Thomas Vaughan (philosopher)

Thomas Vaughan (17 April 1621 − 27 February 1666) was a Welsh clergyman, philosopher, and alchemist, who wrote in English. He is now remembered for his work in the field of natural magic. He also published under the pseudonym Eugenius Philalethes.

Anthroposophia Theomagica (1650)
(A discourse of the nature of man and his state after death) (full text); (alternative text)
 * Audi Ignis Vocem.


 * The Author to the reader:


 * Look on this life as the Progress of an Essence Royale. The Soul but quits her court to see the country. Heaven hath in it a scene of earth; and had she had bin contented with ideas, she had not travelled beyond the map.
 * Ignorance gave this release the name of death, but properly it is the soul's birth and a charter that makes for her liberty.


 * She hath several ways to break up house, but her best is without a disease. This is her mystical walk, an exit only to return.


 * It is an age of intellectual slaveries; If they meet any thing extraordinary, they prune it with distinctions, or daub it with false glosses,  til it looks like the  traditions of Aristotle. His followers are so confident of his principles they seek not to understand what others speak, but to make others speak what they understand.


 * Now if I should question any sect (for there is no Communion in Christendom) whither these later intimations drive? They can but return me to the first rudiments, or produce some empty pretense of Spirit.


 * Friar Bacon walked in Oxford between two steeples, but he that would have discovered his thoughts, by his steps, had been more his fool than his fellow.


 * The peripateticks when they define the soul or some inferior principle describe it only by outward circumstances, which every child can do, but they state nothing essentially.


 * They dwell altogether in the face, their endeavors are meer titillations, & their acquaintance with Nature is not at the heart.


 * Notwithstanding I acknowledge the schoolmen ingenious: they conceive their principles irregular, and prescribe rules for method, though they want matter.


 * Their philosophy is like a church, that is all discipline, and no doctrine


 * Besides, their Aristotle is a poet in text, his principles are but fancies, and they stand more on our concessions, then his bottom.


 * Hence it is that his followers, notwithstanding the assistance of so many ages, can fetch nothing out of him but notions: And these indeed they use, as he sayeth Lycophron did his epithets, (Non ut Condimentis, sed ut Cibis) not as spices but as food. Their compositions are a meer tympany of terms.


 * It is better then a fight in Quixote, to observe what duels and digladiations they have about him, One will make him  speak sense another non-sense and a third both, Aquinas palps him gently, Scotus makes him  winch and he is taught like an ape to shew several tricks. If we look on his adversaries the least amongst them hath foyld him, but Telesius knocked him in the head, and Campanella hath  quite discomposed him.


 * Aristotle thrives by scuffles and the world cries him up, when truth cries him down.


 * The peripatetics look on God as they do on carpenters, who build with stone and timber, without any infusion of life. But the world which is God's building is full of spirit, quick and living.
 * The earth which is the visible, natural basis of it represents the gross, carnal parts. The element of water answers to the blood, for in it the pulse of the Great World beats: this most men call the flux and reflux, but they know not the true cause of it. The air is the outward refreshing spirit, where this vast creature breathes though invisibly, yet not altogether insensibly.


 * They are things beyond reasoning sensible, practical truths, not mere vagaries and rambles of the brain.


 * I would not have thee look on my endeavors as a design of captivity. I intend not the conquest but the exercise of thy reason, not that, thou should swear allegiance to my dictates but compare my conclusions with Nature and examine their correspondence.


 * Be pleased to consider, that obstinacy enslaves the Soul, and clips the wings which God gave Her for flight, and discovery.
 * If thou wilt not quit thy Aristotle, let not any prejudice hinder thy further search.


 * Great is their number who perhaps had attained to perfection, had they not already thought themselves perfect.


 * This is my advice but how welcome to thee I know not.


 * If thou wilt kick and fling, I shall say with the cardinal: Etiam asinus meus recaldtrat (My ass also kicks up his heels) for I value no man's Censure.


 * It is an age wherein truth is near a miscarriage, and it is enough for me that I have appeared thus far for it, in a day of necessity.


