Harry KAHNE
Multiple
Mentality
BBC PATHE Video
-- AVI, 20 MB, 3:40
Strand Magazine (October 1925)
"The Man With The Multiple Mind"
An Interview with Harry Kahne, Whose Brain can do Six Things at the Same Time
By Fenn Sherie
It is said that Mohammed and Caesar could, upon occasions, perform two distinct mental operations --- such as writing a letter and carrying on a conversation --- simultaneously. Not having interviewed either of them I am unable to confirm this. I can, however, vouch for the fact that the present generation has produced a remarkable young man who can make his brain do six different things at the same time --- involving, according to the psychologists, no fewer than 14 separate mental processes.
When I first heard of his existence I was (as the reader may be at present) a little dubious. However, now that I have witnessed his public performance, put him through several private tests and chatted with him regarding his remarkable talents, I am in a position to state the facts.
His name is Harry Kahne, his age is 28, and his native land is America. He has a charming personality, a nasal accent, and above all, a wonderful brain.
His demonstrations of multiple mind concentration have to be seen to be believed, but the reader will gather some idea of his remarkable abilities from a careful study of the accompanying photographs with their descriptive captions.
Whether he is performing before music hall audiences or learned professors of psychology, Mr Kahne has the happy knack of keeping his audiences amused as well as amazed. Even whilst jotting down rows of figures, writing them upside down and backwards, he manages to maintain a steady flow of amusing chatter.
"Will somebody please call out a number?" he asks. "You may call out your age if you like. Ladies may call out the age of their lady friends."
And whilst he is writing out news headlines backwards and doing difficult mathematical calculations at the same time, he continues to invite questions from members of the audience, to all of which he has a ready reply.
"Talk to me! Talk to me!" he pleads.
"What is the population of Manchester?" shouts a voice from the back of the hall.
"The population" --- he writes two letters and adds a figure --- "of Manchester" --- he writes two more figures and another letter --- "is 730,551. Anybody else? Talk to me!"
"Are you married?" shouts a girl in the gallery.
"No", he answers, promptly, jotting down a word as he talks; "It’s my work that makes me act like this."
And in his final demonstration of "word-juggling", clearly explained in the photograph on the next page, he maintains the interest by hanging upside down and reciting a poem!
"That boy will go mad", said a woman sitting behind me in the theater where I first saw Mr Kahne perform.
"He is a genius", exclaimed a gray-haired gentleman who looked like a medical man."Very wonderful, but he won’t live long", he added, shaking his head.
But to talk to Mr Kahne is to discover that, although he ahs exceptional abilities, he is not by any means a freak. If he displays genius, it is not the kind that is akin to madness, but rather of the more creditable variety, generally spoken of as "an infinite capacity for taking pains".
"It is all a matter of development and practice", he told me. "Just as the acrobat or juggler trains muscles and nerves that even an athlete overlooks, so have I trained brain cells which the average mental worker seldom attempts to being into use."
"But you must admit that you have been endowed with an exceptionally good brain", I said.
"Yes, it is a good brain --- call it a first class brain, if you like --- yet there are thousands of other brains in the world just as good as mine. There are thousands of pairs of legs in the world just as good as the champion sprinter, but they do not all win races. Mental development is very much like physical development --- it is mainly a matter of exercise."
"But to exercise the brain in the way that you do must surely exert a very severe strain upon it?" I ventured.
"So does an athlete exert a very severe strain upon his muscles when he runs a race", replied Mr Kahne, smiling.
"Agreed", I said, becoming argumentative, "but mental strain is surely far more dangerous than physical exertion?"
"Well, I suppose you’re right there", he replied. "When I first started this sort of thing the psychologists and mental specialists declared that I had better get myself measured for a padded cell or a coffin. At that time I was performing only four feats at once, and I think it was the strain of trying to do five that really upset me. Anyhow, at the age of 23 all my hair came out. I didn’t like that at all. It made me look so ridiculous. But I thought it over, and came to the conclusion that the trouble was due to nervous strain --- quite a temporary affair, like the stiffness an athlete feels when he starts to train a new set of muscles --- and I reckoned that if I kept on practicing I should soon get into the way of performing feats without any serious strain at all. So I stuck to it, and as soon as I mastered the five feats my nerves quieted down and my hair came back again!"
"Do you not mean to infer that your present demonstrations are carried out without your feeling any strain?" I said.
"No sir --- I do not", replied Mr Kahne, emphatically. "The strain is still there, but the worry has gone. You must bear in mind that, apart from the fact that I do six things at once, the words and figures are given me by members of the audience, and the questions they ask range anywhere between baseball and the Einstein theory. So, you see, my performance is practically extemporaneous."
"You have compared your training to that of an athlete", I said. "Does that mean that you have to diet yourself in any way --- taking ‘brain food’ in the form of fish, for example?"
Mr Kahne laughed.
"Oh, no! I just live naturally and eat what I like. All the same, I have to keep my body fit, or my brain gets tired, and I cannot work well if my stomach is overloaded. But here’s an interesting point. Strange though it may seem, I can concentrate better hanging head downwards than when in an upright position. The rush of blood to the head stimulates the brain. Do you know that when people lie awake at night, thinking and worrying, unable to get to sleep, it is often due to a rush of blood to the head, caused by indigestion or something of that sort? If they were to prop themselves up with pillows they would probably manage to get to sleep without further trouble."
"Tell me", I asked "what do the psychologists think of your performance?"
"Oh gosh --- don’t talk to me about psychologists! They‘re good fellows and very interesting to talk to, but when a bunch of those scientists get me under observation it generally means that I have to sit up half the night while they argue over me. They tell me that the six mental operations I perform simultaneously involve no fewer than 14 separate processes of the brain. They tabulate these as: Hearing questions, answering questions, reading newspaper, transposing what is read, transposing spelling, writing with right hand, writing with left hand, writing upside down, carrying six different thoughts in mind, retaining questions, retaining figures for addition, retaining figures for division, proving previous work, and controlling physical actions (writing, stooping, walking, etc.)
"Then they start in to measure my head, put me through all kinds of queer psychiatric tests, and usually finish up by asking me how I do it!"
"And you attribute your ability entirely to mind training?" I said. "Your powers are not inherited?"
"Well, my father certainly had a good memory --- he spoke 16 languages --- but he displayed no mental abnormality. I certainly did not inherit my ability to do six things at once any more than Cinquevalli inherited his ability to keep 8 or 9 balls in the air at the same time."
"When did you first discover your ability to direct your mind into several channels of thought simultaneously?"
"At the age of 14, when I was at school. In most lessons, excepting mathematics, I was rather backwards --- not because I hadn’t the ability to learn, but because I did not pay attention. I was an absent-minded youth, a daydreamer --- always letting my mind wander, thinking out little mechanical inventions, planning new forms of code writing, or evolving plots for short stories. One day my teacher fired a sudden question at me, and finding that I was not paying attention, hauled me out for corporal punishment. It was really the feeling of his cane that first turned my thoughts in the direction of multiple mind concentration. I did not want to give up my daydreams, but on the other hand, I had a distinct aversion to corporal punishment. So after a while I got into the habit of letting one part of my brain wander into the realms of inventive fancy whilst I kept the other alert for an enfilade fire of questions from the teacher.
