Page 124 - Use Your Memory

11 The Major System

The Major System is the ultimate Memory System. It has been
used and continually improved upon for more than 300 years,
since the middle of the seventeenth century, when it was intro-
duced by Stanislaus Mink von Wennsshein. Von Wennsshein's
basic construction was modified in the early eighteenth century by
Dr Richard Grey, an Englishman. The Major System was devised
to enable the master memorisers of the time to break the bonds of
the previously excellent but more limited systems. These master
memorisers wanted a system that would enable them to memorise
a list of items not only longer than ten but as long as they wanted.
At the same time they wanted this system to enable them to
remember numbers and dates and to order and structure memory
in hundreds and thousands of detailed ways.
The basic concept of the system is that it makes use of a
different consonant or consonant sound for each number from 0
to 9 in a special code:
The Major System's Special Code
0 = s, z, soft c
1 = d, t, th
2 = n
3 = m
4 = r
5 = l
6 = j, sh, soft ch, dg, soft g
1 = k, hard ch, hard c, hard g, ng, qu
S=f,v
9 = b,p
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