 * When I found out this truth, that man in his original was a branch planted in God and that there was a continual influx from the stock to the Sion, I was much troubled at his corruptions, and wondered his fruits were not correspondent to his root. But when I was told he had tasted of an other tree, my admiration was quickly off, it being my chief care to reduce him to his first simplicity, and separate his mixtures of good & evil.   But his fall had so  bruised him in his best part, that his soul had no knowledge left to study him a cure.  His punishment presently followed his trespass: "all things were hidden and oblivion, the mother of ignorance, entered in."   (Veleta funt omnia, intravitq oblivio mater ignorantie)  P. 1


 * I have now done reader, but how much to my own prejudice, I cannot tell, I am confident this shall not pass without notice... To Conclude: If l have err'd in any thing (and yet I followed the Rules of Creation) I expose it not to the Mercy of Man, but of God who as he is most able so is he most willing to forgive us in the Day of our Accounts
 * I have two admonitions more to the ingenuous, and well-disposed reader. First that he would not slight my endeavors because of my years, which are but few. It is the custom of most men to measure knowledge by the beard, but look thou rather on the Soul, an essence of that Nature, que ad perfectionem suam curricula temporis non defiderat. Secondly, that he would not conclude any thing rashly concerning the subject of this art, for it is a principle not easily apprehended.  p. 69
 * Assay nothing without science, but confine your selves to those bounds, which Nature hath prescribed you. p. 70 (last sentence of the book)

Anima Magica Abscondita (1650)
(A Discourse of the Universall Spirit of Nature, With his strange, abstruse, miraculous Ascent and descent) By Eugenius Philalethes  (full text)


 * Now God defend: what will become of me? I have neither consulted the stars nor their urinals, the Almanacks. A fine fellow to neglect the prophets who are read in England every day. They shall pardon me for this oversight. There is a mystery in their profession they have not so much as heard of... a new heaven fancied on the old earth. Here the twelve apostles have surprised the zodiac and all the saints are ranged on their North and South sides. It were a pretty vanity to preach when St Paul is ascendant, and would not a papist smile to have his pope elected under St Peter? Reader, if I studied these things I would think myself worse employed than the Roman Chaucer was in his Troilus (To the reader)


 * I come out as if there were no hours in the days, nor planets in the hours; Neither do I care for any thing, but that interlude of Perendenga in Michael Cervantes: Let the old Man my Master live, and Christ be with us thus all. Thou wilt wonder now where this drives, Conde de lemos, nor a cardinal to pray for.


 * I pray for the dead, this is, I wish him a fair remembrance, whose labours have deserved it.


 * It happened in exposing my former discourse to censure, (a custom hath strangled many truths in the cradle) that a learned man suggested to me some bad opinion he had of my author, Henricus Cornelius Agrippa.  I ever understood it was not one but many in whose sentiment that miracle suffered.


 * It is the fortune of deep writers to miscarry because of obscurity... inferior wits, when they reflect on higher intellects, leave a mist in their beams. Had he lived in ignorance, as most do, he might have passed hence like the last year's clouds, without any more remembrance. But as I believe the truth a main branch of that end to which I was born, so I hold it my duty to vindicate him from whom I have received it.


 * This is the way I would have thee walk in if thou dost intend to be a solid Christian philosopher. Thou must --- as Agrippa saith --- "live to God and the angels," reject all things which are "contrary to Heaven": otherwise thou canst have no communion with superiors. Lastly, "be single, not solitary." Avoid the multitude --- as well of passions as persons. p.55


 * I would have thee know that every day is a year contracted, that every year is a day extended. Anticipate the year in the day and lose not a day in the year. Make use of indeterminate agents till thou canst find a determinate one. The many may wish well but one only loves. Circumferences spread but centres contract: so superiors dissolve and inferiors coagulate. Stand not long in the sun nor long in the shade. Where extremes meet, there look for complexions.


 * Learn from thy errors to be infallible, from thy misfortunes to be constant. There is nothing stronger than perseverance, for it ends in miracles.


