Allen G. Debus has written that a simple explanation of Vaughan's natural philosophy, in its mature form, is as the "De occulta" of Cornelius Agrippa, in an exposition coming via the views of Michael Sendivogius. As a writer in the school of Sendivogius, Vaughan follows Jacques de Nuisement and Andreas Orthelius. He placed himself in the tradition of the Rosicrucian reformers of education, and of Johannes Trithemius, his teacher Libanius Gallus, and Pelagius of Majorca, teacher of Libanius (of whom the last two are not known to have been real people apart from what Trithemius relates of them).