"One of the tricks with which I used to amused myself was writing backwards. The first words I tackled were ‘Never again’. Why I chose them I don’t know --- unless I was thinking of that cane! --- but I practiced writing them backwards and upside down at every conceivable opportunity. N-I-a-g-a r-e-v ---
"’Harry Kahne’, the teacher would shout suddenly, ‘go straight ahead from where Jimmy Wilson left off’. Instantly I would jump to my feet and recite my lines of poetry without the slightest hesitation.
"Later, finding that this faculty for writing words backwards whilst keeping my mind occupied in quite a different direction became quite natural to me, I began to entertain my friends at home with a few parlor tricks on similar lines. When I left school I went into the jewelry business, but I continued to practice my mental gymnastics --- partly for fun, and partly because I felt that it kept my brain in good trim.
"One day a vaudeville manager happened to see me and asked if I thought I could give a public performance. I said I would try --- and that very same evening I appeared at his theter as deputy for a performer who had failed to put in an appearance. I have been in the show business ever since. When I first appeared I did four things at once. Now I do six. Maybe, in time, I shall be able to do seven or eight."
"But surely there is quite enough strain in your present demonstration without your wanting to add to it?" I exclaimed.
Mr Kahne smiled.
"Perhaps you’re right", he said. :It is very hard work. In the two shows of ten minutes duration which I give every evening I calculate that I use up as much mental energy as the average brain worker expends in an 8-hour day. But I soon recover. I spend all the rest of my time in play and relaxation and never allow myself to worry. It’s worry that kills --- not mental effort. I attribute my clarity of thought not so much to a good memory, but to what I call a good ‘forgettery’. In my daily life I erase all unpleasant thoughts from my mind. And on the stage my ability to forget is an equally important asset. Unless I were able to wipe out from my memory the words given me at the first performance, I might easily confuse them with those called out at the second house. Then where should I be?"
I said that I did not know. Then I asked Mr Kahne if he could explain the method by which he has trained his memory.
"Well, in the first place, most people have a wrong idea of the faculty commonly called memory. Some regard it as a sort of adhesive jelly upon which facts will stick and remain until called for. Others look upon it as sort of card index where thoughts are sorted, to be retrieved at will by pulling a sort of mental ‘tag’ --- the ‘tag’ being what is commonly called ‘the association of ideas’. But such methods of memorizing are automatic rather than systematic."
"Then what is the secret of remembering several things at a time?" I asked.
"Focus", replied Mr Kahne promptly. "If you take a camera with a new roll of film and expose it five times at random, you get five blurred images. But if you focus the camera carefully upon a given object and then make the sixth exposure, you get a distinct image. So it is with the brain.
"It is often said that half of us go about with our eyes shut. It would be more correct to say ‘with our eyes unfocused’. And the same applies to our ears. We see without observing and we hear without listening. Most people could, if they tried, train their brains to hold five times as many impressions as they do at present. When they are forced to focus their senses, they do so with the greatest ease. For example, of you carry on a conversation in a crowded room there may be several people talking at the same time, yet you will have no difficulty in fixing your attention upon the words of the one person who is talking to you. That is what is generally called concentration."
"But that does not explain multiple concentration", I said.
"I am coming to that" answered Mr Kahne. "Do you play the piano?"
A little startled at the apparent irrelevancy of the question --- for even in conversation Mr Kahne’s brain works so rapidly that it is difficult to keep pace with it --- I stammered out something to the effect that I strummed a little for my own amusement.
"And have you ever accompanied a vocalist, reading the music from sight?"
I admitted that I had done so.
"Do you realize, then, that you were doing several things at once? You were reading the treble and the bass as well as the words of the lyrics, listening to the singer, playing with both hands, and occasionaly using your feet on the pedals!"
There was no answer to that argument. Mr Kahne had made his point.
"The trouble with most ‘brainy’ people", he went on, "is that they usually develop their retentive powers in one direction only. The learned professor who knows the names of all the insects in the world and cannot remember his own; the schoolmaster who knows the dates of the accession of all the Kings and Queens and of every important event, yet forgets the date of his wife’s birthday, are common examples of what I call ‘one cylinder memories’."
"But what astonishes me", I said, "is not only the ease with which you retain words and figures, but the rapidity with which you grasp them in the first place."
"Again, that is a matter of practice. I catch words and sentences just as easily and just as firmly as a wicket-keeper catches a ball. When a sentence is hurled at me it sticks as soon as ever I receive it. Sometimes a dozen or more people will be shouting at once, yet I am able to grasp what most of them are calling.
"But here is a curious fact. If somebody calls to me from behind the stage --- in other words, from the direction in which my mind is not focused --- the words will either make no impression on my brain at all, or, if they do, they will throw me entirely out of tune and upset my demonstration."
"But you are able to concentrate upon thoughts as well as upon words and figures?" I asked.
"Sure. Give me a piece of paper and I will show you. Now suggest any subject you like and I will write you a sentence upon it."
"The Strand Magazine", I suggested.
"Right", replied Mr Kahne, and instantly he began to write a string of jumbled letters. "You can talk to me whilst I’m doing this if you like", he said.
"I will leave it to you to do the talking", I said. "Suppose you recite something."
"Sure. Anything you like."
"Kipling’s ‘Gunga Din’", I suggested, naming the first popular poem that came to my mind.
Instantly Mr Kahne commenced to recite, stil writing without a moment’s pause, at the steady rate of about one letter per second. He managed somehow to make the finish of the poem coincide with the end of the sentence he was writing.
"You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din", he declaimed, handing me the sheet of paper with a flourish. "Now look. First of all, starting from the first letter on the left, I want you to read every third letter", he said.
I spelt it out aloud.
"T-h-e S-t-r-a-n-d M-a-g-a-z-i-n-"
"The letter ‘e’ is upside down", said Mr Kahne. "Turn the paper over."
I obeyed.
"Now start with the capital ‘I’ and take every third letter."
"I-s T-h-e L-e-a-d-i-n-g"
"Now turn the paper over again and you will find, near the end, a letter ‘B’ written backwards. Read on from there, backwards --- or, if you prefer, hold the paper up to the mirror --- and you will get the rest of the sentence."
"B-r-i-t-i-s-h M-o-n-t-h-l-y", I read.
Mr Kahne had written the letters in one long string from left to right, jumbling their order, turning some upside down and others backwards, yet he had not omitted a single letter or added a superfluous one!
"Well", I said, "Gunga Din may be a better man than you are in some respects, but certainly not in matters of mental gymnastics. Nobody is in the same street with you there!"
"Oh, shucks!" he replied, with picturesque modesty. "You could do the same yourself if you tried."
"Thanks very much", I answered, "but I’d rather not try."
Figure 1: Doing Six Things At Once ~ Mr Harry Kahne demonstrating his ability to read, write, invert, add, divide, and converse, all at the same time. The figures on the smaller boards are provided by members of the audience. Those on the larger board are written intermittently by Mr Kahne whilst he is copying the headlines from a newspaper held upside down. He writes the figures and letters alternately, thus carrying out two distinct mathematical calculations whilst he is performing the four other mental feats, not the least difficult of which is the ansering of questions as to the populations of various towns!
