THE AMAZING POTENTIALITIES OF MEMORY
I LITTLE thought when 1 arrived at .1 my friend Borg's house that I was about to see something truly extraordinary, and to increase my mental powers tenfold.
He had asked me to come to Stockholm to lecture to the Swedes about Lister and other British scientists. On the evening of my arrival, after the champagne., our conversation turned naturally to the problems of public speaking and to the great labour imposed on us lecturers by the need to be word perfect in our lectures.
Borg then told me that his power of memory would probably amaze meand I had known him, while we were studying law together in Paris, to have the most deplorable memory So he went to the end of the diningroom and asked rue to write down a hundred three-figure numbers, calling each one out in a clear voice. When I bad filled the edge of an old newspaper with figures, Borg repeated them to rne in the order in which 1 had written them down and then in reverse order. that is beginning with the last number. He also allowed me to ask him the relative position of different numbers: for example, which was the 24th. the 72nd, and the 38th, and I noticed that he replied to all my questions at once and without effort. as if the figures which f had written on the paper had been also written in his brain.
I was dumbfounded by such a feat and sought in vain for the trick which enabled him to achieve it. My friend then said: "The thing you have just seen and which seems so remarkable is, in fact, quite simple: everybody has a memory good enough to do the same, hut few indeed can use this wonderful faculty."
lie then revealed to m'e how 1 could achieve a similar feat of memory. and 1 at once mastered the secret-without mistakes and without effort-as you too will master if tOmorrOw.
But I did not stop at these amusing experiments. I applied the principles I had learned in my daily work. I could now remember, with unbelievable facility, the lectures I heard and those which I gave myself, the names of people I met-even if it was only once-as well as their addresses. and a thousand other details -which were most useful to me. Finally, 1 discovered after a while that not only had my memory improved, but that I had also acquired greater powers of concentration: a surer judgmentwhich is by no means surprising since the keenness of our intellect is primarily dependent on the number and variety of the things we remember.
II you would like to share this experience and to possess those mental powers which are still our best chance of success in life, ask M. D. Borg to send you his interesting booklet The Eternal Laws of Success-he will send it fret to anyone who wants to improve his memory. Write now-while copies of this booklet are still available Here is the address: M. D. Borg. do Aubanel Publishers. 14 Highfield Road. Dublin 6, Ireland.
L. CONWAY.