Thomas Vaughan (philosopher)

"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."

"Audi Ignis Vocem."

"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"

"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"

"Philalethes, Eugenius. The Rosicrucian name assumed by one Thomas Vaughan, a mediæval English Occultist and Fire Philosopher. He was a great Alchemist."

"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)"

"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 In th' air and guarded by thy reverend beard, Brat of Nichomachus. I will no more Bow to thy hoary handful nor adore Thy tyrant text; but by this dawning light, Which streams upon me through thy three-piled night, Pass to the East of truth, till I may see Man's first fair state, when sage simplicity, The dove and serpent, innocent and wise, Dwelt in his breast and he in Paradise. There from the Tree of Knowledge his best boughs I'll pluck a garland for Eugenius' brows, Which to succeeding times fame shall bequeathe, With this most just applause — Great Vaughan's wreath."

"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.""

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

"The Author to the reader:"