Artificial Intelligence: Ars Notoria and the Promise of Instant Knowledge

HomeEssaysCollectionsExploreSourcesShopSupport PDRAboutBlog SearchSearch The Public Domain ReviewSupport PDREssaysCollectionsExploreSourcesShopAboutBlogXBlueskyEssaysArtificial Intelligence Ars Notoria and the Promise of Instant Knowledge By Anne Lawrence-MathersCenturies before Neo instantly mastered Kung Fu in The Matrix, medieval scholars found a shortcut to years of difficult study: a magical manuscript that promised to fast-track advanced learning. Anne Lawrence-Mathers investigates the Ars notoria, its supposed powers, and the demonic influence it had upon some users. PublishedJuly 29, 2026Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Two figures related to the art of astronomy from a manuscript of the Ars notoria (NLI Ms. Yah. Var. 34), ca. 1550–1600. Each contains subordinate figures to be contemplated — while reciting accompanying prayers (orations) — in a prescribed sequence over time and with respect to the cardinal directions — Source. Mastering the full range of subjects taught in medieval universities normally required many years of hard and expensive study. From the thirteenth century on, however, an anonymous work known as the Ars notoria promised, through diagrams, incantations, and arcane rituals, to rapidly transmit to scholars the total knowledge of anything they might need. Condemned by church authorities, the fifty-six extant manuscripts nevertheless testify to the seductiveness of that offer.1Its complex diagrams were at the center of its appeal. Unlike diagrams in other magical texts, those in Ars notoria do not illustrate what the text is seeking to communicate. Nor do they act as models to be replicated in three-dimensional form as pieces of magical equipment.2 Instead, they supposedly work almost in the same way as religious icons. That is, faithful possession and use of them can offer direct contact with powerful and benign supernatural forces — and ultimately even with God. The diagrams themselves are the route to magic and consist of arrangements of symbolic and geometric forms, patterns, and symbols, interspersed with “words”, which are frequently unintelligible combinations of letters.3 Practitioners who opened their minds to receive and imprint these labyrinthine images, while reciting complex verbal formulae and strings of mysterious, almost unpronounceable words and names, are engaging in a significant act of trust.Several factors made the Ars notoria fundamentally different from other magical texts. First, this is not a text in conflict with the church. In fact, the rituals framing and shaping usage of the images are presented as extremely pious, and the texts to be recited are identified as prayers. The alien words, names, and characters are explained as coming from ancient languages such as Greek, Hebrew, and “Chaldean”, and are claimed to preserve both the names of angels and words used to communicate with them. Second, the advantages offered are relatively virtuous: contact with spiritual beings and full knowledge of the subjects taught in medieval universities. Such claims cut little ice with thirteenth-century theologians, however, who saw clear links to things condemned as superstitious and demonic by St Augustine, despite the text’s assertion that it contains wisdom revealed to King Solomon. Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Frontispiece to a manuscript of the Ars notoria (BnF Latin 7153), ca. 15th century. It depicts an angel delivering the Ars notoria to Solomon during his nightly prayer — Source. Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Prayer offered in the front matter of a manuscript of the Ars notoria (BnF Latin 7153), ca. 15th century. It asks for angelic protection from evil before the reader embarks on using the text — Source. St Thomas Aquinas was worried enough by the Ars notoria to name and condemn it specifically in his Summa theologiae — one of the most authoritative summaries of Ch