How to Memorize Anything: For Magicians

The words “memory demonstration” and “good entertainment” aren’t often in the same sentence. But for years, memory demonstrations have been a staple of magic and mentalism shows. Harry Lorayne could famously memorize the names of 200+ people. Derren Brown ended Infamous with a 10-minute memory extravaganza. Some magicians can even memorize a deck of cards on the spot. 

But unlike sleight of hand, memory is rarely viewed as something that can be practiced, refined, or even learned. While few people balk at learning a double lift, I worked in a magic shop for long enough to hear people say how they “could never” memorize a deck of cards. 

Perhaps, though, our views on memory are misguided and outdated. Maybe memory demonstrations, unlike traditional sleight of hand, allow magicians to connect more with their audiences. Below, we’ll explore how you can improve your memory, and how to make memory demonstrations entertaining. 

Can You Improve Your Memory? 

Yes you can, and it’s not that hard. In the same way that you can lift weights to get stronger, and make your hands bleed practicing a clip shift, you can practice techniques to make your memory better (no bleeding required). And you can do it right now. 

There are three fundamental ways to package information: Mnemonics, the Major System, and the Memory Palace. 

I’ll describe each below, and after you read this, you’ll have memorized the winner, loser, and score of Super Bowl 3. Good luck forgetting it.

Mnemonics

Anything can be turned into a mnemonic, which simply means that you take information and turn it into a memorable image. The more gruesome, scandalous, and outrageous the image, the more likely you are to remember it. We don’t remember average images. But our brains are attracted to novelty. 

Let’s take Super Bowl 3. The New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts 16-7. Pretty boring on the surface. How might you use mnemonics to memorize it.

Simply visualize an airplane (a jet), and instead of a jet stream, there’s a horse tail flapping in the wind. The tail, though, is really small and wispy, because instead of it belonging to a full-grown horse, it belongs to a colt. You can visualize the jet consuming the colt (hence the tail sticking out), which is how you remember that the Jets won. 

If you want to further flesh out the image, imagine an airplane with a face painted on it. But instead of the traditional human-esque smile, it’s the face of a horse.

The mnemonic takes words, which might be boring on their own, and creates an interesting or entertaining image. But how would you memorize the score of Super Bowl 3? That’s where the Major System comes in. 

The Major System

The Major System allows you to turn any set of numbers into a word, by attaching a consonant to each digit from 0-9. While there are different letters you can attach to each number, I use the following: 

0–s/z  

1–L

2–N

3–M

4–R

5–F/v

6–G

7–T

8–Ch/Sh

9–P

If other consonants stand out for you, feel free to change the above system. The only important thing is that it makes sense to you, and that you keep it consistent. For example, my system above lacks a “c” or “k” sound, which you could easily substitute for “Ch/sh.” 

Once you have a consonant for each number, you fill in the vowels to make a word. You can take liberties with this, as long as you know what you’re remembering. For example, 57 could be FaT or VeT (or any number of other words). Just choose what makes sense to you. 

A larger number like 9845 would become P/Ch/R/F, or, in my head, “Peach Reef.” I’d imagine a coral reef, but in place of the coral is a bunch of peaches, and now I’ve memorized 9845. 

Let’s continue with trying to memorize Super Bowl 3, where the Jets won 16-7. 16 becomes LG, so the word could be LeG or LoG. 7 could also be remembered as 07, which allows you to add the letter S to the beginning, making it ST. The first noun that comes to my head is suit. 

So, you can imagine an airplane with a horse tail coming out of it, and instead of landing gear, ONE LEG comes out of the belly of the plane. Why one? Because adding an S to the end of “legs” might make you think of 0, and you certainly don’t want to remember the Jets scoring 160 points, right? The leg, singular, is dressed up in a very fancy suit. All of a sudden, you’ve turned fairly abstract information (The Jets beat the Colts 16-7) into a packaged image. 

You’re imagining an airplane with a horse tail coming out the back instead of a jet stream. One well-dressed leg comes out of the plane as landing gear, making you think of “Leg/suit.” And boom. You’ve memorized the score of Super Bowl 3. 

The Memory Palace

The Memory Palace is where you place this information. Memorizing it is one thing, but what if you want to remember it long-term? What if you want to remember the score of every Super Bowl, and want to be able to recall each one in any order? In comes the memory palace. By imagining a place you know well (your house, your school, your commute to work), and placing your mnemonics in that place, you can recall anything. 

Our brains have almost automatic spatial memory. That’s why you can go into someone’s home, come back a year later, and remember where the bathroom is (whereas you’re far less likely to remember the name of the person you met at that house. Our brains remember images). By placing my image of Super Bowl 3 in the bathroom, which just so happens to be the third position as I mentally walk through my house, I can now recall that the Jets beating the Colts 16-7 is Super Bowl 3. To “place” it in the bathroom, I might imagine the plane doing a nose-dive into the toilet, and now my mnemonic is linked to my location. 

