Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0292: Reprise: How do you memorize Scripture?

Episode Date: April 21, 2015

Today Timothy revisits the question on how to memorize scriptures, with some extra comments on how he would change his answer today. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Today we're representing episode 10 about memorizing scripture. Now, this episode is a good introduction to memorizing passages with keyword mnemonics. So you create mnemonics in a memory palace based on keywords, and you can remember the whole passage based on just those keyword triggers. And I also like the fact that this emphasizes that the mnemonics themselves are not used to represent the text per se. The text is memorized auditorily, but the images are just cues that prompt you to remember the text. So even if we talk about a rubber ducky and things like that, those have nothing to do with the text. You can keep the meaning of the text separate from these mnemonics. But actually, there are several things that I

would change significantly about my approach to scripture memorization and the systems that I use since recording this episode. For one thing, I would not recommend reusing rooms with separate objects going through them. So, you know, what I describe in this episode and what we do in the James course at masterofmemory.com slash James is we actually use the same palace over and over with a room for each verse, but then an object for the chapter. So you just keep using the same house over and over with a different object in the rooms to represent the different chapters. That's something I don't recommend. I think that rooms themselves should be chapters, or you should use a model that's more like this, with sublocations within those rooms as verses. Then you can use your object mnemonics or your, you know, your object peg that you're using in those rooms and those sublocations, either to represent a chapter or a verse.

When we do another course at Master of Memory on scripture memorization, it's going to follow this revised structural pattern. Other than that, this episode, again, is a good introduction to using keyword triggers, you know, mnemonics for keyword triggers for memorizing passages, whether they be scripture or anything else. So enjoy. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Today's question comes from Cheryl, who asked on the Facebook page about memorizing scripture passages. Now, unfortunately, it would be difficult to go into all the details of how I memorize scripture,

but I can give you some of the basics here, and you can read about more details on the website or ask me any particular questions you may have. So what I recommend for memorizing passages in general is to use a memory palace with different points or keywords on different locations in the memory palace. Let's say that you wanted simply to memorize Romans 2.1. Therefore, you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself because you, the judge, practice the very same things. Now, what you could do is use your house as the memory palace and imagine that you take a trip from your bed to your kitchen table for breakfast. So, we'll use five locations to use, you know, to

place five different parts of this verse along those locations. Place number one is your bed. Place number two is your closet. Number three, your bathtub. Number four, your refrigerator. And number five, your kitchen table. It's a fairly logical trip. So what we'll do is we'll break the verse into five points and we'll emphasize the key words. So in your bed, we'll put, therefore, you have no excuse, oh man. And the way you can tie that thing to that location is you'll have, you know, you'll have your alarm going off and it says, therefore, you have no excuse, oh man, you have to get up, your alarm's going off. Second location is your closet.

And to remember the word judges, we're going to use wigs and black robes, you know, the classic look of a judge. And so the part of the verse we'll be memorizing is every one of you who judges. And we'll just remember that every one of the articles of clothing in your closet is a wig or a black robe. The third place will be your bathtub. And let's say you're washing your rubber ducky with a bar of soap and the bar of soap says judgment, so you're passing judgment on another. And, I mean, the another is the rubber ducky. You know, you're washing the ducky with the judgment soap. You know, you're not washing yourself, so it's passing judgment on another. In the fourth place, your refrigerator, you step inside and lock yourself in. You condemn yourself. Then you go to the kitchen table, you put on one of your judge's wigs,

and you practice dribbling a basketball on the table because you, the judge, practice the very same things. Now, these are all just silly images, but what they'll do is they'll, you know, all you have to do is you think through those five locations and you'll remember the silly images that you came up with in each of those locations. And it'll cause you to think of those, the different parts of the verse. So we'll think through those five locations, bed, closet, bathroom, refrigerator, and table. and we'll remember starting with the bed with the alarm going off therefore you have no excuse oh man then the closet with the robes every one of you who judges and then the bathtub with the rubber ducky for in passing judgment on

another and then the refrigerator you condemn yourself and then the refrigerator, you condemn yourself, and then the kitchen table, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. Like any memory tactic, it takes practice to get this to work for you in all situations, but it does work. And some people would say, you know, would argue against this and say that you're devaluing the, you know, the passage somehow by using funny images to remember, but I really disagree because you're not changing the meaning of the text at all. You're just creating images to help you remember that passage so that it's easy for you to recall the passage with its true meaning from these silly images with their trivial meaning. Okay, so that's a suggestion for memorizing a single verse. As far as longer

passages go, what I would start with is using a memory palace for individual verses with, you know, come up with some sort of memorable character or, you know, a person that goes through the memory palace and does various things. And each different room in the palace is a single verse. That way you can memorize any chapter by placing it along that one memory palace. Then you should quiz using key words. So if we were quizzing on the Romans example that I gave, you could use just a few words. Instead of every one of you who judges, you could use every and judges. And then instead of for in passing judgment on another, you could say judgment and another. You just don't want to quiz on every single word because that's a waste of time. You're going to remember all the words if you practice reciting,

but just make sure that when you quiz using something like quizlet.com, you have just a few keywords to make sure that you remember it. I just don't think you should type more than is necessary. And then thirdly, one option is to use the same palace for different chapters, but with the character that is going through this palace, you make him holding a different object as he goes through the palace. So the stories are different. So you can remember a verse by thinking of the object and the location, because the object and location will correspond to the chapter and the verse. So for example, to remember James 5-7, you would remember the fifth object in

the seventh location. And for me, the fifth object would be a whistle object in the seventh location. And, you know, for me, the fifth object would be a whistle, and the seventh location is a spiral staircase. And so when I think of the whistle and the spiral staircase, I think of a particular story, and that goes along with the verse, and it causes me to recall the verse. Now, this may seem like a complicated system, but it really works, and I've memorized a good amount of scripture using this technique. You can go from memorizing just different verses and chapters to memorizing different books by either creating a new memory palace or just having a different character, a different memorable character going through the same palace using the same objects. So you think of, you know, you think of the character, the object,

and the location to think of the book, the chapter, and the verse. This is an effective way to memorize long passages and many people have had success with it. But so the way that you would quiz is again, you quiz on the keywords using something like Quizlet.com or maybe just some flashcards and maybe somebody else to help you remember. But then also recite along with the recording just to make sure that you can recite smoothly and you remember things in order and really effectively. But just for a beginner, I would just practice using a simple memory palace, turning keywords words from verses into memorable images, and placing those along that memory palace, just for starters. And then you can get into some of those more advanced techniques later on.

Or if you want to follow my adventures in Argentina, or wherever else I might happen to be, you can do that at timothymoser.com.