I like it. The idea of words themselves as foundations for a kind of peg system is very interesting. I might incorporate some of those ideas into what I’m doing after I think about it for a while. 
Glad it your interested.
Another fun thing I do is take a Bible verse or song I know and use the words to link a deck of cards to them. All I need is the first 13 words. Then I hang 4 cards on each word. John 3:16 is a great verse for this because there are not repeat words. Ex: The first word is FOR (my substitute is FUR). The image I use is a big FUR COAT. I place a card at the TOP, RIGHT SLEEVE, BOTTOM, & LEFT SLEEVE. Then, I go to the next word in the verse and do the same thing.
It’s just an exercise I do to help me focus and concentrate.
I have an idea for organizing it using a system I have explained in The Cube thread. It might be clearer if you read there what I have developed. But I will supply a succinct summary here.
Basically, it is a PAO system (2-digits each). I have added a concept of locations—10 indoor locations and 10 outdoor. I will normally use it to move from an outdoor location to an indoor one viewing a PAO in each location. The indoor location naturally has the 4 corners, 4 walls, ceiling and floor to peg information.
For memorizing Scripture, I will take away the PAO from the outdoor location:
I would use L(o) + L(i) + PAO => LPAO (2-digits each)
The Location will represent the book, the Person will represent the chapter, the Action will represent the verse, and the Object can be used to either help break up the verse and/or store information about the verse (like commentary or study Bible notes, cross references, sermon notes, etc.)
So, Isaiah 53:6 would be represented as by the number 23,530,600 or 23:53:06:00
Use 23:53:06:00 to store the verse itself.
Use 23:00:00:00 to put information about Isaiah (like an introduction to the book in a study Bible)
Use 23:53:00:00 to store information about the chapter.
If you use the O (Object) to break up the verse, then use the first digit (10-20-30-etc) to proceed through the verse then use the second digit for adding notes (11-12-13…for the “10” section, 21-21-21…for the “20”, etc).
The only snag is Psalms with 150 chapters and Psalm 119 with 176 verses. You will have to be creative. [Maybe some of Psalm 119 could be stored with Psalm 117 (only two verses there)?]
But everything else deals with numbers less than 100.
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I posted this to Hanniball yesterday:
have leant the whole book of 150 psalms, the Song of Solomon (Old testament), the 16 chapters of the epistle to the Romans, two thirds of the 13 chapters of the epistle to the Hebrews, the first two chapters of each book of the New testament, much of John’s gospel of 21 chapters & other chapters.
Take the psalms: I have a story for each psalm and a place or scenario for each story. I was using this method for some time. Then on reading Dominic O’Brien’s books, I learnt to turn almost every word into a person (making a dictionary of these words and people). Using people was a tremendous break through for me, as they are 3 dimensional and can do actions.
I then use my favourite memory palace: rooms in my house and a walk from my house, each room & stopping place having 5 places to put the people in. I keep the original stories & scenarios and reinforce them with almost the same familiar memory palace each time. When you know the 1st word in the sentence or verse, the rest is easier with practice. So, it’s the 1st word, in the verse or sentence that needs to be particularly highlighted in my mind, so I attach the Buzan peg words to the person representing that 1st word, making the image all the more ridiculous & outstanding (1 tie, 2 Noah - flooded with water, 3 Ma, 4 rye - getting drunk & falling over etc. Action is always memorable.
These methods work for me, as I keep on reviewing what I’ve learnt, methodically. I suppose they work because I’ve adapted them from proven memorisers like O’Brien, or invented them myself. The trouble is that it gets addictive and you find it difficult to stop!!
Strathy, do reply - it’s so good to have discovered a site which has people interested in this subject
Great job, pcmaesteg…
What I do is have one word that represents the Book and Chapter. Ex. My word for James Chapter 1 is, JET. The J is for James and the T is my number for “1”. That takes care of two birds with one stone, so to speak.
