The Wonders of Memory
If you think that memory decline is inevitable, think again…look at what is possible…
- Grotius and Pascal are said to have forgotten nothing that they had ever read or thought.
- Cardinal Mezzofanti, who is said to have mastered over a hundred different languages, declared that he never forgot a word that he had once learnned.
- There is a story on record of an old village gravedigger who could remember the day of every funeral in the churchyard for thirty-five years, the age of the deceased, and the names of those attending the funeral.
- Seneca was able to repeat two thousand disconnected words after having heard them once, in the same order as they were given, simply by his natural powers of memory. His friend, Porteus Latio, never forgot any of the speeches he had ever delivered, and never found his memory fail for a single word.
- Cyneas, an ambassador to the Romans from King Pyrrhus, learned in a single day the names of the assembled people so weIl that the next day he was able to salute the senate and the populace, each by his own name.
- Pliny says that Cyrus knew the name of every soldier in his army.
- Francis Luarez could repeat all of St. Augustine’s works, making quotations and citing the number of the page and the line where they could be found.
- Themistocles could call by their names the 20,000 citizens of Athens.
- Muretus teIls of a young Corsican pupil who could repeat backward and forward 36,000 unconnected words, after having heard them but once. He said that he could do better, but the men who were reading to him became exhausted. There came to this Corsican a young man whose memory was wretched. The Corsican instructed him with such success that in a week or two the pupil could repeat five hundred words, backward and forward.
- Magliabechi, the great Florentine bibliophile, had a wonderful memory for books and libraries. He knew the location, shelf, and number of every book in his own great library, and of the other great libraries of the world. Once the Grand Duke of Tuscany asked him where he could find a copy of a certain rare book, and he replied that there was only one copy in existence, and that copy was “in the library of the Grand Seignior, in Constantinople, on the seventh shelf of the third case to the right as you enter.”
- Joseph Scaliger committed to memory the Iliad and Odyssey, in less than a month, and in three months had mastered the entire list of the Greek poets, and committed them to memory. This man is said to have often complained of his poor memory.
In our memory programs you can:
- Learn practical skills to solve your memory problems in everyday life
- Condition yourself to improve your memory indefinitely
- Achieve memory abilities that will astound you and others!
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