Blavatsky. On Blavatsky’s debt to Jennings, see Chajes, ‘Construction through Appropriation’. 89 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 18. 90 Jennings, The Rosicrucians, pp. 77-78. 91 Jennings, The Rosicrucians, p. 80. 17 Theosophy Drawing on Mesmerism, occultism, and Freemasonry and emerging directly from Spiritualism, the Theosophical Society was initially a forum for the pursuit of occult practices such as astral projection but later, it developed in a more philosophical vein that was increasingly Oriental, at least ostensibly.92 Pancoast was present at the first meeting of the Society and he was one of its first vice-presidents. He published two articles in the American Theosophical periodical The Path entitled ‘Kabbalah’ and the ‘Mystery of Numbers’ (1886).93 His obituary in The Path stated he foretold a revival of interest in theosophy and occultism that began in 1878. Just a year after the publication of Kabbala, Pancoast probably saw his book as playing an instrumental role in the revival.94 Pancoast was Madame Blavatsky’s personal physician, treating her between February and June 1875 when she was in Philadelphia.95 In a letter from Philadelphia dated Friday 21 May 1875, Blavatsky wrote to Theosophical co-founder Henry Steel Olcott (1832-1907). ‘Dear Henry, The paralysis has set in. I had the physician Pancoast and Mrs. Michener the clairvoyant’. 96 But Blavatsky was not always favourably inclined towards Pancoast. When he recommended amputation, she cursed him that ‘unclean goblin’.97 Nevertheless, Blavatsky praised Pancoast as a Kabbalist, writing ‘the best exponents of the Kabala in the Theosophical Society were some of the earliest, Dr. S. Pancoast of Philadelphia’.98 She also quoted Kabbala by its alternative title (Blue and Red Light) in her first major work, Isis Unveiled (1877).99 An Irregular Regular Medic In addition to the heterodox influences discussed above, different strands of nineteenth-century medical thought influenced Pancoast’s ideas about Kabbalah, equilibrium, and health. Some of these derived from what contemporaries termed ‘regular’ medicine, and others from what some described as ‘irregular medicine.’ These terms arose in the context of the professionalization of 92 John Patrick Deveney, ‘Astral Projection or Liberation of the Double and the Work of the Early Theosophical Society’. Theosophical History Occasional Papers 6, Fullerton 1997. 93 ‘Kabbalah’ in The Path 1/1 April 1886, pp. 8-14 and ‘The Mystery of Numbers’, The Path 1/2, May 1886, pp. 3741. 94 William Quan Judge, ‘Obituary of Seth Pancoast’ The Path 4/10 January 1890, p. 328. 95 Tyson, Blavatsky Revisited, p. 121. Tyson states Pancoast’s office was at 17 Arch St. 96 The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1: 1861-1879, Wheaton 2003, p. 165. 97 Marion Meade, Madame Blavatsky, The Woman Behind the Myth New York, 1980, p. 2860 of the Kindle version. On the prevalence of amputation in late nineteenth-century American medicine, see Magner History, p. 327. 98 Helena Blavatsky, Theosophical Glossary, London 1892, p. 168. 99 Blavatsky, Isis Vol. 2, p. 289. 18 medicine, a process that occurred in fits and starts throughout the nineteenth century. American physicians had begun to call for the establishment of more medical licensing laws already in the eighteenth century.100 These ‘orthodox’ practitioners claimed to represent a tradition going back to Hippocrates and Galen that represented all the advances of the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution.101 In the nineteenth century, they termed themselves ‘regular’ physicians and sometimes they were termed ‘allopaths’. The founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, coined this term to describe a form of medicine considered harmful. Then, unlike now, those deemed ‘allopaths’ considered the term offensive.102 Around 1830, the professionalization of medicine intensified significantly, with the establishment of more medical schools, journals, and medical societies. More state licensing laws were passed and the professional consciousness of regular/allopathic physicians as a distinct group adhering to the ‘correct’ views and methods increased. Nevertheless, the medical establishment was not always popular and by 1845, some states had repealed their licensing laws. Some of the resistance to the licensing laws came from the opponents of regular/allopathic medicine. Those who considered themselves regular physicians usually deemed these alternative forms of medicine ‘irregular’ and generally disdained their practitioners as ‘quacks’. Around the middle of the century, these included Mesmerists, homeopaths, hydropaths, and herbalists. After the Civil War, osteopaths, naturopaths, Christian Scientists, and chiropractics joined their ranks.103 At Pancoast’s time of writing in 1877, a debate had raged between the different medical schools for decades. A central issue concerned ‘nature’. Regular doctors tended to deny nature’s power to heal unassisted.104 On the other hand, the ‘irregulars’ usually promoted themselves as advocates of ‘natural healing’. Allopathic/regular medicine usually involved bloodletting and the use of mineral drugs that caused purging, vomiting, and sweating.105 Often, it was the failure of these orthodox treatments or even the worsening of the symptoms that sent patients seeking an alternative. Homeopathy and eclectic medicine were two organised and popular alternatives that had their own medical colleges and institutions.106 Regular/allopathic physicians considered them ‘irregular’ and hoped to eliminate them, but at that time, they were still part of the establishment to some extent. For example, some regular medical licensing boards included a 100 For a list of eighteenth-century almanacs, see Magner, History, p. 302. 