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Photoreading 4th Edition

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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!).

Speak Mandarin Chinese For Beginners The Michel Thomas Method (8-CD Beginner's Program) (Michel Thomas Series), Michel Thomas Method Speak Mandarin Chinese Advanced (Michel Thomas Series), Michel Thomas Method: Mandarin Chinese Vocabulary Course (Michel Thomas Series)

I am the author of the Michel Thomas courses to teach spoken Chinese. Much of my life has been occupied with exploring accelerated learning.

Recently I returned from a four day Photoreading (PR) workshop taught by Paul Scheele, the man who started PR 25 years ago. Though there are a lot of negative pieces regarding Paul and his work on the net, I decided to go and see for myself.

This has been one of the best experiences I have had in years.

First of all, there were over one hundred participants, many of whom were returning for more exposure. They came because they had found this approach valuable in their daily life. They all emphasized that PR is a skill which, like any skill, must be practiced on a regular basis before you really get stellar results.

I have been using this daily since I returned home and am very happy with it.

PR is almost entirely directed as accessing and utilizing the powers of the unconscious or other than conscious mind. The conscious mind will tell you that you are not getting anything and, indeed, from its standpoint you aren't. However, when you understand that by really entrusting yourself to the nonconscious or other than conscious mind, which is the crux of the program, you will get results that the conscious mind considers impossible.

Though this book, the fourth edition, is excellent, you will gain the most value, if you really want to learn PR, by attending the annual course given by Paul Scheele. He now only teaches once a year. He has trained many people who independently teach around the world. Some are excellent; many are not. My recommendation is to go to the source and sign up for his course. There are so many pearls and little things which he says that make it all worth it. I already have notified them that I would like to do the course with him again next year. Just the little that I have done on my own since returning from Minnesota, where he taught, indicates to me that this is a truly amazing work that has the potential, if used exactly as taught, to help me get so much more from life. And that is what I want for myself.

Think for yourself.

Ignore the naysayers.

Follow the instructions given by Paul in his book, his recorded course or at the live course. Follow them to a T. Exactly. Understand that most of the instructions are given to get the conscious mind to just shut up. We want to give the conscious mind something to occupy itself. While it is busy playing with the various things you will be doing, the other than conscious mind will soar. There are five steps in photoreading. They are: prepare, preview, photoread, postview and activate. The most important one is to photoread. That is the one that freaks out the conscious mind the most. It make zero sense from a logical standpoint. However, that is fine since it is not logical. It is not linear. It is entirely in the domain of the other than conscious.

Have fun with this amazing gift.

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.

I wrote a review for an earlier edition of this book. It has never worked. Photoreading is not reading. It's not even speedreading.

After I first looked at the book, I thought it was the most cockamamie thing I'd ever heard of, but then, perhaps more from hope than common sense, I began to change my mind. It seemed like there might be something to it...that, in theory, it *should* work. So I got the faith, so to speak, and plunged in.

The basics of PhotoReading are simple enough: you preview the text, page through the book rapidly, while maintaining an unfocused gaze at the pages (thus "nonconsciously," as the author puts it, photographing them), let it incubate for a while, then skim the book, and, if necessary, go back and speed read it. Very broadly, that's it.

Right there, it should be apparent that what is giving you a grasp of a text's contents--if anything is--are the repeated trips back into the text, not the hoodoo-ism of PhotoReading itself.

I've tried it. I have not received any benefit whatsoever from the PhotoReading itself, although, of course, repeated trips back to the text have been helpful. Eliminating the "photoreading" stage has no impact on the effectiveness of the procedure. None. Zip.

One way the author is able to assert that you can read 25,000 words a minute is by, in fact, urging you NOT to read them. He maintains that only 4-11% of a text contains useful information. REALLY! I don't know what kinds of books he reads, but the books *I* read aren't so much fluff!

The author seems to give himself a back door, too, in case you can't get PhotoReading to work for you. If PhotoReading doesn't work for you, it's because you care about the outcome. No kidding. In other words, for instance, graduate students who have a pile of books to cleave through should not worry about this...otherwise it won't work. That's like saying, "Don't think about a green banana"--the first thing you think about is a green banana. Of course people are going to be concerned about their mastery of a text...if they weren't, there would be no need for it, and the very people who MOST need to be able to PhotoRead will be least able to make it work.