Figure 2: Juggling With Long Words Whilst Reciting A Poem ~ Three long words are suggested by members of the audience and written on the smaller board. Mr Kahne memorizes them; then, hanging head downwards, he proceeds to jumble them into an apparently meaningless scrawl, at the same time reciting any popular poem requested. A careful examination of the writing --- taking every third letter --- will reveal that he is in the act of writing "Indianapolis" correctly (as seen from the reader's point of view), "Idiosyncracies" upside down, and "Constantinople" upside down, backwards, and reversed (legible when viewed in a mirror).
Figure 3: Writing with Both Hands, Both Feet, and Mouth Simultaneously ~ A demosntration of multiple concnetration of both mind and muscle which Mr Kahne frequently gives before doctors and psychologists. Note: the right hand is writing backwards and revesed, whilst the mouth is writing backwards but correctly).
Figure 4: Solving A Crossword Puzzle While Suspended Head Downwards ~ Mr Kahne recently performed this feat in response to a challenge, and completed the puzzle correctly in 13 minutes.
Figure 5 ~ To demonstrate his mental alertness and prove that his feats are not prearranged, Mr Kahne agreed to write a complicated sentence upon any subject whilst reciting a poem. The subject suggested was "The Strand Magazine", and the result is shown below. To read the sentence, first take the letters underlined, then turn the page upside down and read the letters marked with a cross, and, finally, hold the page to a mirror and, commencing with the capital B, read the remaining letters.
The Multiple Mentality Course
by Harry Kahne
A Series of the Exercises leading to the Development of Greater Mental Power. A True Course in Right/Left Brain Training, Development of Creative Intelligence and Conscious Fostering of Intuitive Powers. Revised & Edited by Mel Saunders.
Contents:
Acknowledgement
Introduction
I. How
the Space Age Degenerates Intelligence
II. How
Multiple Mentalism Differs from Psychology &
Psychiatry
III. Analytical vs. Synthetical Minds
IV. Relationship Between Mental &
Physical Health & Multiple Mentalism
V. Psychological
Difficulties
Relieved by Multiple Mentalism
VI. Multiple
Mentalism
in Trades, Commerce & Professions
VII. The
Problem
of Middle Aged Men in Business
VIII. What
Creative
Imagination
is & How to Develop it
IX. Specialization
Means
Narrowing the Mind; Diffusion Means Mental Shallowness
X. Multiple
Mentalism
as an Aid in Public Speaking
XI. How
to Develop Intuition --- The Sparkplug of Intelligence
XII. Modern
Education
& Its Critics Equally at Fault
This Multiple Mentalism course is a revised version of the course originated by Harry Kahne in the early 1920s. At that time he was billed as The Incomparable Mentalist and The Man with the Multiple Mind.
He often demonstrated his ability on stage by doing six different mental operations simultaneously. His platform performance entailed standing in front of a large blackboard with a piece of chalk in each hand while conversing with the audience. There was a newspaper on a music rack in front of him. He began reading the headlines while writing upside down and backwards with one hand and mirror language with the other hand.
At his left was another small blackboard on which appeared the number 28,642,981,673 --- which was being divided into five unequal parts --- these figures he began computing at the bottom of the large blackboard. To his right was another small blackboard on which appeared seven columns of figures which ran into the millions. These were being added and notated as well at the bottom of the larger blackboard in front of him.
This was Harry Kahne's demonstration of doing six things at one time, i.e., reading, transposing, writing backwards and upside down, holding a conversation, adding and dividing. These six separate processes actually involve fourteen distinct operations, i.e., hearing questions, answering questions, reading a newspaper, transposing what is read, transposing spelling, writing with right hand, writing with left hand, writing upside down, carrying six different thoughts in mind, retaining questions, retaining figures for addition, retaining figures for division, proving previous work and controlling all other physical actions of the body --- such as walking, bowing, etc..
At the end of Harry Kahne's demonstrations, people often asked him, "Do you really believe that nearly everyone can learn to perform the amazing mental feats you demonstrate? Is my brain capable of carrying on four to six independent functions at one and the same time, as yours is? Isn't the ability to master your training confined to well educated people?" When answering, Harry Kahne admitted he had only an average brain to do things no other man in history had done. Education had no bearing on it.
One of the saddest things the people in this complex world of today are confronted with --- is the disuse of their brains! We are constantly beset and bombard with ever-increasing demands that we are ill-equipped or unprepared to handle! Hence, very often, stress sets in. Stress can then contribute to physiological and psychological disruptions which bring about disease and illness. Efficiency is down. Accidents and mistakes become more frequent.
Now this course may not turn you into an Einstein or an Edison, but it will help you to think with more of what GOD gave you --- Your brain! It is the only course of its kind in the world. If you proceed with it lesson by lesson without deviating or digressing, you will no longer be besieged by situations too hard to cope with! You WILL be master over the most difficult situations and the answers will show themselves easily. This course is the key to clearer thinking. It will elicit that latent potential that has always been within you, and you will mentally grow strong and vibrant --- full of life and health.
Have you ever watched an unusual performer do something that you thought was fantastic? Did you ever wonder how he got that way? He certainly wasn't born with this talent, but instead he learned to develop such a talent by training himself. You are endowed with the same basic mental and bodily functions as such a performer. Of two people, each possessing the same natural ability and identical schooling, one will attain great heights of achievement, while the other remains in a status of mediocrity.
There are many examples in history of those who excel and use their brain. Some mechanics become Thomas Edisons or Henry Fords, while others are "grease monkeys" to the day of their death. This wide discrepancy in the fortunes of men is due to the fact that some see and do the right thing at the right time --- while others do not. But... the one man in a thousand who sees correctly and acts with decisiveness at precisely the proper time does not blindly HAPPEN to do so. He sees and acts courageously and correctly because his mind is trained to react efficiently under all circumstances. He has acquired this mental training --- this ability to make his brain cells really work --- unconsciously. He has not realized that he has been training and developing his mind to do so.
After completing this mental development course, you will no longer suffer the balm of a tired mind, but instead you will be mentally alive and feel at ease with yourself. Problems that plagued you before will become easy to solve and the correct decisions will always be readily available.
Follow the instructions conscientiously and you will be amazed at your own ability to perform mental feats that you previously had not thought possible of yourself. It is then that you will realize the boundless potential of your own mind and what it can do for you. As you proceed through each lesson, your brain power will be increasing in strength. Mentally you will be more equipped to handle everyday situations. No matter what your education or experience, for the first time in your life, you will be truly using your brain power storehouse.
Of course, this course in mind training can only benefit you in proportion to the time and effort with which you devote to it. Don't try to find easy methods of doing a certain exercise or lesson for you will only be cheating yourself out of the rewards of completing that lesson. When an exercise states that you do it from memory alone, then don't copy, but do it from memory alone!
Whatever your profession this course will help you perform better and more efficiently. You will find that the difficult and near impossible success can be yours and your hidden dreams can be concrete realizations.
Harry Kahne's brain was little different from yours. However, such as it was, he taught it to work for him. Really work! All its resources were instantly available when he wanted or needed them. It had been trained to do what he wanted it to do, when he wanted it done. His was only an average brain made to perform certain tasks for him.
In this series of lessons or exercises are all the things you need to make your mind work for you. You will be surprised to find how simple they are and how much actual fun and satisfaction you will get from completing the course. Why, it's like a game -- but with far more value than any game ever possessed!