 * Thus, Reader, have I published that knowledge which God gave me "to the fruit of a good conscience." I have not bushelled my light nor buried my talent in the ground. I will now withdraw and leave the stage to the next actor some Peripatetic perhaps, whose sic probo shall serve me for a comedy. I have seen scolds laughed at but never admired: so he that multiplies discourses makes a serious cause ridiculous.


 * Bless'd souls, whose care it was this first to knowAnd thus the mansions of the light attain:How credible to hold that minds like these Transcend both human littleness and vice.If Thou, O Jehovah, my God, wilt enlighten me, darkness shall be made light. p.56

The Magical Writings Of Thomas Vaughan (Eygenius Philalethes) by A. E Waite,  (1888)
(A verbatim reprint of his first four treatises:  Anthrosophia Theomagica, Anima Magica Abscondita, Magia Adamica, and The True Ccelum Terras with...) (full text)


 * The long confusion of Eugenius Philalethes — otherwise Thomas Vaughan — with the anonymous cosmopolite adept, Eirenaeus Philalethes, who is said to have accomplished the Magnum Opus at the age of twenty-two, and to have subsequently wandered over a large portion of the habitable globe, performing astounding transmutations under various names and disguises, has cast so much doubt upon the history  and identity of the Welsh initiate, that it will be best to present  the reader with certain verbatim citations from the chief authority concerning him, which is the Athena of Anthony k Wood.  Preface


 * To the end we might live well, and exercise our charities which was wanting in neither of us, to our power: I employed my self all  her life time in the Acquisition of some naturall secrets, to which I had been disposed from my youth up: and what I now write, and  know of them practically, I attained to in her Dayes, not before in  very truth, nor after: but during the time wee lived together at the Pinner of Wakefield, and though I brought them not to perfection in those deare Dayes, yet were the Gates opened to mee then, and  what I have done since, is but the effect of those principles. I  found them not by my owne witt, or labour, but by God's blessing,  and the Incouragement I received from a most loving, obedient wife,  whom I beseech God to reward in Heaven, for all the Happiness  and Content shee afforded mee. I shall lay them down here in  their order, protesting earnestly, and with a good Conscience, that  they are the very truth, and here I leave them for his use and  Benefit, to whom God in his providence shall direct them. xii  Biographical Preface


 * I had in my hand a very long cane, and at last wee came to a churchyard, and it was the Brightest Day-light, that ever I beheld: when wee were about the middle of the churchyard, I struck upon the ground with my cane at the full length,  and it gave a most shrill reverberating eccho. I turned back to look upon my wife, and shee appeared to mee in green silk downe  to the ground, and much taller, and slenderer then shee was in her life-time, but in her face there was so much glorie, and beautie, that noe Angell in Heaven can have more.   xiv


 * It was the question of Solomon, and it argued the supremacie of his wisedom, “What was best for man to do all the... dayes of his vanitie under the sun?” If I wish my selfe so wise as to know this great affaire of life, it is because you are fit to manage it. I will not advise you to pleasures, to build houses, and plant vineyards, to enlarge your private possessions, or to multiplie your gold and silver. These are old errors, like Vitriol to the Stone, so many false receipts which Solomon hath tried before you, “And behold all was vanitie, Eccie. u. and vexation of spirit.”


 * I have some times seen actions as various as they were great, and my own sullen fate hath forced me to severall courses of life, but I finde not one hitherto which ends not in surfeits or satietie. Let us fansie a man as fortunate as this world can make him; what doth he do but move from bed to board, and provide for the circumstances of those two scenes? To day hee eates and drinkes, then sleeps, that hee may doe the like to morrow.


 * Surely, So sir, this is not the Philosophers’ Stone, neither will I undertake to define it, but give me leave to speak to you in the language of  Zoroaster:  “Seek thou the channel of the Soule.”

Works of Thomas Vaughan: Eugenius Philalethes, by Arthur Edward Waite, (1919)
(full text)


 * The Holy  Spirit, moving  upon  the  chaos — which  action  some  divines  compare  to  the  incubation  of  a  hen  upon  her  eggs,  did  together  with  his  heat  communicate  other  manifold influences to  the  matter.


