Product Description

PhotoReading Personal Learning Course (CDs) You can now learn PhotoReading on your own time, at your own pace! "Thinking at 25,000 words per minute" wrote City Business "A breakthrough with the subconscious mind" reports Success Magazine "Evelyn Wood wouldn't do it this way" wrote Boston Globe "A breakthrough method using your subconscious" wrote Success Mag. "A shovel for the mountain of paper" wrote The Business Journal "Right-brain reading lifts info overload" wrote Calgary Herald PhotoReading exposes printed materials to the brain at phenomenal rates, a page per secondall beyond the conscious mind's processing capability, but within the capabilities of the subconscious. Now, reread that sentence to make sure you got it. It is a wild concept. We actually teach you to "mentally photograph" the printed page at 25,000 words per minute. Paul Scheele is an international expert in human performance. His acclaimed work has led to a breakthrough in reading that is easy for anyone to apply. As a matter of fact, as a beginning PhotoReader you will absolutely be able to process and understand any printed material three times faster than you can right nowthat's where you will start out! Learn PhotoReading in a few hours If you buy the self-study course, you will PhotoRead a dictionary, think of any word, and know where it is on the pageon the first CD! The live weekend class enjoys a 96% success rate, which means virtually everyone can PhotoRead. All you have to do is decide to do it today. The PhotoReading Classic Edition includes: 8 audio sessions with clear instruction on CDs (see outline below) 1 Memory Supercharger Paraliminal session (on CD) 68-page Course Manual The PhotoReading Whole Mind System book Natural Brilliance book by Paul Scheele Pocket Dictionary

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #109368 in Health and Beauty
• Brand: PhotoReading
• Model: PhotoReading (9PLCD)

Features

• Actually learn how to "mentally photograph" the printed page at 25,000 words per minute.
• PhotoReading exposes printed materials to the brain at phenomenal rates, a page per second.
• PhotoReading exposes printed materials to the brain at phenomenal rates, a page per second.
• 8 Training Sessions on CDs, Memory SuperCharger Paraliminal, Course Manual
• PhotoReading whole mind book, Natural Brilliance by Paul Scheele, and Pocket Dictionary

Customer Reviews

Reading at it's Best
I had this for a while and recently decided to go through the course. I have to say without a doubt this course is awesome and would recommend it to anyone. It is complete and very thorough. When you have finished the course you do know the process...yes process. The more books you use this process with the more efficient you become. It also helps to weed out books you think you might want to read but find out they don't have the information you are really looking for.

PhotoReading actually works! I can do it! So, can you!
PhotoReading Personal Learning Course
by Paul Scheele

I own the first release version of the PhotoReading Personal Learning Course.

In early 1992, I attended the four-day PhotoReading workshop under the instruction/guidance of the co-developer of the technology, Patricia Danielson. In fact, I was the organiser of that first PhotoReading workshop in Singapore & simultaneously, I was also one of the thirty like-minded participants. [It is pertinent to mention that I also started a small bookstore at about the same time. I love to read & so I thought a book store would certainly help to fuel & bankroll my reading hobbies.]

Frankly speaking, I had very ambivalent feelings after the workshop. This was partly due to my training as an engineer, since my logical mind kept censoring my thoughts & actions. I even had problems viewing the random dot stereograms as part of the training in developing 'soft focus'. It was only about one year later that I started to embrace the PhotoReading techniques. What I had done was just learning to let go...to get on with the PhotoReading tasks as instructed in the program...to go with flow, so to say...& stop myself from 'intellectualising' every move I made along the way. I managed to see the random dot stereograms without even 'trying'. I finally succeeded in PhotoReading. Since then, my reading pursuits went into warp speeds.

Therefore, I can relate quickly to many reviewers who threw pot shots at the PhotoReading program.

Here, I want to share with readers how to go about it, based on my personal experience.

There are seven important process stages or steps in achieving PhotoReading:

1. Enter a resourceful state of mind, by practising a simple relaxation sequence & then using the Tangerine technique; [It is important to note than a relaxed mind is an alert mind.]