Follow the instructions conscientiously and you will develop all the cells of your brain. You will train them to work in unison for you. And when they do that, YOU CAN MAKE YOUR MIND DO ANYTHING YOU WANT IT TO DO! You can carry on several lines of thought simultaneously. The most difficult problems will seem to solve themselves. The hardest questions, seen in their proper perspective and with all their factors viewed concurrently, become easy to answer promptly and correctly. You will not become perplexed about little things that now cause you setbacks of greater or lesser degrees, because your brain will automatically analyze and evaluate them accurately and give you the right answers at the right time. Such thinking brings SUCCESS!
The first lessons are almost childishly simple. But as you progress from one to another they become more difficult and involved. However, your mind will become correspondingly more able to grasp them and, in a surprisingly short time, you will be actually amazed by your own ability to perform mental feats you had not thought possible --- feats of incalculable value to you in the business and professional world. You will realize at last that there is literally NO LIMIT to the extent to which you will be able to make your mind work for you!
With each lesson, you will learn how you can apply the principles of mental function you acquire to help you in your everyday life. There is no lesson that does not have its practical application in achieving financial or social success. When you are only half way through, you will be unwilling to accept a thousand dollars for the ability you already will have acquired. No matter what your education, training or experience, you will be using them to real advantage for the FIRST time in your life!
Obviously, this course can benefit you only in proportion to the time and sincerity with which you follow it. Therefore, devote the prescribed time effort to every lesson. Do not cheat yourself. Do not copy the exercises from the words you put down. Do them from memory --- and from memory alone. Do not proceed to any lesson until you have thoroughly mastered the one preceding it. To do so defeats the purpose of the course --- defeats your own desires --- nullifies your efforts. Be fair with yourself throughout! Soon you will be achieving mental exercises previously never thought possible.
Although the exercises necessarily are performed with words and figures the results they accomplish in building Brain Power will be reflected in your work day by day, no matter what that work may be. You will find that problems now difficult or even impossible for you to cope with resolve themselves into simple matters before you are half way through the course. In short, the Impossible becomes Simple!
And now I shall give you something startling to think about -- something at once alluring and encouraging. There lies dormant within every man some thought, idea, plan --- call it what you will --- that probably is deeply buried in his subconscious mind, doomed never to reach fruition. But if that thought or plan were brought into the light, allowed to develop, it would make its owner a truly outstanding success --- a man of achievement to whom people would point. And I say to you that if you train your mind to work for you --- to delve into the unexplored resources of your brain and emerge with the treasures hidden therein --- spectacular success will be yours! If you are honest with yourself in understanding Multiple Mentalism, if you are earnest and sincere in your desire to rise far above the ordinary, I will show you how to be successful and powerful beyond your fondest dreams! Simply follow my instructions as given on the following pages --- and you will amaze yourself and the world at large!
How the Space Age Degenerates Intelligence
Dr. Alexis Carrel, surgeon, scientist, member of the Rockefeller Institute, winner of the Noble Prize in 1912 for his success in suturing blood vessels and the transplanting of organs, co-discover of the famous Carrel-Dakin solution which made gangrene virtually unknown in World War I and thus saved tens of thousands of lives, said in his book, Man, The Unknown:
"Modern civilization seems to be incapable of producing people endowed with imagination, intelligence and courage. In practically every country there is a decrease in the intellectual and moral caliber of those who carry the responsibility of public affairs. The education dispensed by schools and universities consists chiefly in a training of the memory and of the muscles, in certain social manners, in a worship of athletics. Are such disciplines really suitable for modern men who need, above all other things, moral courage and endurance!" Those statements are truer now than when Dr. Carrel wrote the book in the early 1930s. Now our brightest and best students have shown an average drop in SAT scores since the early 1970s. This controversy abounds in speculative arguments blame television, permissiveness and educational teaching methods.
But the cause of this mental weakness is not difficult to discern. The pioneers who settled our country were many-sided men --- we are not. They were at once hunters, trappers, explorers, fighters, teamsters, ship or canoe builders, horsemen, wheelwrights, carpenters, cabinetmakers, well drillers, masons, farmers, blacksmiths, traders, cooks -- all these, and more, "specialized" trades and abilities combined in single individuals! No wonder they were possessed of "mental equilibrium, nervous stability", and other attributes mentioned by Dr. Carrel! They were well balanced because their talents were well rounded. They had nervous stability because they had serene self-confidence based on a knowledge of their ability to cope with any problem that might arise in their world. They had sound judgment, for the most part, because their minds were expanded, embraced many branches of lore and learning, were capable in thinking on many varied planes.
And so with the early merchant. He was at once his own architect, store designer, buyer, stockkeeper, advertising manager, salesman, bookkeeper, and financial wizard. The doctor of only a generation ago was an obstetrician, gynecologists, dentist, opthalmologist, throat specialist --- in short, a "general practitioner" in all branches of surgery and medicine.
Today, we have more intelligent exploration, more intelligent farming, better architecture, advertising, accounting, obstetrics, dentistry and surgery. But what Man as a whole has gained, man as an INDIVIDUAL --- you and your family and your employer and your employees --- has lost. You have lost the capacity for broad-gauge reasoning. You are incapable, at present, of viewing many conflicting factors simultaneously --- weighing them side by side at one and the same time --- balancing them, one against another, concurrently --- reaching almost instantaneously a decision which you know, in the depths of your being, is the correct decision and acting upon it promptly with the courage that comes with such conviction.
By relieving man of the necessity for thinking, except within the exceedingly narrow scope of whatever he has chosen as his life work, this Space Age has dulled and drugged the greater part of Man's mind. How many men in this day of automobiles could even harness a horse, to say nothing of caring for it? Why, the majority of them do not understand even the automobiles they drive! The workers themselves, who help build our cars by inserting and securing bolt No. 146, do not understand carburation, ignition, or the principles of the transmission and differential. We no longer train our minds to carry thoughts what we wish to impart to our friends when we next meet them. If the thoughts are important, we reach for a phone or send a letter. If they are relatively unimportant, we forget them. Machines and computers have become Masters, and Minds are deteriorating because of ever-decreasing opportunities, and need for, their use!
That is why your mind needs "limbering up". The very elementary mental gymnastics that I will give you at the start may seem useless almost to the point of foolishness, but they are like the preliminary "warming up" exercises with which athletes indulge before beginning a game. They are simple, easy to do and apparently without meaning. However, they are but the start. As your mind gains flexibility, really "warms" to its task, I shall take you farther and farther until you are performing feats that will astound your friends --- and which will reflect themselves in your increased business ability and earning power.
Exercise I
Although this is the simplest of my twelve exercises, it is by far the most important, for it is upon this exercise that all subsequent instructions are based. Now, too, is the time for you to acquire the proper habit of study. "Well begun is half done," you know, and this exercise --- comprising three separate mental drills --- affords you the opportunity to establish your earnestness, punctuality and continuity of effort. It is designed to train you to apply yourself to a mastery of Multiple Mentalism and to give you a firm foundation of thought application upon which the rest of the lessons in this course depend.
And right here I want to emphasize what will be repeated time and again throughout the course --- that you must not copy this exercise, but must work from memory alone! In this way, and ONLY in this way, will you be able to train your mind to do things for you, when and as you want them done! It is work --- but it is fun too. It takes time --- but it is worth it! And the results will seem nothing less than miraculous!
