A business man traveling in the mid-west was told about an
Indian, living in the vicinity, who had a most fantastic memory. Having just
completed a memory course, and priding himself on his own newly acquired
achievements, he decided to visit this Indian to see whose memory was better.
He introduced himself to the Indian and proceeded to test
him. The memory expert answered every question quickly and accurately. His mind
was storehouse of knowledge, containing such information as the important
dates, scientific theories, etc. the business man couldn’t stump him. Finally,
he decided to try one last question. “what did you have for breakfast on the
morning of April 5th 1931?”
The Indian didn’t hesitate for even a second, as he
answered, “Eggs!”
The business man took his leave, completely stunned by this
prodigious memory. When he arrived home, he told all his friends about it, only
to have them scoff and say that eggs were usually eaten at breakfast, and that
anyone could have answered that.
As the years passed, the man began to believe this, until
one day he found himself back in the mid-west on a sales trip. One afternoon he
happened to come upon the same Indian he had met here years ago. Wanting to
show that his memory for faces was pretty good, he raised his hand in the
traditional Indian greeting, and said,
“How.”
The Indian thought for just a moment, and then answered,
“SCRAMBLED!”
ALTHOUGH THE above anecdote is pretty silly, since no one
would ask anyone to recall what they had for breakfast years ago-you’d be
surprised at the questions some people ask me. If I had a conversation with a
person some time ago, they’d ask me to
repeat the conversation exactly; or, if I’m spied reading a newspaper, someone
is sure to grap it from me and nisist that I prove that I’ve memorized it word
for word. They don’t realize that the beauty of having a trained and systematic
memory is that I can remember what want
to remember.
It would be kind of ridiculous for me to memorize the daily
paper would for word. There is no need for that; however, I can and do remember
anything that I come across that I feel is important enough to memorize. I just
make an association for it as I read it. When I read a story or novel, I am
usually reading for enjoyment only, and I’m not at all interested in
remembering what I’m reading. There are some things that we all want to forget;
for example, it is diplomatic to remember a woman’s birthday but not her age.
After completing this book, I hope that all of you will be
able to remember anything you read, that
is, if you want to. As I’ve mentioned before, you can remember anything if you so desire. These memory systems just make
it easier for you may feel that it is much easier to write with that. You may feel
that it is much easier to write down a telephone number than to stop and
make an association as I’ve explained. Well, I must association as I’ve
explained. Well, I must admit that it probably would be faster and easier, at
first; but you wouldn’t be helping your memory.
You might feel that since there are millions of reference
books to use whenever you need certain information, why bother to remember.
And, of course, most business men have secretaries to remember for them.
Yes it’s true that business men have secretaries, but they
probably wouldn’t be in the position to hire one if they didn’t have good memories for their businesses in
the first place. And, how long do you think the secretary would keep the job if
she couldn’t remember?
Although there are millions of reference books, and we
certainly need them-a lawyer pleading a case in court memory than have to stop
to look it up. If he could quote pages
and laws from certain law books, the judge and jury would most certainly be
favorably be favorably impressed. A carpenter doesn’t stop to look at a book when he has to use a particular
tool; he remembers how to use it. If an emergency arises on the operating
table, the surgeon acts immediately. All the medical books in existence wouldn’t help that patient, if
the doctor didn’t remember just what to
do. When you visit your doctor
and tell him the symptoms of your illness, he doesn’t have to refer to the notes he wrote while attending medical
school-he remembers which ailment has
which symptoms.
Those that write new ideas on old subjects must know or
remember all the old ideas first. Could a man like professor Einstein come up with new formulas and
theories if he didn’t know or remember all the current ones? Of course not. The telephone would never have
been invented if Alexander Graham Bell had not known or remembered existence.
If it were not for memory, we would never have new inventions.
I could go on, ad infinitum, demonstrating how and why the
memory is important; or why it is not always convenient to refer to books or lists. Most everything we
do is based on memory. The things we often say we do by “instinct” are really
done through memory.
Writing things down just isn’t enough in itself to help you
remember. Why are some children slow in school, even though they write notes in
class? It is not because they are stupid! It is
because they don’t remember their
work. In school they are told they must remember certain things , but
unfortunately, they are not taught how to do so.
So, a trained and retentive memory is certainly important.
