Amnesiac magus

If a magus has their mind wiped of memories, the exact how is important so I suppose different methods of memory loss would be dealt with differently, BUT the question of the symptoms may exist without the cause, so here is the question:

A mage has lost their memory, can they still cast formulaic spells? What of spont spells? Perhaps no spells?

I was thinking of making the character who's background I would know as a player, but the character would not know AND would still be magalicious. Still cast spell but more than likely cannot remember how or why he learned them. Perhaps even only cast spell almost at random and in cases of stress.

It is all up in the air at the moment, nothing written down, but I suddenly became curious of Perdo Mentum effects. Say you destroy a mage's memory all the way back to childhood or even just ten years... would they lose those spells?

I would say that all he learned in the amnesic period is lost...
so the forumlary spells he learned are lost, but not those learned before the lost... if he still remembers he is a magus and if he has still arts level, he should be able to cast spontaneous spells

This is covered fairly well in Art & Academe, as well as discussed in the Jerbiton chapter of HoH:S.

Episodic memories (what did I do yesterday) and procedural memories (how do I cast this spell) are two seperate kinds of memory. Wiping the former does not have any impact on the latter. Your magus will retain all of his procedural knowledge, despite losing the episodic. So while he knows how to cast his spells, etc. he doesn't know that he knows...

Only when put into a situation where he would try to learn or use it would he discover he already knows.

I find it great, since it allows us to emulate the classic movie/comics memory loss, when the character doesn't remember anything at all about his past but is still pretty competent and powerfull.
Think, for exemple, about Jason Bourne and XIII.

Its the most common type of memory loss in reality as well.
I thought it was mostly a "movie-thing" up until someone i know got a "knock" on the head several years ago and had severe memory loss as a result. Took him a couple of months just to actually remember what his own name was rather than accepting it based on being told what it was. He seemed fine as long as doing everyday stuff but whenever something was needed from conscious memory, total block.
Did some research about it at the time and was quite surprised to find that its actually much more common than you would think. Its a movie-kliche because it actually happens.
Now he´s perfectly fine and the only lasting effect is that his memory of a couple of months just around the time of the injury happened seems permanently gone and some older memories can be a slightly "fuzzy" at times.

I would say you can pretty much handle the character concept and design any way you want and still be realistic as the details seems to differ completely from person to person.

Brains are awesome. I may be biased, having one of my own, but my opinion remains!

I used to think that brains were fantastic as well, but then I asked - where are these thoughts comming from?

(not my idea but I don't know to whom I should attribute it.)

Very very good.

Satisfying answers, even the casting of suspicion on the brain's motives for trying to persuade us into keeping it around for future evolutionary leaps. (For you Lamarckist fans out there).

I should have studied A&A book better, but the explanation is sound enough to start the process of making the character. Basically going into it making one type of person and then turning the sheet over and play without regards to the stats, until they apply. Will be such a rewarding headache for everyone but the demented ST. ((If I choose to play such a character))

Thanks for the help and the laughs.