Book Blaster Issue 9

Secret craft, forgotten past

When Kwai Lan Cook, known as Lana, began PhotoReading in April, little did she realise that she was at the start of an ancestral odyssey leading back to the pre Ching dynasty of Chinese emperors.
But Lana, who works as an internal auditor in Gravesend, has an out-of-hours passion for Feng Shui, the ancient art of placing objects in your home or office to create balance and serenity.
Not only has she radically improved her understanding of the Feng Shui texts using PhotoReading, but she says she has drawn world-renowned teachers and authors into her life. One of whom had a surprise for her.
“Through Feng Shui I met Yap Cheng Hai,” says Lana. “He’s famous in Feng Shui, the highest grand master. When he heard my accent and I told him of my background, he told me I must be descended from the emperor’s family in the old Chinese dynasty.”
Lana’s grandfather was a teaching doctor and Feng Shui practitioner in China but fled the country with a large collection of books which succeeding generations of her family had saved from the cultural revolution and the earlier book burning during the Mongolian Ching dynasty.
“the books are many hundreds, possibly thousands of years old, and the only people who would have had Feng Shui and medical books then were connected with the emperor’s family,” explains Lana. “they are very rare because they were burned to stop them falling into the hands of the invading Mongolian emperors.”

Now she’s using PhotoReading to research these old, hand-written manuscripts.

“I already PhotoRead my Feng Shui books in Chinese. I turn the books upside down: it works better that way.”
But Lana wasn’t always so successful in reading and studying. Having come to the UK from a Hong Kong schooling in 1971, she experienced a common problem when confronted by long texts.

“I found it hard to concentrate and I would often drift off and then have to go back over the text to find out where I was.” PhotoReading has now cleared up that problem, but when she was studying for her accountancy exams, things came to a head.

“I got really depressed because I didn’t get any help from work and I didn’t have a lot of time to study. I had to do my final accountancy exam so that’s why I looked for help,” she remembers.

“First I got help from TV hypnotist, Paul McKenna. On one of his courses he told how he’d used PhotoReading to get his PhD. He recommended that I try it.”

Lana says that PhotoReading has made an enormous impact on her life in many different ways.
“I use PhotoReading at work as an internal auditor. I have to read new legislation and reports,” she says. “Now I’ve got time to do other things and it has changed the quality of my life.”

The extra time has allowed her to develop as a part-time consultant in Feng Shui. She used it to prepare for her biggest test yet.

“A few months after completing the PhotoReading course I was asked to give public presentations about Feng Shui during an exhibition at Olympia. It was a great success, one of the busiest stands, and I have a mailing list of hundreds of people who want more information.”

When Lana was asked to use her Feng Shui skills to improve business at a recruitment agency, she even used PhotoReading to help typists get through their agency tests. “the people I helped seemed to do really well. I’ve also used it to teach someone at work computer graphics and even golf: how about that?” adds Lana.

As well as Paul McKenna and his teacher Richard Bandler, over the last few months Lana has also met I Ching master, Dr Wu, and Feng Shui author, Lillian Too.

“I’m really surprised how I have drawn towards me the people I need to meet for some reason or other,” she says. During our conversation Lana mentioned that she needs to meet a Chinese historian.

We were able to put her in touch with a professor who coincidentally came to our house for dinner last night: Chinese literature expert, Michel Hockx, of the School of Oriental and African Studies.

“He could be just the person I need to help,” says Lana smiling.

Network Paul for PhotoReading support!

