Magia Adamica

shall apprehend the intellectual forms or patterns of all things within it. He very properly calls these forms [New translation of the Greek:] “terms” because they determine or bound all things. Through them the creature is defined and receives its individuation—or, in Scotus’s language, its haecceity—by which it is this and not that. This is the demonstration we should seek: the expansion or opening of the divine mind, rather than a syllogism that perhaps goes on all fours. Once admitted to this communion of light, we shall be able, with the Apostle, to give a reason for our faith; never without it. Now understand that God does not unfold himself [New translation of the Latin:] “unless the great heaven has first been opened”; [Vaughan’s own English explanation:] unless the heaven of man has first been unfolded. [New translation of the Latin:] “Therefore remove the veil from your understanding.” [Original marginal citation: C. Agrippa.] [Vaughan’s own English rendering:] “Cast off the veil before your faces, and you shall no longer be blind.” God is no distant God, but a God close at hand. “Behold,” he says, “I stand at the door and knock.” Open yourselves, then, for it is written: “If anyone opens, I will come in and sup with him.” This is the inward mystical supper, rather than the outward figurative supper; and this is spiritual baptism with fire, rather than elemental baptism with water. Truly two things greatly comfort me. First, magic supplied the earliest professors of Christianity,