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