Method of LOCI

By: http://zitogiuseppe.com/loci.html

To use the method of loci bring to mind a familiar building, such as your house.
Take a moment to conduct a mental walk through
the rooms in your house. Pay particular attention to
the details, noticing any imperfections, like
scratches: anything that makes your mental images
more vivid. Make sure you can move easily from one
room to another.

Along your route create a list of "loci”: i.e. well

defined parts of the room that you can use later to
memorize things. A locus can be a door, a bed, an
oven, etc. Be sure that you can easily go from locus
to locus as you visit the house.

Now, when you are faced with a list of words or ideas to be memorized, you must
form visual images for each of the words and place them, in order, on the loci in
your route. To recall the words or ideas now you take a mental walk throughout
your house, asking yourself, "What is on the living-room door? What's on the
sleeping room bed? What's in the oven?" And so on.

Associating the words or ideas to remember with the loci, you should create
surprising images. More striking is the created image, more easily you will
remember the thing.

This is all about the method! What follows is, instead, just a short FAQ if you are
curious about what is behind this method.

Who invented the Method of loci?

According to Cicero's De Oratore, the Greek poet Simonides invented it. The legend
says that Simonides escaped a disaster that destroyed the building where he was
having a dinner with other dignitaries. He was able to name the victims by recalling
where they had been seated.
What is the relationship between the method and the "Art of Memory"?

The Art of Memory was about the use of space to remember things and was based
indeed on the method of loci. So the method of loci is almost a synonym of Art of
Memory. This mnemonic technique was used by the ancient rhetoricians and later
orators until the invention of the press. The major points of speeches were
remembered using the method. The orators would visualize walking through the
rooms of their memory palace and associating the next point to be addressed with a
successive locus. This is perhaps why we now say "in the first place."

Why Frances Yates is often cited when speaking of the Art of Memory?

Frances Yates has written the best in depth account on the history of the Art during
its long evolution from Simonides to its demise in the 17 century. In this book, named
"The Art of Memory" and easily readable by anyone, Frances rediscovers the Art after
two centuries of oblivion. Yates main point is that the learning of the Art was central
to the formation of cultured people for twenty centuries. For this reason the Art is
one of the central points in Western Culture.

Why Joshua Foer is often cited when speaking of contemporary use of the method?

Joshua Foer after experimenting himself the usefulness of the method, has written
one of the best reports on its history, use and relevance in the book "Moonwalking
with Einstein" published in 2011. Although the book by Frances Yates is superior
concerning the history, the author didn't bother to learn the method, so she
somewhat guessed the method's use and usefulness. In any case she really didn't
care and didn't know about contemporary use. JF shows instead how the method is
put to practical uses by contemporary people.
In this video: Feats of memory anyone can do JF reports his experience and explains
the method.

Are there signs of the influence of the Art still visible in our cities?

Medioeval cathedrals were built to work also as memory palaces. Dante also, in the
Divina Commedia, builds a kind of memory palace.

Can you give examples of uses of the Art by cultured people?

Monks used the Art to commit to memory their sermons, lawyers would memorize
their speech in the same way.
What is the connection between the Art of Memory, Giordano Bruno and
Hermetism?

Giordano Bruno, a Dominican monk, left the convent where he learned the Art and
wandered throughout Europe telling the secrets of the Art to all who would listen to
him including the King of France. He was in 1600 burned at the stake for heresy. You
can read online the most famous of his books: The Shadows of Ideas in Latin but with
some fascinating drawings of "memory wheels". Bruno, following the teaching of
Neoplatonists, thought that learning the Art gave magic powers: this was the
Hermetic Art of Memory. This is a short Introduction To The Hermetic Art Of
Memory Images stored in the loci become more than a mnemonic device. They help
us in getting a better understanding of the world. Through them we discover the true
essence of things and their relationship. They have also magical powers acting like
talismans. They are in fact the "Shadows of Ideas”: the essence of reality.

After his death he was and is presented as a martyr of Science. The truth is that,
when he lived, modern science was not really born and we don't really know why the
Inquisition decided to condemn him (all documents about his process have been
lost). But, if the idea that Bruno lost his life because of his support for
Copernicanism is probably false, the idea that he was condemned because of his
beliefs about the magic powers of the Art of Memory, is probably true. So he may
very well be a martyr of the method of loci!

(Here other online texts from Bruno.)

What is the connection of the Art with the discipline of Rhetoric?

The Art was learned as part of the Rhetoric by Greek and Roman orators. Later it was
integrated by Thomas Aquinas under the virtue of Prudence.

Can you give some specific example of striking images?

In an ancient text about the Art (Rhetorica Ad Herennium) there is this image to be
used by a lawyer working on a case of poisoning to gain an inheritance with many
witnesses: the defendant is at the bedside of the poisoned man holding in his right
hand a cup(the poison) and in his left, tablets (inheritance) and a ram's testicles
(testes i.e. the witnesses in Latin).
If you are curious, Joshua Foer, in Moonwalking with Einstein, gives plenty of
examples of these images and how to build them in a systematic way with mind's
eye.
What is the link between the Method of Loci and the Camillo Memory Theatre?

The "Idea" of the Theatre by Giulio Camillo, was essentially the following: instead of
having cultured people imagine complex architectures to store all the knowledge,
why not build a physical place and then store all knowledge in this place. Now you
can learn simply by walking in this Memory Theatre.

Should we use necessarily real buildings or we can use also an imaginary place?

As "building" for the loci almost every structure both real and imaginary that extends
in space, has been used. A city, an abbey, a tree, the human body, a schematic
drawing, etc, etc. The so called mnemonic major system or peg system uses
as loci images connected to the numbers 1 , 2, 3 .. You start from 1(t,d,th), 2(n),
3(m),4(r),5(l),6(g),7(c,k,gh),8(f,v),9(p,b),0(z,s) and then, for example,16 becomes the
word "dog" (d=1,g=6) and the image of the dog.

Is the method still used today?

Some memory performers on stage or television use the method. One of these is the
famous Italian mnemonist Gianni Golfera. This is reported in detail by Joshua Foer in
his book Moonwalking with Einstein. Joshua is a journalist who, after reporting on a
memory competition held in USA was able by using the method to win the same
competition the next year. His book is also a very well written practical introduction
to the contemporary method use.

Instead the most studied mnemonist, a certain Shereshevsky(S.) followed for 30

years by the Russian psychologist Luria, discovered the Method by himself. He really
didn't need it to remember things: apparently, for him, being synaesthetic, every
experience was so compelling to be unforgettable. But when asked to remember, for
example, 50 items in order, he would put them along some street that he knew very
well. This would make the recollection of the items in the right order easier for him.
This paper reports that in many known cases of normal people with exceptional
memory (excluding thus autistic people with savant syndrome) this method is used.
Many Universities and colleges include the Method as a mnemonic device in their
pages of advices to students. Look in these search results for some example. The
famous novelist Thomas Harris in the novel about Hannibal Lecter ("Hannibal")
describes in detail how Dr. Lecter uses the method. Unfortunately all this has been
lost in the movie version.

Sherlock Holmes in the BBC series Sherlock (The Hounds of Baskerville episode), uses
his "mind palace" to seek important facts in his memory relevant to the case. The
original novels and short stories by Conan Doyle have no mention at all about this.

How many things can you memorize with the method of loci?

People would memorize palaces with hundreds if not thousands of loci .With such a
memory palace you can remember a lot of things but you also need to train a lot to
use properly such big places. Memory performers use them routinely but their
experience is that they have to rehearse for hours every day to use them. Joshua
Foer in Moonwalking with Einstein, reports using around one hundred houses to
have enough loci available!

There are images left by the ancients of these memory palaces?

Yes there are some striking images included in memory treatises or just printed
without accompanying text to be used specifically for this purpose. Medioeval
university teachers would, for example, represent all the items of their subject matter
organized spatially in some striking image and have this image used by students to
learn their topic.

Why some authors consider the Art of Memory as a tool of creation?

Mary Carruthers and others modern authors point out that the ancient Art of
memory was considered more than a way to remember things, a tool to create new
things. We now think about this technique as something where you have, for
example, a sermon already written and then you memorize the main points using the
Art and then recollect your images to deliver the speech. Something that in modern
days would be done by reading the words from a sheet of paper. In fact, things were
slightly different. There was no previous written sermon! The sermon was created
directly from the memory images! In the same way people would create also literary
composition like poems or simply meditate about God or other items. For example,
in the case of meditations, the written word (in the Bible) was only a starting point,
then the creation of the memory images and its recollection walking in memory
palaces would organize and expand the original material allowing the person to
explore and learn more about the subject matter.

What is the relationship between memory palaces and hypertext?

Both use space to make learning easier. A hypertext with its clickable icons and
images is like a memory palace and each link is a locus .When you click, the idea
stored there appears as a new document. The only difference is that you don't have
to memorize the structure. From this point of view hypertext is much more like the
Camillo Theatre: a physical space where you learn by walking.

See also Hypertext and the Art of Memory from Visible Language 31.2:1997

What is the relationship between the memory palaces and virtual reality?

Virtual Reality is essentially a 3D hypertext. You now navigate not only with the
mouse but with all your body: the dream of Camillo becomes true. We can now build
a place where you learn only by walking.

What is the relationship between the Art of Memory and computer interface?

It is by now clear that both the human and digital memory aren't merely a repository,
but a theatrical stage. We access computer data by clicking and in general using an
interface based on a spatial metaphor. The same we do with our memory using the
method of loci. So the Art has been the first computer interface invented by man and
used to make better use of the biggest computer ever built: our brain. It was the first
model for data storage and retrieval and now is driving the research on new
computer interfaces. You can read an introduction on this fascinating matter on this
paper by Peter Matussek about the The Renaissance of the Theater of Memory

What is the relationship between the Art of Memory and scientific visualization?

The Art of Memory is a special case of visual thinking: i.e. high level manipulation of
visual information by our brain. Scientific visualization tries to help our powerful
capacity to handle visual information by creating visual representations of abstract or
invisible objects for example a molecule or the interactions between particles. Like
for the development of computer interfaces, we don't know why some
representations seem to work and others no, but the method of loci is a powerful
paradigm that we know works, and that helps us find effective visualizations. In the
method there are two fundamental components:

1. the interiorization of the images in the loci

2. the interiorization of the path (a muscular activity)

So, for example, the successful visualization of a complex molecule includes not only
static images of its parts but also the capability to travel inside the molecule using
the mouse.

Does the method really work?

Yes, although there is no proof that it works better than other methods, like for
example rote learning. An interesting article on this subject(This is the electronic
version without pictures of: Bower: Analysis of a mnemonic device-Am.Sci. Sep,Oct 75?

See also this Master memories are made not born. And also Testing-the-Limits in a
mnemonic technique: A study of cognitive plasticity in very old age. In these studies
the participants are trained in using the method as a mnemonic device to remember
word lists.

Works Cited

 Carruthers, Mary. The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval

Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.

 Carruthers, Mary. The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric and the Making
of Images, 400-1200. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.

 Foer, Joshua. Moonwalking with Einstein. Penguin Press HC, March 3, 2011

 Parker, Cahill, McGaugh A Case of Unusual Autobiographical

Remembering Neurocase (2006) 12, 35-49

 Rossi, Paolo. Logic and the Art of Memory. Trans. Stephen Clucas. Chicago: U of
Chicago P, 2000.

 Yates, Frances. The Art of Memory. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1966.