About the Author

Piers Allfrey Vaughan was born in Brighton, England, and attended Brighton College, as well as Oxford and Cranfield Universities. He was an avid musician, singing in a local church, playing several instruments, conducting and composing; he was also a keen fencer, and enjoyed appearing in local plays. He even appeared as an extra in 'Star Wars' and 'Quadrophenia'! He has an MA in Psychology, an MBA in Business Studies and an MA in Divinity. He has worked for a number of banks, including Midland, HSBC and Deutsche Bank, living in England, Germany and Switzerland before moving to the USA in the early 1990s. His Masonic membership began in England in 1979, and he joined a number of Orders prior to joining St. John's Lodge No. 1 in New York, where he has served twice as its Master. He also served as Grand High Priest (Grand First Principal) of New York State in 2014. He is also a 33o Mason in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite (NMD), and First Grand Ancient of the Societas Rosicruciana In Civitatibus Foederatis (SRICF). He has traveled extensively across the USA and in many countries abroad giving lectures on a number of topics, ranging from history to talks on the symbols and esotericism of Masonry. An interest in 18th Century French Masonic Ritual led him to translate a number of important treatises and rituals into English. He is also very involved in a number of Orders outside of Freemasonry, predominantly ones which have an esoteric background, and is also the head of a church descended from the Pre-Nicene Church of Richard, Duc de Palatine. He is the author of "Of Errors & Truth", a translation of Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin's 1775 book, "Renaissance Man and Mason" a collection of Masonic and Esoteric talks, and "Capitular Development Course". Piers is primate of the Apostolic Church of the Golden & Rosy Cross, a descendent of the Pre-Nicene Church of Richard Duc de Palatine and the Order of the Pleroma, a member of several Esoteric Societies; an Esoteric and Masonic lecturer and writer; an avid translator of old French texts; a traveler and a permanent student. Louis-Claude was born into minor aristocracy in Amboise, in 1743. His mother had died shortly after his birth, but he formed a close relationship with his stepmother, reflected in his great enjoyment of ladies' company and the close positions some held in his groups, even though he never married. He studied law at his father's request, but finding it unsatisfying south a commission in the army, which, not being involved in war at the time, afforded him a lot of time to read. In 1768, while he was posted to the Regiment in Foix, near Bordeaux, he was introduced to Martines de Pasqually, the founder of an extraordinary variation of the early Scottish Rite, or Rite Ecossaise, called the Order of Elect Priests (or Cohen) or the Universe. What set this Order apart from mainstream Freemasonry at the time was that this Order was based on an extraordinary view of religion expressed in his Treatise of the Reintegration of Beings, and the theurgical or magical practices of his Order. Saint-Martin was enthralled, and soon left his Army position to become Pasqually's permanent secretary. Pasqually left France in 1782 to take up a legacy in Saint Domingo, and his Order fragmented in his absence. Meanwhile, Saint-Martin had become friends with Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, a businessman and prominent Mason in Lyon. While in his company, at the age of 32 in 1775, be published his first work, Of Errors & Truth. While closely reflecting his former Master's Treatise, it was written as a rebuttal of the Encyclopedists and the philosophers of the Enlightenment who, while rejecting the official Church, were also moving towards atheism in seeking all the answers to Science in man and earth alone, exclusion considerations of Higher Powers. He continued his work through his life, publishing a number of influential books - especially among Freemasons and the thinking classes - throughout his lifetime, under the pseudonym of the Unknown Philosopher. As an aristocrat, he was interned during the early day of the French Revolution, but was soon freed when it was realized his books has been put on the Index by the church. He ended his days as a teacher. His teachings - and possible initiations - led to the formation of an Order called Martinism which currently has many adherents of his Christian mystical philosophy around the world. However, so little of his actual books and teachings have made it to the English language that it is time the Anglophone world has an opportunity to experience this seminal Teacher's writings first-hand.