Originally published in the 1920s, The Multiple Mentality Course by Harry Kahne describes a series of exercises leading to the development of greater mental power. The author, who was at one time known as The Incomparable Mentalist and The Man with the Multiple Mind, often demonstrated his ability on stage by doing six different mental operations simultaneously. He believed that each one of us is capable of performing amazing mental feats, and through this book, he helps the reader to become mentally alive, strong, and vibrant. I am sure this book will help bring out that latent potential that has always been within you.

–Harrison

The Multiple Mentality Course

A Series of the Exercises leading to the Development of Greater Mental Power. A True Course in Right/Left Brain Training, Development of Creative Intelligence and Conscious Fostering of Intuitive Powers.

by Harry Kahne

Table of Contents

Acknowledgement

Introduction

I. How the Space Age Degenerates Intelligence

III. Analytical vs. Synthetical Minds

IV. Relationship Between Mental & Physical Health & Multiple Mentalism

V. Psychological Difficulties Relieved by Multiple Mentalism

VI. Multiple Mentalism in Trades, Commerce & Professions

VII. The Problem of Middle Aged Men in Business

VIII. What Creative Imagination is & How to Develop it

IX. Specialization Means Narrowing the Mind; Diffusion Means Mental Shallowness

X. Multiple Mentalism as an Aid in Public Speaking

XI. How to Develop Intuition — The Sparkplug of Intelligence

XII. Modern Education & Its Critics Equally at Fault

Acknowledgment

This Multiple Mentalism course is a revised version of the course originated by Harry Kahne in the early 1920s. At that time he was billed as The Incomparable Mentalist and The Man with the Multiple Mind.

He often demonstrated his ability on stage by doing six different mental operations simultaneously. His platform performance entailed standing in front of a large blackboard with a piece of chalk in each hand while conversing with the audience. There was a newspaper on a music rack in front of him. He began reading the headlines while writing upside down and backwards with one hand and mirror language with the other hand.

At his left was another small blackboard on which appeared the number 28,642,981,673 — which was being divided into five unequal parts — these figures he began computing at the bottom of the large blackboard. To his right was another small blackboard on which appeared seven columns of figures which ran into the millions. These were being added and notated as well at the bottom of the larger blackboard in front of him.

This was Harry Kahne’s demonstration of doing six things at one time, i.e., reading, transposing, writing backwards and upside down, holding a conversation, adding and dividing. These six separate processes actually involve fourteen distinct operations, i.e., hearing questions, answering questions, reading a newspaper, transposing what is read, transposing spelling, writing with right hand, writing with left hand, writing upside down, carrying six different thoughts in mind, retaining questions, retaining figures for addition, retaining figures for division, proving previous work and controlling all other physical actions of the body — such as walking, bowing, etc..

At the end of Harry Kahne’s demonstrations, people often asked him, “Do you really believe that nearly everyone can learn to perform the amazing mental feats you demonstrate? Is my brain capable of carrying on four to six independent functions at one and the same time, as yours is? Isn’t the ability to master your training confined to well educated people?” When answering, Harry Kahne admitted he had only an average brain to do things no other man in history had done. Education had no bearing on it.

Introduction

One of the saddest things the people in this complex world of today are confronted with — is the disuse of their brains! We are constantly beset and bombard with ever-increasing demands that we are ill-equipped or unprepared to handle! Hence, very often, stress sets in. Stress can then contribute to physiological and psychological disruptions which bring about disease and illness. Efficiency is down. Accidents and mistakes become more frequent.

Now this course may not turn you into an Einstein or an Edison, but it will help you to think with more of what GOD gave you — Your brain! It is the only course of its kind in the world. If you proceed with it lesson by lesson without deviating or digressing, you will no longer be besieged by situations too hard to cope with! You WILL be master over the most difficult situations and the answers will show themselves easily. This course is the key to clearer thinking. It will elicit that latent potential that has always been within you, and you will mentally grow strong and vibrant — full of life and health.

Have you ever watched an unusual performer do something that you thought was fantastic? Did you ever wonder how he got that way? He certainly wasn’t born with this talent, but instead he learned to develop such a talent by training himself. You are endowed with the same basic mental and bodily functions as such a performer. Of two people, each possessing the same natural ability and identical schooling, one will attain great heights of achievement, while the other remains in a status of mediocrity.

There are many examples in history of those who excel and use their brain. Some mechanics become Thomas Edisons or Henry Fords, while others are “grease monkeys” to the day of their death. This wide discrepancy in the fortunes of men is due to the fact that some see and do the right thing at the right time — while others do not. But… the one man in a thousand who sees correctly and acts with decisiveness at precisely the proper time does not blindly HAPPEN to do so. He sees and acts courageously and correctly because his mind is trained to react efficiently under all circumstances. He has acquired this mental training — this ability to make his brain cells really work — unconsciously. He has not realized that he has been training and developing his mind to do so.

After completing this mental development course, you will no longer suffer the balm of a tired mind, but instead you will be mentally alive and feel at ease with yourself. Problems that plagued you before will become easy to solve and the correct decisions will always be readily available.

Follow the instructions conscientiously and you will be amazed at your own ability to perform mental feats that you previously had not thought possible of yourself. It is then that you will realize the boundless potential of your own mind and what it can do for you. As you proceed through each lesson, your brain power will be increasing in strength. Mentally you will be more equipped to handle everyday situations. No matter what your education or experience, for the first time in your life, you will be truly using your brain power storehouse.

