Memorize the Faith! (and Most Anything Else): Using the Methods of the Great Catholic Medieval Memory Masters

I absolutely loved reading this book. The main reason is that I learned this amazing method called "the method of loci". Of course, you can Google this technique and teach yourself, but with all the commentary and guidance that this book provides you with, I would strongly recommend that you read this book instead. I learned the entire 73 books of the Bible. The books come in handy especially when you are looking for a specific verse or verses in Scripture.The most important part of this book, I believe, are the images that you are provided with. Google "the method of loci" and get acquainted with the concept so you know what may be coming.Basically, you choose/imagine any amount of locations (in order) in any place you desire. It could be the parts of a car (like the author first did), the parts of a body, or the locations of a house (as done in this book). Then, you associate the parts with the locations. The association can be direct or can be a word that reminds you of what you're trying to memorize.This book does an excellent job of making images to associate with what you're trying to memorize.This book is much easier than "Memorize the Reasons!" by the same author, Kevin Vost.If you buy this book, remember this information regarding practice:I would read and practice a chapter at one time. That would mean I'd memorize around 10-15 things at once. After contacting the author, he told me to practice 10-15 minutes daily, focusing on just parts of the house, maybe a room or two a day, or the material in one or two chapters a day. He also recommended that I practice the material backwards or even randomly (having someone call a number 1-46 and answering with which book from the Old Testament).

I can not say enough good things about this book. We have been working through our own copy for a couple of months and I have recommended it to a lot of people. And this one I bought for a Christmas present for my grandmother!It is based off of Aquinas' memory method of loci. Vost walks you carefully through how to memorize each 'room' of a large house, assigning words and pictures to different locations in each room. One example is that for the Ten Commandments you see a large steel chandelier in the middle of the room and you remember: steel. You shall not steal. It might sound strange, but my son- who home schools and has problems with memory work-has really excelled at this. He closes his eyes and literally turns around, looking at each object in his mind's eye. After hearing the 'room' one time he is usually ready to recite it back to me! (however I continue to go over it for another week to solidify the objects in his mind. My daughter is doing well with this too, and she has a very different learning style. I am impressed that it works well for both of them. Her learning is more based on rote memorization. He does better with memory work put to songs. But they both can do this. In fact, I can now say, "7th commandment, 4th commandment, etc" and they can tell me what it is. And this is after trying to teach it to them for three years with another homeschool program and them needing to relearn it each time. It was obviously not getting into their long term memory before.The best part is that it isn't just about memorizing Catholic facts. It is teaching a memory tool that the kids- and I- will continue to use for other things. I have used it when my son can't remember another part of his school work. We just put the thing that he needs to know into his memory house and then he can pull it up when he needs it.I highly recommend this book.

As the title--Memorize the Faith! (And Most Anything Else)--indicates, this book does two things. First, it walks the reader through the memorization of a number of lists important to Catholicism (Twenty Mysteries of the Rosary, Fourteen Stages of the Cross, etc). Second, it introduces a memorization method used in antiquity and the Middle Ages that can be applied to virtually any aspect of life.I ordered this book because I have an interest in old modes of living and looking at the world. What I was expecting was to be introduced to a "lost" memorization technique (perhaps with dubious utility) and documentation of this technique's usage among medieval monks and clergy. In fact, the technique is not lost, forgotten, or very unique. It is a form of associative memorization that can be found recommended in one form or another in a multitude of locations, such as the book Mind Hacks. It is of some interest (at least, to me) that these techniques were known among the Greeks and Romans and also used by medieval scholars. However, the book does not go into great detail about this history. The author recommends two other books about the history of memory techniques ( The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture  and  The Art of Memory ), and if that's what you're interested in, I suggest you pick up one of those rather than this book.The majority of the book's content is not instructive, per se, but actual exercises through which the reader is led. So, if you're interested in the technique but not in actually memorizing aspects of Catholicism, this is not a good book for you. However, if you are a serious Catholic or in particular a serious Catholic homeschooling parent, I would think this book would be extremely useful to you.If, like me, you have been exposed to associative memory techniques in the past and dislike them for one reason or another, I suggest you Google "SuperMemo" and "Mnemosyne" for something you might find more appealing. (Apparently, Saint Thomas Aquinas might blame our intransigence with regard to associative techniques on Obstinacy, Inconstancy, or Faint-Heartedness--aspects of the Capital Sins you would learn by using this book!)

Formato pésimo para leer en Kindle.

Das Buch ist ansprechend geschrieben. Bislang habe ich kein vergleichbares Buch zu der Thematik gefunden, in welchem Mnemotechniken und diverse Fakten aus der christlichen Religion miteinander verknüpft werden.

Excellent!

Incredible book! Memorization as a legitimate teaching and learning method gets such a bad rap these days, which is severely unfortunate, and this book will show you why.

Dr Vost has provided a tremendous service to anyone serious about learning and progressing in the Catholic Faith (and for anyone else who wants to remember anything).Do you want to learn the 10 Commandments backwards and forwards (literally) in 10 minutes? Have you often thought "I wish I really knew all the .....(fill in your own blank) and could relate them to .......(ditto)" Well, as the adverts say, now you can!Dr Vost gives a highly readable and accessible guide to memory training, showing how far back it goes in Human History and how great figures in pre-Christian philosophy and, of course, the great memory masters of the medieval Church, created and used rational, systematic methods to enable themselves to recall and use tremendous amounts of information.Especially for those who wish to memorise the Faith and walk in the footsteps of the Church Fathers, I cannot reccommend this book highly enough!