The Pelman System of Mind and Memory Training - Lessons I to XII

Anon

Description

A step by step guide for anybody wishing to increase their memory. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 17 septembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 4
• EAN13: 9781528765015
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE
PELMAN SYSTEM
OF
MIND MEMORY TRAINING

LESSON I.
Copyright 2013 Read Books Ltd.
This book is copyright and may not be
reproduced or copied in any way without
the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
A History of Memory Training
As the legend goes, one day the Ancient Greek lyric poet, Simonides of Ceos (566 - 468 BCE), was giving a speech in thanks at a dinner party. When the recital was complete, the host selfishly told Simonides that he would only pay him half of the agreed upon payment for the panegyric, and that he would have to obtain the balance from the two gods he had mentioned during its course. A short time later, Simonides was told that the two gods were waiting for him outside, and went outside to meet his visitors. Then, while he was outside the banquet hall, it collapsed, crushing everyone within. The bodies were so disfigured that they could not be identified for proper burial. However, Simonides had remembered where each of the guests was sitting at the table, and so was able to identify them for burial. This episode gave birth to the method of loci.
Simonides revolutionary scheme was a system of mnemonics, based on images and places - and was a key component of the Art of Memory . This art consists of a number of loosely associated mnemonic principles and techniques, used to organize memory impressions, improve recall, and assist in the combination and invention of ideas. It is an art in the Aristotelian sense, which is to say a method or set of prescriptions that adds order and discipline to the pragmatic, natural activities of human beings. It has existed as a recognized group of principles and techniques since at least as early as the middle of the first millennium BCE, and was usually associated with training in rhetoric or logic, but variants of the art were employed in other contexts, particularly the religious and the magical.
The insights of Simonides were based on the simple premise that people have a far better memory for the tangible (physical spaces and images), than they have for abstract concepts, such as numbers, words and ideas. The method of loci involved choosing a physical space (think of the famous mind palace of Sherlock Holmes) and populating it with vivid representations of the concepts one wishes to remember. Memory techniques were very common during the classical ages, due to the tradition of committing speeches and even entire books to memory - combined with the relative lack of written words. The early Christian monks adapted memory techniques as an art of composition and meditation, and it became the basic method for reading and meditating upon the Bible. Saint Thomas Aquinas was an important influence in promoting the art, when he defined it as a part of Prudence and recommended its use to meditate on the virtues and to improve one s piety.
From the ancient Greeks until the Renaissance, the method of loci was a key aspect of intellectual and religious life. The decline in memory training techniques is generally attributed to one thing - the rise of the book. In 1450, Johannes Gutenberg (1398 - 1468) established his printing press. His invention of mechanical, movable type printing started the Printing Revolution and is widely regarded as the most important event of the modern period. It sparked the intellectual blossoming of the Renaissance, Reformation, Age of Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution. Ironically, whilst the printing press laid the material basis for modern knowledge-based economies and the spread of learning to the masses - it also signalled the demise of memory .
In keeping with these general developments, the art of memory came to be defined as a part of dialectics (discourse and reasoned arguments to establish truth ), and was assimilated in the seventeenth century by Francis Bacon and Ren Descartes into the curriculum of Logic - where it survives to this day as a necessary foundation for the teaching of Argument . Simplified variants of the art of memory were also taught through the nineteenth century as useful to public orators, including preachers and after-dinner speakers. The most intriguing development in memory training came with the Pelman System however. This was established in the 1890s by William Joseph Ennever (1869 - 1947), and promised to cure a whole plethora of problems such as forgetfulness, depression, phobias, procrastination and a lack of system.
The Pelman system of training consisted of a set of grey books, which strengthened and developed the mind, just as physical training developed the body. The course provided a mixture of common-sense memory advice (in a similar manner to earlier Greek systems of the art of memory ), psychological counselling and logical puzzles - all delivered through the mail. At its height of popularity, this training system gave rise to Pelman Institutes in eleven different countries, and was famously used by former British prime minister Herbert Asquith, Sir Robert Baden-Powell (founder of the Boy Scout movement), novelist Sir Rider Haggard, and playwright Jerome K. Jerome.
In the present day, memory training has taken on a new lease of life. With the advent of the internet, there is even less need for traditional memory of facts and figures, yet brain training , i.e how to think, has really taken off. There are memory championships and competitions all over the world, and the related improved mental faculties have been linked to higher IQs, anti-ageing, and prevention of mental health problems such as alzheimers and dementia. Whereas the Pelman adherents had to wait for weeks for their results in the post, computer algorithms are now able to give feedback in seconds. The ease and accessibility of such endeavours, has also meant that brain training has spread to a much larger audience than previously thought possible.
As is evident from this very brief introduction, memory training has a long and varied history - providing a fascinating insight into past societies, as well as the present day. It allows us to gain an understanding of how logic, argument, social conventions and knowledge have been structured. We hope the reader enjoys this book, and is inspired to try some memory training for themselves.
CONTENTS
LESSON I.