It is getting over the first hurdle that is always the most
difficult in any new thing you learn. The first hurdle in training your memory,
is to actually use my system . use it, and it’ll work for you. Just knowing the
system and still writing phone numbers on paper, is the same as not knowing the system at all.
Those of you who happen to know how to type fairly
rapidly-do you recall how you felt when you first started to learn typing? You
thought you’d never get the hang of it, and felt that others, who did type
well, were just more suited for it than
you were. Now, you probably can’t
understand why you felt that way there is nothing natural than for you to sit down and type
rapidly. Well, it’s the same with a
trained memory. I believe that I can
memorize a telephone number faster than anyone can write it, and, I strengthen
my memory each time I do so. When I first started using these systems, I
felt as you may feel now; that it is easier to write things down
and forget them than to bother with associations. But keep at it, and you’ll
feel the same about this as you do about typing. You’ll wonder, after a
while, why it took any effort at all, in the beginning.
The thing to keep in mind, above all else, is to make all
your associations ridiculous and/or illogical. Many of the systems being taught
today, and those in the past, do not stress this nearly enough. As a matter of
fact, some of them will teach you to make logical associations. There’s only one fault with such systems, as far as
I’m concerned-they won’t work. I do not believe that you can remember logical
associations anywhere as well, or as easily, as ridiculous ones.
Some of the old systems taught the student to correlate two
objects when he wanted to remember one in conjunction with the other. A correlation meant to link the two objects by means of other words which either
sounded alike, meant the same, were the exact opposites or were brought to mind somehow or other. This
happens to be an excellent imagination exercise, so let me explain it to you.
If you wanted to remember “pencil” and light “bulb” for some reason; you might
reason this way:-
Pencil-lead-heavy-light-bulb.
Do you see the process? Pencil would naturally make you
think of lead; the mineral lead is very heavy; the opposite of heavy is light;
and light logically leads you to bulb.
How would you correlate “diamond” to “ cigarette”? well,
here’s one way: diamond-ring-smoke ring- smoke-cigarette. Actually, you can
correlate any two objects to each other;
even the most unlikely things. Of
course, it’s much easier to remember “pencil” and “bulb” bulb instead of a
pencil; or, throwing a switch, and a pencil lights instead of a bulb. As far as
“diamond” and “cigarette” is concerned,
if you, “saw” yourself smoking a diamond instead of a cigarette, you’d
certainly recall it the correlations only because it is a good imagination exercise, and because you
might have some fun trying it with your friends. The idea, of course is to use as few words as possible in order to
correlate any two items.
Correlations are a fairly current idea for memory training,
but as I’ve already told you, memory systems go back as far as early Greek
civilization. I believe it was Simon ides, the Greek poet, who first used
something like the peg system in the year 500 B.C. He used the different rooms
of his house, and the pieces of furniture in
the various rooms, as his pegs. This
is limited, but it will work. If you would make up your mind to use the
rooms of your house and the furniture in a definite order, you would have a
list of peg words. These would be the things you already know or remember, and
any new thing to be memorized would be associated to them.
This must have worked for Simon ides, because one of the stories about him. Tells of
the time he was giving a recitation at a banquet, and the roof of the building
collapsed. Everyone was killed except Simon ides. Because of the mangled condition of the bodies, they
could not be identified for burial. Simon ides was able to tell just who each
one was; for he had memorized their positions around the banquet table.
Coming back to modern times-General George Mar-shall
received some favorable publicity because of something he did at some of his
press conferences. He told the newsmen to interrupt him and ask him any
questions, at any time during his talk. The reporters would do that, asking
questions pertaining to the topic that the General was discussing at that moment. General
Marshall would listen to the questions
but went right on with his talk. After the talk was completed, he would
look at one of the men who had asked a question, and answer that particular one. He would then
look at another man, and answer his question. He did this until all or most of
the questions were answered. This was always of great amazement to the newsmen;
but it is quite easy with the aid of a memory systems.
Former postmaster James Farley had a reputation of knowing
some twenty thousand people by their first names. In an article for the N. Y.
Times, Mr. Farley called remembering names the “most effective of all forms of
flattery.” His marvelous memory for names was certainly a great help to him. It
is even said that Mr. Farley’s campaigning and calling people by name was influential
to wards the late Franklin Roosevelt’s first election to the presidency.
I don’t expect you all to be influential in the election of
presidents, but you can certainly improve your memory beyond your wildest
hopes, if you will learn and use the systems taught in this book.
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