Spiritual Teachers

"If any error have been committed, or any thing hath been spoken more freely, pardon my youth, for I wrote this being scarce a young man, that I may excuse myself, and say, whilst I was a child I spake as a child, and I understood as a child, but being become a man, I retracted those things which I did being a boy, and in my book of the vanity and uncertainty of Sciences I did, for the most part, retract this book But here, haply, you may blame me again, saying, "Behold, thou, being a youth, didst write, and now, being old, hast retracted it; what, therefore, hast thou set forth? " I confess, whilst I was very young, I set upon the writing- of these books, but, hoping that I should set them forth with corrections and enlargements— and for that cause I gave them to Trithemius, a Neapolitanian Abbot... a man very industrious after secret things. But it happened afterwards that, the work being intercepted, before I finished it, it was carried about imperfect and impolished, and did fly abroad in Italy, in France, in Germany, through many men's hands; and some men, whether more impatiently or imprudently I know not, would have put it thus imperfect to the press, with which mischief, I, being affected, determined to set it forth myself, thinking that there might be less danger if these books came out of my hands with some amendments than to come forth, torn and in fragments, out of other men's hands."

"I confess that Magic teacheth many superfluous things, and curious prodigies for ostentation; leave them as empty things, yet be not ignorant of their causes. But those things which are for the profit of men — for the turning away of evil events, for the destroying of sorceries, for the curing of diseases, for the exterminating of phantasms, for the preserving of life, honor, or fortune—may be done without offense to God or injury to religion, because they are, as profitable, so necessary."

"Moreover, I thought it no crime if I should not suffer the testimony of my youth to perish! Also, we have added some chapters and inserted many things which did seem unfit to pass by, which the curious reader shall be able to understand by the inequality of the very phrase, for we were unwilling to begin the work anew and to unravel all that we had done, but to correct it and put some flourish upon it. Wherefore, I pray thee, courteous reader, weigh not these things according to the present time of setting them forth, but pardon my curious youth if thou find any thing in them that may displease thee."

"Neither let the consideration of idle, vain fellows withdraw you from your purpose; I say of them, of whom it is said, " The wearied ox treads hard, " whereas no man, to the judgment of the wise, can be truly learned who is sworn to the rudiments of one only faculty... Yet this one rule I advise you to observe that you communicate vulgar secrets to vulgar friends, but higher and secret to higher and secret friends only: Give hay to an ox, sugar to a parrot only. Understand my meaning, lest you be trod under the oxen's feet, as oftentimes it falls out."

"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."

"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."

"Cornelius Agrippa to the reader"

"I do not doubt but the title of our book of Occult Philosophy, or of Magic, may by the rarity of it allure many to read it, amongst which, some of a disordered judgment and some that are perverse will come to hear what I can say, who, by their rash ignorance, may take the name of Magic in the worse sense and, though scarce having seen the title, cry out that I teach forbidden Arts, sow the seed of heresies, offend the pious, and scandalize excellent wits; that I am a sorcerer, and superstitious and devilish, who indeed am a Magician: to whom I answer, that a Magician doth not, amongst learned men, signify a sorcerer or one that is superstitious or devilish;' but a wise man, a priest, a prophet that the Sybils were Magicianesses, and therefore prophesied most clearly of Christ; and that Magicians, as wise men, by the wonderful secrets of the world, knew Christ, the author of the world, to be born, and came first of all to worship him; and that the name of Magic was received by philosophers, commended by divines, and is not unacceptable to the Gospel."

"The supercilious censors will object against the Sybils, holy Magicians and the Gospel itself sooner than receive the name of Magic into favor. So conscientious are they that neither Apollo nor all the Muses, nor an angel from heaven can redeem me from their curse. Whom therefore I advise that they read not our writings, nor understand them, nor remember them. For they are pernicious and full of poison; the gate of Acheron is in this book; it speaks stones—let them take heed that it beat not out their brains. But you that come without prejudice to read it, if you have so much discretion of prudence as bees have in gathering- honey, read securely, and believe that you shall receive no little profit, and much pleasure; but if you shall find any things that may not please you, let them alone and make no use of them, for I do not approve of them, but declare them to you. But do not refuse other things, for they that look into the books of physicians do, together with antidotes and medicines, read also of poisons,"

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

"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."

"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."

"Assay nothing without science, but confine your selves to those bounds, which Nature hath prescribed you. p. 70 (last sentence of the book)"

"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"

"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)"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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"

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

"If thou wilt not quit thy Aristotle, let not any prejudice hinder thy further search."

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

"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"

"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"

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"Be pleased to consider, that obstinacy enslaves the Soul, and clips the wings which God gave Her for flight, and discovery."

"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."

"The Author to the reader:"

"Audi Ignis Vocem."

"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."

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

"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."

"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.""

"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)"

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