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Liber XXV · Secret Societies

Liber XXV · Secret Societies · Chapter IV: Rosicrucianism

Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes): Alchemist and Rosicrucian

Thomas Vaughan, Eugenius Philalethes (1621–1666): Welsh alchemist, his 1652 English Fama and Confessio, his quarrel with Henry More and his philosophy.

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Thomas Vaughan (1621–1666), who wrote under the name Eugenius Philalethes, was a Welsh clergyman, alchemist and Hermetic philosopher, and the twin brother of the poet Henry Vaughan. In 1652 he published The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity of R: C:, the first printed English version of the Rosicrucian manifestos, with a preface of his own. That same year Elias Ashmole issued his Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, and the two books together mark the high point of interest in Rosicrucianism and alchemy in mid-seventeenth-century England.

Life of Thomas Vaughan§

Thomas and Henry Vaughan were born in 1621 at Newton, in the parish of Llansantffraed in Brecknockshire, in the Usk valley of south Wales. Both went to Oxford, Thomas to Jesus College, where he took his degree and was ordained. He became rector of his home parish, but as a royalist he was caught up in the Civil War, and around 1650 he was ejected from his living under the Puritan commission for propagating the gospel in Wales, which removed many clergy accused of royalism or unfitness.

He then lived mostly in London and Oxford, devoting himself to writing and to laboratory work. In 1651 he married Rebecca, whose surname is uncertain, and the couple worked together on alchemical experiments. After her death in 1658 he recorded dreams of her, together with chemical recipes and processes, in a private notebook titled Aqua Vitae: Non Vitis, now in the British Library. In his last years he enjoyed the patronage of the Scottish courtier and natural philosopher Sir Robert Moray, one of the founders of the Royal Society and himself an early Freemason. When the court left London during the plague, Vaughan was at Albury near Oxford, where he died on 27 February 1666. The antiquary Anthony Wood reported that he died suddenly while working with mercury, some of which rose into his nose.

The Writings of Eugenius Philalethes§

Vaughan's books are short, vigorous and often combative. In 1650 he published Anthroposophia Theomagica, on the nature of man and his state after death, together with Anima Magica Abscondita, on the hidden soul of the world. Magia Adamica (1650) argued that true magic was the ancient wisdom given to Adam and preserved by the patriarchs and the wise of every nation, an idea close to the Renaissance belief in a prisca theologia. Coelum Terrae (1650), Lumen de Lumine (1651) and Euphrates, or the Waters of the East (1655) develop his account of the first matter of the alchemists, which he describes in strongly religious and visionary language.

His sources were the Hermetic writings, Neoplatonism, the Kabbalah as read by Christian authors, Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Paracelsus and the German mystical alchemists. He dismissed scholastic Aristotelianism and the new mechanical philosophy alike as dead learning, insisting that nature is alive, filled with a hidden spirit, and that knowledge of it is inseparable from knowledge of God. "Magic", in his usage, meant this sacred natural philosophy, not the conjuring of spirits.

Not to be confused with Eirenaeus Philalethes§

Vaughan's pen name has often caused confusion with "Eirenaeus Philalethes", the author of Introitus apertus and other famous alchemical works of the 1650s and 1660s. Modern research, especially by William Newman, has shown that Eirenaeus was a persona created by the American-born chemist George Starkey. The two writers were contemporaries in London, but they were different men with quite different approaches to alchemy.

The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity of R: C: (1652)§

In 1652 Vaughan published The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity of R: C: Commonly, of the Rosie Cross, the first printed English version of the Fama Fraternitatis and the Confessio Fraternitatis. In his preface he indicated that the translation was not his own but had come to him from another, unnamed hand. Scholars accept this: the English text appears to derive from an early version of the Fama and to have circulated in manuscript before Vaughan printed it, and other manuscript translations of the period are known.