101 Magner History, pp. 304-305. 102 James C. Whorton, Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America Oxford 2002, p. 18. This underscores the fact that there are no neutral terms in this debate; all labels carry some value judgement. 103 Whorton, Nature Cures, p. xii See also Robert C. Fuller, Alternative Medicine and the American Religious Life, Oxford 1989. 104 Whorton, Nature Cures, p. 7 f. 105 Magner History, p. 308. 106 Ronald Hamowy, ‘The Early Development of Medical Licensing Laws in the United States 1875-1900’ Journal of Libertarian Studies 3 (1979), 73-119. 19 minority of homeopaths and eclectics.107 There was some crossover between the different schools, since homeopathy and eclecticism influenced the development of regular medicine, making it less dependent on bloodletting and large doses of mineral and metallic compounds, and introducing botanical remedies. Every so often, regular physicians defected to the ‘other side’, and most of the faculty members of the Homeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania were graduates of regular medical schools.108 Even without officially changing affiliation, there were regular physicians who were prepared to try unorthodox medicines and methods.109 Therefore, the fact that some contemporary commentators described the conflict in very black and white terms, the division between ‘regular’ and ‘irregular’ medicine was not as clear-cut as they thought or perhaps hoped. It is in the context of this medical pluralism that we may understand Pancoast’s career and ideas about Kabbalistic therapy. He qualified from a regular medical school – the University of Pennsylvania – but began his professional life by affiliating with a controversial establishment: The Female/Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. From 1850, the college pioneered brining women into the medical profession and was the first to offer women the qualification of M.D. The College provides a good example of how practitioners deemed ‘irregular’ were excluded. Finding competent qualified lecturers willing to teach in such an institution was a challenge and the management was keen that the already suspect activity of teaching medicine to women not be made any less credible through the employment of ‘irregular’ faculty.110 The College’s early records (especially the years from 1850-1860) reveal a continual struggle to keep such practitioners out, leading to a complete turnover of faculty in its first decade of existence. The number of ‘suspect’ doctors must therefore have been substantial. Pancoast joined the college staff in 1853, leaving only a year later. We cannot say for certain that he left because of his irregularity, but former professors suspected of interests similar to Pancoast’s had been ousted, including Pancoast’s predecessor, Joseph Longshore.111 Longshore was evicted because of his interest in mesmerism, eclecticism, spiritualism and occult sciences. Together with Pancoast, Longshore went on to found Penn Medical University, an eclectic institution that taught men and women, but in separate classes.112 The college included ‘in the study of medical science all the various theories taught by the several schools of medicine known, including 107 Hamowy, Licensing Laws, p. 79. 108 Disagreements within the faculty led to the creation of the rival Hahnemann Medical College, but the two schools merged in 1869. Magner, History, 404. 109 Steven M. Stowe, Doctoring the South: Southern Physicians and Everyday Medicine in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, Chapel Hill and London 2004, p. 157. 110 Steven J. Peitzman, A New and Untried Course: Woman’s Medical College and Medical College of Pennsylvania New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London 2000, p. 14. 111 Susan Wells, Out of the Dead House: Nineteenth-Century Women Physicians and the Writing of Medicine, Wisconsin 2001. 112 Peitzman, Untried Course, p. 14. 