Of course, this course in mind training can only benefit you in proportion to the time and effort with which you devote to it. Don’t try to find easy methods of doing a certain exercise or lesson for you will only be cheating yourself out of the rewards of completing that lesson. When an exercise states that you do it from memory alone, then don’t copy, but do it from memory alone!

Whatever your profession this course will help you perform better and more efficiently. You will find that the difficult and near impossible success can be yours and your hidden dreams can be concrete realizations.

Harry Kahne’s brain was little different from yours. However, such as it was, he taught it to work for him. Really work! All its resources were instantly available when he wanted or needed them. It had been trained to do what he wanted it to do, when he wanted it done. His was only an average brain made to perform certain tasks for him.

In this series of lessons or exercises are all the things you need to make your mind work for you. You will be surprised to find how simple they are and how much actual fun and satisfaction you will get from completing the course. Why, it’s like a game — but with far more value than any game ever possessed!

Follow the instructions conscientiously and you will develop all the cells of your brain. You will train them to work in unison for you. And when they do that, YOU CAN MAKE YOUR MIND DO ANYTHING YOU WANT IT TO DO! You can carry on several lines of thought simultaneously. The most difficult problems will seem to solve themselves. The hardest questions, seen in their proper perspective and with all their factors viewed concurrently, become easy to answer promptly and correctly. You will not become perplexed about little things that now cause you setbacks of greater or lesser degrees, because your brain will automatically analyze and evaluate them accurately and give you the right answers at the right time. Such thinking brings SUCCESS!

The first lessons are almost childishly simple. But as you progress from one to another they become more difficult and involved. However, your mind will become correspondingly more able to grasp them and, in a surprisingly short time, you will be actually amazed by your own ability to perform mental feats you had not thought possible — feats of incalculable value to you in the business and professional world. You will realize at last that there is literally NO LIMIT to the extent to which you will be able to make your mind work for you!

With each lesson, you will learn how you can apply the principles of mental function you acquire to help you in your everyday life. There is no lesson that does not have its practical application in achieving financial or social success. When you are only half way through, you will be unwilling to accept a thousand dollars for the ability you already will have acquired. No matter what your education, training or experience, you will be using them to real advantage for the FIRST time in your life!

Obviously, this course can benefit you only in proportion to the time and sincerity with which you follow it. Therefore, devote the prescribed time effort to every lesson. Do not cheat yourself. Do not copy the exercises from the words you put down. Do them from memory — and from memory alone. Do not proceed to any lesson until you have thoroughly mastered the one preceding it. To do so defeats the purpose of the course — defeats your own desires — nullifies your efforts. Be fair with yourself throughout! Soon you will be achieving mental exercises previously never thought possible.

Although the exercises necessarily are performed with words and figures the results they accomplish in building Brain Power will be reflected in your work day by day, no matter what that work may be. You will find that problems now difficult or even impossible for you to cope with resolve themselves into simple matters before you are half way through the course. In short, the Impossible becomes Simple!

And now I shall give you something startling to think about — something at once alluring and encouraging. There lies dormant within every man some thought, idea, plan — call it what you will — that probably is deeply buried in his subconscious mind, doomed never to reach fruition. But if that thought or plan were brought into the light, allowed to develop, it would make its owner a truly outstanding success — a man of achievement to whom people would point. And I say to you that if you train your mind to work for you — to delve into the unexplored resources of your brain and emerge with the treasures hidden therein — spectacular success will be yours! If you are honest with yourself in understanding Multiple Mentalism, if you are earnest and sincere in your desire to rise far above the ordinary, I will show you how to be successful and powerful beyond your fondest dreams! Simply follow my instructions as given on the following pages — and you will amaze yourself and the world at large!

Chapeter I

How the Space Age Degenerates Intelligence

Dr. Alexis Carrel, surgeon, scientist, member of the Rockefeller Institute, winner of the Noble Prize in 1912 for his success in suturing blood vessels and the transplanting of organs, co-discover of the famous Carrel-Dakin solution which made gangrene virtually unknown in World War I and thus saved tens of thousands of lives, said in his book, Man, The Unknown:

“Modern civilization seems to be incapable of producing people endowed with imagination, intelligence and courage. In practically every country there is a decrease in the intellectual and moral caliber of those who carry the responsibility of public affairs. The education dispensed by schools and universities consists chiefly in a training of the memory and of the muscles, in certain social manners, in a worship of athletics. Are such disciplines really suitable for modern men who need, above all other things, moral courage and endurance!” Those statements are truer now than when Dr. Carrel wrote the book in the early 1930s. Now our brightest and best students have shown an average drop in SAT scores since the early 1970s. This controversy abounds in speculative arguments blame television, permissiveness and educational teaching methods.

But the cause of this mental weakness is not difficult to discern. The pioneers who settled our country were many-sided men — we are not. They were at once hunters, trappers, explorers, fighters, teamsters, ship or canoe builders, horsemen, wheelwrights, carpenters, cabinetmakers, well drillers, masons, farmers, blacksmiths, traders, cooks — all these, and more, “specialized” trades and abilities combined in single individuals! No wonder they were possessed of “mental equilibrium, nervous stability”, and other attributes mentioned by Dr. Carrel! They were well balanced because their talents were well rounded. They had nervous stability because they had serene self-confidence based on a knowledge of their ability to cope with any problem that might arise in their world. They had sound judgment, for the most part, because their minds were expanded, embraced many branches of lore and learning, were capable in thinking on many varied planes.

