Magic and the Early Tarot
10. Ars Notoria
There is one form of "religious" image magic that deserves special attention both for its oddity and for the reactions it elicited. The Ars Notoria of Solomon is a medieval text for mastering the liberal arts through prayers and rituals. The knowledge is directly infused into the operator via angels and the holy spirit (Fanger 1998). The text is accessible in English translation by Robert Turner, 1657 (Kuntz 1998). Basically, the text offers images, prayers, and ritual to get your PhD without cramming for exams!
In a sense, the Ars Notoria is an attempt to push white magic to its limits while remaining orthodox. The material is apparently Christian in content, involving prayers and fasting (Klaassen 1998). There are no hints of demonic invocation and the goal of knowledge is praiseworthy.
The "Notoria" in the title refers to the use of drawn images or diagrams (i.e., Notae) which are used during the rituals. The images are available in Kuntz (1998) and do not resemble the 15th century Tarot symbols. I suspect, however, that it would be worth searching modern occultist decks, such as the Crowley-Harris deck, for sigils that might have their source in the Ars Notoria.
The use of diagrams links the Ars Notoria to the Art of Memory which, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, often employed such diagrams. However, the diagrams in the Ars Notoria are not to be used as a tool for memorization. Instead, they have an immediate magical effect linking the operator directly to the celestial powers and therefore directly infusing the knowledge (Camille 1998). Thus, the diagrams also provide a direct link to the tradition of image magic in which the image itself produced the miraculous effect (Camille 1998). The key to the magic is thoroughly Neoplatonic since, if they truly captured the celestial hierarchy, the diagrams would necessarily form an open channel between the operator and the supraterrestrial power. The transfer would automatically follow.
But if the Ars Notoria meticulously followed the accepted paradigms of the day, nevertheless, it evoked a negative response. The art was well-known by the second half of the 13th century and was being condemned by Thomas Aquinas and John of Freiburg (Peters 1978). Interestingly, the author had meticulously stayed within all of the distinctions established by the Church and the art was not condemned as unacceptable magic. The condemnations do not argue that the art is intrinsically evil. The condemnations deal with the dangers of acquiring wisdom without simultaneously developing the discipline and virtuous habits needed to safely employ such knowledge (Klaassen 1998).
If that argument strikes the reader as a bit stretched, then I would have to agree. I suspect that the condemnations are based on two factors. First, a theologian who has spent decades acquiring his knowledge is unlikely to be receptive to the suggestion that he wasted his time and effort. Second, many things about the text itself raise suspicions. The diagrams and sigils resemble figures in the Grimoires of black magic more than they resemble orthodox memory diagrams. The magical prayers also arouse suspicion. In addition to prayers in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the text also contains prayers claimed to be Arabic and Chaldean (Fanger 1998). And once again the tie to texts on black magic seems to be implied.
There is another potential reason for the condemnation that is of particular interest to Tarotists. The Ars Notoria was often considered to be a part of divination and many of the manuscripts are found in bound collections of divination methods (Klaassen 1998). Divination by the unlearned was never encouraged.
But, as we have seen with other aspects of white magic and ‘questionable’ magic, condemnation by theologians did not result in effective or official suppression. Multiple manuscripts of the Ars Notoria have survived and, perhaps more interesting, the original work spawned a number of offsprings that do not appear to have raised the ire or interest of the theologians.
Among the offspring is "The Book of Angels" a 15th century image magic text (Lidaka 1998). The manuscript is found bound along with herbal and medical texts and therefore may have escaped official notice. The text contains symbols and numerology associated with the planets but nothing that matches the early Tarot symbols.
Another offspring is "John the Monk’s Book of Visions" (Watson 1998). This a book of magical prayers designed to allow the reader to take a visionary journey and acquire all knowledge. The similarity to the Ars Notoria is patent but its context was strictly religious and mystical. One manuscript is found bound under the same covers as the liturgical office.
Perhaps the most interesting offspring is the "Liber Sacer" or "Sworn Book of Honorius of Thebes" (Klaassen 1998). This an unorthodox but wholly religious and mystical text that offers a magical method to obtain the beatific vision. The work is subversive in the sense of bypassing orthodox mystical methods but also associates magic with a strictly religious spirit and intent. The text contains some alphanumeric magic based on the Greek alphabet.
The "Liber Sacer" remained largely unquestioned and undiscussed. Six manuscripts have survived and all of them are in the British Museum (Mathiesen 1998). Clearly that is where they were discovered and studied by A. E. Waite (1898, 1911) who introduced them to historians (Mathiesen 1998).