20 homeopathy [and] allopathy.’113 Pancoast’s intermediate position in these medical debates is evident in Kabbala. On the one hand, he displayed his ‘regular’ credentials by condemning the ‘quacks’. In all ages and all climes, there have always been notorious empirics114 and quacks, who, without knowing either the Human Organism or even the first principles of Pathology or Therapeutics, have set themselves forward as wonder-working ‘Doctors’ – their nostrums are pronounced by themselves sovereign remedies for certain maladies, sometimes they are positively declared to be ‘cure-alls’, but usually perhaps they are simply worthless, often dangerous, seldom efficacious, compounds; but, whatever their actual nature, it is extremely rash to risk the consequences of their use, no matter how many ‘Certificates’ avouch their marvelous properties.115 On the other hand, Pancoast evinced sympathies with irregular medicine. His work includes some classic ‘irregular’ tropes, condemning harsh medicines and hoping to ‘drive all the deathladen nostrums and medicines of violence rather than beneficence from the materia medica of our day’.116 He adopted the ‘irregular’ discourse of ‘natural healing’, writing that coloured rays of light were one of the best natural remedies recently discovered.117 ‘Light is essentially and especially Nature’s remedy, and, therefore, peculiarly adapted to assist Nature in banishing disease and restoring health’ [my emphases].118 Significantly, he portrayed the alchemist-physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) as a sort of ‘irregular’ doctor, explicitly identifying the Galenic medicine of Paracelsus’s day as the ‘regular school,’ which ‘evinced an arrogant, overbearing dogmatism that would brook no opposition’ and which persecuted Paracelsus for daring to challenge it.119 As stated previously, Pancoast believed that in the future, regular medicine would incorporate aspects then considered irregular. This did not include the dangerous nostrums of the quacks, but rather the truly scientific and natural Kabbalistic healing of coloured light. Thus, Kabbalah played a role in a fascinating sub-plot within the story of Western medicine. Equally, nineteenth-century medicine played an instrumental role in the shaping of an influential Christian 113 The Medical and Surgical Directory of the State of Iowa for 1880 and 1881, p. 80. 114 The terms ‘empiricism’ and ‘empirics’ were used in contradictory ways in the nineteenth century by both regular and irregular practitioners. See Whorton, Nature Cures, p. 12. Here, Pancoast uses it as a slur against irregulars. 115 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 272-273. 116 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 254. On the worldwide scope of the hoped-for revolution, see p. 52. 117 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 52. 118 Pancoast, Kabbala, pp. 13-14. 119 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 238-239. This was despite the affinity of Pancoast’s ideas with Galenic ones, noted above. 21 occultist exposition of Kabbalah that anticipated many elements of twenty-first century spirituality. An Anachronistic Physicist Let’s turn now to the second historiographical issue Pancoast’s Kabbala illuminates, the cultural reception of nineteenth-century physics. Pancoast summarised scientific developments in the understanding of light: Newton supposed that light consisted of minute particles shot out by luminous bodies, fine enough to pass through the pores of transparent bodies – this is the famous ‘Emission Theory’ which was accepted and maintained by Laplace and other Scientists of deservedly high repute. But Huyghens, and after him others of equal eminence, notably Thomas Young and Augustin Fresnel, successfully opposed the ‘Emission Theory’, advocating what is known as the ‘Wave Theory’ or the ‘Undulatory Theory’.120 Pancoast went on to categorically reject this wave theory.121 Following Jed Buchwald, I suggest the prime motivation in this rejection was probably not wave theory itself, but the concept that was thrown out with it: the ray of light. At Pancoast’s time of writing, the notion of the ray had already been scientifically obsolete for around forty years. However, as Buchwald has demonstrated, very few people were willing to accept this. They clung to the common-sense notion of discrete rays that determined the intensity of a ‘beam’ of light. 122 The notion of rays has a long history going back to Euclid, who saw them as physical objects that could be counted. Conceptions underwent many changes, but the basic notion of a physical ray remained in place until the seventeenth century.123 In the corpuscular theory of light of Isaac Newton (1643-1727), light was described as composed of tiny particles (corpuscles). Newton’s Optiks defined the ray as a distinct physical object and by the 1790s, his definition was treated as synonymous with the emission theory. Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (1749-1827) established the orthodox understanding of the emission theory in his Mécanique celeste (five volumes, 1799-1825).124 At this time, light was frequently considered by scientists an 120 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 64. 121 Pancoast, Kabbala, pp. 15 and 60. 122 Buchwald, Wave Theory, p. 5. 123 Jed Z. Buchwald, The Rise of the Wave Theory of Light: Optical Theory and Experiment in the Early-Nineteenth Century Chicago and London 1989, pp. 3-4. 124 Buchwald, Wave Theory, pp. 25-26. 