Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer Superlearning Revisited

I've done some forum searches on this, but wanted to check if people have any recent experiences with both the technique and the company.

I ordered some tapes from Superlearning a few years ago and was very unsatisfied with the quality of the products. More recently, my own informal research has led me to question the academic integrity and scholarly credibility of the system.

I'd be very interested to hear if others have had any success with the Superlearning techniques or if you could direct me towards a better accelerative learning technique, particularly for language study.

danke,
Publius

Gross. As I said before, my first introduction to the idea of learning faster and improving my mind was Superlearning--well, not first, meditation came way before and is still most fruitful in my opinion--I remember that at the time I too had my doubts. I, therefore, decided not to buy any of their products. Their academic credentials are crap, I agree with you, and their method of writing and ideas also contain a lot of poorly-thought-out BS...same goes for Mike Hutchinson's "Megabrain".
However, the core techniques: using mnemonics and a relaxed, "alpha" state of mind are effective learning aids. mnemonics, if you can structure the information in such a concrete manner, are almost miraculous in terms of memory. I have personal experience with that-- after a few days of practice I could memorize a list of fifty non-sense words in a few minutes...and I would remember it indefinitely until I used the hooks for something else. One list I recalled flawlessly a month later with no intervening review. As I said, the problem lies in structuring the information in such "visualization-freindly" manners. I still am poor at that, so I just use mnemonics- in the strict sense of the word- for lists, and instructions, etc. For more abstract things I at least make an attempt to visualize them, this makes them much more memorable in and of itself.
In terms of superlearning itself, I have not tried it. It seems like a pain-in-the-ass to record all the information and then play it back with music and all. Next time I take a language course, which should be soon, I plan on giving it a shot for my vocabulary. Also check out www.mindtools.com
for an interesting mnemonic related to learning languages.
Let me know what success you have.
Good luck,
Kristoff "Faustus" Olafsson

I have a feww products of SuperLearning. In my opinion, they are snake oil. A good book on the subject of accelerated learning is "Accelerated Learning for the 21st Century" by Colin Rose.

The Superlearning books are what got me interested in accelerated learning in the first place back in 1986 because they used to teach it on some faculties at the University of Toronto, maybe they still do. Their ideas on using baroque music and preclassical are interesting (the smartest people i know listen to lots of Bach). But I don't know if it works; I've never tried it. Right after I read Superlearning, I found the book Pumping Ions by Tony Buzan (the guy who created mindmapping) and made the switch. Now THAT is a great book for building your intelligence...

I got the Italian Language Superlearning tape 2 years or so ago. I've only really fully listened to the first Unit of it. It's Basic Phrases. If, I remember, the subsequent Units build on the previous units. I was mildly successful with the Unit 1 tape. That was before I really understood how to get into the AL State. When I get back home, I intend to PR Italian language and grammar books, and then will activate by listening to the SL tape series through in order. It seems to work for me so far, really.
Bill