And so with the early merchant. He was at once his own architect, store designer, buyer, stockkeeper, advertising manager, salesman, bookkeeper, and financial wizard. The doctor of only a generation ago was an obstetrician, gynecologists, dentist, opthalmologist, throat specialist — in short, a “general practitioner” in all branches of surgery and medicine.

Today, we have more intelligent exploration, more intelligent farming, better architecture, advertising, accounting, obstetrics, dentistry and surgery. But what Man as a whole has gained, man as an INDIVIDUAL — you and your family and your employer and your employees — has lost. You have lost the capacity for broad-gauge reasoning. You are incapable, at present, of viewing many conflicting factors simultaneously — weighing them side by side at one and the same time — balancing them, one against another, concurrently — reaching almost instantaneously a decision which you know, in the depths of your being, is the correct decision and acting upon it promptly with the courage that comes with such conviction.

By relieving man of the necessity for thinking, except within the exceedingly narrow scope of whatever he has chosen as his life work, this Space Age has dulled and drugged the greater part of Man’s mind. How many men in this day of automobiles could even harness a horse, to say nothing of caring for it? Why, the majority of them do not understand even the automobiles they drive! The workers themselves, who help build our cars by inserting and securing bolt No. 146, do not understand carburation, ignition, or the principles of the transmission and differential. We no longer train our minds to carry thoughts what we wish to impart to our friends when we next meet them. If the thoughts are important, we reach for a phone or send a letter. If they are relatively unimportant, we forget them. Machines and computers have become Masters, and Minds are deteriorating because of ever-decreasing opportunities, and need for, their use!

That is why your mind needs “limbering up”. The very elementary mental gymnastics that I will give you at the start may seem useless almost to the point of foolishness, but they are like the preliminary “warming up” exercises with which athletes indulge before beginning a game. They are simple, easy to do and apparently without meaning. However, they are but the start. As your mind gains flexibility, really “warms” to its task, I shall take you farther and farther until you are performing feats that will astound your friends — and which will reflect themselves in your increased business ability and earning power.

Exercise I

Although this is the simplest of my twelve exercises, it is by far the most important, for it is upon this exercise that all subsequent instructions are based. Now, too, is the time for you to acquire the proper habit of study. “Well begun is half done,” you know, and this exercise — comprising three separate mental drills — affords you the opportunity to establish your earnestness, punctuality and continuity of effort. It is designed to train you to apply yourself to a mastery of Multiple Mentalism and to give you a firm foundation of thought application upon which the rest of the lessons in this course depend.

And right here I want to emphasize what will be repeated time and again throughout the course — that you must not copy this exercise, but must work from memory alone! In this way, and ONLY in this way, will you be able to train your mind to do things for you, when and as you want them done! It is work — but it is fun too. It takes time — but it is worth it! And the results will seem nothing less than miraculous!

First: This the English alphabet:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

You were taught to memorize that in the first grade. Now, with pencil and paper, BUT WITHOUT LOOKING AT IT EVEN ONCE. write the alphabet backwards FIFTY TIMES:

Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A

The first time will be difficult and you may make mistakes. But don’t look, nor copy, nor take too long to “think it out.” Write it backwards, at a fairly even speed, regardless of how slow that speed may be, from MEMORY. This is the first training for your mind. In ten or twenty attempts you will be able to write the alphabet backwards easily. Do it fifty times and you will have mastered it perfectly.

Second: I assume that you now have mastered the alphabet backwards. If you have not, do not stop at the fifty times you have written it, but continue writing it from memory until you have mastered it. Then transpose in 1-3 2-4 order the letters of the alphabet from A to Z, as follows:

A C B D, E G F H, I K J L, M O N P, Q S R T, U W V X, (Y Z),

which are left over from the six combinations of four letters each. Do this FIFTY times from memory. It will be by no means easy the first few times, but you will gain accuracy quickly. However, you will profit nothing if you look at the letters of the alphabet in order to copy the exercise. Its value lies in the training given you by breaking up the sequence of letters in YOUR MIND, without the help of your eyes. You can readily understand how this will lead to mental agility in grasping and revolving business problems in your mind. Therefore, do this exercise AT LEAST fifty times, or as many more times as may be necessary for you to be able to do it quickly and accurately.

Third: In the same way, transpose the letters of the alphabet FIFTY times, in the order of 1-26, 2-25, 3-24, 4-23, 5-22, etc.; the first 13 letters (A to M, inclusive) in their regular order; the last 13 (Z to N, inclusive) backwards; intermingling the two halves of the alphabet thus:

A-Z B-Y C-X D-W E-V F-U G-T H-S I-R J-Q K-P L-O M-N

Do this also from MEMORY. Do not copy or look at the alphabet. And when you are doing this exercise, realizing that you are doing two things at once in your mind. You are writing the first half of the alphabet in its usual sequence, and the last thirteen letters in reverse order. You are making your brain do something for you that it never did before. It is performing a dual operation. When you have done this third part of Exercise I fifty times, entirely from memory, you will have demonstrated that you can make your mind really work for you with a nimbleness heretofore unrealized!

Don’t forget that you cheat only yourself — not anyone else — of you fail to perform these mental gymnastics from memory and if you fail to send ONE HOUR A DAY on the exercises.

