bsequently to the Hague,
where he initiated Martin de Vries. A year later he visited Italy, and
made acquaintance with Berigard de Pisa. This was a pious pilgrimage
which testified his devotion to Faustus Socinus, for Miss Vaughan, on
the authority of her documents, regards the Italian heretic, not only as
a conscious Satanist, but as the founder of the Rosicrucian Society, and
the initiator of Johann Valentin Andreae, whom he also won over to
Lucifer. On his return Thomas Vaughan tarried a short time in France,
where he conceived the project of organising Freemasonry as it exists at
the present day, and there also it occurred to him that the guilds of
the Compagnage might serve him for raw material. When, however, he
returned to England, he concluded that the honorary or Accepted Masons,
received by the Masonic guilds of England, were better suited to his
purpose. Some of these were already Rosicrucians, and among them he set
to work. In the year 1644 he presided over a Rosicrucian assembly at
which Ashmole was present. At this time also Oliver Cromwell is said to
have been an accepted Mason, and it was by his intervention that, a year
later, Thomas Vaughan was substituted for the headsman at the execution
of Archbishop Laud, for the object already described. It was after his
compact with Lucifer that the alchemist wrote the "Open Entrance." His
activity in the Rosicrucian cause then became prodigious, and the
followers of Socinus, apparently all implicated in the Satanism of their
master, began to swell the ranks of the Accepted Masons. At this time
also he began his collaborations with Ashmole for the composition of the
Apprentice, Companion, and Master grades, that is to say, for the
institution of symbolical Masonry. In 1646 he again visited America, and
consummated his mystic marriage, as narrated in the eighth chapter. In
1648 he returned to England, and one year later completed the Master
grade, that of Companion having been produced during his absence, but
following the indications he had given, by Elias Ashmole. In 1650 he
began to issue his Rosicrucian and alchemical writings, namely,
_Anthroposophia Theomagica_ and _Anima Magica Abscondita_, followed by
_Lumen de Lumine_ and _Aula Lucis_ in 1651. The Rosicrucian Grand Master
Andreae died in 1654, and was succeeded by Thomas Vaughan, whose next
step was the publication of his work, entitled "Euphrates, or the Waters
of the East." In 1656 he is said to have publ