I began to work on the stack months ago, but my student and work life "unfortuntately" got in the way. I started over again today from what seemed to be scratch but already have a good hold on the stack up to the nines added in. I was wondering if anyone would like to share some of their favorite neumonic devices if you use any or any favorite ways of remembering the cards. I for some reason associate the 3D with the three wise men on Xmas eve for 24 and a Christmas tree with 7 hearts on it for 25...seems to go together well. Anyway, if anyone thinks I've posted too much and that a layman will now know the stack from the two clues I've given I can edit this lol.

Simon's mnemonic system in Bound to please is as good as any. Personally I just turned a deck into flash cards with the stack #'s on the back and used the program on Simons site to review. Simon's stack quizzer even has the mnemonic word associations so you can practice that there too.

My StackView software allows you to set up a custom mnemonic set of word pairs for any stack. It then generates a virtual flash card quizzer that gives you various levels of "hints" with your mnemonics.
Nick

I use the Aronson Stack and I have 3 different decks of memorized deck flash cards:

1. A deck in 1-52 memorized deck order with the numbers written on the backs AND on the faces. I use this deck when learning and/or running through Aronson Stack routines (such as "Twice as Hard", Four Part Harmony", etc.

However, by using just the numbers on the backs, I can also practice running through the stack in 1-52 order (and matching the numbers to the cards). However, since the numbers are also on the faces, I cannot run through the cards face-up. (I use the face-up numbers to keep from losing my place when learning a new routine and also when learning how to restore a deck into stack order after the effect has been performed.)

2. Same as 1. above except the numbers are only written on the backs of the cards and the deck is in a random shuffle order and gets resuffled after each run through. With this deck I can practice running through the deck face up (and guessing the stack numbers) or face down (and guessing the identities of each of the cards.

3. A memorized deck in CHaSeD order with the numbers written only on the back and, from the top dace-down, in AC-KC, AH-KH, AS-KS and AD-AK order. Sometimes I only practice the Clubs, somtimes the Spades, etc. But, usually, I run through the entire deck but, if used in any CHaSeD A-K order, it has to be used face-up only (and then guessing the numbers) However, if you are wanting to concentrate on only one suit, take those cards out of the deck and random shuffle them. In that way, you can practice your run-throughs either face-up or face-down.

On most days, I use the deck that is described in 2, above. Some days, I'll utilized any and all of the decks and a session might last 2-3 hours of intense falsh card use. Variety is the spice of life and by utilizing different decks for different purposes, I don't get locked into certain practice patterns and I am also able to work on areas that I might currently be having difficulty with. (i.e., Like, sometimes I find myself with a mental block on certain low club cards or certain middle spade cards, etc. and I will then pull just those cards out from the deck and concentrate on those.)

Your mileage may vary.

Hope that helps.

Mike

A lot of good advice here already. As I have a MAC and not a PC I was unable to take advantage of Nick's StackView software. But using that sounds like a great idea!

I had a deck with numbers on the backs. (Red Bee, very nice color to look at for a long time, maybe nicer with the numbers than without). For the rest of it I tried a ton of smart techniques but found that the only thing that really worked was rote memory combined with using my imagination for associations exactly like you do with the Christmas tree thing. I also used other sources for inspiration like Wikipedia to find history and fact related clues. But the strongest ones were just from imagination really.

For instance #44 is a Magnum 44 with 6 Spade bullets in it. I will probably never forget that association. Another one is #31 which is New Year's Even on the calendar. It has 4 exploding Diamond rockets on it.

It also works if you get a strong memory association with just half of it, for instance the stack number, and then just remember that the corresponding card goes with that. There are songs with numbers in them... "One is the loneliest number"... does that card look lonely to you? Perhaps it does now. Any card could have looked lonely in your imagination really. I don't think it matters that much that it is a picture card and therefore something that makes sense. (That wasn't one of my own memory clues. I just happened to think of it just now. A real impulsive association is as strong as a clever thought up one.)

I associate a very ordinary little card with the Star Trek episode "The 37s" because I simply though the title was very odd and then for some reason associated a certain card with it. I watched that episode again last week and sat thinking about the matching card all through.

I'm not saying that you will have luck with that exact association, but I think you will find that if you keep going with a playful mind, you will get some great results from it.

Having said that, I used a lot longer before I really knew my stack than most other people (claim they) needed. It took me a long long time before I both knew it and was fluid in it. A very long time! After I had exhausted every thing my brain had in its puny arsenal, there were still some cards that absolutely refused to stick. Some of them held on so long that after a year, a few of them would still slip from time to time if a month passed by without practicing it. But now I think it is all in there permanently.

If you get enough of the really strong associations you will get some nice shortcuts. Trying to find such an association and failing means thinking about the card and corresponding stack number so much that it helps even if you don't find a great match.

So I believe you are doing fine! Just don't give up because a good deal of cards will not come as easy as the ones you have already defeated!