22 ‘imponderable fluid’ similar to fire. Imponderable fluids such as electricity and heat were conceived as ‘subtle’, and as composed of mutually repelling particles.125 The abandonment of the idea of imponderable fluids was one of the most significant scientific developments of the early-nineteenth century.126 Several theories were established in which the ray was still considered to have some sort of physical reality, although its role was redefined.127 Traité de la lumière (1690) by Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) marked a watershed in the development of theories of light. Huygens argued that the ray did not have any physical reality, but instead was a geometrical construct.128 Following Huygens, Thomas Young (1773-1829), and Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788-1827) were instrumental in promoting the wave theory and bringing about an end to the emission theory, even though they both initially accepted the idea of the ray of light.129 The establishment of the wave theory from the 1830s brought with it the necessity for a medium through which the waves were said to travel – the luminiferous or electromagnetic ether – and wave theorists saw light as a ‘regular sequence of spreading disturbances’ within it.130 In a series of papers written between 1799 and 1804, Young rejected the concept of light as an elastic fluid similar to fire.131 He dismissed the Newtonian corpuscular theory and the idea of light as an imponderable fluid or as composed of discrete rays, and advocated the existence of a luminiferous ether through which light travels.132 The majority of schoolchildren are now familiar with Young’s famous double slit experiment, which demonstrated interference, and supported the idea of light understood as a wave. Fresnel adopted Huygens principle in 1818 and extended Young’s ideas. His wave theory of light also saw light as propagated by the vibrations of a mechanical ether, and it too was a major contribution to the abandonment of imponderable fluid theories.133 Buchwald has showed that despite these developments, many physicists continued to see light in terms of rays. Although […] waves replaced light particles, a deeper process also took place at about the same time, a process that only partially coincides with the first one. While waves in the ether were replacing particles of light as tools of explanation, wave fronts were also 125 Peter M. Harman, Energy, Force, and Matter: The Conceptual Development of Nineteenth-Century Physics Cambridge 1982, pp. 13-14. 126 Harman, Energy, Force, and Matter, p. 19. 127 Buchwald, Wave Theory, p. 4. 128 Buchwald, Wave Theory, p. 4. 129 Buchwald, Wave Theory, p. 7. 130 Buchwald, Wave Theory, p. xiii. 131 Harman, Energy, Force, and Matter, p. 19. 132 Harman, Energy, Force, and Matter, p. 20. 133 Harman, Energy, Force, and Matter, pp. 3 and 21. 23 beginning to replace rays as tools of analysis. This second process was at least as difficult for many people as the first one because it required them to alter many fundamental optical concepts concerning the nature of a ray and its relation to a beam.134 In his continuing embrace of the ray, Pancoast was therefore in good company. Perhaps most importantly, he was in the company of his heterodox colleagues. Both Augustus Pleasonton135 and Madame Blavatsky explicitly rejected wave theory in their writings.136 Albert Pike discussed (but did not categorically reject) the wave theory, but his work was peppered with references to ‘rays’ of light, effectively amounting to the same thing.137 Pancoast was also in the company of Pleasonton, Blavatsky, Pike, and many others when he embraced the concept of the ether, even though it had been the wave theory that, ironically, had brought it to prominence.138 To Pancoast, this did not seem incongruous at all. He explained that a ‘beam of light must have a conductor as well as an impulse, and this conductor it provides for itself, calling in requisition the allpervading ether’.139 The contradiction is more intelligible in view of Pancoast’s theological understanding of light, in which visible and invisible light were intimately related to the ether, which was broadly synonymous with Mesmer’s fluid, the Od-force, Eliphas Lévi’s astral light and even the Quaker Inner Light, to some extent. For Pancoast, all these concepts pointed towards a vitalistic understanding of light as an all-pervading substratum that could be tapped into and directed at will to heal patients in accordance with the teachings of the Kabbalah. One day modern science would encompass this realisation, but until that day, it would have to play catchup with the Kabbalists. 134 Buchwald, Wave Theory, p. xiv. 135 The first to publish was Pleasonton, stating, ‘If the laws of light are not comprehended by scientists, it furnishes no excuse for resort to absurdities in the effort to explain them’. Pleasonton, Influence of Blue Ray, p. 83 Pleasonton rejected wave theory because of its supposed lack of explanatory power. See pp. 20 and 147-8. 