Magia Adamica

Light

A central term joining intelligibility, divine communication and the life of nature. It appears in the account of religious signs, the diminution associated with the Fall and the later relation of heat and life. Its religious and natural uses need to be read together. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Magic

The wisdom Vaughan says the Creator implanted in creatures and communicated to human beings. He defends this selected meaning against the association of magic with charms or illicit conjuring. The definition is his argument’s starting commitment, rather than an unrestricted description of historical practices. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Malcuth

The invisible archetypal moon in Vaughan’s received cabalistic account, bearing the name of the kingdom. Its loss of relation to the tree helps express the Fall’s effect upon the lower world. The explanation belongs to his Christian appropriation of these materials. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Mercury

A many-layered name in the alchemical testimony. In Coelum it concerns a subtle, generative subject and its origins, rather than simply naming the ordinary metallic substance. Context and the author’s exclusions must govern interpretation. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Name and Thing

A distinction between a word or representation and the reality it signifies. Vaughan uses it to test cabalistic learning; the same problem recurs when the appended treatise warns against knowing descriptions without knowing their subject. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Natural Bath

Balneum naturae: the bath Vaughan distinguishes from an artificially contrived bath or ordinary fire. The phrase points to a proper natural agency and condition, while leaving important details undisclosed. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Nature

At different points the created order, its powers of generation and a personified speaker or beloved. Vaughan’s personifications can sustain spiritual interpretation while continuing to make claims about bodies, causes and change. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Reduction

A bringing back of a body towards a more general or spermatic condition. In Vaughan’s argument it is not equivalent to any arbitrary distillation or mechanical separation. He insists upon the composition of the relevant principles. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Regeneration

Renewal or a new birth. Vaughan relates it to generation through matter and spirit, allowing physical and theological senses to meet. The relation does not itself establish a modern therapeutic or biological claim. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Salt

A material and symbolic term which appears among religious signs and in descriptions of the subject. Coelum explicitly distinguishes its soft salt from common extracted salts and salts made by an operator. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Secrecy

The deliberate restriction of disclosure. Vaughan links it to the transmission of wisdom, the fitness of readers and responsibility before God. The quoted oath and express refusals are historical parts of the complete text. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Signature

A created mark or correspondence through which a deeper order may be recognised. Vaughan relates natural signs to teaching and revelation, while distinguishing such created relations from the supernatural Trinity itself. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Soul

The principle of life and an object of religious care, not a single fixed technical label in every passage. The Henshaw dedication asks where the human soul can rest; the stone’s verse later speaks of souls through a deliberately personified natural subject. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Spermalogy

Vaughan’s language for a teaching about seeds and the seminal principles of natural generation. He distinguishes such knowledge from mere mechanical cleverness. Coelum’s later argument about composing a sperm develops the natural-philosophical problem. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Spirit

A term for subtle activity and life as well as divine presence. Vaughan insists that created spirits or recipients must not be confused with the Creator. The word’s theological and natural senses should be distinguished by context. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Three Mothers

Aleph, Mem and Shin in Vaughan’s account of the elemental letters, associated with air, water and fire. He uses their relations to discuss mixture and mediation. His exposition is selective and does not disclose a complete system. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Type

A sign, pattern or anticipatory figure whose significance depends upon what it represents. Vaughan uses religious types to argue that outward things can carry relations beyond their immediate appearance without becoming self-sufficient powers. See the first passage and the related discussion.

Water

An elemental principle, a scriptural and religious sign, and a recurrent name for the hidden subject. Coelum’s gathered descriptions differentiate it from ordinary waters. A common word therefore does not guarantee a common or uniform referent. See the first passage and the related discussion.