A brief sketch of Thomas Vaughan and his work

Originally published in The Chalice, Volume 1, Issue 1, December 1994.

In this issue we will concentrate on the life and work of Thomas Vaughan. Unfortunately, Mr. Vaughan's work has been overshadowed by his near or actual contemporaries, John Dee, Robert Fludd, Francis Bacon, Michael Maier, and Johann Valentin Andreas just to name a few. Vaughan's work reflects a wide range of esoteric scholarship, including magic, theurgy, alchemy and qabalah. Anyone researching the seventeenth century Rosy Cross must not overlook the illumination that was bequeathed us by this great master.

Born in 1612, Vaughan was reported to be a native of Scotland, however, there seems to be little doubt as to his Welsh heritage. This was indeed a very unique period to be born into if one were inclined toward the western mystery traditions. Magic and alchemy were very much alive, and by the time that Vaughan reached manhood, the stories concerning the Rosy Cross were legendary.

Among Vaughan's intellectual achievements we find that he was an adept chemist, experimental alchemist, philosopher, English and Latin poet, author and often accused of being a Rosicrucian. He not only denied being a Rosicrucian, but also expressed no desire to make their acquaintance. He did however, affirm their actual existence and remained one of their greatest apologists. He actually referred to them as a most 'Christian and famous society', and quoted R+C texts frequently, particularly in his earlier works.

There are R+C fraternities alive today that claim to have knowledge of the fact that Vaughan was not only a member, but a very great personage in the development and evolution of the brotherhood.

These unsubstantiated but romantic oral legends also tell us about the work that Vaughan contributed to the fraternity. He supposedly refined the system of 'Christian Qabalah', which is used by the R+C brethren to this day. Vaughan's system held a peculiar method of integrating the Christian Mythos into the tree of life. He is also said to have been an adept in the 'Rite of the forming of the cloud', of which seemed to be quite popular among the 'invisibles' a generation earlier. What we are told was his greatest accomplishment for the R+C was his extension of the work in the field of Paracelsian medicine. This became a very complex system with requirements of long periods of fasting, meditation, prayer and purifications of the would-be alchemical physician. Here again, the Christian qabalah would serve as the archetypal signposts of this discipline, specifically dealing with the ritual and contemplative acts concerning the healing aspects of the messianic sephira of Tiphereth.


Here follows a listing of the principle writings of Thomas Vaughan:

THE FRATERNITY OF THE ROSY CROSS and a short declaration of their physical work.

ANTHROPOSOPHIA THEOMAGICA, or a discourse of the nature of man and his state after death.

ANIMA MAGICA ABSCONDITA, or a discourse of the universal spirit of nature, with his strange abstruse miraculous ascent and descent.

MAGICA ADAMICA, or the antiquite of magic, and the descent thereof Adam downwards proved.

COELUM TERRAE, or the magicians heavenly chaos and first matter of all things.

LUMEN de LUMINE, or a new magical light discovered in the world.

EUPHRATES, OR THE WATERS OF THE EAST; being a short discourse of that great fountain whose water flows from fire, and carries in it the beams of the Sun and Moon. 