Paul Bedi is another PhotoReader who has been so impressed with the course that he wants to share what he’s discovered with others by setting up a group.
But first he faces his biggest ever challenge as a learner. He wants to get through the gruelling training to become a certified engineer for Novell networks and Microsoft’s computer operating systems.
Paul, 34, lives in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire with his wife and baby daughter. He’s working as a contracted computer consultant at an NHS trust near Chelmsford. “there is always a lot of technical material to deal with,” says Paul. “I have two manuals for the operating systems. they are both 1,500 pages long and they’re hard work to read.”
To take professional training courses on the computer operating systems costs around £1,500 a week and each of the 17 exams costs £70. Paul intends to use PhotoReading to speed up the process and save a lot of money into the bargain. “People usually take a year about it,” says Paul. “I want to study at home and finish it in three months.”
Using PhotoReading techniques, Paul has seen his ability to recall information transformed. “I can recall small passages buried deep inside some of the 40 or so books which I’ve PhotoRead. People think I know a lot more than I really do,” he says.
Paul initially purchased the course two years ago. “I was lazy and didn’t put in the work at first. Even now I realise that I’m only using about 20 per cent of the potential of the course.”
“I used to read on the train. It would take me two to three weeks to get through a two inch book. Now I flick through a book in 15 minutes if I’m waiting somewhere.”
When it comes to recalling the information he still sometimes doubts his ability. “I can achieve much more now, but I still ask myself, ‘Is this working?'”.
“I get a thread somehow and I look up to the left and right. It’s not a certain thing, it’s a woolly feeling. Things start coming to me and as long as I allow the information to come through by being relaxed, I get very good results.”
Paul is planning to start a self-help group for colleagues and friends at the NHS trust where he works.
“I feel I can achieve 90 per cent more than before I used the course,” says Paul. “I hope to set up a support group to show people how much easier it is to do things using PhotoReading.”

It blew me away!

Imagine being in an exam and being able to read off the answers from a mental screen. That’s the experience Alan Dunlop got in touch about. Here’s his letter from March this year, and below he describes how he did in his insurance exams.
“I haven’t studied for an exam in six years and found it extremely hard. Recently, however, I took the Driving theory test. I can grasp the Highway Code, but all those road markings and signs!
“Well, the morning of the test I PhotoRead the Highway Code upside down, backwards and forwards in about three minutes on the tube to the test centre.
“During the test I was amazed. Looking at the paper, some of the answers looked illuminated: of five answers, one would be standing out twice as bright as the others.
“On one question which asked for the maximum breath/alcohol limit I could see the appropriate paragraph in my mind’s eye and just read through to the answer (80 mg/ml). It was just like the dictionary game when you can see a word’s location, but a whole paragraph? It just blew me away!
“I’ve stopped putting off studying for my insurance exams. I’m PhotoReading my text book and zooming through it. My self-belief is sky high and I’m actually looking forward to my exam to see how well I’ll do.”
We called Alan to find out how the exam went.
“I passed!” he told us. “In the insurance exam, you just pass or fail, they don’t tell you the mark. I could just see the correct answers to choose. I studied for the last two weeks.
“During the last week the company put us up in a hotel. Most of the others had been studying for months and they were still sitting up through the night. I was taking Jacuzzis and using a Paraliminal recording. On the morning of the exam I PhotoRead for eight minutes after relaxing and using the Memory Supercharger title.
“It’s absolutely fantastic. My girlfriend’s had striking results as well. It’s turned around her performance on her BA course.
“the closest thing I can compare PhotoReading to, if you haven’t done it, is those Magic Eye photographs which are made of dots yet you suddenly see a picture.
“That’s how I see the answers. Finding that you can PhotoRead is almost like an religious experience.
“I’m not at all nervous about my next exams in the autumn. the thing I have to watch out for is getting complacent because I can revise in so little time.”

Practice beats political theory!

“I’m a post graduate full-time student studying for an MA in Political theory at Essex University,” writes Kathryn Bryant. “the course is incredibly intensive and has required an immense amount of reading and essay-writing.
The last paper which I have written was proving particularly troublesome. I was having great difficulty in finding what I needed to link two sections of the essay together.
As I was clearing my desk of the books I thought I didn’t need, I picked up one which I thought was completely unhelpful. But as I moved it, for some intuitive reason, I let it fall open and just glanced down at the pages. there on the last page I looked at was a paragraph which contained the exact information I required to form the linking section.
Later it suddenly hit me that, although I hadn’t read the book, I had PhotoRead it the week before, but hadn’t bothered to activate it. It might not appear especially dramatic, but it did have an effect on me.
It enabled me to complete the essay, for which I was very grateful.
You may also be interested to know about two other products which I have found very helpful.”