136 Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled (1877) included a section entitled ‘the wave-theory discredited’. She cited Robert Hunt (1807-1877), Researches on Light in its Chemical Relations (1844). Blavatsky cited Professor Josiah P. Cooke of Harvard University as saying that he ‘cannot agree . . . . with those who regard the wave-theory of light as an established principle of science’. Finally, Blavatsky cited Pleasanton himself, whom she said had ‘undertaken to combat this antiPythagorean hypothesis’, contradicting the physicist and influential populariser of science, John Tyndall (1820-1893). ‘We leave the theory of Thomas Young, who, according to Tyndall, ‘placed on an immovable basis the undulatory theory of light’, to hold its own if it can, with the Philadelphia experimenter’. Blavatsky also quoted Treatise on Optics (1831) by David Brewster (1781-1868) as concluding that light is material. See Blavatsky, Isis Vol.1, p. 137. But Brewster actually did accept the wave theory, albeit reluctantly. Buchwald, Wave Theory, p. 8. 137 Pike writes: ‘What light is, we no more know than the ancients did. According to the modern hypothesis, it is not composed of luminous particles shot out from the sun with immense velocity; but that body only impresses, on the ether which fills all space, a powerful vibratory movement that extends, in the form of luminous waves, beyond the most distant planets, supplying them with light and heat. To the ancients, it was an outflowing of the Deity. To us, as to them, it is the apt symbol of truth and knowledge. Pike, Morals and Dogmas, p. 76. 138 Egil Asprem has noted the ways in which occultists (including Blavatsky) utilised the concept of the ether in their occult theorisations. Egil Asprem, ‘Pondering Imponderables: Occultism in the Mirror of Late Classical Physics’ in Aries 11 (2011), pp. 129-165 and The Problem of Disenchantment: Scientific Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse, 1900-1939. Leiden 2014. 139 Pancoast, Kabbala, p. 70. 24 Conclusions It was another pioneer of chromotherapy, the Spiritualist and eclectic physician Edwin Dwight Babbitt (1828-1905), who would ultimately disseminate General Pleasonton’s theories about red and blue light more widely in his book Principles of Light & Color (1878). Babbitt was an American Mesmerist who believed everyone radiates coloured energy and that sickness is visible to psychics as an upset in the harmony of this colour field. He drew on and praised Pancoast’s work but concluded that despite the value of Pancoast’s colour theories, ‘the rest of his work will be considered of but little value by most readers, being founded upon the old Kabbalistic mysteries which, having pursued for over thirty years, in connection with experiments of his own, have seemingly blinded him to the far grander discoveries of the present.’140 Considering his distaste for Kabbalah, it is ironic that Babbitt’s ideas were embraced precisely within the kinds of occultist and Theosophical circles that favoured it, influencing the concept of the aura that is practically ubiquitous in New Age thought today.141 Pancoast’s ideas also influenced Theosophy, the fertile breeding ground of modern, postmodern, and New Age religion.142 If Blavatsky was a ‘great-grandmother’ of religion in modern times, then surely Pancoast was one of its ‘great-great-uncles’, albeit one recently discovered through genealogical research. He might have been proud to discover how much his New Age descendants resembled him, sharing his belief in an impending cosmic transformation, advocacy of various alternative healing modalities, psychological interpretations of spirituality, belief in its compatibility with science, and a ‘pick and choose’ attitude to everything. Understanding the multiple overlapping religious and scientific cultures represented in Pancoast’s unique vision of Kabbalah is indispensable in understanding how Kabbalah – and indeed ‘religion’ in general – is conceived today in the post-modern spiritual marketplace. Within Pancoast’s milieu, ideas about positive thinking mingled with Mesmerism, occultism, Theosophy, Spiritualism, the Od-force, Freemasonry, regular and irregular medicine, chromotherapy, the ether, rays and beams of light, various forms of Protestantism, and Kabbalah. These overlaps contributed to the eventual emergence of certain types of ‘self-help’ literature, the association between different colours and the different sephiroth, and the alliance between Kabbalah and alternative health that is almost taken for granted today. Seth Pancoast 140 Edwin Dwight Babbitt, Principles of Light and Color, New York 1878, p. 368. 141 Babbitt influenced the theories of the aura of the prominent second-generation Theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854-1934). Leadbeater’s ideas have been extremely influential in New Age thought. 142 On the influence of Theosophy on New Age thought, see Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought Leiden, New York, Köln 1996. 25 was responsible for developing some of these currents in a unique way and disseminating them in the heterodox and proto-Theosophical environs of late-nineteenth century Philadelphia. Despite the clear affinities between Pancoast’s thought and post-modern Kabbalah, his influence is mostly indirect, although as we saw in the reference to Pancoast by the influential Jewish Kabbalist Michael Laitman, not always so. 26