First: This the English alphabet:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
You were taught to memorize that in the first grade. Now, with pencil and paper, BUT WITHOUT LOOKING AT IT EVEN ONCE. write the alphabet backwards FIFTY TIMES:
Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A
The first time will be difficult and you may make mistakes. But don't look, nor copy, nor take too long to "think it out." Write it backwards, at a fairly even speed, regardless of how slow that speed may be, from MEMORY. This is the first training for your mind. In ten or twenty attempts you will be able to write the alphabet backwards easily. Do it fifty times and you will have mastered it perfectly.
Second: I assume that you now have mastered the alphabet backwards. If you have not, do not stop at the fifty times you have written it, but continue writing it from memory until you have mastered it. Then transpose in 1-3 2-4 order the letters of the alphabet from A to Z, as follows:
A C B D, E G F H, I K J L, M O N P, Q S R T, U W V X, (Y Z),
which are left over from the six combinations of four letters each. Do this FIFTY times from memory. It will be by no means easy the first few times, but you will gain accuracy quickly. However, you will profit nothing if you look at the letters of the alphabet in order to copy the exercise. Its value lies in the training given you by breaking up the sequence of letters in YOUR MIND, without the help of your eyes. You can readily understand how this will lead to mental agility in grasping and revolving business problems in your mind. Therefore, do this exercise AT LEAST fifty times, or as many more times as may be necessary for you to be able to do it quickly and accurately.
Third: In the same way, transpose the letters of the alphabet FIFTY times, in the order of 1-26, 2-25, 3-24, 4-23, 5-22, etc.; the first 13 letters (A to M, inclusive) in their regular order; the last 13 (Z to N, inclusive) backwards; intermingling the two halves of the alphabet thus:
A-Z B-Y C-X D-W E-V F-U G-T H-S I-R J-Q K-P L-O M-N
Do this also from MEMORY. Do not copy or look at the alphabet. And when you are doing this exercise, realizing that you are doing two things at once in your mind. You are writing the first half of the alphabet in its usual sequence, and the last thirteen letters in reverse order. You are making your brain do something for you that it never did before. It is performing a dual operation. When you have done this third part of Exercise I fifty times, entirely from memory, you will have demonstrated that you can make your mind really work for you with a nimbleness heretofore unrealized!
Don't forget that you cheat only yourself --- not anyone else --- of you fail to perform these mental gymnastics from memory and if you fail to send ONE HOUR A DAY on the exercises.
And now, I am going to put you on your honor. For your own sake, master this exercise -- in all its three parts -- before you go on to Chapter II and its accompanying exercise. Each chapter and "drill" in this course is based on all that goes before it. Your success with the second lesson depends on your mastery of the first. Be conscientious --- be fair to yourself --- and spend all the time you need to do each exercise quickly, accurately and easily. The rewards will delight you!
How Multiple Mentalism Differs From Psychiatry & Psychology
Simplistically, psychology is the study of the normal human mind in the laboratory; that is, in an abstracted, ideal state influenced by actual, everyday environment. Psychiatry is the study of the mind's functioning, or disorders in the functioning, under workaday conditions. Multiple Mentalism is a training system that enables the average, ordinary mind to cope successfully -- and more than successfully -- with the circumstances created by modern civilization.
Psychology studies the mind, but does not treat it. Psychiatry treats the maladjusted mind, but does not train the normal brain to use its full powers. Multiple Mentalism neither studies nor treats the mind, but does train and DEVELOP the average brain so that it may function easily at full capacity.
Multiple Mentalism makes no pretense of encroaching upon the domains of psychology or psychiatry -- the study of instincts or psycho-neuroses. It is concerned only with taking the mind as it is -- rusty, unused, dull and almost to the point of moronism in contrast to what it COULD be -- and training it to utilize ALL its component parts. It is at once a method, and a process -- an wakening and development of parts of the brain that now lie almost atrophied, or festering with "complexes" and unrecognized inhibitions. It brings these slumbering capabilities to the surface, energizes your thinking, broadens your grasp of things, deepens your understanding, enables you to solve instantly problems that baffle other men, gives you the power to follow several lines of thought at one and the same time, to reach decisions -- correct decisions -- while others fumble, to attain success that will be granted to you!
And if the rich rewards offered you through Multiple Mentalism seem disproportionate to the seeming childishness of the exercises given you to master, think again! True, you will not become Chairman of the Board in charge of all the DuPont interests because of your ability to write the alphabet backwards -- nor will you land any big contracts on the strength of your being able to transpose the letters of the alphabet. But neither would Mohammed Ali expect to enter the ring with a skipping rope and beguile the public with the old childhood formula, "Salt, pepper, mustard, vinegar"! He spends much of his training time in skipping rope -- but only to improve his footwork, his co-ordination and his endurance. In other words, the exercises I give you are merely silly if viewed as ends in themselves, which they decidedly are NOT. Considered in their true character, as MEANS to an end, they are most effective, the most fruitful, the speediest and most practical means of mind training that the world ever has known. And actual results will prove that I am understating their value, rather than overstating it.
With this proper understanding of what Multiple Mentalism is, and an appreciation of the exercises' value, we are ready to proceed.
Exercise II
Do not attempt this exercise until you have mastered the three parts of the first lesson! The mental drill you are about to be given deals with words, and while you may not at first see that it has anything to do with what you learned in Exercise I, Exercise II is based on the TRAINING there given you and follows it in logical sequence. That is why it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that you master the first before taking up the second.
If you have mastered Exercise I, you will agree that it is rather easy, and very interesting, to write the alphabet backwards and to intermingle the letters. Remember, however, that the letters, words and figures used in this training are merely the tools with which you work on your mental processes -- as useless in themselves as a slide rule is to a Sunday driver. They are the means -- the end result is a mind of such power and adaptability that it will carry you to pinnacles of achievement far beyond your present imagination!
For your first drill in Exercise II, write from memory as many three-letter words as you can; at least thirty of them. Fifty to one hundred would be better. There is not much mental work involved in that, is there? Here are just a few for samples:
MAN DOG CAT THE HAY SEX RUN TOP WAS BUT NOW FOR HIP
|Now, write your list from memory! Do not copy these words, but think up three-letter words yourself and write them on a sheet of paper. Write them a half dozen times until you have them pretty well in mind and can recall them easily. Next, without looking at what you have written (throw the paper in the waste basket!), write as many of those words as you can remember, writing them BACKWARDS from memory, like this:
NAM GOD TAC EHT YAH XES NUR POT SAW TUB WON ROF PIH
Some of the words you have selected will form new and correct words when spelled backwards, but disregard these new words thus formed. For the purpose of this exercise they mean nothing, but are mere coincidences.
The purpose of this drill is to train your mind to see things holistically in their entirety. For instance, when you think of the word "can", it should mean not just the sequence "c-a-n" to you, but should appear as a picture in your mind, of three letters, each equally important regardless of arrangement. The "a" is as important as the "c" or the "n" even though it is in the middle of the word. You can see the practical application of this is the consideration of commonplace problems of life and business!
Repeat this exercise twenty-five times, each time removing your previous effort from sight and making your new attempt entirely from memory, quickly forwards or backwards. And when that word pictures itself in your mind, it will appear to you not as a static sequence of three letters, but as three separate letters which your mind will be able to group into any form at will.
