Robert Fludd (1574 - 1637)
Ars Memoriae (1619) - Robert Fludd
Ars Memoriae: The Theatre (1619) - Robert Fludd
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Biography
Robert Fludd, also known as Robertus de Fluctibus (1574, Bearsted, Kent - September 8, 1637, London) was a prominent English Rosicrucian and Paracelsian physicist, astrologer, and mystic. He was the son of Sir Thomas Fludd, a high-ranking governmental official.
Between 1598 and 1604, Fludd studied medicine, chemistry and the occult on the European mainland, but he is best known for his research in occult philosophy. He had a celebrated exchange of views with Johannes Kepler concerning the scientific and hermetic approaches to knowledge.
In 1630, Fludd proposed many perpetual motion machines. People were trying to patent variations of Fludd's machine in the 1870s. Fludd's machine worked by recirculation by means of a water wheel and Archimedean screw. The device pumps the water back into its own supply tank.
He is a descendant of Cunedda Wledig ap Edern, King of Gwynedd, which in now part of Wales. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fludd [Apr 2005]
Ars memoriae
The "Method of Loci" or Ars memoriae (art of memory) practised in the Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance periods relied on the capacity of the brain for recalling spatial detail. The principle was to initially memorise some large building, the more architectural elaboration of rooms, passages and niches it had the better — the so-called 'Memory Palace'. Mnemonic images could be placed about this palace to link to items that you wanted to remember, usually in symbolic form, with the images as striking as possible to enable recollection. To recall something, the practitioner mentally moved around the palace, reviewing the images in order. This was an essential technique of rhetoricians and preachers.
A reference to this technique survives to this day in the common English phrases "in the first place", "in the second place", and so forth.
It may be helpful to note that most of the best memorisers today use this technique to a greater or lesser degree. Eight World Memory Champion Dominic O'Brien advocates this technique, as does Andi Bell. --http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic#A_nyumonika_t.C3.B6rt.C3.A9nete [Feb 2006]
Memory is the ability of the brain to store, retain, and subsequently recall information. Although traditional studies of memory began in the realms of philosophy, the late nineteenth and early twentieth century put memory within the paradigms of cognitive psychology. In the recent decades, it has become one of the principal pillars of a new branch of science that represents a marriage between cognitive psychology and neuroscience, called cognitive neuroscience. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory [Feb 2006]
See also: space - place - architecture - occult
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