Part 9

The following list of Vaughan's admitted prose treatises is mainly taken from Dr. Grosart:--Anthroposophia Theomagica (1650); Anima Magica Abscondita (1650); Magia Adamica with the Coelum Terrae (1650); The Man-Mouse taken in a Trap (1650); The Second Wash; or, the Moor scoured once more (1651) [These two are polemics against Henry More]; Lumen de Lumine, with the Aphorismi Magici Eugeniani (1651); The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity of R:C: (1653); Aula Lucis (1652); Euphrates (1655); Nollius' Chymist's Key (1657); A Brief Natural History (1669); [Wood ascribes this to another writer, as it was not in the list furnished him by Henry Vaughan].--Henry More's pamphlets against Vaughan are the Observations upon Anthroposophia Theomagica and Anima Magica Abscondita (1650), issued under the name of Alazonomastix Philalethes and The Second Lash of Alazonomastix (1651).

Walker falls into the curious confusion of supposing that there were two Thomas Vaughans, one rector of Llansantffread, the other of Newton St. Bridget. But "St. Bridget" is only the English form of the Welsh "Santffread."

Printed from the Rawl. MSS. in Thurloe's State Papers, ii. 120.

Is this the inn of that name once in the Gray's Inn Road? (Cunningham and Wheatley, Handbook to London.)

The Rev. Henry Howlett has kindly sent me the following extract from the registers of Meppershall:--

"1658. Buried. Rebecka, the Wife of Mr. Vahanne the 26th of Aprill."

An entire literature has grown up in Paris during the last year around the question whether the cultus of Lucifer is practised in certain Masonic Lodges. A number of Catholic journalists and pamphleteers assert very categorically that this is the case, that the centre of this cultus, containing the full Luciferian initiates, is the 33^rd^ degree of a so-called New and Reformed Palladian Rite, having its head-quarters at Charlestown, and that the chiefs of this Rite have obtained a controlling influence over the whole of Freemasonry. The creed is described as Manichaean in character, with Lucifer as Dieu-Bon and Adonai, the God of the Catholics, as Dieu-Mauvais. Adonai is the principle of asceticism, Lucifer of natural humanity and la joie de vivre. The rituals and the accepted interpretation of the Masonic symbolism used in the lodges, or "triangles," are of a phallic type. Women are admitted to membership. Immorality, a parody of the Eucharist, known as the black mass, and the practice of black magic, take place at the meetings. Lucifer is worshipped in the form of Baphomet, but from time to time he is personally evoked, and manifested to his followers. Luciferianism tends to become identical with Satanism, in which Lucifer and Satan are identified and frankly worshipped as evil. The first mention of Luciferian Freemasonry was in the Y-a-t-il des Femmes dans la Franc Maçonnerie? (1891), of the somewhat notorious Leo Taxil. But the case rests mainly on the alleged revelations of writers who claim to have themselves been members of the Palladian Rite. The chief of these are Dr. Hacke or Bataille, Signor Margiotta and Miss Diana Vaughan. Unfortunately very little evidence is forthcoming as to the identity of any of these personages. Many leading Masons, e.g., M. Papus in his Le Diable et l'Occultisme, deny that Luciferian Freemasonry exists at all, and it is freely stated (cf. Light for 27 June and 4 July, 1896, pp. 305, 322) that Miss Diana Vaughan is a myth, and that her Mémoires with the rest of the revelations are the ingenious concoction of a band of irresponsible journalists of whom Leo Taxil is the chief. No one appears to have seen Miss Vaughan, and she is alleged to be hiding in some convent from the vengeance of the Luciferians. Probably there will be some further light thrown on the matter before long: in the meantime a good summary of the evidence up-to-date may be found in A. E. Waite's Devil-Worship in France (1896). Assuming that Luciferianism really exists, I do not for a moment believe that it has the antiquity which Miss Vaughan claims for it. The various Rites of modern Freemasonry, with their fantastic and high-sounding degrees, are comparatively recent excrescences upon the original Craft Masonry. The New and Reformed Palladian Rite is said to have been founded at Charlestown by the well-known Mason, Albert Pike, in 1870. It is based on the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, which dates from the beginning of the century. If there is such a thing as Luciferianism, I do not think we need look further back than 1870 for its origin. As expounded by Miss Vaughan and others, it is pretty clearly a compilation from Eliphaz Levi and other occultist and Cabbalistic writers, with a good deal of modern American Spiritualism thrown in. Albert Pike, a man of considerable learning, could easily have invented it. Masonic symbolism lends itself readily enough to a wide range of interpretations. I do not say that seventeenth-century occultism has left no traces upon Freemasonry which modern ritual-mongers may have elaborated; but it is a far cry from this to the belief that Thomas Vaughan and Luther were Manichaean worshippers of Lucifer and Protestantism an organized warfare on Adonai.

