Memorizing Mnemonica

Mar 14, 2019
37
17
Not sure if this helps,but I memorized the first 26 cards to the tune of Row,Row,Row your boat. Then the last 26 to Smells Like Teen Spirit. Putting it to a couple of songs I learned the entire stack in about four days.
 

WitchDocIsIn

Elite Member
Sep 13, 2008
5,877
2,945
When you say you learned it, do you mean you bought the book and learned it from there? If so, just re-read the book.

If not - well, I still recommend the book, but for more general memory work I 100% recommend The Memory Arts by Sarah and David Trustman.

Not only will it teach you the Mnemonica stack, you can also use it to learn the Aronson Stack at the same time, and it also teaches you how to memorize just about anything.
 

Aristotilean

Elite Member
Dec 6, 2018
136
150
Memorization in general is very specific to how each individual processes information. Whether or not you are typically a visual or auditory learner or if you rely on context clues to remember events all impact the method that will be best for you.

Personally, I am typically someone who doesn’t utilize a lot of Tamariz’s recommended methods such as the songs, recordings, etc. I prefer to sit down and merely grind out the memorization through sheer repetition (partially because I also don’t have the money spend on additional resources for these kinds of purposes), however, I have refined the process slightly. This is how I memorized the stack, it really only took me a few hours to memorize the stack IN ORDER and then a few days to refine my recall of individual cards when the stack is out of order (this is important because memorizing sequences is different than remembering individual positions and ideally you want to do both). Hopefully this is of some help:

1) Start with the regular stack and memorize the top three cards. Say the position of the card and the card’s name at loud, and then flip the cards to check that you are right. Once you make no mistakes add 3 cards and repeat now with 6 cards total. If you make a mistake always go back to the beginning. Once you get through the entire deck you will have tested your memory of the first half of the stack disproportionately to the second half, so you should have almost instant recall of the first 26 cards.

2) Repeat the process for step 1 but now you want to start with the bottom 3 cards of the deck. This evens out the amount of practice you’ve had with both halfs of the decks.

3) Write the position numbers of the cards on the back of the cards and then shuffle them all. Test yourself with the deck like they are flash cards. Start with viewing the number only and recall, out loud, the card. Cycle through them and shuffle before repeating. Do this until you are making no mistakes and then restart now viewing the card facing and recalling the position number.

4) Once you are making no mistakes on step 3, you want to do give the cards a shuffle choose a random card and recall, out loud, what cards are above and below it. You will probably want have a written list of the stack in front of you.
 
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Reactions: Kard Fu
Oct 18, 2013
1
1
I placed each card on an item in my apartment going around in a big circle. I've been able to create associations between them easily. For example, my ps4 is the 8 of clubs, my tv is the 10 of spades, my VR is the king of hearts, etc. This helped me learn because I was able to think of the card's general area in case I forgot and eventually get to the card. Now it's second nature.
 
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Reactions: Theorist19
Sep 10, 2017
347
231
I had been wanting to learn the stack for quite some time now, but around 2 months ago I finally put in the work and learnt it. And I didn’t exactly use any technique specifically for mnemonica or stack decks, but some general memory principles like the major system, peg system and linking, ... . If you know about memory techniques, I basically used a 52 slot peg for the cards and kept repeating and practicing the list of pegs in conjunction with the images I created. Now I just practice with the mnemonica trainer app to keep it sharp.
If you haven’t practiced memory techniques (which you totally should, btw) and don’t know what I’m talking about, there are a lot of books on the subject. My personally favorites are Dominic O’brien and Harry Lorayne’s books on the subject (yeah, THE Harry Lorayne, the famous magician). If you know the systems, but applying them and a little bit of practice, you can learn the stack and be comfortable enough to use it in a matter of maybe 2 or 3 days tops.
 
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Reactions: Gabriel Z.
Feb 9, 2021
2
0
I've been able to create associations between them easily. For example, my ps4 is the 8 of clubs, my tv is the 10 of spades, my VR is the king of hearts, etc.
 

CoreyHarris

Elite Member
May 5, 2018
17
14
41
Kansas City, MO
What has worked best for me is what some might refer to as the Joyal method, but I am sure it has it's roots elsewhere.
Put the deck in stack and then with a sharpie write the number of where the card is in stack on the back of the card.
Then grab the 1st 5 - 10 cards and say the number and the card. Example using the redford stack is "1 is the queen of hearts" and so on. Then mix those cards after going through them in order a few times and repeat with the numbers that you are looking at for the corresponding card.

This is what works best for me. I can usually memorize an entire deck in a few days with this method. I hated the Rick Lax download, but it's just not my style, I don't remember things with mnemonics, I remember after repetitive actions.
 
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