And now, I am going to put you on your honor. For your own sake, master this exercise — in all its three parts — before you go on to Chapter II and its accompanying exercise. Each chapter and “drill” in this course is based on all that goes before it. Your success with the second lesson depends on your mastery of the first. Be conscientious — be fair to yourself — and spend all the time you need to do each exercise quickly, accurately and easily. The rewards will delight you!

Chapter II

How Multiple Mentalism Differs From Psychiatry & Psychology

Simplistically, psychology is the study of the normal human mind in the laboratory; that is, in an abstracted, ideal state influenced by actual, everyday environment. Psychiatry is the study of the mind’s functioning, or disorders in the functioning, under workaday conditions. Multiple Mentalism is a training system that enables the average, ordinary mind to cope successfully — and more than successfully — with the circumstances created by modern civilization.

Psychology studies the mind, but does not treat it. Psychiatry treats the maladjusted mind, but does not train the normal brain to use its full powers. Multiple Mentalism neither studies nor treats the mind, but does train and DEVELOP the average brain so that it may function easily at full capacity.

Multiple Mentalism makes no pretense of encroaching upon the domains of psychology or psychiatry — the study of instincts or psycho-neuroses. It is concerned only with taking the mind as it is — rusty, unused, dull and almost to the point of moronism in contrast to what it COULD be — and training it to utilize ALL its component parts. It is at once a method, and a process — an wakening and development of parts of the brain that now lie almost atrophied, or festering with “complexes” and unrecognized inhibitions. It brings these slumbering capabilities to the surface, energizes your thinking, broadens your grasp of things, deepens your understanding, enables you to solve instantly problems that baffle other men, gives you the power to follow several lines of thought at one and the same time, to reach decisions — correct decisions — while others fumble, to attain success that will be granted to you!

And if the rich rewards offered you through Multiple Mentalism seem disproportionate to the seeming childishness of the exercises given you to master, think again! True, you will not become Chairman of the Board in charge of all the DuPont interests because of your ability to write the alphabet backwards — nor will you land any big contracts on the strength of your being able to transpose the letters of the alphabet. But neither would Mohammed Ali expect to enter the ring with a skipping rope and beguile the public with the old childhood formula, “Salt, pepper, mustard, vinegar”! He spends much of his training time in skipping rope — but only to improve his footwork, his co-ordination and his endurance. In other words, the exercises I give you are merely silly if viewed as ends in themselves, which they decidedly are NOT. Considered in their true character, as MEANS to an end, they are most effective, the most fruitful, the speediest and most practical means of mind training that the world ever has known. And actual results will prove that I am understating their value, rather than overstating it.

With this proper understanding of what Multiple Mentalism is, and an appreciation of the exercises’ value, we are ready to proceed.

Exercise II

Do not attempt this exercise until you have mastered the three parts of the first lesson! The mental drill you are about to be given deals with words, and while you may not at first see that it has anything to do with what you learned in Exercise I, Exercise II is based on the TRAINING there given you and follows it in logical sequence. That is why it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that you master the first before taking up the second.

If you have mastered Exercise I, you will agree that it is rather easy, and very interesting, to write the alphabet backwards and to intermingle the letters. Remember, however, that the letters, words and figures used in this training are merely the tools with which you work on your mental processes — as useless in themselves as a slide rule is to a Sunday driver. They are the means — the end result is a mind of such power and adaptability that it will carry you to pinnacles of achievement far beyond your present imagination!

For your first drill in Exercise II, write from memory as many three-letter words as you can; at least thirty of them. Fifty to one hundred would be better. There is not much mental work involved in that, is there? Here are just a few for samples:

MAN DOG CAT THE HAY SEX RUN TOP WAS BUT NOW FOR HIP

|Now, write your list from memory! Do not copy these words, but think up three-letter words yourself and write them on a sheet of paper. Write them a half dozen times until you have them pretty well in mind and can recall them easily. Next, without looking at what you have written (throw the paper in the waste basket!), write as many of those words as you can remember, writing them BACKWARDS from memory, like this:

NAM GOD TAC EHT YAH XES NUR POT SAW TUB WON ROF PIH

Some of the words you have selected will form new and correct words when spelled backwards, but disregard these new words thus formed. For the purpose of this exercise they mean nothing, but are mere coincidences.

The purpose of this drill is to train your mind to see things holistically in their entirety. For instance, when you think of the word “can”, it should mean not just the sequence “c-a-n” to you, but should appear as a picture in your mind, of three letters, each equally important regardless of arrangement. The “a” is as important as the “c” or the “n” even though it is in the middle of the word. You can see the practical application of this is the consideration of commonplace problems of life and business!

Repeat this exercise twenty-five times, each time removing your previous effort from sight and making your new attempt entirely from memory, quickly forwards or backwards. And when that word pictures itself in your mind, it will appear to you not as a static sequence of three letters, but as three separate letters which your mind will be able to group into any form at will.

“But what good will that do me?” you may ask. “What good is it to me to be able to spell short words backwards?” This exercise will have taught your brain to do something it never could do it do before — it will have broken down another rut in which your mind was traveling — it is a step toward untrammeled, original thinking. And it will have developed your brain by just that much — prepared it for further training by the lessons that follow in this course.

Furthermore, it will have trained your brain to see little things, like little words, in their entirety. The small problems of life or business or the home are made up of two or three sides, or questions, or ‘angles”. No matter how simple, every question has at least two sides. The successful man is the one who can see ALL sides at once — the other fellow’s as well as his own. And, knowing the other man’s problem, he is able to take advantage of the situation of his own interests — while the other man, who sees only HIS side of the matter and does not grasp the problem as a whole, is placed at such disadvantage that he usually comes out second best. This exercise is powerful indeed in its potentialities!

