So I have spent this last week learning the shadow system, and It’s gone quite well until I stumbled upon the face cards. I can easily memorize a deck of cards without the face cards using the shadow system in under 5 minutes, but the whole face card concept I can’t seem to understand despite reading lances post a bunch of times. Could someone who knows the shadow system add me on discord perhaps? .brxs04 Here is a photo of my pronouncination of some face cards and I wonder if they are correct or not
Hi Björn!
I don’t have discord set up, but I wrote up a guide to Shadow recently when I was in the process of learning it. I think it might help with your questions
Here is a link, maybe the way I rephrase the instructions will help it click for you. There are tabs within the sheet that have a phonetic guide for every suit combo as well as phonetic worksheets for every pair. Between the explanation tab and these worksheets, you should be able to see how every card pair’s structure and phonetics are determined. The picture cards can present a challenge with the variations they require.
Please let me know if this helps or if you’ve got other questions about the process. I’m currently deep into learning and applying the system, so I’m happy to discuss it!
Thank you so much, exactly what I needed! What exactly are SS/HH ## pairs though?
And why do I have to make an additional palace each week for some time? Isn’t 1 palace enough for card memorization as long as its got 20-26 loci?
And I would love to get into a call with you or open a conversation with you since I don’t really get why after 999 it starts all over again from 0-100 and then H0-H9 etc whatever thats supposed to mean
SS = spade/spade. HH = heart/heart.
Those suit combos share phonetics (the S/Z sound).
## means Number/Number card pairs.
So the shorthand “SS/HH ## pair” refers to any pair that contains only number cards and is either spade/spade or heart/heart. (Ace is considered a number card, with the value of 1.)
This group of card pairs will follow the phonetic structure of [S/Z]-[First Card Number]-[Second Card Number].
So, the pairs 3 
2 AND 3 
2 both take the phonetic form of [S/Z]-[M]-[N]. My word/image for that pair is “SiMoN.”
The reason that I recommend having more than one memory palace is that when you start practicing, you will want to do several deck attempts per day. If you use the same palace over and over on the same day, you will experience heavy interference and image ghosting where all of those runs will jumble together. Ideally you should have twice the number of palaces than the number of attempts you want to make per day so that you can give each palace a day off to reset and let the images fade.
I have 10 palaces for cards practice. I use the first 5 on day one, the second 5 on day two, then I can reuse the first 5 again on day three, the second 5 on day four… Etc. Building extra palaces was something that I put off until way late when I was in the process of learning and I really wish that I had been doing it all along. I cannot overstate the importance of having a bunch of palaces to use while learning and practicing this system.
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Alright thanks! I do have a couple of palaces from memorizing 10000 pi decimals. Could I perhaps use those for this card purpouse or will there be significant overlapping in the images still? What would you do?
Also what does P#, #P, and PP pairs stand for?
There are 1352 images to associate to the 2704 possible card pairs that can occur with a deck of cards (allowing for duplicate cards in a pair.)
992 of these images are generated from the phonetics that match the 3-digit numbers 000-999. (There are 8 numbers that are unused for card pairs, don’t worry about the why just yet.)
So you need to account for the other 360 images. They can’t be formed by the traditional 3-digit major system numbers, because they are already taken. Lance had the ingenious idea of making pairs that end with picture cards and those that contain Kings follow different rules for phonetics to generate those missing images.
If a card pair has a number as the first card and a King as the second card, the King is silent and the phonetic structure is [Suit][#Value] which results in a 2-digit number., so thats why you see 00-99 in the list.
If a King is the first card of a pair, and the second card is a number, the first sound of the associated word is “H.” This is why you’ll see cards that have the structure of "H-[Suit]-[#Value], which is why you see H00-H99.
If a pair is King/King, the second king is silent, and the first king provides the H sound resulting in a structure of “H-[Suit]”, which is why you see some pairs with H0-H9.
The pairs that end with either Jack or Queen, end up with blended consonant starting sounds, which make them kind of 4-digit numbers.
These exceptions account for the cards that need a structure beyond the normal 3-digit major system phonetics.
Just make new palaces that you’ll use exclusively for cards. Its only another 200 or so loci. It will be worth it. That way if you end up needing to adjust loci in the card palaces, meaning remove some to create better spacing or change some that just arent working when you try to go fast, it will be much easier than trying to remember the differences between the old version of the Pi palace and the new version.
P = picture card, # = number card.
So the various shorthands are:
P# - a pair that contains a picture card first and a number card second.
#P - a pair that contains a number card first and a picture card second.
PP - a pair that contains two picture cards
## - a pair that contains two number cards
S - spade
H - heart
C - club
D - diamond
K - King
Q - Queen
J - Jack
A - Ace.