“The MotivAider really worked!”

“I received the MotivAider the day I started my revision and set it at 10-minute intervals to reinforce ‘relax and concentrate’. It really worked. I know this to be so because one day I forgot to put it on and by the afternoon I was getting really tense inside and feeling overwhelmed. “Yet after putting it back on for a while I began to calm down. Also, if I’d stopped for a break and got involved in a conversation with someone and felt it vibrate, it reminded me to get back to work.

“Finally, the Paraliminal recording, Memory Supercharger, really helped in the exam room.”

Kathryn intends to use the MotivAider to stop smoking this Summer.

“Unbelievable! My copy improved literally overnight!”

Dear Chris
Several weeks ago I finished the PhotoReading session of all the books in my possession, all on a variety of diverse topics. I didn’t have huge success at first. In fact I admit I kept phoning the support line and reading, re-reading and PhotoReading several issues of Book Blaster for help and inspiration.
At the bottom of my reading list was my journalism book from the first year of my Journalism degree course. I promised myself I would read that book. I kept promising myself right up to this point at the end of the second year. My news writing skills were, to say the least, poor. Sometimes I was only just passing. Yet it didn’t matter how hard I tried, I still wasn’t getting the results I thought I was capable of. So it was with great nervousness that I began counting down the days until my work placement in a real news office. there was only one thing for it. I took all the sheets and books I had on journalism and PhotoRead them the night before my first day.
So how was my first week? Unbelievable! My copy, save a few minor errors, improved literally overnight. Even so, at first I just put it down to luck. However, when I checked my new and improved copy against my class work, I realised the difference. And the difference was huge.
Finally, to top it all, today I’ve been offered full-time work after my placement, only a week into my two-week probationary period.
Although I had let my PhotoReading lapse a bit, I’ve started again with new vigour, listening to all the recordings again and PhotoReading just about everything that has text on it. I’ve even flipped through several inspiring books at the local bookshop and library in a matter of minutes.
Thanks.- Nadia Davis, Tunbridge Wells
An exam in eight minutes!

“I sat down, PhotoRead the questions and did the answers and handed the exam back to the examiner in eight minutes.”
Paul Hastings and his wife, Caroline, recently featured in Book Blaster, have been in the exam room again. This time sitting the Human Performance and Limitations Exam as part of their aviation training.
the pair had half an hour to complete the 30 multiple choice questions. the pass mark was 70 per cent.
“the fun thing about this exam,” Paul continues, “is that the subject is vast. It covers areas such as Psychology, Anatomy, Physiology and Neurology as applicable to flying.”
“We PhotoRead the books the night before: yeah, you’ve guessed it: 100 per cent for both of us.”
Meanwhile Caroline has been using her PhotoReading to prepare for her first public speaking engagement.
“I couldn’t think of what to talk about,” says Caroline, “but after a creativity session with the MindLab, we came up with an idea: I visualised a rolling screen of internal flash cards. It worked!”
“One lady said afterwards, ‘I wouldn’t have been able to memorise my speech like that.'”

It’s time for PhotoReading in our schools, Mr Blunkett!

The Secretary of State for Education, David Blunkett, has said that he wants to improve classroom education by a factor of six.
If he’s going to do that he’s going to need to employ some radical thinking. I hope they’ll introduce PhotoReading as part of a full package of accelerated learning measures.
I was a senior teacher during most of my years in a comprehensive, a grammar, two secondary modern schools and two junior schools. Everyone knew that something was going wrong.
It felt as if we were being given the very best china clay and were producing course mugs, there’s a terrible amount of waste in traditional teaching.