Of course, these two chapters will not make you a success overnight in what you are striving for, but they have started your brain on the path to clear, concise, concurrent and analytical thinking — which is an essential to success in any effort.

Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator:

Visualizing and Memory Drill

Try these drills in your spare time. Make a game of them. You will learn to like them, and all the time you will be developing your brain cells.

Drill A

Write any THREE LETTER WORD you can think of, at the same time spell aloud an entirely different THREE LETTER WORD. Example:

Write: c-a-t Write: p-e-n Write: c-u-p Spell: d-o-g Spell: i-n-k Spell: s-u-m

Continue with this drill, using different words in each attempt, until you are capable of writing ONE THREE LETTER WORD and spelling ANOTHER three letter word at the same time, without hesitation.

Drill B

Do not attempt this drill until you have mastered Drill A

Write a THREE LETTER WORD, writing the letters in reverse sequence — at the same time spell it aloud correctly. Example:

Write: t-a-m Write: t-i-h Write: y-a-p

Spell: m-a-t Spell: h-i-t Spell: p-a-y

Continue this drill, using different words.

Drill C

This drill may be a little more difficult than those preceding, but you can master it. Remember your brain is now more flexible than it was before you started MULTIPLE MENTALISM — and these drills will make it even more flexible.

Write any THREE LETTER WORD spelling it BACKWARDS: at the same time spell ANOTHER three letter word correctly. Example:

Write: t-a-h Write: t-i-f Write: n-i-p

Spell: c-a-p Spell: f-u-n Spell: p-i-t

Continue this drill until it is easy for you, using different words.You are becoming mentally STRONG.

Chapter III

Analytical vs. Synthetical Minds

At the conclusion of Chapter II, I mentioned analytical thinking. Let me make this clear, however: THE DAY OF THE ANALYTICAL MIND IS PAST, at least so far as major success is concerned. And to any of you men or women who pride yourselves upon having an “analytical mind”, I issue this warning: You’ve GOT to go beyond mere analysis and on to synthesis, or you will be a galley slave all your life, chained to the System or the Machine!

Reason it out yourself. In the beginning, primitive man was faced with a horde of unknown, mysterious and terrifying forces. The sun died daily, and was born again next dawn. Thunder threatened dire destruction in Stentorian tones. Forest fires, set by malignant, unseen demons, drove all before them. Floods wrecked the work of years. Dark diseases destroyed whole tribes. Everything about our hairy ancestors was confusion. Only the power of reasoning — analytical reasoning that could assign the right effect to the right cause — sorted things out for him and finally made Earth and its element bearable.

Then came the long period of development when men had a fairly complete understanding of their environment. They began to break more and more things down to their component parts. The jack-of-all-trades began to give way to the specialist, the man who analyzed one particular facet of a business, or a science, or a profession, or a trade. By concentration, he became an expert and won the rewards due to his superior analytical ability. That was when an “analytical mind” was the passport to success.

It is no longer necessary to have analytical ability in order to master an isolated part of any occupation or study. Medicine has been broken down into a score of sub-divisions, from Anatomy to Zoology. Business has been sub-divided into dozens of specialties, from Accounting to Underwriting. The farmer has become not merely an Agriculturist but a specific kind of agriculturist — lost in fields other where the mass of mankind finds little need for thinking at all and where analytical ability seldom distinguishes its possessor from his fellow workers — possessors of pre-analyzed knowledge.

BUT… although the world has an over-abundance of advertising managers, art directors, production managers, operating superintendents, tool makers and designers, auditors, financiers, buyers, stockkeepers, salesmen, market analysts, time and motion men and other executives… there is a definite lack of BIGGER men — men who can view these myriad other groups as you can now view a three-letter word — who can see each in its proper relationship to the others and to the world at large — and can weld from the heterogeneous mass a mercantile giant like Montgomery Ward or Sears Roebuck, or a manufacturing Goliath like General Motors.

And there you have a glimpse of what Multiple Mentalism will do for you — or, rather, enable you to do for yourself. It will enable you not only to apply analysis to your yourself — the technique of tearing down and studying the component parts of any situation — but, far more important, will give you the constructive ability to assemble the parts into a harmonious whole, a smooth-working organization, or plan, or book, or whatever it is upon which you are engaged. Seeing and understanding all factors simultaneously, you will be able to “synthesize” — build up — while your merely analytical competitor, like the canal boat captain of a vanished era, bemoans the passing of the “good old days”!

Therefore, Exercise III continues the analysis and synthesis drill inaugurated in Exercise II and supplements the training you have given your mind in this course so far.

Exercise III

In Exercise II you became adept at writing three-letter words backwards from memory. And right here I want to emphasize the necessity of spending at least ONE HOUR a day on this course. You can devote time to it while riding to or from work, while eating lunch, or during any of the idle moments with which every man’s day is blessed (or cursed!). No doubt you gained a fair mastery of Exercise II in an hour or so, for it is purposefully so simple that a child can do it and enjoy it. But to train the mind to accomplish a thing readily and instantly, you must train it by repetition until the process becomes automatic. In so doing, the right brain is engaged. It is not enough to be able, when leaving the second lesson, to write backwards any three letter word that comes to your mind, and to do so almost as readily as you would write it forwards. That is just a start. You must go further before taking up Exercise III. Repeat Number II every day for a week. An hour a day. At the end of the week you will find that you are doing it automatically, almost unconsciously, and absolutely without effort.