All you have to do to create a memory palace is imagine a place that you know well. A house that you’ve spent a lot of time in works perfectly, because you know the nooks and crannies. Then, take your mnemonics and put them in weird places (in the dishwasher, hanging on the fire escape, in the refrigerator, etc).

By mentally walking through your memory palace in the same order every time–it’s common to decide to either go clockwise or counterclockwise, based on the layout in your head–you recall everything in the same order every time. 

Can Great Memory Be Entertaining?

Memory demonstrations have a fundamental element that most magic, by definition, lacks—the audience actually understands how it’s done. When done right, that makes it more impressive. Why? For the same reason that we all appreciate good food or comedy. We’ve all tried to cook, but few of us have ever made something that could be served in a fancy restaurant. We’ve all tried to make people laugh—few of us have done it on stage for an hour. 

Memory is the same. We’ve all forgotten people’s names. We’ve all tried to remember a presentation. To remember—and forget—is to be human. When we watch someone excel at memory, we can immediately connect to a time that we did not. So, how do you make a memory demonstration entertaining?

Let’s start with what you should not do, which is simply recite information. Information recall is not dramatic or interesting. Someone might be able to lift a heavy weight, that doesn’t mean you want to watch them do it. Here’s what you can do: 

Increase the Scale

The more you memorize, the more impressive it becomes, within reason. While it’s not completely linear, it’s of course going to be more interesting if you memorized a book versus a poem. You need to find your sweet spot, but it’s almost always worth putting in the work if you can increase the amount of things that you memorized. 

Increase Believability

This depends on what you’re going for, but I do think that a memory demonstration should at least look real. If you tell people that you memorized the entire internet, for example, unless you had a wildly convincing demonstration where anybody could Google anything and you would know it, nobody would believe you. 

Telling the truth is one of the best ways to connect with people during a magic show, and memory routines are wonderful routes toward the truth. It’s important, then, to teeter right on the edge of believability. You’re an entertainer, you’re not competing in the world memory championships. Derren Brown’s Infamous finale is a great example. As a fan, I legitimately don’t know whether he actually memorized the complete works of Shakespeare, and I’m not here to pass judgment one way or another. That is a gargantuan task, and I can see a situation where he didn’t actually do it. However, it looks like he did it, it’s certainly possible, and that’s enough for me. 

One reason to make it somewhat real is so that you can respond to challenges off stage. This might not suit every performer, but it’s quite valuable when it happens. For example, in my memory routine, I recite the winner, loser, score, halftime show, and MVP of any named Super Bowl. I memorized it for real, and if someone asks me for a score off-stage (which happens from time to time), I can do it. I view that as an advantage. 

Add Surprise

One of the best ways to keep memory demonstrations entertaining is to keep “adding” things you’ve memorized. For example, in my memory routine, I only tell the audience that I’ve memorized the winners of the Super Bowls, and say nothing of the loser, score, MVP, and halftime shows. Therefore, every time I name something else, it comes as an extra reveal. It’s the same information, but by slowly revealing how much I know, rather than saying it all upfront, it’s far more entertaining. Likewise, when I memorize the audience’s names, I keep it as a surprise as well. Here’s how I do it:

Name Memory

First of all, full credit goes to Harry Lorayne for popularizing name memory. I’ll often perform this at the show that I produce in New York with my good friend Jason Silberman, Stand-Up Magic. Before the show, I go around the room introducing myself to attendees. My usual script goes something like “Hi, my name is Max, I produce the show, so I wanted to welcome you in and say thanks for coming.” When I say “my name is Max” and stick out my hand, social convention essentially forces them to shake it and reveal their name too, which I then memorize. 

So, while it looks like I’m introducing myself (and I am), I’m secretly memorizing names as well. Then, when I name the audience in the show, they get a really nice revelation of “Ohhh. That’s what he was doing.” It would lose its impact if I went around the room saying “Hi, I’m trying to memorize your name, what is it?” 

Memorizing people’s names is, in my opinion, the best memory stunt that exists. It’s far more impactful to memorize 10 names than 100 Super Bowls because it’s so much more personal. 

Despite the fact that it’s not magic, it does feel that way. It’s so rare for us to be noticed in everyday life, that it feels amazing when a stranger memorizes your name. The method is easy–simply take a prominent feature of the person, and make a mnemonic that links to their name and the feature. For example, I once memorized the name “Anna” by imagining Anna from the movie Frozen, and therefore “freezing” her black leather jacket in a block of ice in my head. If someone’s name is Harry and they have an interesting pair of glasses, imagine those glasses covered in lots of hair. 

Memorizing names is extremely practical. It’s great for producing a show, where I can recognize people who come back. But for you, outside of a show, it’s probably the best memory stunt to learn, because of how often we all need to learn a new name. 

My conclusion: Memory is worth learning–it’s easier than traditional sleight of hand, requires minimal effort to learn a few names at a party, and leaves a big impact. For more information on memory, check out The Memory Book by Harry Lorayne, and Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer.