ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to outline: how the Ars Lulliana, the system of thought derived from the work of the medieval Catalan philosopher and missionary Ramon Llull, and Ramist method. Ramism and Lullism appear to have had much in common, from the assumed universality of their respective methods and the use of graphic visualisation, to the promise of simplification and the similar claims to success. The chapter discusses the Lullian Art and in what ways it might have been perceived as a comparable endeavour or even a methodological alternative to Ramism. The pattern of initiation which was so persistently highlighted by the Lullist commentators does indeed also point to a tradition that linked Lullism and alchemy. In line with the claims the patrons of sixteenth-century Lullism had so successfully planted, he asked his friend Beeckman to check for him whether there was in fact a secret or key to such ability in the published works of Ramon Llull.