2. Define your purpose for reading, by asking a) what is the significance of this reading material, b) how much time am I prepared to invest in reading it? c) do I need a global overview or detailed information? d)what do I already know about this reading material?; [It is important to note that your purpose actually activates the reticular activating system in your brain, which therefore acts like a servo-mechanism, exactly like the one in a Tomahawk missile!]

3. Design a road map by doing a quick preview/inview/overview of the book - look at the table of contents, if any, preface, introduction, chapter outlines, paragraph headings/sub-headings, graphical illustrations or pictures, key words in caps or italics, bulleted points, book or chapter summaries &/or review/discussion questions, if any, marginal notations, boxed selections, even the index, also the first & last sentences of key passages; all these little 'signposts' will trigger &/or create some sort of prior knowledge, allowing you to know what you don't know, what you need to know, what you want to know...you can view this step as a reconnaisance of the (book) terrain;

4. PhotoRead by adopting a 'soft-focus' view of the page (to be precise, it's just a wide angle view, with your peripheral vision playing a major role, in contrast to your focused vision) in the reading material & turn over the pages in a gentle rhythmic manner, then follow up with a Rapid Read; [It is pertinent to note that this process step is relatively similar to those reading methods of recognised experts like Evelyn Wood, Stephen Berg & Peter Kump, although they don't use fancy terms to denote.]

5. Pause to read & then annotate important passages; a good strategy is to use a pencil as a pacer, which is my favourite personal approach;

6. Personalise your information by creating mindmaps or using visual tools, by making use of the annotated information as key ideas;

7. Review/Reflect on your mind-maps & synthesise the key ideas or points, with a short summary, if possible;

The 'heartbeat' of the PhotoReading program lies at & between stage 1 & stage 5. As you complete your PhotoRead manoeuvre with 'soft focus', you generate an unconscious holographic blueprint of the book terrain, with all the little sign-posts in their places. It may be fuzzy but it's still there in your mind. When you Rapid Read, your prior knowledge from the blueprint, will guide you, in a conscious mode, as you navigate the book terrain again. You will instinctively slow down when you come across or recognise passages that have relevance to your purpose. In other words, your servo mechanism kicks into homing mode the moment you start to Rapid Read.

Research has shown that 4 to 11% of any given text contains the key words or phrases. Put it in another way, the 80/20 rule or Pareto's Law applies also to reading. One of the hallmarks of high performance reading is always going after the key ideas, which are often embodied in the key words or phrases. Applying the 80/20 Rule, these key words or phrases generally account for 20% of all the words within the given text & yet they hold 80% of the total meaning within the given text.

All these PhotoReading stuff may seem far fetched. All of us have been to the supermarket or hypermarket as we tag along with our spouses. As we move from aisle to aisle leisurely, our eyes (focused as well as peripheral vision) are always scanning the entire environment, with all the sensory impressions, consciously & unconsciously. Invariably, our spouses may turn around & say "Hey, we need to replenish this or that item." Instinctively, we often can direct them to the proper aisle & the correct shelf to retrieve the needed items. How is this possible? Research has shown that whatever falls within our entire field of vision, especially when we are taking our own sweet time, is always captured in our mind. The question is how & where to retrieve them. A relaxed & resourceful state of mind holds the vital key. This applies also to idea generation.

A lot of people thinks that the 'soft focus' in PhotoReading is simply hocus pocus. In reality, it is an ancient technique already practised by North American natives as they stalk wild animals. To them, it is 'the eye of the tracker.' Today, US Secret Service & FBI agents use the same technique to screen out potential assassins hiding among the crowds. They call it 'splatter vision.' Army snipers are trained to use it to spot enemy targets in both jungle & urban warfare environments. Have you watched Tom Berenger playing the hardened veteran army sniper in the 'Sniper' movie & its two sequels? In the martial world, it's called 'soft eyes'. Legendary Japanese combat strategist during the sixteenth century, Miyamoto Mushashi, had documented this technique in his famous 'Book of Five Rings.' Have you ever watched the late Bruce Lee & his stealthy anticipatory 'Jeet-kune-do' moves on TV & in the movies? In his book, 'The Tao of Jeet Kune Do', Bruce Lee apparently described his combat technique as 'diffused attention.'

