Thomas Vaughan was a man of rather wide reading, considering his epoch and-so far as one can judge concerning it-his restless, almost vagrant life. His tracts are Anthroposophia Theomagica, Anima Magica Abscondita, Magia Adamica, and Caelum Terrce issued in 1650. These I collected into a single volume in 1888, but it has long since gone out of print. Lumen de Lumine appeared in 1651, Aula Lucis in 1652, and Euphrates, or the Waters of the East, in 1655. The last was edited by Dr W. Wynn Westcott in his series entitled Collectanea Hermetica, and in this case also the edition is now exhausted. Aula Lucis still awaits an editor.
As there is no importance, or indeed any special interest, in the writings of Thomas Vaughan from the standpoint of textual scholarship, and as the present reprint of Lumen de Lumine is designed for students of mystical philosophy, I have thought it desirable to modernise the inchoate orthography and to punctuate in accordance with modern methods. I have further omitted the Latin passages, and, where these have not been translated by Vaughan himself, I have supplied my own renderings.
Like many other works of its period, the original edition was italicised and furnished with capitals after a manner which does not correspond to anything required by the sense of the passages so indicated. There was a time when a special significance was thought to attach to such devices, but this folly is now at a end; and as I conceive that the texts of Thomas Vaughan are strong enough to stand by themselves without adventitious aids which are rightly regarded as illiterate rather than otherwise, these things have been expunged. I should ad that Lumen de Lumine in its first and so far sole edition, is exceedingly rare; and as it is also costly, I believe that I have worked well for those of my school in thus rendering it available.
- ISBN13 9781910216224
- Publish Date 30 June 2021
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Imagier Publishing
- Edition Enhanced edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 129
- Language English