Then, but not until then, you are ready for Exercise III, in which you are to do this: Write, from memory, 25 to 50 four-letter words. Put them on a piece of paper and study them carefully. Then discard the paper and write them again. Do this several times, until you can quickly recall ALL OF THEM. Then write them backwards from memory. Here are a few samples:

Forwards: KNOB PAIN CASE SILL RING SLIP READ SHOE WOOD

Backwards: BONK NIAP ESAC LLIS GNIR PILS DAER EOHS DOOW

Although they look queer, each is a word with a very definite meaning. The letters are in reverse order, it is true — but, still, each is a word you frequently use and should be able to recognize at a glance, even though written backwards. Now, repeat this twenty-five times — EACH TIME FROM MEMORY — recalling the words in your mind and not looking at them in writing. Take a clean sheet of paper each time you write the group anew. After you have perfected yourself in this drill, you will be able to recognize the words Pale, Hump, Coon, even when you see them in reverse order, thus: Elap, Pmuh, or Nooc.

And what’s that to you? Well, it means that you have now taken the first step toward being able instantly to see all sides of simple problems, no matter in what guise they may confront you. And with this as a basis, you will build your ability to conquer life’s most difficult situations. The drills I give you in the exercises to come, make greater and greater demands upon your brain — develop it constantly to a point far beyond what you would now dream possible.

Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator: Double Concentration Drill

Drill A

Memorize this verse:

The night has a thousand eyes,

The day but one —

Yet, the light of a whole life dies

When love is done.

Drill B

Recite the verse above ALOUD; at the same time write your name and address.

Example:

“The night has a thousand eyes,”

Robert Armstrong

“The day but one —”

1642 West Allison St.

“Yet, The light of a whole life dies”

Cincinnati, OH

“When love is done.”

Drill C

Recite ALOUD the verse given above, while writing a friend’s name and address. This will be a bit more difficult, but MASTER it and then try this:

Recite ANY poem, prayer or song you well know, while writing your own name and address or the name and address of a friend, or any addresses you are accustomed to writing. Continue these drills until they are easy for you to accomplish.

Chapter IV

Relationship Between Mental & Physical Health & Multiple Mentalism

Let me make this clear as promptly and emphatically as possible: Multiple Mentalism is not in any way, shape or form — directly or indirectly — a system of mental healing! At least, no more than fishing or tennis constitute business training.

However, there is a definite relationship and interdependence between bodily health and mental health. If you are weak, run-down and physically ill, your mind cannot attain its fullest efficiency until you have built up your body. The converse is equally true — if your mind is worried, stressful and in ill health, your physical organs or their functions also suffer and you cannot achieve perfect bodily condition until your mental “set” is right.

Sounds like vicious circle, doesn’t it? But in reality it is not. The human body is the one thing we know of that literally can “lift itself by its own bootstraps.” If your physical health is below par and your mental health is suffering accordingly, you can make your first steps toward recovery either through the mental or the physical. If you choose the latter, proper exercise, diet and living habits will not only start you along the road to physical health but, also, will in marked measure alleviate your mental symptoms. Having got so far — with the physical condition somewhat better, proportionately, than the mental — you should turn your attention to bettering your state of mind. Mental exercise, straighter thinking and better mental discipline can then put your mind in better health, relatively, than your body — which can again overtake and surpass your physical condition. In other words, you advance the health, first of one and then of the other, physical and mental, just as you place first one foot and then the other forward until you reach your objective.

And that explains why Multiple Mentalism — without actually being a “mind cure” or “faith cure” in any sense of the words — really has helped many to better health. This system of mind training gives your brain exercise, diversion and discipline — puts it far ahead of your body in strength and energy, because there are limits to what the body can do but no limits to the capability of the human mind! There is nothing surprising in the fact that Multiple Mentalism, by stimulating, energizing and strengthening their minds, quickly uprooted the physical symptoms.

Just as Multiple Mentalism facilitates your building up of your body, a thoroughly sound body will enable you to reap even more benefit from my training — will make it possible for your brain capacity to grow just that much more. And so I urge you again to devote at least one hour every day to the Exercises. Practice them at every opportunity. Transpose the letters and words you see on billboards, and jumble the type in your daily paper — seize every opportunity to make your mind more proficient.

Moreover, you will find within the next thirty days that you are so much more efficient at your work — because of these drills I am giving you — that you will be able to spare more time from the office for physical exercise and play. You are on your way to full enjoyment of abundant health such as you never before aspired to! No wonder that you should do full justice to each lesson I give you, taking plenty of time to it and mastering it fully before taking another step forward and upward!

Exercise IV

This is your first complex exercise. It utilizes all the training you have given your mind through Exercises I, II and III. It consists of putting words together, exactly as you must put ideas together in life in order to obtain the fullest measure of business or professional success. Probably it will take you several days to become proficient in the mental gymnastics I now introduce — but they will give you a very definite mental ability that you do not have at present.

Take 24 of the three-letter words you memorized in Exercise II, or any 24 other three-letter words that come to mind. Write them a few times so that you are thoroughly familiar with them. Then pair any two of the 24 that first occur to you, and intermingle their letters in sequence. Here is what I mean:

OIL & BIT = O B I I L T

and, likewise:

KEY & MAP = K M E A Y P

Pair up the 24 words into any 12 pairs, writing their letters, as above, in 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 order. Then start all over with the same or different letters. Mix the words in any pairs that occur to you. Intermingle their letters in the order given. Do this 20 MINUTES every day.

