4-week online class via Zoom by alchemist Brian Cotnoir

Wednesdays, April 3 – 24, 2024
7 - 9 pm ET
$125 Patreon Members / $145 General Admission

All classes will be recorded for students who cannot attend

Memory and the Architecture of Initiation is a four-part course exploring the role of memory and space in spiritual practice with a focus on the Neoplatonic concept of the ascent of the soul.

In these practices, memory isn’t for data retrieval but a way for the text to work silently and inwardly on the soul. And space, both imagined and real, is brought into play in these practices. Starting with a description of the neuroscience of memory of both contemporary and Renaissance models, we will examine the ars memoria – the art of memory from antiquity that, in many ways, articulates the tools and methods used in these practices.

1 – Neuroscience of Memory and Ars Memoriae.
The Renaissance theories and 21st-century model of memory will be examined in some detail, providing a solid basis and vocabulary for discussing the memory process. With this established, we will move on to the Ars memoriae – an essential part of an orator’s training in Rhetoric. Ars Memoriae has two aspects: ad verborum—of words, the verbatim memorization of a text, and ad res—of things, the memorization of ideas, concepts, parts of texts, etc.

This class will review how this works in actual practice and how it was, and can be, used in composition. 

2 – Space, Architecture, and The Sacred.
Space and place both play a key role in the Ars Memoriae. From the caves at Lascaux, through temples and grottoes to the writings of mystics, such as St. Theresa of Avila’s Interior Castle and Hugh of St. Victor’s Arca Noe, this session explores the various aspects of space and architectural demarcations of the sacred and the profane in both the outer and inner worlds, and the role of memory in spiritual practices.

3 – Ars Combinatoria, The Idea of Theater
In the 14th century, Raymund Lull took the Ars memoriae and developed an Ars combinatoria – the Art of Combination – a logic machine for theological debates. In the 16th century, Giulio Camillo (L’Idea del Theatro), and Giordano Bruno, (Art of Memory) developed the art of memory in two directions – Camillo built an actual wooden memory theater, and Bruno, developing Lull’s work, created a very elaborate and inventive system rooted in the ascent of the soul via a well-regulated spiritus.

Tonight’s session will give an overview of these systems, how they operate, and the larger ideas underpinning their work.

4 – Hugh of St. Victor’s Arca Noe
This session focuses on what appears to be a full use of the Ars memoriae in a spatial spiritual practice that is developed and described in Hugh of St. Victor’s 12^th century text Arca Noe (Noah’s Ark). Hugh describes a system where the Ark is built within one’s heart, with all of scripture’s text, history, persons, and cosmology inscribed throughout and around the Ark. In one’s meditations and prayers, one would proceed and circulate through the Ark.

This system will then be discussed in light of the contemporary practice of the Buddhist Kalachakra Tantra. This practice also has a very complex temple structure in which and around which is inscribed all the various elements of the cosmos both external and internal. One also visualizes oneself moving through the temple in a meditative practice.

Brian Cotnoir is an alchemist, artist, and award-winning filmmaker. A contributor to Frater Albertus’ Parachemy, he is also the author of a series of Alchemy Zines. His books include Alchemy: The Poetry of Matter (2017), Practical Alchemy: A Guide to the Great Work, Alchemical Meditations, and the Emerald Tablet, his translations of and commentary on, the earliest Arabic and Latin versions of this seminal text. And most recently, On Alchemy: Essential Practices and Making Art as Alchemy.

He has presented workshops and seminars around the world on various aspects of alchemical theory and practice based on his research.His film work has been screened at Museum of Modern Art, Sundance Film Festival, HBO, PBS and other international venues.

Khepri Press, launched in 2014 with the publication of the Emerald Tablet, is the vehicle and portal for his alchemical work.