 * As we  know  the  sun  doth not  only  dispense  heat  but  some  other  secret  influx,  so did  God  also  in  the  creation,  and  from  Him  the  sun  and  all  the  stars  received  what  they  have, for  God  Himself  is  a  supernatural  sun  or  fire,  according  to  that  oracle  of Zoroaster: "That  Architect  Who  built  up  the  cosmos by  His  unaided  power  was  Himself  another  orb  of  fire." (Factor  qui per  se  operans  fabrefecit  mundum, Qucedam  ignis  moles  erat  altera.)


 * He did  therefore  hatch  the  matter  and  bring  out  the secret  essences,  as  a  chick  is  brought  out  of  the  shell,  whence  that  other  position  of  the  same  Zoroaster: "By one  single fire is generated  all  that  is."    Neither  did He  only  generate  them  but  He  also  preserves  them  now,  with  perpetual  efflux  of  heat  and  spirit.


 * That I  should  profess  magic  in  this  discourse  and  justify the  professors  of  it  withal  is  impiety  with  many  but  religion,  with  me.  It  is  a  conscience  that  I  have  learned  from authors  greater  than  myself  and  scriptures  greater  than  both.


 * Magic is  nothing  but  the  wisdom  of  the  Creator  revealed  and  planted  in  the  creature.  It  is  a  name — as  Agrippa  saith  — "not  distasteful  to  the  very  Gospel  itself."


 * Magicians were  the  first  attendants  our  Saviour  met  withal  in  this  world,  and  the  only  philosophers  who  acknowledged  Him  in  the  flesh  before  that  He  Himself discovered  it.  I  find  God conversant  with  them,  as  He  was  formerly  with  the  patriarchs.  He  directs  them  in their  travels  with  a  star,  as  He  did  the  Israelites  with  a pillar  of  fire.  He  informs  them  of future  dangers  in their  dreams  (129)


 * To reconcile this  science  and  the  Masters  of  it  to  the  world  is  an  attempt  more  plausible  than  possible,  the  prejudice  being  so  great  that  neither  reason  nor  authority can balance  it.


 * I have,  Reader — and,  I  suppose,  it  is  not  unknown  to  thee — within  these  few  years,  in  several  little  treatises,  delivered  my  judgment  of  philosophy.  I  say,  of  philosophy, for  alchemy — in  the  common  acceptation,  and as  it  is  a  torture  of  metals — I  did  never  believe:  much less  did  I  study  it.


 * As I ever  disclaimed alchemy  in  the  vulgar  sense,  so  I  thought  fit  to  let  the  alchemists  know  it,  lest — in  the  perusal  of  my  writings — they  should  fix  a  construction  to  some  passages which cannot  suit  with  the  judgment  of  their  author.


 * Hence thou  mayst  see  what  my  conceptions  were,  when  I  began to  write;  and  now  I  must  tell  thee,  they  are  still  the same,  nor  hath  my  long  experience  weakened  them at all, but  invincibly  confirmed  them.


 * It was well  that  I  quitted  it  at  last  and walked  again  into  that  clear  light  which  I  had  foolishly  forsaken.

Quotes about Vaughan

 * The Rosicrucians strove to combine together the most various branches of Occultism, and they soon became renowned for the extreme purity of their lives and their extraordinary  powers, as well as for their thorough knowledge... Later... they gave birth to the more modem Theosophists, at whose head was Paracelsus, and to the Alchemists, one of the most celebrated of whom was Thomas Vaughan (seventeenth century), who wrote the most practical things on Occultism under the name of Eugenius Philalethes. I know and can prove that Vaughan was, most positively,  "made before he became." p. 43
 * H.P. Blavatsky in A Few Questions to “Hiraf”, Spiritual Scientist, (July 15-22, 1875); Also: A Modern Panarion, A Collection of Fugitive Fragments, (several formats), (1895)


 * The words “never” and “impossible” ought to be erased from the dictionary of humanity, until the time at least when the great Cabala shall all be solved, and so rejected or accepted. The “Count St. Germain” is, until this very time, a living mystery; and the Rosicrucian Thomas Vaughan another one. p. 45
 * H.P. Blavatsky in A Few Questions to “Hiraf”, Spiritual Scientist, (July 15-22, 1875); Also: A Modern Panarion, A Collection of Fugitive Fragments, (several formats), (1895)