From there I visually see the JET in an airport. I call this a MEMORY ENVIRONMENT, because it holds the whole chapter. Every single word in every verse has a place in the MEMORY ENVIRONMENT, but not strung out all over the neighbor. A particular order and memory sequence is imperative for me. I must stay focused on procedure, or things will easily get out of hand, particularly when many chapters are involved.
I use what I call, Alpha Characters to hold the words of each verse (probably similar to what you do). Each Character hold 4 words, sometimes more, depending on what I want to do. But it works best for me to stick with the 4 word method.
For every verse there is a TITLE which is generally the first word of the verse. If the verse is long, I add another word or two. The TITLE is important because it cues me as to which Alpha Characters are in play.
For example, the tile for verse 24 of James 1 is FOR (New King James Version). So, my Characters are Frank, Olin, and Ray. If each one holds 4 words (TITLE not included), you will note that this leaves me 2 words short. I just simply start again with a different kind of CHARACTER. In this case FROG (lol).
James 1:24
FOR
FRANK: he observes himself, goes
OLIN: away, and immediately forgets
RAY: what kind of man
FROG: he was.
Every intangible word has a substitute. To me it’s like learning another language. After awhile you see the SUBs and automatically think the actually word.
There’s a lot of stuff that builds up to this point, but that’s basically it in a nut shell.
Congrats on all the scripture you’ve committed to memory. I know you must be really gratified. You are right… it is addictive. But that ain’t bad.
gary lanier
During the “Born Again” phase of the 70s, Lorayne or Lucas did up a series of cards to help memorize verses using amusing drawings. I imagine it was a small distribution. Saw them at a Zondervaans bookstore. I don’t think I’ve ever seen actual mental images transposed to paper before.
Mark
Hi Mark,
I have that book, REMEMBER THE WORD (Volume 1) by Jerry Lucas. It came with a collection of Study Pictures.
It covers the first 4 Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Each picture has a drawing (cartoon) within it that represents the book and chapter. Then, all the additional drawings (images, cartoons) represent each major thought of the chapter.
The idea is that as you memorize each picture (6"x9"), your mind will automatically keep each book and chapter separated because the book and chapter images will appear only in their designated pictures.
Example… the letter A is used for the first 10 chapters of Matthew. So, if I wanted to check out Matthew 5, I would see the picture that had an ALLEY in it… A for Matthew and L (major sys for 5). Then, whatever else is in that picture represents the major thoughts of Matthew 5.
I don’t think Volume 2 ever made it.
Dear Gary Lanier,
Of all the comments on Bible memorizing I have been most impressed with your system. You respond tentatively as if you are don’t want to bore people with your methodology. As I have been working on a system for some years, as I posted on Feb 9th, 2013, I am always fascinated to read of and to evaluate or try out other systems. I would be very pleased if you could elaborate further concerning your system, as you outlined it on 15 & 16/7/12
Thank you pcmaesteg for your interest.
I’ll get back with you as soon as I get a few thoughts together. I’m trying to be more specific with my procedures. They’re not difficult at all, but explaining them seems to be where my problem is.
Sounds like you’ve already got things together.
I’m thinking about putting together a 5-10 minute video walking through Revelation 20:4. It’s the longest verse in the NT. So, for anyone interested in Bible memorization, that should be a confidence builder for remembering any verse.
Let me soak in my thoughts awhile, then I’ll post something.
gary lanier
Ive been doing this for Bible Promises.
For Books, I use some simplistic approaches as memorizing all of the details can really get massive.
Psalms; I picture King David.
Proverbs; I picture a great Angel, wings, glowing white.
Matthew; I shopped around on Google Images for pictures of a possible ‘Matthew from the Bible’, found one I liked, locked him into the visual.
Etc…
I then memorize some scripture, make a story about that scripture using the Book tag (Matthew for instance) in it.
When I cant remember a certain word for some odd reason, I picture a thing that describes it. For instance, I cant remember ‘dwell’ to well, so I now picture ‘Dwell Magazine’ (cool architectural magazine) now and it works brilliant.
