Thomas Vaughan (17 April 1621 − 27 February 1666) was a Welshclergyman,philosopher, andalchemist, who wrote in English. He is now remembered for his work in the field ofnatural magic. He also published under the pseudonymEugenius Philalethes.
His influences includedJohannes Trithemius (1462–1516),Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535),Michael Sendivogius (1566–1636), andRosicrucianism (early 17th century).
ARoyalist clergyman fromBrecon,Wales, Thomas was the twin brother of the poetHenry Vaughan,[1][2] both being born atNewton, in the parish of St. Bridget's, in 1621.[3] He enteredJesus College, Oxford, in 1638, and remained there for a decade during theEnglish Civil War.
Vaughan took part in theBattle of Rowton Heath in 1645.[4] Although still based in Oxford, he became Rector ofLlansantffraed (St Bridget), Wales, in 1640 and took up medical studies, motivated by the lack of doctors there. In 1650, however, Vaughan was evicted from the parish for his Royalist sympathies and alleged drunkenness.[5]
Vaughan later became involved in a plan withThomas Henshaw andRobert Child to form a chemical club, with a laboratory and library, the main aim being to translate and collect chemical works.[6] He married his wife Rebecca Archer in 1651[7] and spent the next period of his life in London. After her death in 1658, he re-dedicated their research notebook, now in the British Library (MS, Sloane 1741).[8]
In 1661, Vaughan fell out with an alchemical collaborator, Edward Bolnest, over money matters and alleged broken promises, and the matter came to litigation after Bolnest had threatened violence.[9] Vaughan was accused as part of this affair of spending "most of his time in the study of Naturall Philosophy and Chimicall Phisick". He is reported as having confessed that he had "long sought and long missed... thephilosopher's stone."
Afterthe Restoration, he found a patron in SirRobert Moray, with whom he fled from London to Oxford during theplague of 1665.[10]
Vaughan died at the house ofSamuel Kem, atAlbury, Oxfordshire.[9]
Although he did not practice medicine, Vaughan sought to apply his chemical skills to preparing medicines in the manner recommended byParacelsus. He corresponded withSamuel Hartlib, who by 1650 was paying attention to Vaughan as author,[11] and established a reputation with his bookAnthroposophia Theomagica, amagico-mystical work. Vaughan was the author of tracts published under the pseudonym Eugenius Philalethes, as is now generally agreed.
Vaughan was unusual amongst alchemists of the time[12] in that he worked closely with his wife Rebecca Vaughan. He was a self-described member of the "Society of Unknown Philosophers", and was responsible for translating into English in 1652 theFama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis, an anonymousRosicrucian manifesto first published in 1614 inKassel, Germany.
Vaughan quarrelled in print withHenry More.[13] Their pamphlet war petered out, but More returned to the subject of alchemists inEnthusiasmus Triumphatus (1656).[14] Another critic of Vaughan wasJohn Gaule.[9]
Allen G. Debus has written that a simple explanation of Vaughan's natural philosophy, in its mature form, is as theDe occulta ofCornelius Agrippa, in an exposition coming via the views ofMichael Sendivogius.[15] As a writer in the school of Sendivogius, Vaughan followsJacques de Nuisement andAndreas Orthelius.[16] He placed himself in the tradition of the Rosicrucian reformers of education, and ofJohannes Trithemius, his teacher Libanius Gallus, and Pelagius of Majorca, teacher of Libanius (of whom the last two are not known to have been real people apart from what Trithemius relates of them).[17][18]
According to some writers of catalogues of hermetic and alchemical treatises (such as John Ferguson, Denis Ian Duveen,Vinci Verginelli et al.), Thomas Vaughan could be the anonymous author of the treatiseReconditorium ac Reclusorium Opulentiae Sapientiaeque Numinis Mundi Magni, cui deditur in titulum CHYMICA VANNUS... Amstelodami... Anno 1666, i. e. a mysterious masterpiece of the hermetic tradition.[19]
In 1896 Vaughan was the subject of a hoax making alleged revelations as to the practice ofdevil-worship by the initiates offreemasonry, and that Thomas had helped to found freemasonry as a Satanic society.Leo Taxil, a Parisian journalist,[10] was eventually revealed as the perpetrator of what is now called theTaxil hoax.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chambers, Edmund Kerchever (1911). "Vaughan, Thomas". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 956.