I. I NTRODUCTORY .
II. C AUSES OF M ENTAL I NEFFICIENCY
III. A GE IN R ELATION TO M ENTAL E FFICIENCY
IV. T HE F ULFILMENT OF Y OUR D ESIRE
V. T HE V ALUE OF M ENTAL E FFICIENCY
VI. T HE R ELATION OF M IND AND B ODY
VII. I S THE M IND A F UNCTION OF THE B RAIN ?
VIII. T HE P LACE OF M EMORY
IX. T HE G REAT D IVISIONS OF M EMORY : I MPRESSION , R ETENTION , R ECOLLECTION
X. H EALTH AND M IND

Supplement
T HE E.M. H EALTH E XERCISES
THE PELMAN SYSTEM OF MIND AND MEMORY TRAINING.
LESSON I.
Introductory.
I. WHAT THE COURSE COVERS.
1. The Pelman System of Mind and Memory Training is a full course of instruction in mental efficiency, designed to meet every requirement of thought and life, the whole being balanced and arranged in a uniform manner by the Pelman psychologists who have had thirty years experience in dealing with the intellectual needs of every class of society. The Course is comprised in a series of twelve lessons, which are based, not on book knowledge, but on a practical acquaintance with the requirements of the age. The real value and application of every statement made in the Course has been tested again and again with unvarying success. No essential requirement has been omitted and nothing unnecessary has been included. Within the compass of the twelve lessons you will be shewn
How to develop energy, enterprise, and self-confidence;
How to think in a productive manner and according to the laws of Logic;
How to observe;
How to train the senses, such as sight and hearing;
How to understand and utilise the principles of association;
How to practise analysis and synthesis, the reduction of a statement or problem to its simplest possible form and the combination of old ideas into new ones;
How to concentrate the attention and to strengthen the will;
How to use the forces of suggestion and self-suggestion;
How to frame for any subject a scheme of study suited to your own conditions;
How to keep the mind and brain in good health;
And throughout the whole Course you will have brought before you the fact that every activity of thought and work depends upon Memory, and you will be shewn how to develop a reliable Memory. Incidentally many other matters of interest and of vital importance will be placed before you. In order that the Course may be understood without difficulty by students of every class the use of technical and scientific terms has been rigidly excluded except where a simple explanation of them has been added; but students who are acquainted with the science of psychology will readily be able to supply for themselves the technical expressions which have been purposely omitted.
II. CAUSES OF MENTAL INEFFICIENCY.
2. It is only natural that men and women who are not well-born in the sense of being the offspring of healthy parents, should suffer certain mental disadvantages. Physical weaknesses nearly always affect adversely the qualities of the mind; and, so far as bodily idiosyncrasies act and react on mental conditions, it is probable that the good and bad qualities of every parentage are transmitted to its progeny.
The Pelman Institute has found that many people trace their mind-wandering habits to inheritance from one or both parents; and although a few may be mistaken in this diag