The same technique, called 'soft gaze', facilitates the viewing of random dot stereograms. Just think about it: How is it that the human mind can discern a 3-D picture apparently hidden among all the dots?

A lot of people, including myself at first, get turned off by the Tangerine technique. Actually all of us already practised the Tangerine technique in our daily lives, unconsciously of course.

Let me use an analogy to explain. When we drive a car or ride a bicycle on the road, our mind through our visual attention is always focused on the road, at a moving & floating point which is about 30-40 metres ahead of our vehicle. Yet, our eyes are always 'roving' about...looking at the instrument panel (in a car); at the rear view mirror (in a car; on a bicycle, we turn our head to look back momentarily); at the wing mirror on either side (of the car); sometimes, looking at the front seat passenger (in a car); sometimes, something fancy in front of our vehicle or alongside our vehicle strikes our eyes...but our eyes always instinctively fall back to focusing on the road ahead from time to time, at the moving & floating point & yet our vehicle does not even move in a zig-zag manner...sometimes, we pass or turn through 2 or 3 road intersections (with traffic lights) without even realising it. Bear in mind that our powerful unconscious mind is constantly processing all these vital as well as trivial information.

If I draw an imaginary straight line from the moving & floating point on the road all the way back through our eyes, it will come out of our head, just above & just behind it, where the tangerine is supposed to be positioned. It is this imaginary tangerine that helps us to maintain the 'soft focus', while driving (or riding a bicycle) & also while doing all those little tasks I have just described. It keeps us on track on what we are doing, unconsciously. This is also how it works when we read a book. The imaginary tangerine helps the reader to maintain the 'soft focus'. Get it, now?

I trust I have enlightened readers on this working mechanism of PhotoReading. I want to say this: There is no vodoo in PhotoReading & Paul Scheele is definitely not a con artist!

PhotoReading actually works. I can do it. So can you!

The book by Paul Scheele, the principal developer of the technology, captures the essence of PhotoReading very well. It's also very easy to read. It also introduces another useful technique called 'Syntopic Reading', which actually has its origins in Mortimer Adler's 'How to Read a Book', written in the 40's. I wish to add that with PhotoReading techniques, your 'Syntopic Reading' can move exponentially.

Let me share with readers some vital research findings pertaining to high performance reading, some of which have already been mentioned in the book:

- The mind moves by bounds;
- The mind uses peripheral vision to anticipate what is coming next;
- The mind is faster than the eye;
- The mind can grasp up to fifteen words at a glance;
- It's OK to sift & select as well as read at different speeds;
- Reading faster means better understanding;
- Understanding takes less time than reading;
- The mind moves spontaneously from synthesis to analysis;
- Reading is personal - our past history determines our reading habits;
- Context gives meaning to words;
- The meaning might lie ahead;
- The mind needs a purpose - & precise commands;
- The printed word is not sacred - it's there to be challenged!
- AVOID subvocalistion;
- AVOID regression;

Have great fun with PhotoReading!

My final advice to interested readers: Don't get too engrossed or obsessed with fancy terms in the book, like "25,000 words per minute", "one page per second", "mentally photographing", "pre-conscious processing"...just enjoy & stay with the reading process as described in the book &/or in this review. Accept the fact that the mind has the innate ability to absorb & process information at very high speeds! For a moment, just imagine how Gary Kasparov could out-smart & out-manoeuvre IBM Deep Blue in their first man-machine contest over a chess game in October 1989. (He lost in subsequent contests because machines got more powerful processors - with evaluation capabilities, could not get intimidated by him, & could not get tired at all!).