That is a problem I have on certain days. On one day, I can go throught the deck and/or perform effects and know every card. And then, on the very next day, I might draw a blank on 3-4 cards. (Go figure.) I finally just took the 8-10 cards that would sometimes give me difficulty and I started going through just these cards...ad infinitum until they began to "stick". And then I'd practice some more.

But, I'm with you. it took me a lot longer to learn the mem deck than a lot of the folks are asserting. I started to learn a peg system but I was never convinced that the two-step process would be quicker and more fulid or that the pegs would gradually diasppear as you became more proficient. So, I abandoned the peg system and went with brute force memorization.

I know, I know....The peg system is supposed to be an easy permanent way to memorize the deck. But, as I said, I didn't want a two-step process; I wanted to instantly "know the card or stack number. (Upon reflection, on some days, I wish I had maybe perservered with the peg system a little bit longer.)

Best,

Mike

As it's been stated countless times, the peg system falls away. Why would you not believe everybody?

Mr. Turk is right all the way. I had set up the pegs for Six Hour and later for Aronson stack and could not get them to stick for long.

I collect mnemonic devices for fun and enjoy finding links from words to numbers, but when it comes to a stack I gave up and went for the whole card and nothing but the card. The (old) peg system is great in keeping a phone number in mind but once you start getting into 20 and thirty items you need to settle in on real memory.

Turk, I love your three decks. When I went for the numbers only I put address label stickers over the whole face of each card leaving only the index and some little left over. Each then got a large number writen on it. I marked a curve accross the bottom of the deck as well so I can see if a card is out of order or inverted. Now on the train I just cut anywhere and fan through the top 6 or 7. That allows me to prompt for the next card and veiw them in short sequences.

Mnemonics, just like spelling, is a nice hobby but hardly a place to put so much effort if your idetic memory can be beaten into cooporation.

Has anyone here said they managed to get Juan's stack into their head by locking themselves away for ONE day??

Also, I got the stack from Bound to Please. Am I missing something else important?

People vary in their memory mechanisms, I suppose, but I've always found that mnemonics is the BEST way to go to learn most anything. Ask any medical Doctor how they possibly learned the incredible amount of names of body parts and they will tell you they used mnemonic devices. I memorized all of the formulas in Physics using mnemonics, Valances of Chemicals, the names of the major characters in all of Shakespeare's Plays, The titles of Shakespeare's plays in the order they were produced, lines in plays, dates in History classes, etc. I learned mnemonics on my own from one of Harry Lorayne's first books, and years later had the pleasure of shaking his hand and telling him that I would not have my college degree if it was not for learning mnemonics from his systems. I don't think that's an exaggeration, gang.

I think there's a misconception going on here. That you will study for a period of time and then, you never have to drill again. Someone mentioned that they had a problem when they did not review their stack for a month! I review the Aronson
Stack in my mind virtually daily. It takes just 3 or 4 minutes. I often do it while driving, while sitting in the barber chair, waiting in a doctor's office, standing in line at the bank, etc. Would you neglect a good sleight for a month and then expect to be on top of it? Of course not.

Today, I think I probably could ignore the stack for several weeks and still recall it. But I've been studying it and using it in my work for 12 years. And, I know the recall would not be as fast as I like. The very little time it takes to drill yourself is a tiny price to pay for the incredible tool you have for your card magic.

Dennis Loomis

There is no misconception here. I was the one who said that in the beginning, a few cards might slip if I didn't drill it for a month. What I meant is that some cards seem to refuse to stick while you are learning the stack. You notice which cards they are if you think you know the stack and then go without drilling for a while.

At the moment, I don't forget the stack if I don't drill it for a month. Exercising every day is admirable. I wish I could do it with push-ups or running or something, but I do not have that kind of patience in me. I wish I did. Luckily, once you fully know the stack there is no reason whatsoever why you should have to drill it on a daily basis. Although running through it more often than once a month might make it a bit more rapid-fire.

As far as doctors go, I am fairly certain that there are a good deal more doctors in this world who have obtained their degrees without using mnemonics. Which of course doesn't mean that mnemonics isn't an excellent idea! If you plan to use it solely to memorize a single stack order however, it will probably be a lot more work than to just simply memorize it.

I've been learning the peg system from Harry's book, and I think it' great. I want to learn a stack, I'm just worried that if I use the peg system to learn a stack for permanent use then I will never be able to use the same peg system (ie. numbers as words) for other things like lists I currently use it for...does anyone have any suggestions...maybe another memory system perhaps?

