"HOW TO PASS EXAMS"

by Dominic O’Brien (World Memory Champion)

Copyright 1995 Dominic O’Brien

First published in 1995 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING

The exciting work of Sean Adam

The implications of the technology that has been developed by the Alphalearning Institute in Switzerland are enormous.

I believe their work to be a major breakthrough in the evolution of human intelligence. And, I predict that by the turn of the century every school, college and university in the developed world will have access to this technology and that it will be a requirement of industry that its workforce use it.

THE LAWNMOWER MAN COMETH

Anyone who dismisses the film Lawnmower Man as pure science-fiction fantasy had better beware. In it, a young man with learning difficulties becomes the subject of an experiment to raise intelligence levels by the use of a virtual reality machine. The technology is so effective that the man, whose only previous talent was grass-cutting, becomes so intelligent that he develops into a virtual demigod, wreaking global havoc.

While cinema-goers were enjoying the film’s premiere, Sean Adam, of the Alphalearning Institute was already putting the finishing touches on Brainwave 1, nicknamed the Mind Machine. It consists of a black box connected to a personal computer emitting light and sound pulses through LED eyeglasses and a headset, both of which the subject wears. It also employs a special electroencephalograph to read the individuals brain waves. By means of a special computer program, the brain is tuned into the state of deep relaxation required for studying.

The following results collated from over 500 participants, are startling...

1. Learning speed is increased by 300 per cent - in any subject.

2. Memory improved by 300 per cent - e.g. language learning.

3. Stress reduced, blood pressure down.

4. IQ increased by 10 to 30 per cent.

5. Reading speed increased from 250 to 750 w/min.

6. Student exam grades up by two levels, e.g. C to A.

The Institute runs a ‘brain training’ course which teaches the student how to tune into the brain’s alpha and theta waves, the ideal learning frequencies.

Normally, achieving an alpha frequency of nine hertz would require two to five years’ experience in meditation. Reaching seven hertz takes anything up to twenty years’ experience in meditation. Through Brainwave 1, however, a student can achieve nine Hz or less in just twelve minutes, and seven Hz within five to ten hours. As Adam puts it, ‘You no longer have to grow long hair, wear robes, sit on hard rocks or hire a guru; the computer is the new guru.’ Most remarkably, every single graduate retained, and in most cases improved, their brain control when tested a year later.

Sean Adam himself has been the undisputed world champion in speed reading for the past six years. His official record is a staggering 3,850 words per minute, and he tells me that his personal best is around 4,500 w/min! This means that an average 300-page book takes him twenty-four minutes to read and comprehend. He also hold two world records for IQ.

Brainwave 1 has been described as the ultimate state-of-the-art exercise and training equipment for the brain and as ‘neurosurgery with light and sound waves’. But it is no overnight invention. It took nineteen years of research and $5 million o investment to discover that people could be trained to control their own brain waves, plus another four years to fine-tune the training software to the point where people could attain that control quickly.

Apart from the obvious benefits that this technology offers in increased learning ability, one thing that wasn’t predicted was the dramatic effect it has had on a number of victims of brain damage. While it is premature to suggest that Brainwave 1 has the makings of a universal panacea, there is startling evidence of its apparent reversal of what was previously thought of as permanent brain damage. Take the case of Sofie, for example. Two days after she was born, Sofie suffered long collapse and loss of oxygen to her right brain. This resulted in her left side becoming paralysed, and convulsions developing in her left arm. She was confined to a wheelchair for sixteen years. Her father, on hearing of Alphalearning treatment, decided to try Brainwave 1 on Sofie.

After the first twelve-minute session, the convulsions were under control. Within a month she was in and out of her wheelchair and was able to take herself to the toilet for the first time in her life. A year on and she is still making progress. Incredibly, it’s not just her physical strength that is improving. Her IQ has increased from 85 to 135!

When I asked Sean to confirm his own IQ, he told me that ‘it’s off the scale and still climbing’. Some are already comparing him to da Vinci, and the UK-based Use Your Head club have tied him at sixth place in the top thirty IQs of all time.

Can the world trust a man at the cutting edge of human intellectual advancement whose own intelligence is spiraling ever upwards out of control, or should we ‘unplug him from his machine before his intellect escapes and becomes omnipotent - before he turns into...Lawnmower Man?!