Basic Mnemonic Skills - - - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

How are you this evening?

Fine, thank you.

We will begin with the most simple of concepts and exemplify them using the Bible as our substance.
This will accomplish two things; to help isolate and develop the mnemonic skills, and to help increase our inward Bible knowledge.

Where shall we start in the Bible? Well, the natural divisions are the books. It is a great thing to know the books of the Bible, and thereby knowing the names of many wonderful people that had books named after them. Where shall we start concerning skills? The power of association.


- - - 1) Take a deep breath and relax. Clear your mind of all thoughts except our first one, Genesis. Hold this thought central and notice what associations you already have with this term. Now back to the term, if you were to pick up something to remind you of the term what would it be? May i suggest two examples; ....a genetic chart, ...and a generator.


- - - 2) Take a deep breath and relax. Clear your mind of all thoughts except this one, Exodus. Hold this thought central and notice what associations you already have with this term. Now back to the term – Exodus. Take your time. Hold the term long enough so that it gains center stage of your thought. If you were to find something that reminds you of this term what would it be? May i suggest two examples; .......an exit sign, .............a CD-R with XO Dos written on it.


- - - 3) And now the association, choose a reminder of each item and bind them together into one unit. May i suggest two examples; .....a genetic chart where the exit sign should be, .........a generator balancing on the edge of a CD-R with XO Dos written on it. Hold the new unit as the central thought. Allow the other thoughts associated with each term to surface, ....don’t rush, ...... back to the new unit.

Now here is the secret; association and recall are nearly one and the same. Take a deep breath and relax. Clear your mind of all thoughts except for one of the previous ones, and notice what associations you already have – this is recall; if an association you desire does not readily appear, it is better to make one now than to pursue one that may not exist. If Genesis produces Exodus as one of it’s associative thoughts, then an association was made, if not, make one now. Many make the mistake of trying to remember the sequence of association steps made in the past rather than to notice what associations they already have. To recall the sequence of steps made at a previous time, to insure recall, is much more difficult than noticing what associations you already have and more difficult than binding-uniting-associating now.

Next, we will think about ‘using associations to count anything and using anything to count anything else.’ We are all experts in sounds, numbers, rhythm, and symbols. We have learned to speak, sing, read, count, write, and hundreds of various skills. There was a time when we learned our A,B,Cs and our 1,2,3s; now we use those sequences for the foundation of ordering anything we want without even thinking about them. We actually can use any sequence of sounds that we learn for the foundation of ordering other things, such as uno, dos, tres; or Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and even things that once were random.

Reading is a great joy and of great value. We are able to touch an endless storehouse of knowledge. Often times we find a specific text or book that we want to keep in a more inward way.
There is a fun way to effectively and efficiently go one step beyond reading; a way to build knowledge that stays with us; and to have that knowledge instantly available when we need it.
This 'step beyond reading' method is summarized in these simple steps:
- - - 1. select the text or book
- - - 2. change it into or see it as a list
- - - 3. number or sequence the list
- - - 4. learn the number-code system
- - - 5. make creative associations
- - - 6. repeat the process.
- - - 7. repeat the process, and again,again and, ect.

This allows one to know the information in and out of order; frontward and backwards.
And that ends our lesson, i will see you tomorrow evening.


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