Chapter III

Analytical vs. Synthetical Minds

At the conclusion of Chapter II, I mentioned analytical thinking. Let me make this clear, however: THE DAY OF THE ANALYTICAL MIND IS PAST, at least so far as major success is concerned. And to any of you men or women who pride yourselves upon having an “analytical mind”, I issue this warning: You’ve GOT to go beyond mere analysis and on to synthesis, or you will be a galley slave all your life, chained to the System or the Machine!

Reason it out yourself. In the beginning, primitive man was faced with a horde of unknown, mysterious and terrifying forces. The sun died daily, and was born again next dawn. Thunder threatened dire destruction in Stentorian tones. Forest fires, set by malignant, unseen demons, drove all before them. Floods wrecked the work of years. Dark diseases destroyed whole tribes. Everything about our hairy ancestors was confusion. Only the power of reasoning -- analytical reasoning that could assign the right effect to the right cause -- sorted things out for him and finally made Earth and its element bearable.

Then came the long period of development when men had a fairly complete understanding of their environment. They began to break more and more things down to their component parts. The jack-of-all-trades began to give way to the specialist, the man who analyzed one particular facet of a business, or a science, or a profession, or a trade. By concentration, he became an expert and won the rewards due to his superior analytical ability. That was when an “analytical mind” was the passport to success.

It is no longer necessary to have analytical ability in order to master an isolated part of any occupation or study. Medicine has been broken down into a score of sub-divisions, from Anatomy to Zoology. Business has been sub-divided into dozens of specialties, from Accounting to Underwriting. The farmer has become not merely an Agriculturist but a specific kind of agriculturist -- lost in fields other where the mass of mankind finds little need for thinking at all and where analytical ability seldom distinguishes its possessor from his fellow workers -- possessors of pre-analyzed knowledge.

BUT... although the world has an over-abundance of advertising managers, art directors, production managers, operating superintendents, tool makers and designers, auditors, financiers, buyers, stockkeepers, salesmen, market analysts, time and motion men and other executives... there is a definite lack of BIGGER men -- men who can view these myriad other groups as you can now view a three-letter word -- who can see each in its proper relationship to the others and to the world at large -- and can weld from the heterogeneous mass a mercantile giant like Montgomery Ward or Sears Roebuck, or a manufacturing Goliath like General Motors.

And there you have a glimpse of what Multiple Mentalism will do for you -- or, rather, enable you to do for yourself. It will enable you not only to apply analysis to your yourself -- the technique of tearing down and studying the component parts of any situation -- but, far more important, will give you the constructive ability to assemble the parts into a harmonious whole, a smooth-working organization, or plan, or book, or whatever it is upon which you are engaged. Seeing and understanding all factors simultaneously, you will be able to “synthesize” -- build up -- while your merely analytical competitor, like the canal boat captain of a vanished era, bemoans the passing of the “good old days”!

Therefore, Exercise III continues the analysis and synthesis drill inaugurated in Exercise II and supplements the training you have given your mind in this course so far.

Exercise III:

In Exercise II you became adept at writing three-letter words backwards from memory. And right here I want to emphasize the necessity of spending at least ONE HOUR a day on this course. You can devote time to it while riding to or from work, while eating lunch, or during any of the idle moments with which every man’s day is blessed (or cursed!). No doubt you gained a fair mastery of Exercise II in an hour or so, for it is purposefully so simple that a child can do it and enjoy it. But to train the mind to accomplish a thing readily and instantly, you must train it by repetition until the process becomes automatic. In so doing, the right brain is engaged. It is not enough to be able, when leaving the second lesson, to write backwards any three letter word that comes to your mind, and to do so almost as readily as you would write it forwards. That is just a start. You must go further before taking up Exercise III. Repeat Number II every day for a week. An hour a day. At the end of the week you will find that you are doing it automatically, almost unconsciously, and absolutely without effort.

Then, but not until then, you are ready for Exercise III, in which you are to do this: Write, from memory, 25 to 50 four-letter words. Put them on a piece of paper and study them carefully. Then discard the paper and write them again. Do this several times, until you can quickly recall ALL OF THEM. Then write them backwards from memory. Here are a few samples:

Forwards: KNOB PAIN CASE SILL RING SLIP READ SHOE WOOD

Backwards: BONK NIAP ESAC LLIS GNIR PILS DAER EOHS DOOW

Although they look queer, each is a word with a very definite meaning. The letters are in reverse order, it is true -- but, still, each is a word you frequently use and should be able to recognize at a glance, even though written backwards. Now, repeat this twenty-five times -- EACH TIME FROM MEMORY -- recalling the words in your mind and not looking at them in writing. Take a clean sheet of paper each time you write the group anew. After you have perfected yourself in this drill, you will be able to recognize the words Pale, Hump, Coon, even when you see them in reverse order, thus: Elap, Pmuh, or Nooc.

And what’s that to you? Well, it means that you have now taken the first step toward being able instantly to see all sides of simple problems, no matter in what guise they may confront you. And with this as a basis, you will build your ability to conquer life’s most difficult situations. The drills I give you in the exercises to come, make greater and greater demands upon your brain -- develop it constantly to a point far beyond what you would now dream possible.

Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator: Double Concentration Drill

Drill A

Memorize this verse:

The night has a thousand eyes, The day but one ---Yet, the light of a whole life dies When love is done.

Drill B

Recite the verse above ALOUD; at the same time write your name and address.

Example:

“The night has a thousand eyes,”

Robert Armstrong

“The day but one ---”

1642 West Allison St.

“Yet, The light of a whole life dies”

Cincinnati, OH

“When love is done.”

Drill C

Recite ALOUD the verse given above, while writing a friend’s name and address.

This will be a bit more difficult, but MASTER it and then try this:

Recite ANY poem, prayer or song you well know, while writing your own name and address or the name and address of a friend, or any addresses you are accustomed to writing. Continue these drills until they are easy for you to accomplish.