The stories link with the actual exact scripture, modern KJV, and fish hooks, so I can reverse / remember the scripture by fragments of the mini story.
Example: Matthew is holding 8 ‘light bulbs of life’ in his arms, standing behind Jesus as Jesus is about to teach to 12 hundred people. (Matthew 8:12).
Tags or Fishhooks; Light of Life, Matthew, Jesus, teaching, croud
Actual Scripture: And He began to teach unto them saying ‘I am the light of life. Whomever follows me shall not walk in darkness by have the light of life.’
Super simple. Once you start memorizing all of these, you really need simplicity. For me, anyways…
Wow! I don’t know the technical jargon yet. This is the first time I’d heard of PAO. But I think I’m doing something similar. I’ve started memorizing a few verses and posting them on my blog. The first goes like this:
Memorize the Bible - Philippians 4:13
Have you ever wanted to memorize the Bible? I have. So, I decided to start and see how far I could get.
I didn’t know how to start. Starting from the beginning and memorizing by rote seemed boring. So, I looked into a memory trick called mnemonics. That sounded impressive, so that’s how I’m going to begin. I’m going to start with certain verses that I already love and therefore would have a propensity to remember. And I’m going to use some the mnemonic tools that I found here. Especially, the numeric (aka phonetic) alphabet.
I haven’t read the entire website, but I know that they also recommend visualization, exaggeration, humor and any trick to make the thing more memorable.
With that in mind, let’s begin.
This is the verse I want to memorize:
Philippians 4:13 I can do all these things in him who strengtheneth me.
Let’s break Philippians down into the following:
Phili sounds like “filly” and a filly is a female colt, a female horse. So, picture a filly in your mind.
pains sounds like “piano” and a piano is a large instrument to play music. So, picture a piano next to that filly.
Now, if you go to the numeric alphabet, you’ll see that the number “4” is represented by the letter “r”.
And the number “1” can be represented by the letter “d”.
And the number “3” can be represented by the letter “m”
So, we’ve got the letters r, d, and m.
Which I’ve put together to make the phrase, “ride’em”.
So, in order to remember Philippians 4:13,
Let’s visualize a piano riding on the back of a filly. So, say to yourself, “filly piano ride 'em”. And picture a piano riding on top of a filly.
Now, let’s go to the text. It says, “I can do all these things in him who strengtheneth me.”
Now, visualize yourself approaching the filly with the piano riding on top of it and putting your hands on the filly’s belly and attempting to dead lift the filly with the piano on top of it. The filly turns and looks at you quizzically, like asking, “What are you doing?”
At first you can’t do it. But then, you feel a hand on your back, you turn to look and the hand belongs to Jesus. And then, you get back to work and dead lift the filly, piano and all. Because Christ strengthens you and you can do anything. Therefore, “you can do all things in Him who strengthens you.”
I’m going to practice this all week and then I’ll post another one.
Now, if I correlate that to the PAO,
My Person is the filly with the piano on its back. That corresponds to the book.
Come to think of it, I don’t guess I have an Action to represent the Chapter since I combined the 4/r and 1/d for the word ride. I’ll have to correct that somehow in order to have a more orderly system.
Nor do I have an O to represent the verse. Hm… have to correct that as well.
I think my problem is I just sort of jumped in without planning the process in more detail. Anyway, thanks for your post and the ideas I got from it. I hope you can dig some insights out of mine.
Can anyone tell me how I can start my own thread? I hope to contribute my ideas to several threads here, but my goal is more in line with remembering Bible verses in conjunction with Theological lessons. For instance,
Justification and Romans 3:28 and James 2:14 or…
Baptism and Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16;
So I want to start a thread more on those lines.
Sincerely,
De Maria
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Strathy, I don’t mean this in a bad way, but you look like a mercenary, not a missionary. I guess that’s mnemotechnic in me. I will forever remember this post as the merciful mercenary doing it missionary
lol - oh my! I’ve been called worse. FYI - yer avatar is a generic snowman in a sea of snowmen. lol.