Alright! What are the n/a supposed to stand for btw? And why are there some face cards in the 400-500 and 800-900 range? I thought 000-999 was only Number cards and that face cards were only the last 352 images
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If you’re talking about in the big practice sheet, there are a handful of numbers that do not encode card pairs. This includes 44, 48, 84, 88, 444, 448, 484, 488, 844, 848, 884, and 888. (I think thats all of them.)
I included the entries for those numbers because if you create images for those numbers, you will have yourself a complete 2-digit and 3-digit peg list to use as a starting point for a number memorization system. I didn’t have a 3-digit number system built prior to learning Shadow, so I was able to kill two birds with one stone and use it to learn both.
There are only 800 pairs that are ##. There are 100 ## pairs per suit combo phonetic (10 first card values x 10 second card values). There are 8 suit combo phonetics. 100 card value combos x 8 suit combos = 800. These are represented by the 000’s, 100’s, 200’s, 300’s, 500’s, 600’s, 700’s, and 900’s.
When a Queen is first in a Q#, QJ, or QQ pair, the starting phonetic is R, or 4 in major. These pairs generate 3-digit numbers/words that start with 4, so those are the 400’s you see. (There are 96 possible card pairs of this type. 8 suit combos x 12 second-card values that generate this phonetic = 96. There are no combos that generate 444, 448, 484, or 488.)
Same for Jacks. When a Jack is first in a J#, JJ, or JQ pair, the starting phonetic is F/V, or 8 in major. These pairs generate 3-digit numbers/words that start with 8, those are the 800’s. (Like the Queens, there are 96 possible card pairs of this type too. 8 suit combos x 12 second-card values that generate this phonetic = 96. There are no combos that generate 844, 848, 884, or 888.)
Alright thanks for all the help! I will now go to sleep since I’ve been up half night. Ill make sure to review all of this info tomorrow 
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Ohh I was talking about the All pairs worksheet
Ah I see! I just updated the doc to include the phonetic/numerics for those. Refresh or redownload the sheet and you should see them!
oki! Btw I am currently filling out the practise sheet, is it common for people to make exceptions like I’ve done here? My thought is that I already know my 000-100 fluently, so If I use the same phonetics but other objects/people, Ill easily distinguish if it is for the 000-100 or 00-99
Also what is up with the binary digits? I know that 8 in binary is 1000, but why does it say 1010-000-000 in the practise sheeth?
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Ideally the 00-99 words should only have two consonant sounds, like you’ve done with “SaRa” so they won’t be confused with a 3 digit word. They really should be their own words.
I’d use a word like “SuN” for 02. This way there’s no confusion on number of digits (it has to refer to a 2-digit number), and theres no clash with the SN starting blends for the 
and 
pairs that end in J or Q which require the SN sound to start them. “Snowboard” being associated with 02 is problematic in two ways: it starts with a SN blend, which is not allowed. (SN-94 is the phonetic construction for 9 Q / 9 Q .) “Snowboard” also has more than 2 consonants, so there will be confusion whether it associates with 02 or 029. Which of the “extra consonants” do you discard? This is a small detail that is actually very important to consider.
For Shadow, your 000-099 and 00-99 words (that start with S/Z) need to constructed so that there are no s-blends (SW, ST, SN, SM, SL, STR, SK, SP) to start them because they will clash with the pairs that end with J or Q. So no using words like SMiTH or STuN for your 036 or 012. They need to be words like SuMMit or SaTaN where the first S stands on its own.
You also should avoid starting any 000-999 or 00-99 word with the “H” sound as that is used exclusively for King-first pairs.
Lance and Braden Adams have outlined a way to use the shadow system word associations to encode 10 digits of binary. Search for their topics if you’re interested in learning this. I don’t recommend going down this rabbit trail yet until you’ve got the base system solidly understood.
okay thanks!
Could you by any chance provide your 352 extra images so that I have a comparison as to what it should look like?
Also are there any sites that help with filling out the shadow system? major system.info doesnt seem to help in this case, and I’m having the hardest time filling stuff out properly
I can answer any specifics you have as well @bjornxyz I believe the screen shot you shared was from my ‘famous’ spreadsheet haha. It’s difficult at first but take it slow, it’ll make sense eventually.
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It took me about 3-4 months to complete the word list, so don’t stress if it’s tough. This isn’t something you’re gonna learn and master in a week or two. Make sure you have realistic expectations about the effort and time required so you don’t get overwhelmed and quit before it clicks. Fill out as much as you can on your own, it will be much better to have your brain make the association.
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Alright, but are there even any words for most of these numbers? Take str41 (STR R T) for instance, like there must be a site that makes this process easier or am I wrong? Cause I could sit for hours thinking of a word for that number and wont come up with any