FOREWORD JERRY LUCAS2

students would be unable to see over my six-foot-eight
frame. It was an American history class.
The professor spent about fifteen minutes telling us
what he expected of us and how the class would be
conducted. His last statement before he excused us
was something to the effect that "Any athlete who expects
to be in my class, sit in the back row, do nothing
and get good grades is sadly mistaken. You are excussed."
I told John Havlicek what had happened and shared
with him my determination to use memory systems to
my besbt est advantage in this particular class.
"What systems?" he asked me, and it all began to
flow out for the first time. I told John how I had begun
to spell alphabetically as a child and I demonstrated
it for him.
He couldn't really believe what he was hearing. I
explained, as best I could, how my mind worked and
all the mental activity I was involved in. I'm sure he
thought I was a little crazy, but he challenged me to
spell some words of his choosing alphabetically, and
when I did, he wished me well in the use of the
systems.
As for my American history class, the systems
worked beautifully. On the first exam, my grade was
99; the closest grade to mine was 77. Four years later,
I graduated Phi Beta Kappa-having put in something
like one-fourth the study time that most students used.
Many years later, after I was traded to the New
York Knickerbockers basketball team, I looked up
Harry Lorayne. Our first meeting lasted over eighteen
hours! Obviously, we had much in common, and we
later became associated in our endeavors-including
this book. It is, in fact, a combination of some of our
ideas, thoughts on, systems of, memory.
Believe me, if you read about these systems and
actually apply them as you go, there is no limit to
how great your memory can be.
JERRY LUCAS

FOREWORD: JERRY LUCAS

LORA YNE becomes AHRRY AELNORY! Once I've
alphabetized a word, I can remember it in that formwhen
you read the chapter on how to remember English
and foreign vocabulary, you'll understand how I
do this. I apply the same system, since an alphabetized
word is like a foreign word.
I soon followed this alphabetical spelling game with
various other kinds of mental games·. You might think
I was a bit crazy if I took the time to explain all of
them, so I won't, but they did require a lot of counting,
cataloging, and recall on the part of a very young
boy.
As I grew older, my mental games and activities
became more complex. I began to use simple memory
systems to help me with my studies in school. To me,
schoolwork always seemed to be at least 90 percent
memory work, and I wanted to make it easier and less
time-consuming for myself. These systems worked, and
I began to expand and sophisticate them. They worked
well for me throughout junior high school and high
school, where I was practically a straight-A student.
I would like to impress upon you that all of this
mental activity was of a private nature. No living human
being knew that I had the ability, for example,
to alphabetize any word faster than most people could
spell it normally, nor did anyone know how involved
I was with other mental activities.
An important change took place when I entered
college. I read one of Harry Lorayne's books and used
his systems or ideas in areas where I thought his were
better, or simpler, or easier to apply; others I adapted
to my own. He became something of an idol to me, and
I was soon to find out how his systems would help me
in my college studies.
My roommate at Ohio State University during my
freshman year was John Havlicek, a great professional
basketball star of the Boston Celtics. John became the
first person to know about all the things that went on
in my mind.
My first college class was traumatic. I entered the
classroom and sat in the back row, knowing other