Miss Vaughan quotes from Allibone's History of English Literature. Allibone only repeats Anthony à Wood's account.

Robert Vaughan belonged to quite a different branch from the Vaughans of Newton: and, as Sl. MS. 1741 shows, the father of Henry and Thomas Vaughan did not die until 1658.

Miss Vaughan gives an elaborate account of the Rosicrucians and of their famous manifestoes, which I have no room to reproduce.

Miss Vaughan states that Thomas Vaughan signed "not Eugenius Philalethes, but Eirenaeus Philalethes" (p. 114). But she ascribes to him the Anthroposophia Theomagica and other writings which are signed, though she does not mention it, Eugenius Philalethes (p. 211). She quotes from Anthony à Wood the assertion, which he does not make, that the English translations of the Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis (1652) and of Maier's Themis Aurea (1656) both bear the name of Eugenius, and were by another Thomas Vaughan! The manuscripts of both are, she says, signed Eirenaeus (p. 163). What Wood says is that he has seen a translation of Maier's tract, dedicated to Elias Ashmole by [N. L.]/[T. S.] H. S., and that Ashmole has forgotten whose the initials are. He does not suggest that this translation is by a Thomas Vaughan. (Ath. Oxon., iii. 724.)

This episode has previously done duty in the Vingt Ans Après (vol. iii., ch. 8-10), of Alexandre Dumas, in which Mordaunt acts as the executioner of Charles. There is a Latin poem amongst Vaughan's remains in Thalia Rediviva entitled Epitaphium Gulielmi Laud Episcopi Cantuariensis, full of sorrow for the archbishop's death.

Miss Vaughan refers to Lenglet-Dufresnoy's Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique as an authority on Starkey's relations with Eirenaeus Philalethes. Lenglet-Dufresnoy probably took his account from The Marrow of Alchemy (1654-5). The prefaces to this are signed with anagrams of George Starkey's name. But he ascribes the poem to a friend, who is called in the Breve Manuductorium ad Campum Sophiae Agricola Rhomaeus. Perhaps Starkey himself was the real author. The title-page has the name Eirenaeus Philoponus Philalethes, apparently a distinct designation from that of Eirenaeus Philalethes.

The Medulla Alchemiae (1664) is only a Latin translation of the Marrow of Alchemy (1654-5) of Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes.

The actual name of the tract is Ripley Revived.

The Thalia Rediviva was actually published in 1678, not 1679.

Miss Vaughan has herself witnessed this, in the presence of Lucifer. Moreover, the spirit of Philalethes has appeared, and conversed with her (pp. 257-267).