Frater loannes Yusef


An extract from the 'Magica Adamica' of Thomas Vaughan

I desire to know what my saviour means by the key of knowledge, which the lawyers had taken away. Questionlesse it cannot signifie the law itself, for that was not taken away, being read in the synagogue every Sabaoth. But to let go this: I am certain, and I could prove it all along from his birth to his passion, that the doctrine of Christ Jesus is not only agreeable to the laws of nature, but is verified and established thereby. When I speak of the laws of nature, I mind not her excessive irregular appetites and inclinations, to which shee hath bin subject since her corruption, for even Galen looked on those obliquities as diseases, but studied nature herself, as their cure. We know by experience that too much of anything weakens and destroys our nature, but if wee live temperately, and according to law, wee are well, because our life accords with nature. Hence diet is a prime rule in physic, far better indeed than the pharmacopoea, for those sluttish recepts doe but oppresse the stomach, being no fit fuel for the coelestiall fire. Believe it then, these excessive bestiall appetites proceeded from our fall, for nature of herself is no lavish insatiable glut, but a most nice delicate essence. This appears by those fits and pangs she is subject to whenever she is overcharged. In common, customarie excesses there is not any, but knows this truth by experience, indeed in spiritual sins, the body is not immediately troubled but the conscience is terrified, and surely the body cannot be very well, when the soul itself is sick. We see then that corruption, and sin do not so much agree with us, as they do disturb us, for in what sense can our enemies be our friends, or those things which destroy nature, be agreeable to nature? How then shall we judge of the gospel? Shall we say that the preservation of man is contrarie to man, and the doctrine of life agrees not with life itself? God forbid: The laws of resurrection are founded upon those of the creation, and those of regeneration upon those of generation, for in all these God works upon one and the same matter, by one and the same Spirit. Now that it is so, I meane that there is a Harmonie between Nature and the Gospel, I will prove out of the Sinic monument of Kim Cin, Priest of Judaea. In the yeare of redemption 1625, there was digg'd up in a village of China call'd Sanxuen, a square stone, being neer ten measures of an hand-breadth long and five broad. In the uppermost part of this stone was figurd a crosse, and underneath it an inscription in Sinic characters, being the title to the monument, which I find thus rendered:

“A stone erected to the praise, and eternal remembrance of the law of light, and truth, brought out of Judaea, and published in China.”


After this followed the body of the monument, being a relation how the gospel of Christ Jesus was brought by one Olo Puen out of Judaea, and afterwards by the assistance of God planted in China. This happened in the yeare of our Lord 636. Kim Cim, the author of this historie, in the very beginning of it, speaks mysteriously of the creation. Then he mentions 365 sorts of sectaries, who suceeded one another, all of them striving who should get most proselyts. Some of their vaine opinions he recites, which indeed are very suitable with the rudiments, and vagaries of the heathen philosophers. Lastly eh describes the professors of Christianitie, with their habit of life, and the excellence of their law.

"It is a hard matter to find a fit name for their law, seeing the effect of it is to illuminate, and fill all with knowledge; It was necessarie therefore to cal it Kmi ki ao, that is, the great law of light."


To be short, Ole Puen was admitted to the court by Tai cum huamti, king of China; here his doctrine was thoroughly searched, and sifted by the king himself, who having found it most true and solid, caused it to be proclaim'd through his dominions. Now upon what this doctrine was founded, and what Aestimat the king had both of it and its professors, we may easily gather from the words of his proclamation. First then where he mentions Olo Puen, he calls him a "man of great virtue and power;" it seems he did something more than prate and preach, he could confirm his doctrine, as the apostles did theirs, not with words only, but with works. Secondly the proclamation speaking of his doctrine runs thus; "the drift of whose teaching, we have examin'd from the very fundamentals, we find his doctrine very excellent, without any worldly noyse, and principally grounded on the Creation of the world." And again in the same place; "His doctrine is but of few words, not full of noyse and notions, neither doth he build his truth on superficial probabilities." Thus we see the Incarnation, and the birth of Christ Jesus (which to the common philosopher are fables and impossibilities, but in the Booke of Nature plaine evident truths) were proved, and demonstrated by the primitive Apostles and teachers out of the creation of the world. But instead of such teachers, we have in these our days two epidemical goblins, a schoole-man, and a saint forsooth. The one swells with a syllogistial pride, the other wears a broad face of revelation. The first cannot tell me why grasse is green: The second with all his devotion knows not A BC, yet pretends he to that infinite Spirit which knows all in all; and truely of them both this last is the worst. Surely the Devill hath been very busie, to put out the candle, for had all written truths been extant, this false learning and hypocrisie could never have prevailed. Kim Cin mentions seven and twenty books which-Christ Jesus left on earth to further the conversion of the world. It may be we have not one of them; for though the books of the new Testament are just so many, yet being all written, at least some of them a long time after Christ, they may not well passe for those Scriptures which this author attributes to the Saviour, even at the time of his ascension. What should I speak of those many books cited in the old testament, but no where to be found, which fi they were now extant, no doubt but they would prove so many reverend, invincible patrons of magic. But ink and paper will perish, for the hand of man hath made nothing eternal. The truth only is incorruptible, and when the letter fails, she shifts that body and lives in the Spirit.

Portrait of Thomas Vaughan by John Prescott Knight, 1852.