Vaughan's preface is cautious and personal. He disclaimed any personal connection with the brotherhood and did not claim to know its members, but he defended the manifestos' ideals: the union of piety with natural knowledge, the healing of the sick without reward and the contempt for vulgar gold-making. The book also contained a short declaration on the brothers' "physical work". Its publication made the Rosicrucian story directly available to English readers who did not read German or Latin, and later English Rosicrucian writing, from John Heydon in the 1660s to the Victorian revival, drew on it. The story of the movement is told in our guide to Rosicrucianism.

1652: Ashmole's Theatrum and the English Hermetic Moment§

The appearance of Vaughan's Fame and Confession in the same year as Elias Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum was not a coincidence of taste alone. The years of the Commonwealth, with censorship loosened and the universities in turmoil, saw a flood of English publications on alchemy, astrology, Paracelsian medicine and mystical theology. Translators issued Boehme, Paracelsus and Agrippa in English, and reformers around Samuel Hartlib dreamed of a universal reformation of learning that echoed Rosicrucian hopes.

Ashmole's anthology gathered the native tradition of English alchemical verse, with Norton, Ripley and the poems attributed to Chaucer, while Vaughan's book imported the continental Rosicrucian legend. Both men framed alchemy as a pious science, and both distinguished true philosophers from "puffers" seeking gold. Neither belonged, so far as anyone can show, to a Rosicrucian society, but together they established the English vocabulary in which the Rosy Cross would be discussed for two centuries.

The Quarrel with Henry More§

Vaughan's Anthroposophia Theomagica provoked the Cambridge Platonist Henry More, who answered in 1650 with Observations published under the name Alazonomastix Philalethes, "the truth-loving scourge of the boaster". Vaughan replied with The Man-Mouse Taken in a Trap; More answered with The Second Lash, and Vaughan with The Second Wash, or the Moore Scoured Once More (1651). The exchanges are full of personal abuse on both sides, but they also reveal a serious disagreement.

More was himself a Platonist who believed in spirits and the immortality of the soul, yet he regarded Vaughan's visionary language as "enthusiasm", a dangerous claim to private inspiration that bypassed reason and could feed religious fanaticism. Vaughan in turn saw More as a timid academic who would not follow philosophy to its source in experience. Historians treat the debate as an early episode in the long separation of rational theology from the Hermetic and magical traditions in English thought, a theme explored more widely in our article on occultism and science.

Vaughan's Later Reputation§

Vaughan was largely forgotten after his death, apart from occasional mentions in the history of alchemy. The nineteenth-century occult revival rediscovered him. Arthur Edward Waite edited his Magical Writings in 1888 and his collected works in 1919, and members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn read him as a native English adept. Literary scholars, meanwhile, studied him alongside his twin, whose religious poetry shares some of the same Hermetic imagery. A critical edition of his works by Alan Rudrum appeared in 1984, and Donald R. Dickson has studied his notebook and his place in seventeenth-century utopian and Rosicrucian circles.

Frequently asked questions§

Who was Eugenius Philalethes?§

Eugenius Philalethes, meaning roughly "well-born lover of truth", was the pen name of Thomas Vaughan (1621–1666), a Welsh clergyman and alchemist. He should not be confused with Eirenaeus Philalethes, the persona of the chemist George Starkey.

Did Thomas Vaughan translate the Rosicrucian manifestos?§

Vaughan published the first printed English edition of the Fama and Confessio in 1652, but in his preface he indicated that the translation came from another, unnamed hand. Scholars agree that he edited and introduced an existing manuscript translation rather than making it himself.

Was Thomas Vaughan a Rosicrucian?§

He disclaimed any personal connection with the brothers, though he admired the ideals of the manifestos. There is no evidence that he belonged to any Rosicrucian society.

How did Thomas Vaughan die?§

He died at Albury in Oxfordshire on 27 February 1666. Anthony Wood reported that he died suddenly while working with mercury, apparently from inhaling its fumes during an experiment.

Sources and further reading§