Miss Vaughan refers to several family documents, but does not offer them for inspection. They include (a) the will of her grandfather James, enumerating the proofs of his descent (p. 111); (b) the autobiographical Memoirs of Philalethes, from which Miss Vaughan quotes largely (pp. 174, 240); (c) a letter from Fludd to Andreae (pp. 114, 149); (d) a MS. of the Introitus Apertus, of which the margin has been covered by Vaughan with a comment for Luciferian initiates (pp. 111, 217, 225); (e) a letter from Andreae in the archives of the Sovereign Patriarchal Council of Hamburg (p. 197); (f) Henry Vaughan's account of his brother's disappearance in the archives of the Supreme Dogmatic Directory of Charleston (p. 114); (g) Masonic rituals in the archives of Masonic chapters at Bristol and Gibraltar (p. 200); (h) Rosicrucian rituals drawn up by one Nick Stone in the hands of Dr. W. W. W[estcott] of London (p. 141). The documents in Masonic hands are presumably, like the Valetta talisman, now out of Miss Vaughan's reach. A communication signed Q. V. in Light for May 16, 1896, denies, on Dr. Westcott's authority, that his rituals have anything to do with Nick Stone, or that Miss Vaughan ever saw them. Dr. Westcott is the head of the modern Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. This body does not even pretend to be the Fraternity of R. C. Finally, there is (i) Thomas Vaughan's original pact with Lucifer, now, according to Miss Vaughan, in holy hands, and to be destroyed on the day she takes the veil.

Miss Vaughan somewhat naïvely gives us a lead. After describing Thomas Vaughan's sojourn with Venus-Astarte among the Lenni-Lennaps, she adds: "This legend is not accepted by all the Elect Mages; there are those who regard it as fabricated by my grandfather James of Boston, who was, they believe, of Delaware origin, or, at any rate, a half-breed; and they even assert that, in the desire to Anglicize himself, he invented an entirely false genealogy, by way of justifying his change of the Lennap name Waghan into Vaughan. Herein the opponents of the Luciferian legend of Thomas Vaughan go too far" (p. 181).

I have already pointed out that Miss Vaughan is quite possibly a myth. But, if she exists, I do not see any reason to suppose that she personally invented the "legend of Philalethes." It lies between Leo Taxil and his friends in 1895, and the alleged founders of Palladism in or about 1870, that is Albert Pike and Miss Vaughan's father and uncle. And, so far as it goes, the ignorance shown in the legend of all books published in the last twenty years is evidence for the earlier date, and therefore, to some extent, for the actual existence of Luciferianism.

Cf. A. E. Waite, Real History of the Rosicrucians, p. 274.

The principal writings ascribed to Eirenaeus Philalethes are Introitus Apertus in Occlusum Regis Palatium (1667), Tres Tractatus (1668), Experimenta de Praeparatione Mercurii Sophici (1668), Ripley Revived (1678), Enarratio Trium Gebri Medicinarum (1678). The works of Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes (George Starkey?) are often attributed to him in error. The B. M. Catalogue, s.vv. Philaletha, Philalethes, is a mass of confusions. Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique (iii. 261-266), gives a long list of printed and manuscript works. Most of these he had probably never seen. He probably took many items in his list from one in J. M. Faust's edition of the Introitus Apertus (Frankfort, 1706); and this, in its turn, was based on what Eirenaeus Philalethes himself says he has written in the preface to Ripley Revived. He there says, after naming other works: "Two English Poems I wrote, declaring the whole secret, which are lost. Also an Enchiridion of Experiments, together with a Diurnal of Meditations, in which were many Philosophical receipts, declaring the whole secret, with an Aenigma annexed; which also fell into such hands which I conceive will never restore it. This last was written in English." Can this Enchiridion and Diurnal be Sl. MS. 1741? I find no "Aenigma." Can Starkey have stolen the poems and published them as the Marrow of Alchemy?

The preface to Ripley Revived makes it clear that the Introitus Apertus was originally written in Latin, not in English.

This is recorded in Helvetius' Vitulus Aureus (1667). Helvetius describes his master as 43 or 44 years old, and calls him Elias Artistes.

See the passage from the Epistle to Euphrates, quoted by Grosart (Vol. ii., p. 312).

The "legend of Philalethes" has already been exposed by Mr. A. E. Waite in his Devil Worship in France (ch. xiii.). I am also indebted to what Mr. Waite has written on Eirenaeus Philalethes in that book, as well as in his True History of the Rosicrucians (1887) and his Lives of Alchymistical Philosophers (1888).

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HENRY VAUGHAN'S WORKS.

(1)