You can now repeat without error a series of 100 or 200 words and figures after having heard them once, and you can also effortlessly call any chosen word or number out of its proper order. In addition, you have read short summaries of several cases showing practical application in all sorts of fields of study and in everyday life.

Before going on with the serious study of mnemotechny, I would like to demonstrate to you some of its amusing possibilities. By way of review, therefore, of what you have already learned, I am going to introduce you to some entertaining parlor games which you will find it interesting to try out on your friends.

But stimulating and enjoyable as these games are, I should not introduce them at this point if I had no serious reason for doing so. As a matter of fact, these games develop your powers of concentration. Every exercise in mnemotechny is in the final analysis an exercise in concentration, no matter for what reason it is undertaken.

One of the most interesting games that can be played with the aid of mnemotechny, and one that baffles the uninitiated spectator, is so-called "mind reading." It naturally has nothing to do with actual telepathy. It is merely the application of what we have already learned.

This game presupposes that you instruct one other person in the system outlined in this book. You both know key words and secondary series. So you both know that 91 is sports.

In other words, if you were to call out number 91 to your partner, he would answer sports. But such a stunt would be too obvious to all those present and we shall therefore try to change it so that it will lose its transparency. This is not difficult. It can be done as follows:

Instead of calling out "91" you can call "9.. .1."

Instead of "9.. .1" you can say "p,t."

And instead of saying "p,t," you can form a sentence in which the first two words begin with the consonants p and t. For instance, "Please tell me what I have in my hand." Your partner knows he must pay attention only to the initial consonant in each of the first two words and that the rest of the sentence is a matter of no consequence to him. So he pays attention to "Please tell" only and takes the consonants p and t. He knows that these mean 9... 1 and therefore 91, and he knows, in addition, that the number 91 in the secondary series is sports. With this information he can answer your apparently artless question with the correct name of the object you hold in your hand.

In this case your task is somewhat more difficult than your partner's, for you must word your question, seemingly casually, in such a way that the first two words have the right initial consonants. Your partner's task is simpler. He need know only the secondary series in order to give the correct answer immediately. And, you see, the secondary series contains practically all the words necessary for a social gathering. Since those present invariably hold out a great number of objects when you ask for them, you always have the opportunity to choose acceptable things and disregard those not listed in our secondary series.

¾ order to avert any misunderstanding in formulating questions, here are a few additional examples: "Can you tell what I have in my hand?" would mean 71. The second word, you, consists of vowels and is therefore not counted. For the same reason, "Can you please tell me . . ." means 79.

"May I ask you..." is 30.

"Let me know ..." is 53, etc.

With a little practice you will not find it difficult to construct questions using numbers from 1 to 100.

Furthermore, this very pleasant little game is not confined to objects in our series, but can be extended in the same way to other things, such as coin: and cards.

In the case of coins, the game revolves around their value as well as their date of coinage. For their date you naturally think of our old mnemotechnical principle of simplification and confine yourself to the last two ciphers. Mistakes will not occur, for if the last two ciphers are greater than the last two digits of the current year, the coins have been minted in the previous century, that is, in the 1800's. If they are below, their date begins with 1900. As an example:

"Please can you tell me the date of this coin!" means 1897. The words "Please can" give the initiated the figures 9 and 7, or 97. The 18 he can of course supply himself and reach 1897.
The question "Now give me the date on this coin," means "n,g," therefore 27. The completion of the date with 19 is a matter of common sense, since coins minted in 1827 are no longer in circulation. So the person asked can safely supply the answer 1927.

In a similar way, the initiated can play this mnemotechnical question-and-answer game with playing cards. To play this game, use the rules given in Chapter XIX for playing cards generally. Remember that we used the suits in alphabetical order with the following number values:

Clubs                           1
Diamonds                     2
Hearts                          3
Spades                         4

The questions are then put in the same fashion as in the examples for objects and coins. The initial consonant of the first word tells the suit; the initial consonant of the second word tells the value of the card. Do not forget that we valued the 10 as o, and the ace as 1. Remember, also, that we numbered the face cards as follows:

Jack                             2
Queen                          3
King                             4

In order to distinguish the face cards from the other cards in the deck, we added 5 to the suit-number. If you have forgotten these details, read Chapter XIX again.

If you have the values of the suit-numbers and the face cards well in mind, you will quickly figure out the following:

Question: "Now let me know what this card is!" Answer: "The 5 of diamonds." The first word starts with n, giving you the second suit—diamonds. The second word starts with 1, giving you the value of the card—5. Therefore the answer is "The 5 of diamonds."

Question: "Read now this card!" Read starts with r; therefore it is the fourth suit, or spades. Now starts with n; therefore it is the number 2. Answer: "The 2 of spades."

Question: "Give me the name of this card!" Give starts with g; and g is 7, or a diamond and face card; me starts with m, which is 3, or the Queen. Since I know that the card is a face card, the answer must be, "The Queen of liamonds."

There is another possibility in connection with the face cards. Instead of adding 5 to the suit, we can agree upon a certain word which will always indicate that we are dealing with a face card. For instance, we might use the word attention. In that case, the addition of 5 is unnecessary, and the suit-number can always remain the same. The t in attention, of course, does not count. The question, "Tell me what card I have in my hand!" calls for the answer, "The 3 of clubs." (t means clubs; m means 3.) "Attention, tell me what card I have in my hand!" calls for "The Queen of clubs," because t means clubs, and m means Queen, since the word attention indicates a face card.

But I should like to call attention to the fact that this "little game" has a dangerous side to it, for similar methods are used by experienced card-sharpers to inform partners which cards to lead. Remember that the information need not be given in the form of a question and that it need not be related to the cards themselves. For instance, if a player makes the apparently casual remark: "My telephone has been out of order," his partner understands he is to lead the ace of hearts. The M in "My" tells him the suit, hearts, and the initial consonant t in "telephone," the ace.

So be on your guard against card-sharpers, for, like everything else that is good, mnemotechny can be used for evil purposes.

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...