In the second 20-minute period of your hour’s exercise, pair a three-letter word with a four-letter word and intermingle their letters:

WERE & HAS = W H E A R S E

and, similarly:

COME & AIL = C A O I M L E

Do this FOR 20 MINUTES EVERY DAY, using a different pair every time you do it, until you can take any three-letter word and intermingle its letters with those of any four-letter word as rapidly as you could spell each word correctly by itself. This drill should immediately follow your 20-minute practice in intermingling three-letter words.

Now, for the last 20-minute period of your daily drill, do the same exercises as the two preceding, EXCEPT: pair and intermingle four-letter words, one with another, instead of using three-letter and four-letter words, thus:

LIKE & PAIR = L P I A K I E R

and also:

FOAM & LOVE = F L O O A V M E

You may realize how essential I consider it when I repeat a bit of advice given you in every exercise so far: NEVER “COPY” THE DRILL. Do it from memory! FROM MEMORY ALONE. Use your “mind’s eye”, not your physical eye. In doing this, you acquire that same miraculous ability with which the blind amaze the world — the power to recreate, in your own mind, everything about you at the moment and anything you have seen in the past. Your mind OPENS — it embraces THE WORLD IN ITS ENTIRETY. It is ILLUMINATED — dark, obscure corners become LIGHT. Your mind is awake — it LIVES. The whole earth is WITHIN YOUR MENTAL VISION — and you are master of it! That is the power possessed by the blind, in some measure — and which you can not only acquire, too, but to which you can ADD the inestimable value of sight. Truly, I exaggerate but little when I tell you that practicing these exercises until you reach perfection in them will make you nothing less than a Super-man — a being apart from those around you!

So, make your mind WORK. Don’t “coddle” it by copying — nor “baby” it by taking less than an hour’s drill every day. Take MORE, if you need it. The BIG thing is: to master — master thoroughly — each and every lesson as you go along. Perfect yourself in it before proceeding to the one following. In this way, and in this way ONLY, you will get full value from Multiple Mentalism, the SOLE course of its kind in the world.

Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator:

Numerical-Word Drill

Drill A

Recite aloud the numerals from 1 to 100. At the same time write as many FOUR LETTER words correctly as you can. Continue practicing this drill until you can keep an even pace, counting and writing..

After a few attempts you should be able to write 15 or more 4-letter words without stopping your counting, although you may have to pause occasionally to think of words.

Drill B

Recite numerals from 3 to 99, while writing 4-letter words, spelled backwards.

EXAMPLE: BOAT — as you count aloud “by threes”.

SPELLED: TAOB

A friendly bit of advice to you: The more difficult you find these exercises, is the sign that you need them, so MASTER them by all means.

Chapter V

Psychological Difficulties Relieved by Multiple Mentalism

Exercise IV may have seemed difficult at first. But by the time you take up this chapter, you will — if you are fair to yourself — have mastered Exercise IV and will now be able to do the drill easily.

This is as good a time as any for me to go on record with this statement, substantiated by every scientific authority on the workings of the human mind: THINKING NEVER HURT ANYBODY! Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of America’s outstanding philosophers, said: “It probably is easier for great men to do great things than it is for little men to do little things”. So, if you have found it difficult to do the little exercises I have thus far given you, your brain has not yet really begun to realize its capacity and it still stamps you, comparatively, as a “little” man. However, to quote another famous figure in history, Thomas Edison once said, “Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration”. Consequently, the effort you devote to these exercises will lead you surely and uninterruptedly to GREATNESS OF INTELLECT. And greatness of intellect is characterized by greatness in other things — in understanding, in sympathy, in charity and in our daily conduct. Many ends well worth striving for!

And if, in the striving, you occasionally feel a touch of “brain fatigue”, remember this: physical exercises that build up your muscles and framework are invariably accompanied, at first, by physical stiffness. This stiffness is in itself PROOF that the exercises are benefiting you — calling into play parts of your body that have been “rusting”, unused. So with the mental exercises that are given here. If they seem to make your brain stiff and somewhat “numb”, you may be sure that they are helping you. The stiffer they make you feel, in fact, the more you have been in need of just this kind of “limbering up”, and the more good you will get from it.

You are now becoming able to carry on four or five mental processes simultaneously. Your thoughts of self are no longer able to crowd other thoughts out of your mind. Expressed in another way, Multiple Mentalism has left you still conscious of self, but no longer self-conscious! You are four or five times the individual you formerly were and you have outgrown your childish self-consciousness just as you have outgrown the clothes you wore as a child!

The same factors account for the disappearance of stuttering and stammering in several others who have perfected themselves in these drills. Where thought was too rapid for words, consequently crowding the consciousness so that no part of the mind was free to direct the speech, they stuttered and stammered. With the ability to think several things at once, they were free to complete their lines of thought while other parts of their brains followed along, putting the thoughts into words and seeing that the words were properly uttered, clearly and impressively. So, too, with those who hem’d and haw’d and er’d while sparring for time in which to think. Mental agility — the ability to see and weigh all sides of a question simultaneously — now enables them to speak right out, without impediment.

