The Memory Palace

Vocabulary · 6

Memoria verborum

The published classical name for the art Ragain summarizes and Lingerfelt expounds. Latin for memory of words: the technique of attaching each phrase you wish to remember to a vivid mental image, in a fixed spatial sequence, so the words can be walked through later by walking the same path in the mind.

Loki Method (List Memory)

Ragain's published shorthand for the technique. Take a familiar setting (a room, a house, a car, even a Lodge room), divide it into positions (twelve-o'clock-and-clockwise on a dinner plate is his published example), and place an image for each phrase at each position.

Vivid, absurd image

The published principle: the more strange the image, the better it sticks. Ragain's published example walks through the Gettysburg Address: four Score candy bars on the left wall (Four Score), a hand with seven fingered ears (and seven years), an Eggo waffle behind it (ago), a Lincoln Continental on the far wall (upon this continent), and so on around the room.

Familiar setting, fixed pattern

Ragain's published rule for scaling up. Use the same room (or the same sequence of rooms) every time, in the same direction. Familiarity is what makes the framework cheap; only the images inside it need to be remembered.

One word, one substitution

When a passage contains a Masonic word with no obvious image, Ragain's published advice is to substitute a homophone or rhyme, anything that yields a memorable picture. The substitution lives only in the mind; the spoken delivery is still the original word.

Where to go deeper

Ragain's published direction for serious students of the palace method: Brother Bob W. Lingerfelt's Solomon's Memory Palace: A Freemason's Guide to the Ancient Art of Memoria Verborum (Motey Publishing, 2018) is the published reference work, with extended Masonic-specific examples.

Practice questions · 5

1. What is the classical Latin name for the technique Ragain summarizes as List Memory?

   • a. Ars magna
   • b. Memoria verborum ✓
   • c. Memoria technica
   • d. Loci dicendi

2. What kind of setting does Ragain say best anchors a memory palace?

   • a. An imagined cathedral you have never visited
   • b. A familiar one: a real room, house, car, or Lodge room you know ✓
   • c. An abstract grid of numbered slots
   • d. A historical event from a textbook

3. What is Ragain's published rule about the imagery?

   • a. Use realistic, dignified images appropriate to the Craft
   • b. Use vivid, even absurd images; the stranger, the stickier ✓
   • c. Use only images drawn from the Bible
   • d. Use only images you have seen in a Lodge

4. Which book does Ragain name as the published deep-dive on the memory-palace technique applied to Masonic ritual?

   • a. The 5 Minute Ritualist by Kim March
   • b. Solomon's Memory Palace by Bob W. Lingerfelt ✓
   • c. Unlimited Memory by Kevin Horsley
   • d. Traveling East by Daniel Hanttula

5. When a Masonic word has no obvious image, what is Ragain's published advice?

   • a. Skip that word and hope it returns under pressure
   • b. Substitute a homophone or rhyme in the mind only, while still speaking the original word aloud ✓
   • c. Replace the word permanently in your delivery
   • d. Wait for a mentor to suggest an image