Sources and Editorial Credits

1650: Governing Transcription

Vaughan, Thomas, writing as Eugenius Philalethes. Magia Adamica, or The Antiquitie of Magic, with its Descent from Adam Downwards Proved. London: T. W. for H. Blunden, 1650. Includes Coelum Terrae, or The Magician’s Heavenly Chaos. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership, A64768.0001.001; EEBO115898; Wing V151; ESTC R203905. The machine-readable transcription supplies the governing 1650 text and its structural record, including the printed corrections. Its two untranscribed Greek forms in the page-70 instruction are restored from the contemporary errata leaf described below. University of Michigan: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A64768.0001.001 . TCP XML: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/textcreationpartnership/A64768/master/A64768.xml .

The TCP transcription is provided under the CC0 public-domain dedication: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ . Credit belongs to the Text Creation Partnership and the institutions responsible for its production and preservation. The present edition’s modern reading and editorial contributions are separately prepared.

1650: The Imperfect Getty Copy

Vaughan, Thomas. Magia Adamica, 1650. Getty Research Institute copy, Internet Archive identifier magiaadamicaoran00vaug; call number372004; ARK ark:/13960/t7fr0pk07. https://archive.org/details/magiaadamicaoran00vaug . Its native page images support the reading of the surviving leaves. Its absent errata leaf is supplied from the separate contemporary witness described below. The copy is imperfect, and the bound volume also includes separate Man-Mouse material. The absence of Magia’s title leaf is not repaired by treating that other title as its own.

1650: Recovered Shared Errata

Vaughan, Thomas. The Man-Mouse Taken in a Trap. London, 1650. Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica / Embassy of the Free Mind copy, digitised by that library and made available through Source Library. The unnumbered shared correction leaf follows the title leaf and its blank verso; it is reader image 4. The native image supplies both Greek forms omitted by TCP and permits correction of other transcription errors. https://sourcelibrary.org/book/the-man-mouse-taken-in-a-trap-vaughan/page/698192a58932e24fc7671636 . The present reading is made from the historical image, independently checked; Source Library’s automated transcription and translation do not govern it.

1656: Supplementary Issue Witness

Vaughan, Thomas. Magia Adamica; or, The Antiquitie of Magic. London: printed for John Allen, at the Rising Sun in Paul’s Churchyard, 1656. Internet Archive microfilm digitisation, identifier bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_magia-adamica-or-the-an_vaughan-thomas_1656; collection catalogue number V152; ARK ark:/13960/s2mgfp2m51f. https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_magia-adamica-or-the-an_vaughan-thomas_1656 . Used as a supplementary witness for absent or defective material, including the title’s Greek motto. The changed title and imprint are distinguished from the governing 1650 publication. This issue does not include the shared errata, supplied here from the 1650 witness.

1888: A Comparison Witness

Vaughan, Thomas. The Magical Writings of Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes). Edited by Arthur Edward Waite. London: George Redway, 1888. Wellcome Collection, catalogue work dr6u75bj, digitised copy b24868279. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/dr6u75bj . Where consulted for the appended Coelum Terrae, this is a later comparison witness. Its wording and editorial choices do not govern the present 1650 reading.

Editorial Work and Limits

The present edition supplies modern English, fresh translations of embedded foreign passages, passage notes and the supporting study material. Its source inventory records included units and their witnesses. The apparatus interprets Vaughan’s claims without independently authenticating every ancient attribution, reported monument, historical medical assertion or alleged line of transmission. The poems and the descriptions of images remain in their historical forms; no newly imagined image is presented as a plate belonging to the original publication.