 * Philalethes, Eugenius. The Rosicrucian name assumed by one Thomas Vaughan, a mediæval English Occultist and Fire Philosopher. He was a great Alchemist.
 * H.P. Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary, (several formats),  (1892)


 * Pythagoras and Plato and Boehme and Paracelsus and Thomas Vaughan were men who bore their lamps amidst their fellowmen in life under a hail of nonunderstanding and abuse. Anyone could approach them, but only a few were able to discern the superearthly radiance behind the earthly face. It is possible to name great Servitors of East and West, North and South. It is possible to peruse their biographies; yet everywhere we feel that the superearthly radiance appears rarely in the course of centuries. One should learn from reality. (175)
 * Morya, Brotherhood (1937)


 * But thou,  admired  Eugenius,  whose  great  arts Shine  above  envy  and  the  common  arts... Shake  off  the  eclipse,  this  dark,  intruding  veil Which  would  force  night  upon  us  and  entail The  same  gross  ignorance — in  whose  shades  he Hath  lost  himself — on  our  posterity. Down,  all  you  stale  impostures,  castles  rear'd <BR>In  th'  air  and  guarded  by  thy  reverend  beard, Brat  of  Nichomachus.<BR>I  will  no  more Bow  to  thy  hoary  handful  nor  adore<BR>Thy  tyrant  text;  but  by  this  dawning  light, <BR>Which  streams  upon  me  through  thy  three-piled  night, <BR>Pass  to  the  East  of  truth,  till  I  may  see <BR>Man's  first  fair  state,  when  sage  simplicity, <BR>The  dove  and  serpent,  innocent  and  wise, <BR>Dwelt  in  his  breast  and  he  in  Paradise. <BR>There  from  the  Tree  of  Knowledge  his  best  boughs <BR>I'll  pluck  a  garland  for  Eugenius'  brows, <BR>Which  to  succeeding  times  fame  shall  bequeathe, <BR>With  this  most  just  applause — Great  Vaughan's  wreath.
 * Works of Thomas Vaughan: Eugenius Philalethes, by Arthur Edward Waite, (Prefixed  to 1919 edition of Vaughan's  The Second Wash or, The moore scour'd once more: being a charitable cure for the distractions of Alazonomastix  by  Eugenius Philalethes;  (several formats),  (1651)


 * He is said to have been buried on March 1 in the church of Albury village by the care and charge of the said Sir Robert Murray... But the letter of Henry Vaughan to John Aubrey says only that his brother died "upon an employment for His Majesty."
 * Arthur Edward Waite, The Works of Thomas Vaughan: Eugenius Philalethes, (1919) Biographical preface, p. xii


 * It seems to follow that we know as much and as little about the passing of Thomas Vaughan as might be expected from his literary importance and repute at that period... His little books could have appealed to a few only, though it may be granted that occult philosophy was a minor fashion of the time. He was satirised by Samuel Butler in his Character of an Hermetic Philosopher and as some say also in Hudibras itself. Among his contemporaries therefore he was not at least unknown... The satire remained in MS. for something like a century. It is certain that Butler intended to depict Vaughan and was acquainted with some of his writings. The Hermetic Philosopher in question "adored" Cornelius Agrippa, magnified the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, was at war with the schoolmen, recommended Sendivogius and the Enchiridion of Jean d'Espagnet to all of which Vaughan answers.
 * Arthur Edward Waite, The Works of Thomas Vaughan: Eugenius Philalethes, (1919) Biographical preface, p. xiii
 * At the beginning of his literary life Thomas Vaughan was influenced deeply by the works of Cornelius Agrippa and especially by The Three Books of Occult Philosophy. He drew much from this source, as any annotations are designed to shew; but the matter of Agrippa suffers a certain transmutation in the alembic of his own mind. The allusion in the text above is to the well-known mystical state of figurative death which is the threshold of union.
 * Arthur Edward Waite, The Works of Thomas Vaughan: Eugenius Philalethes, (1919) Anthroposophia Theomagica(1650) footnote p. 5