Cheers,
Tom

Students of mine can memorize a deck (connecting numerical position to card name, as I teach)in MINUTES. And, RETAIN that information for as long as they like. I've done it for decades, even though I don't "do" memorized deck things. Sure, after applying my systems, memorizing the deck, and if you don't use it for a while - you simply go over it mentally every once in a while - without breaking stride, can do it while brushing your teeth, having coffee, showering, whatever.
Interesting - over the years I've had people who were NOT INTO MAGIC at all write/call, etc., to tell me that they've memorized a full deck of cards in 15 minutes, half an hour, or an hour. Just did it to see if they could. And they did. I've had people tell me that they memorized "Pi" to up to 5000th place using what I teach in books - I'll wager they could memorize a card stack in minutes.
Incidentally, I've yet to meet a doctor who did NOT apply mnemonics in his original studies (right on, Dennis) - and over they years I must have been the after-dinner speaker for literally thousands of doctor groups, met and spoke to thousands of doctors. Not one of them DIDN'T use mnemonics in med school. Ex Sec'y of State Colin Powell told me that my systems "helped make me a general!" (Just felt like dropping a name.) Anyway... HARRY LORAYNE.

Tom: Stop creating problems where none exist. I'll quote myself, from a few of my books. THERE IS A THIN LINE BETWEEN TRUE MEMORY AND TRAINED MEMORY. AS YOU USE THE INFORMATION YOU'VE LEARNED VIA MY SYSTEMS, THAT LINE STARTS TO FADE, THE INFORMATION SIMPLY BECOMES KNOWLEDGE. You will definitely be able to use the same Peg system after using it to memorize/learn a stack. (I know, because - I've been doing it for over sixty years!! And taught literally hundreds of thousands of people all over the world to do it.) HL

Thankyou! For such a quick and helpful response
:)

Good to here from Harry on this topic. Yes, I also had the impression that ALL doctors use mnemonics. There's an ancient Greek Mnemonic for learning the names of the 12 cranial nerves that starts: "On old Olympus, towering Tops..." which is taught to medical students. So we know that mnemonics go back as far as ancient Greece. But I'll bet that if we had a way to find out, that the Greeks did not invent the process and that it goes back almost as far as the use of language.

As to problems with using the same peg list for different things: You can create as many peg lists as you need. Harry has given us several in his numerous books, and with a little imagination you can devise others as needed. Then, in an afternoon you can learn the phonetic alphabet so that you can convert numbers to mental images.

Incidentally, once you memorize a stack like Aronson, you now have another peg list that you can use to remember things. Let me give you a quick example.
You want to remember a few things to buy at the grocery store, and the first item is a tube of toothpaste. Instead of searching for a piece of paper and making a list, do it with the card pegs using Aronson for the order. In that stack, the first card is the Jack of Spades. In Harry's Card peg list, that's simply the word "spade." So I picture a shovel (spade) slamming down onto a tube of toothpaste and cutting it in half. Toothpaste flies all over the place, on to the shovel, onto me, etc. Maybe the next item is a loaf of bread. Card two in Aronson is the King of Clubs and Harry's peg for that is "King." So, I picture a King... he's a guy in a purple robe holding an orb and a scepter. But, as I see that image in my mind, the scepter turns into a loaf of bread. Each time you think of something you need to buy, you add it mentally to the list and form the image. Now, while driving to the store, I'll just review the list in my mind, and at the same time, I'm reviewing the Aronson Stack!!!

I love mnemonics and have used them all of my life. Thanks again, Harry.

Dennis Loomis

It's: On old Olympic's towering top
A Finn and German vault and hop.

It's a reminder of the facial nerves.

I can still, having not opened the book in 30 years, cite the 10 items on the first list in the Memory Book..

Airplane, Tree, Envelope, Ring, Bucket, Sing, Basketball, Salami, Star & Nose

I used his works when I was in the Military, memorising those little Berlet's (sp?) books in a few hours, and people really thought I could speak about 12 languages.

Harry, I told you that once, you get bonus points for memory if you remember where.

I will tell all of you how honestly happy Harry was to hear how I used his system and was successful with it.

Another tip - start at the end of the stack and work backwards - better reinforcement.

CW

PS Listen to Harry. Get his books.

I actually dug through my magic books and used Harry's Super Memory Power book and the peg system in it to code my cards to memory. It was MUCH easier than I had imagined. Although, I was not able to code it in minutes, I was able to memorize the entire deck in about an hour after reading the sections on the Peg System and on Memorizing cards. Thanks Harry!

To Twistedace,

Congratulations on turning to mnemonics. I think that those that claim that mnemonics don't work for them have not carefully studied the procedure. In my post above, notice exactly how the spade (shovel) is linked to that tube of toothpaste. It's no good to just picture the two items together or one on top of the other. The image needs to be vivid and dramatic. Harry teaches all kinds of ways to achieve this. Dull, pedestrian images will not stick.

As Harry Lorayne says: the memory training devices are just the beginning, and the data will become real knowledge over time. But you need to go back and review periodically. How long and how much review is needed will vary from person to person, but eventually it will become a permanent part of your memory banks.

Dennis Loomis