This is a slim paperback, and an overpriced one at that. There is a measure of slick, salesman-like smarminess to it, too.

But fear not...if reading this book doesn't work for you, you can always purchase the PhotoReading Personal Learning course for $245.

All this notwithstanding, there is *some* useful information here. As an introduction to memory/learning techniques like Mind Mapping, it's adequate. PhotoReading is not any substitute, however, for true speed reading.

Yeah, that's true: there is no miracle in photoreading. It's just a process of becoming more aware and understand that everything around us bring impressions to our minds. I remember when I was a child, and I could answer some questions at school based on some kind of photographic memory. Photoreading was there, and I see many people saying the same. Perhaps photoreading is the rule rather than the exception. Most of us just don't know when, or why, this natural process was killed inside us. Let's go back to infancy. Let's go back to natural photoreading. I challenge you to be brave enough and recover that potential inside you. Good luck!

This technique of reading is very relaxing. I got the 1st edition many years ago. I use Photoreading daily. I received the book in great condition. Thanks!!!!

Why bother debunking this myself? Lemme just quote from NASA, which, intrigued by the extravagant claims of the Photoreading system, clinically evaluated it at their Ames Research Center in California.

"In conclusion, the evidence shown here indicates that PhotoReading does not lead to successful and/or rapid comprehension of written text. The claims of its effectiveness range across all types of reading material, including texts such as those examined here. The focus here was on relatively difficult texts, and not leisurely reading of fictional novels. One might claim that the technique may be more appropriate for reading fictional material. However, the expert who participated in this study claimed that she would not use this technique to read a novel because it is less enjoyable, primarily because the reader tends to miss the verbal interplay between characters within the novel. In essence, the point of a novel would be lost with PhotoReading. One might claim, particularly in light of the results in this study, that PhotoReading could be appropriate for searching for details (and not global information). However, given the loss in accuracy combined with a lack of substantial time gain, I would not recommend using the technique for this purpose. Moreover, this technique may be detrirnental to readers because it instills a false feeling of understanding. PhotoReaders may believe that their reading goals have been accomplished, whereas their goals are probably far from achieved. A PhotoReader may believe that the text has been absorbed, and the reader may indeed remember some of the text's details. However, the source of this memory most likely arises from previewing and rapid reading the text, and not from the PhotoFocus phase of PhotoReading (as claimed by PhotoReading experts). Moreover, it is also doubtful that the memories for the text are highly stable or accurate. Based on the results of this study, there are appear to be no benefits of using the PhotoReading technique."

This study is freely available online; it's readable and utterly crushing. To get it yourself, Google "Photoreading NASA" and look for the PDF.

Don't get suckered into buying this! The only useful content consists of the standard steps for effective reading -- previewing, skimming, deciding in advance what you want to get out of the reading, etcetera. This book merely adds a time-wasting exercise (the "photoreading" step) that involves flipping quickly through a book's pages while allowing the unfocused eyes, which remain motionless, to perceive the pages as they are flipped. Of course this "photoreading" step, as the author admits, yields no conscious understanding of the pages' contents; for this you'll need the standard steps of previewing, skimming, etcetera to "activate" what you've supposedly absorbed at an unconscious level during the "photoreading" step. Rubbish!

Simply,One of the most useful books I have read.
Lessons for life, not just your reading abilities.
As a favour to you I urge you to get it now.

[...]

Please see the above link for a scientific review of this technique.Page 11 concludes that this technique is not efficient.

The following were the observations made scientifically:

1. Extremely rapid rates as claimed by the author has not been found.
2. Infact, this technique is even even slower than other speed-reading techniques and compares to normal reading speeds of an average literate individual.
3. There is a decrease in comprehension of the text(and the reader's euphoria/false sense of confidence alone makes him/her believe that this technique has produced results)
4. Superficial understanding of the text, sense of dejavu,priming and other factors are a result of this technique with no tangible benefits as such.
5. It has been concluded that this technique might benefit someone reading lightly or fictional material but not for serious study or for the purpose of remembering or comprehending anything.

The last line of this report says that this technique is of no use.
Please read the PDF and decide for yourself.

I have bought this bought and find that it has been cleverly marketed and profits the author very much.There are some interesting aspects in the book,however one should not carry heavy expectations.

You have been warned and yet if you want to carry on, Best of Luck!