"But what good will that do me?" you may ask. "What good is it to me to be able to spell short words backwards?" This exercise will have taught your brain to do something it never could do it do before -- it will have broken down another rut in which your mind was traveling -- it is a step toward untrammeled, original thinking. And it will have developed your brain by just that much -- prepared it for further training by the lessons that follow in this course.
Furthermore, it will have trained your brain to see little things, like little words, in their entirety. The small problems of life or business or the home are made up of two or three sides, or questions, or 'angles". No matter how simple, every question has at least two sides. The successful man is the one who can see ALL sides at once -- the other fellow's as well as his own. And, knowing the other man's problem, he is able to take advantage of the situation of his own interests -- while the other man, who sees only HIS side of the matter and does not grasp the problem as a whole, is placed at such disadvantage that he usually comes out second best. This exercise is powerful indeed in its potentialities!
Of course, these two chapters will not make you a success overnight in what you are striving for, but they have started your brain on the path to clear, concise, concurrent and analytical thinking -- which is an essential to success in any effort.
Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator: Visualizing and Memory Drill
Try these drills in your spare time. Make a game of them. You will learn to like them, and all the time you will be developing your brain cells.
Drill A Write any THREE LETTER WORD you can think of, at the same time spell aloud an entirely different THREE LETTER WORD. Example:
Write: c-a-t Write: p-e-n Write: c-u-p Spell: d-o-g Spell: i-n-k Spell: s-u-m
Continue with this drill, using different words in each attempt, until you are capable of writing ONE THREE LETTER WORD and spelling ANOTHER three letter word at the same time, without hesitation.
Drill B Do not attempt this drill until you have mastered Drill A
Write a THREE LETTER WORD, writing the letters in reverse sequence -- at the same time spell it aloud correctly. Example:
Write: t-a-m Write: t-i-h Write: y-a-p
Spell: m-a-t Spell: h-i-t Spell: p-a-y
Continue this drill, using different words.
Drill C This drill may be a little more difficult than those preceding, but you can master it. Remember your brain is now more flexible than it was before you started MULTIPLE MENTALISM -- and these drills will make it even more flexible.
Write any THREE LETTER WORD spelling it BACKWARDS: at the same time spell ANOTHER three letter word correctly. Example:
Write: t-a-h Write: t-i-f Write: n-i-p
Spell: c-a-p Spell: f-u-n Spell: p-i-t
Continue this drill until it is easy for you, using different words.You are becoming mentally STRONG.
Analytical vs. Synthetical Minds
At the conclusion of Chapter II, I mentioned analytical thinking. Let me make this clear, however: THE DAY OF THE ANALYTICAL MIND IS PAST, at least so far as major success is concerned. And to any of you men or women who pride yourselves upon having an "analytical mind", I issue this warning: You've GOT to go beyond mere analysis and on to synthesis, or you will be a galley slave all your life, chained to the System or the Machine!
Reason it out yourself. In the beginning, primitive man was faced with a horde of unknown, mysterious and terrifying forces. The sun died daily, and was born again next dawn. Thunder threatened dire destruction in Stentorian tones. Forest fires, set by malignant, unseen demons, drove all before them. Floods wrecked the work of years. Dark diseases destroyed whole tribes. Everything about our hairy ancestors was confusion. Only the power of reasoning -- analytical reasoning that could assign the right effect to the right cause -- sorted things out for him and finally made Earth and its element bearable.
Then came the long period of development when men had a fairly complete understanding of their environment. They began to break more and more things down to their component parts. The jack-of-all-trades began to give way to the specialist, the man who analyzed one particular facet of a business, or a science, or a profession, or a trade. By concentration, he became an expert and won the rewards due to his superior analytical ability. That was when an "analytical mind" was the passport to success.
It is no longer necessary to have analytical ability in order to master an isolated part of any occupation or study. Medicine has been broken down into a score of sub-divisions, from Anatomy to Zoology. Business has been sub-divided into dozens of specialties, from Accounting to Underwriting. The farmer has become not merely an Agriculturist but a specific kind of agriculturist -- lost in fields other where the mass of mankind finds little need for thinking at all and where analytical ability seldom distinguishes its possessor from his fellow workers -- possessors of pre-analyzed knowledge.
BUT... although the world has an over-abundance of advertising managers, art directors, production managers, operating superintendents, tool makers and designers, auditors, financiers, buyers, stockkeepers, salesmen, market analysts, time and motion men and other executives... there is a definite lack of BIGGER men -- men who can view these myriad other groups as you can now view a three-letter word -- who can see each in its proper relationship to the others and to the world at large -- and can weld from the heterogeneous mass a mercantile giant like Montgomery Ward or Sears Roebuck, or a manufacturing Goliath like General Motors.
And there you have a glimpse of what Multiple Mentalism will do for you -- or, rather, enable you to do for yourself. It will enable you not only to apply analysis to your yourself -- the technique of tearing down and studying the component parts of any situation -- but, far more important, will give you the constructive ability to assemble the parts into a harmonious whole, a smooth-working organization, or plan, or book, or whatever it is upon which you are engaged. Seeing and understanding all factors simultaneously, you will be able to "synthesize" -- build up -- while your merely analytical competitor, like the canal boat captain of a vanished era, bemoans the passing of the "good old days"!
Therefore, Exercise III continues the analysis and synthesis drill inaugurated in Exercise II and supplements the training you have given your mind in this course so far.
Exercise III
In Exercise II you became adept at writing three-letter words backwards from memory. And right here I want to emphasize the necessity of spending at least ONE HOUR a day on this course. You can devote time to it while riding to or from work, while eating lunch, or during any of the idle moments with which every man's day is blessed (or cursed!). No doubt you gained a fair mastery of Exercise II in an hour or so, for it is purposefully so simple that a child can do it and enjoy it. But to train the mind to accomplish a thing readily and instantly, you must train it by repetition until the process becomes automatic. In so doing, the right brain is engaged. It is not enough to be able, when leaving the second lesson, to write backwards any three letter word that comes to your mind, and to do so almost as readily as you would write it forwards. That is just a start. You must go further before taking up Exercise III. Repeat Number II every day for a week. An hour a day. At the end of the week you will find that you are doing it automatically, almost unconsciously, and absolutely without effort.
Then, but not until then, you are ready for Exercise III, in which you are to do this: Write, from memory, 25 to 50 four-letter words. Put them on a piece of paper and study them carefully. Then discard the paper and write them again. Do this several times, until you can quickly recall ALL OF THEM. Then write them backwards from memory. Here are a few samples:
Forwards: KNOB PAIN CASE SILL RING SLIP READ SHOE WOOD
Backwards: BONK NIAP ESAC LLIS GNIR PILS DAER EOHS DOOW
Although they look queer, each is a word with a very definite meaning. The letters are in reverse order, it is true -- but, still, each is a word you frequently use and should be able to recognize at a glance, even though written backwards. Now, repeat this twenty-five times -- EACH TIME FROM MEMORY -- recalling the words in your mind and not looking at them in writing. Take a clean sheet of paper each time you write the group anew. After you have perfected yourself in this drill, you will be able to recognize the words Pale, Hump, Coon, even when you see them in reverse order, thus: Elap, Pmuh, or Nooc.
And what's that to you? Well, it means that you have now taken the first step toward being able instantly to see all sides of simple problems, no matter in what guise they may confront you. And with this as a basis, you will build your ability to conquer life's most difficult situations. The drills I give you in the exercises to come, make greater and greater demands upon your brain -- develop it constantly to a point far beyond what you would now dream possible.
Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator: Double Concentration Drill
Drill A - Memorize this verse:
The night has a thousand
eyes,
The day but one ---
Yet, the light of a whole
life dies
When love is done.
Drill B - Recite the verse above ALOUD; at the same time write your name and address. Example:
"The night has a thousand eyes,"
Robert Armstrong
"The day but one ---"
1642 West Allison St.
"Yet, The light of a whole life dies"
Cincinnati, OH
"When love is done."
Drill C - Recite ALOUD the verse given above, while writing a friend's name and address. This will be a bit more difficult, but MASTER it and then try this:
Recite ANY poem, prayer or song you well know, while writing your own name and address or the name and address of a friend, or any addresses you are accustomed to writing. Continue these drills until they are easy for you to accomplish.
Relationship Between Mental & Physical Health & Multiple Mentalism
Let me make this clear as promptly and emphatically as possible: Multiple Mentalism is not in any way, shape or form -- directly or indirectly -- a system of mental healing! At least, no more than fishing or tennis constitute business training.
However, there is a definite relationship and interdependence between bodily health and mental health. If you are weak, run-down and physically ill, your mind cannot attain its fullest efficiency until you have built up your body. The converse is equally true -- if your mind is worried, stressful and in ill health, your physical organs or their functions also suffer and you cannot achieve perfect bodily condition until your mental "set" is right.
Sounds like vicious circle, doesn't it? But in reality it is not. The human body is the one thing we know of that literally can "lift itself by its own bootstraps." If your physical health is below par and your mental health is suffering accordingly, you can make your first steps toward recovery either through the mental or the physical. If you choose the latter, proper exercise, diet and living habits will not only start you along the road to physical health but, also, will in marked measure alleviate your mental symptoms. Having got so far -- with the physical condition somewhat better, proportionately, than the mental -- you should turn your attention to bettering your state of mind. Mental exercise, straighter thinking and better mental discipline can then put your mind in better health, relatively, than your body -- which can again overtake and surpass your physical condition. In other words, you advance the health, first of one and then of the other, physical and mental, just as you place first one foot and then the other forward until you reach your objective.
And that explains why Multiple Mentalism -- without actually being a "mind cure" or "faith cure" in any sense of the words -- really has helped many to better health. This system of mind training gives your brain exercise, diversion and discipline -- puts it far ahead of your body in strength and energy, because there are limits to what the body can do but no limits to the capability of the human mind! There is nothing surprising in the fact that Multiple Mentalism, by stimulating, energizing and strengthening their minds, quickly uprooted the physical symptoms.
Just as Multiple Mentalism facilitates your building up of your body, a thoroughly sound body will enable you to reap even more benefit from my training -- will make it possible for your brain capacity to grow just that much more. And so I urge you again to devote at least one hour every day to the Exercises. Practice them at every opportunity. Transpose the letters and words you see on billboards, and jumble the type in your daily paper -- seize every opportunity to make your mind more proficient.
Moreover, you will find within the next thirty days that you are so much more efficient at your work -- because of these drills I am giving you -- that you will be able to spare more time from the office for physical exercise and play. You are on your way to full enjoyment of abundant health such as you never before aspired to! No wonder that you should do full justice to each lesson I give you, taking plenty of time to it and mastering it fully before taking another step forward and upward!
Exercise IV
This is your first complex exercise. It utilizes all the training you have given your mind through Exercises I, II and III. It consists of putting words together, exactly as you must put ideas together in life in order to obtain the fullest measure of business or professional success. Probably it will take you several days to become proficient in the mental gymnastics I now introduce -- but they will give you a very definite mental ability that you do not have at present.
Take 24 of the three-letter words you memorized in Exercise II, or any 24 other three-letter words that come to mind. Write them a few times so that you are thoroughly familiar with them. Then pair any two of the 24 that first occur to you, and intermingle their letters in sequence. Here is what I mean:
OIL & BIT = O B I I L T
and, likewise:
KEY & MAP = K M E A Y P
Pair up the 24 words into any 12 pairs, writing their letters, as above, in 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 order. Then start all over with the same or different letters. Mix the words in any pairs that occur to you. Intermingle their letters in the order given. Do this 20 MINUTES every day.
In the second 20-minute period of your hour's exercise, pair a three-letter word with a four-letter word and intermingle their letters:
WERE & HAS = W H E A R S E
and, similarly:
COME & AIL = C A O I M L E
Do this FOR 20 MINUTES EVERY DAY, using a different pair every time you do it, until you can take any three-letter word and intermingle its letters with those of any four-letter word as rapidly as you could spell each word correctly by itself. This drill should immediately follow your 20-minute practice in intermingling three-letter words.
Now, for the last 20-minute period of your daily drill, do the same exercises as the two preceding, EXCEPT: pair and intermingle four-letter words, one with another, instead of using three-letter and four-letter words, thus:
LIKE & PAIR = L P I A K I E R
and also:
FOAM & LOVE = F L O O A V M E
You may realize how essential I consider it when I repeat a bit of advice given you in every exercise so far: NEVER "COPY" THE DRILL. Do it from memory! FROM MEMORY ALONE. Use your "mind's eye", not your physical eye. In doing this, you acquire that same miraculous ability with which the blind amaze the world -- the power to recreate, in your own mind, everything about you at the moment and anything you have seen in the past. Your mind OPENS -- it embraces THE WORLD IN ITS ENTIRETY. It is ILLUMINATED -- dark, obscure corners become LIGHT. Your mind is awake -- it LIVES. The whole earth is WITHIN YOUR MENTAL VISION -- and you are master of it! That is the power possessed by the blind, in some measure -- and which you can not only acquire, too, but to which you can ADD the inestimable value of sight. Truly, I exaggerate but little when I tell you that practicing these exercises until you reach perfection in them will make you nothing less than a Super-man -- a being apart from those around you!
So, make your mind WORK. Don't "coddle" it by copying -- nor "baby" it by taking less than an hour's drill every day. Take MORE, if you need it. The BIG thing is: to master -- master thoroughly -- each and every lesson as you go along. Perfect yourself in it before proceeding to the one following. In this way, and in this way ONLY, you will get full value from Multiple Mentalism, the SOLE course of its kind in the world
Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator: Numerical-Word Drill
Drill A - Recite aloud the numerals from 1 to 100. At the same time write as many FOUR LETTER words correctly as you can. Continue practicing this drill until you can keep an even pace, counting and writing..
After a few attempts you should be able to write 15 or more 4-letter words without stopping your counting, although you may have to pause occasionally to think of words.
Drill B - Recite numerals from 3 to 99, while writing 4-letter words, spelled backwards.
EXAMPLE: BOAT -- as you count aloud "by threes".
SPELLED: TAOB
A friendly bit of advice to you: The more difficult you find these exercises, is the sign that you need them, so MASTER them by all means.
Psychological Difficulties Relieved by Multiple Mentalism
Exercise IV may have seemed difficult at first. But by the time you take up this chapter, you will -- if you are fair to yourself -- have mastered Exercise IV and will now be able to do the drill easily.
This is as good a time as any for me to go on record with this statement, substantiated by every scientific authority on the workings of the human mind: THINKING NEVER HURT ANYBODY! Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of America's outstanding philosophers, said: "It probably is easier for great men to do great things than it is for little men to do little things". So, if you have found it difficult to do the little exercises I have thus far given you, your brain has not yet really begun to realize its capacity and it still stamps you, comparatively, as a "little" man. However, to quote another famous figure in history, Thomas Edison once said, "Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration". Consequently, the effort you devote to these exercises will lead you surely and uninterruptedly to GREATNESS OF INTELLECT. And greatness of intellect is characterized by greatness in other things -- in understanding, in sympathy, in charity and in our daily conduct. Many ends well worth striving for!
And if, in the striving, you occasionally feel a touch of "brain fatigue", remember this: physical exercises that build up your muscles and framework are invariably accompanied, at first, by physical stiffness. This stiffness is in itself PROOF that the exercises are benefiting you -- calling into play parts of your body that have been "rusting", unused. So with the mental exercises that are given here. If they seem to make your brain stiff and somewhat "numb", you may be sure that they are helping you. The stiffer they make you feel, in fact, the more you have been in need of just this kind of "limbering up", and the more good you will get from it.
You are now becoming able to carry on four or five mental processes simultaneously. Your thoughts of self are no longer able to crowd other thoughts out of your mind. Expressed in another way, Multiple Mentalism has left you still conscious of self, but no longer self-conscious! You are four or five times the individual you formerly were and you have outgrown your childish self-consciousness just as you have outgrown the clothes you wore as a child!
The same factors account for the disappearance of stuttering and stammering in several others who have perfected themselves in these drills. Where thought was too rapid for words, consequently crowding the consciousness so that no part of the mind was free to direct the speech, they stuttered and stammered. With the ability to think several things at once, they were free to complete their lines of thought while other parts of their brains followed along, putting the thoughts into words and seeing that the words were properly uttered, clearly and impressively. So, too, with those who hem'd and haw'd and er'd while sparring for time in which to think. Mental agility -- the ability to see and weigh all sides of a question simultaneously -- now enables them to speak right out, without impediment.
Some stutterers and stammerers, we are told by psychiatrists, are victims of neuroses and complexes all unknown to themselves. Even so, when they are relieved of these neuroses, freed from these complexes by Multiple Mentalism, is there anything in that "cure" to surprise the thinking man? Complexes and neuroses hide in dark corners of the mind -- hidden from sight -- unpleasant experiences or desires that we wish to forget -- unhappy memories or unworthy desires that our conscious minds do not want to face but which melt away instantly when dragged out into the light and dissolved by the illumination of Reason and Understanding. As you already can see, by its effects on your own mind, Multiple Mentalism opens up chamber after chamber in your brain -- airs and purifies it -- lets in the sunshine of Intelligence to disperse any unwholesome, buried memories that may be festering there -- gives you mastery in your own mind, over all that it is and all that it contains.
After all the foregoing, you might expect Exercise V to be a drill featuring Peter Piper and his peck of pickled peppers, or the ragged rascal who ran 'round the rugged rock! However, it is not. You will find it, instead, a continuation of No. IV -- a trifle more complex, perhaps -- but even more interesting. If you have been faithful in your practicing and have mastered the four exercises given you so far, you have reached the point where your increased mental abilities are a constant source of amazement and pleasure to you!
Exercise V
Warning: if you have to any degree slighted the previous lessons, GO BACK AND MASTER THEM NOW, or you will fall by the wayside in your effort to acquire a Multiple Mind! Exercise V will absolutely stop 999 out of every thousand men who have not approached it by mastering Nos. I, II, III and IV. However, if you have been conscientious and regular in your practice and can now intermingle three-letter and four-letter words with ease and speed, these gymnastics will give you a genuine thrill!
First, write 24 four-letter words from memory. It is easy, of course. You have used so many of them in the preceding lesson. Now, take any two of your four-letter words (select them in your "mind's eye", NOT by looking at the list you have written!) and intermingle their letters so that you spell one word frontwards; the other, backwards. Like this:
HOLD & SOIL = H L O I L O D S
and
PIPE & PUFF = P P I U P F E F
Naturally, you understand that this is to be done entirely from memory -- utilizing the blind man's gift of seeing with his mind -- and writing the intermingled letters on a clean sheet of paper, without having the words themselves before you as a guide. Just select the words, reach for a clean sheet of paper and write down S N U O R O E L after having selected, for example, the words SURE and LOON in your mind. Do not write SURE and LOON, themselves, at all -- just their letters, intermingled as explained, and NOTHING ELSE. Pair off other four-letter words and write them similarly for 30 minutes. Do not overdo yourself by practicing more than 30 minutes at present, for you must spend at least a week, and perhaps more, on Exercise V. You will have time tomorrow and in the days following to become really proficient in this and the following drill (also a part of Exercise V). It is better, you know, to take six hours in six days, for drilling than to take even twelve hours in a single day. You learn better, and retain what you learn, which you cannot hope to do if you "cram".
After you have practiced the above lesson for 30 minutes, go on to words of five . Write JSULMLPSAF if you have selected JUMPS and FALLS. Pair off five-letter words and write them thus FOR 30 MINUTES --- no more, no less, for the first day.
Tomorrow and in the days following, until you have MASTERED this drill thoroughly, spend AT LEAST 30 minutes daily on four-letter words and five-letter words. Thirty minutes EACH, that is. Or more. Two hours in all if you can find the time --- an hour and a half if you cannot manage two hours --- but, at all costs, AT LEAST one full hour. And KEEP AT IT, day after day, until you can make four-letter and five-letter words "jump through the hoop" for you, in accordance with this drill.
How does this fit into your daily life and help you in solving business or household problems? Well, think it over. Something occurs on your job, let us say. Perhaps someone has been advanced over others' heads, or someone has been unexpectedly discharged, or a deal that you thought was "in the bag" falls through. Why? You may be sure that any totally unexpected happening of any importance was preceded by an entire series of events --- long and short and, perhaps, seemingly unrelated to the action in which they culminate. The most recent event in the series is probably familiar to you, but you may not see its connection with other, partially forgotten events. Now that your mind is becoming trained to break down and reconnect words, to take ten apparently unrelated letters and see them in their true relationship to each other, as two separate and distinct words, your mind will become equally able to analyze and reconstruct events in your business life --- to understand that which is now a puzzle to you.
Better yet: Perhaps a series of events is now under way, but has not yet culminated in any definite action. With your new-found ability to recognize seemingly heterogeneous elements as coherent entities, you will in many cases find yourself anticipating forthcoming actions and "beating the other fellow to the gun", or preparing yourself in advance to handle situations that otherwise would prove too much for you.
Need I say that when you can do this, and your rivals cannot, you --- and not they --- will win out in business competition?
Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator: Calculating Drill
This is NOT an arithmetical drill in the sense that it is designed to improve your arithmetic. However, even before the time of Omar Khayam, various mathematical exercises were much in vogue to develop judgment, reasoning power and mental alertness. The following drill will stimulate your brain to greater nimbleness than you would have dreamed possible just a few weeks ago.
Drill A - Spell your own name aloud and add this row of figures:
4
7
8
3
5
7
1_
Try this one:
8
6
5
4
5
9
2
7
8_
Try again:
14
67
45
34
97_
And again:
178
563
423_