Some stutterers and stammerers, we are told by psychiatrists, are victims of neuroses and complexes all unknown to themselves. Even so, when they are relieved of these neuroses, freed from these complexes by Multiple Mentalism, is there anything in that “cure” to surprise the thinking man? Complexes and neuroses hide in dark corners of the mind — hidden from sight — unpleasant experiences or desires that we wish to forget — unhappy memories or unworthy desires that our conscious minds do not want to face but which melt away instantly when dragged out into the light and dissolved by the illumination of Reason and Understanding. As you already can see, by its effects on your own mind, Multiple Mentalism opens up chamber after chamber in your brain — airs and purifies it — lets in the sunshine of Intelligence to disperse any unwholesome, buried memories that may be festering there — gives you mastery in your own mind, over all that it is and all that it contains.

After all the foregoing, you might expect Exercise V to be a drill featuring Peter Piper and his peck of pickled peppers, or the ragged rascal who ran ’round the rugged rock! However, it is not. You will find it, instead, a continuation of No. IV — a trifle more complex, perhaps — but even more interesting. If you have been faithful in your practicing and have mastered the four exercises given you so far, you have reached the point where your increased mental abilities are a constant source of amazement and pleasure to you!

Exercise V

Warning: if you have to any degree slighted the previous lessons, GO BACK AND MASTER THEM NOW, or you will fall by the wayside in your effort to acquire a Multiple Mind! Exercise V will absolutely stop 999 out of every thousand men who have not approached it by mastering Nos. I, II, III and IV. However, if you have been conscientious and regular in your practice and can now intermingle three-letter and four-letter words with ease and speed, these gymnastics will give you a genuine thrill!

First, write 24 four-letter words from memory. It is easy, of course. You have used so many of them in the preceding lesson. Now, take any two of your four-letter words (select them in your “mind’s eye”, NOT by looking at the list you have written!) and intermingle their letters so that you spell one word frontwards; the other, backwards. Like this:

HOLD & SOIL = H L O I L O D S

and

PIPE & PUFF = P P I U P F E F

Naturally, you understand that this is to be done entirely from memory — utilizing the blind man’s gift of seeing with his mind — and writing the intermingled letters on a clean sheet of paper, without having the words themselves before you as a guide. Just select the words, reach for a clean sheet of paper and write down S N U O R O E L after having selected, for example, the words SURE and LOON in your mind. Do not write SURE and LOON, themselves, at all — just their letters, intermingled as explained, and NOTHING ELSE. Pair off other four-letter words and write them similarly for 30 minutes. Do not overdo yourself by practicing more than 30 minutes at present, for you must spend at least a week, and perhaps more, on Exercise V. You will have time tomorrow and in the days following to become really proficient in this and the following drill (also a part of Exercise V). It is better, you know, to take six hours in six days, for drilling than to take even twelve hours in a single day. You learn better, and retain what you learn, which you cannot hope to do if you “cram”.

After you have practiced the above lesson for 30 minutes, go on to words of five . Write JSULMLPSAF if you have selected JUMPS and FALLS. Pair off five-letter words and write them thus FOR 30 MINUTES — no more, no less, for the first day.

Tomorrow and in the days following, until you have MASTERED this drill thoroughly, spend AT LEAST 30 minutes daily on four-letter words and five-letter words. Thirty minutes EACH, that is. Or more. Two hours in all if you can find the time — an hour and a half if you cannot manage two hours — but, at all costs, AT LEAST one full hour. And KEEP AT IT, day after day, until you can make four-letter and five-letter words “jump through the hoop” for you, in accordance with this drill.

How does this fit into your daily life and help you in solving business or household problems? Well, think it over. Something occurs on your job, let us say. Perhaps someone has been advanced over others’ heads, or someone has been unexpectedly discharged, or a deal that you thought was “in the bag” falls through. Why? You may be sure that any totally unexpected happening of any importance was preceded by an entire series of events — long and short and, perhaps, seemingly unrelated to the action in which they culminate. The most recent event in the series is probably familiar to you, but you may not see its connection with other, partially forgotten events. Now that your mind is becoming trained to break down and reconnect words, to take ten apparently unrelated letters and see them in their true relationship to each other, as two separate and distinct words, your mind will become equally able to analyze and reconstruct events in your business life — to understand that which is now a puzzle to you.

Better yet: Perhaps a series of events is now under way, but has not yet culminated in any definite action. With your new-found ability to recognize seemingly heterogeneous elements as coherent entities, you will in many cases find yourself anticipating forthcoming actions and “beating the other fellow to the gun”, or preparing yourself in advance to handle situations that otherwise would prove too much for you.

Need I say that when you can do this, and your rivals cannot, you — and not they — will win out in business competition?

Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator:

Calculating Drill

This is NOT an arithmetical drill in the sense that it is designed to improve your arithmetic. However, even before the time of Omar Khayam, various mathematical exercises were much in vogue to develop judgment, reasoning power and mental alertness. The following drill will stimulate your brain to greater nimbleness than you would have dreamed possible just a few weeks ago.

Drill A

Spell your own name aloud and add this row of figures:

9+28+56+124+43+68

Work on this drill for days, create more additions, and while adding RECITE the alphabet ALOUD. Spell your friends names, recite poetry. As the new awakened cells are called into play, continue creating more difficult additions.

Drill B

Spell your own name and MULTIPLY:

6 x 42 9 x 18 8 x 17 6 x 56 4 x 37 3 x 59 9 x 39

Spell your friends names, using new ones at each attempt:

8 x 45 7 x 78 8 x 29 7 x 345

Create your own problems, adding, multiplying or subtracting.

Drill C: