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Borrowed Genius
Excerpted from Beyond Teaching And Learning:
How to borrow some genius for
your own direct use
"How did you do that?!?" we asked her. Her reply: "I made-believe I
was one of the big kids."
...Just create such genius in the same sense that tribesmen of the
Bear Clan wore the heads of bears to better understand the
wilderness from which they made their living...
...Or in the same sense that one young lad of our experience,
about to "not make" his high school's baseball team, working with us
during an hour of "putting on the heads" of his various baseball
heroes, discovered through one of those "hero heads" how to get
extra focus on the baseball by swinging, not at the baseball itself
but at an imaginary flyspeck on that baseball. He made the team;
his first ten games he batted 800; at season's end he was voted
MVP by not only his team but by his school's entire league.
...Or in the same sense that in our very first 1977 experiment
which launched Project Renaissance, a secretary starting to take
violin lessons leaped from raw beginner to advanced student in two
lessons by our special way of "putting on the head" of great
violinists. She came by to visit our second experiment three weeks
later and gave us a very nice concert. (ALL of us were getting similar
results in our chosen areas even before we perfected this method!)
Each of the current 44 diverse methods for Periscopic Learning, through Project
Renaissance's strategies of contextual projection and description, enables one
to learn with understanding, or gain in skills, years' worth in only hours: truly
"accelerated learning!" Periscopic Learning is only one of many types of
accelerated learning method.
The context forms an internal consistency if we let it, congruent with the
perceptions or understandings or skills you are seeking. What that means is, if
you were "supposed to" describe a lush garden and you find yourself looking at
a desert, describe that desert and see where it leads to. Respond to and
describe what you find, not what you expect.
"Describe what comes up" in imagery, not just "what ought to be there."
Beginning
As mentioned, begin with something easy and pleasant to describe, and
beautiful. Describe it with eyes kept closed, as rapidly as you can and in as
much exquisitely rich sensory detail as you can. Keep a rapid flow of richly
detailed description going, and describe what actually emerges in your mind's
eye rather than sticking with what you expected to see there.
We have defined a few example contexts and spelled out some specific
procedures for their use, to help you get started into effective use of these
deep-access, high-leverage procedures. We provide the taping and/or group-
teaching version of the main procedure first, as this version is done in more
detail than the solo-use version which follows. Reading through that main
procedure, even if you are working alone, will help you when you use the
shorter, simpler, summarized second version.
Following that shorter, simpler second version, in the new, year 2000 edition of
the book, Beyond Teaching And Learning, we've added a special Chapter
Appendix giving you another version altogether, a version to use with young
children.
Note that simpler instructions for your own solo use of this Periscopic
procedure follow after the more detailed group script below, on whatever
subject or skill area, including golf, tennis, math or piano.
2. "We will imagine and describe an exquisitely beautiful garden. But please
notice when you get pictures in your mind's eye, and switch to describing
those pictures even if some of them are different from what the group as a
whole is asked to picture. It's the different, unexpected pictures which often
teach us the most and best. But we'll start with a garden until you get
pictures, then please describe those pictures even if they go in a different
direction from the images and ideas I'll be reading to the group as a whole.
So starting with a garden ..."
4. "Beginning with what's directly in front of you, look around you to bring
more into view, maybe left and then left again, turning until you've seen all
around you. Maybe moving through this garden, too, touching things and
bringing still more into view . . . . With rich detail from all your senses, please
begin describing this extraordinarily beautiful garden to your partner.
Describe in such rich immediate detail that you make this garden an utterly
real experience to your listener. Beginning with what's right in front of you
there in this garden, please begin describing now ..."
5. "Thank you, keeping eyes closed, moving perhaps still deeper into this
garden experience or into whatever this space has become for you if not a
garden. Please now imagine a genius joining you here in this special space
or in this garden. Perhaps this genius is someone you know or someone you
don't know; perhaps this genius is past, present, future, or imaginary. Best
perhaps to let yourself be surprised by who or what your larger mind puts
there in this space to play the role of genius at your chosen subject or skill.
Whoever or whatever this genius is, there in this space or in this garden,
please begin describing this genius in the same rich detail as you were
describing the garden. Make this genius utterly real to your listener through
the richness of your description, especially the feel of the warm, welcoming
presence of this genius. There in this space or in this garden, through the
richness of your description, please begin now making this genius utterly
real to your listener . . . "
6. "Thank you, keeping eyes closed, perhaps moving even deeper into this
experience, there with this genius in your garden or in whatever this space
has become for you ... It's one thing to see a genius from outside; it's
another thing to get the inside story of what it's like being a genius. That
inside story is what we want to discover now ..."
7. "Please stand your genius at arm's length distance from you, with his or
her or its back to you. Good, now please sort of just waft yourself forward
into this genius, bring your eyes to where the eyes of this genius are, so you
can look through and with the eyes of this genius at this same space or
garden you've been in. Bring your ears to where the ears of this genius are,
so you can listen to the sounds of this garden or space through and with the
ears of this genius. Bring your senses, your mind and body and memories
and perceptions to where those of this genius are, so that you now become
this genius. As this genius, look around this same space or garden you've
just been in but now with the eyes and senses and mind and awarenesses
of this genius. Notice that as this genius you perceive some differences,
differences between what this genius sees in this same garden or space and
what you saw there before you joined this genius. Some of those differences
might be surprising. Whatever they are, observe now as this genius, be this
genius and make these differences utterly real to your listener through the
richness of your description, as you resume describing now . . . "
8. "Thank you, eyes still closed, staying in this experience, perhaps moving
even deeper into this experience — even as we move more directly into
whatever it is that this genius is a genius at, please stay as sensory as
possible in your descriptions. The understandings and abstractions and
a-ha!s will almost take care of themselves, if we continue to stay firmly with
the rich sensory detail of being this genius ..."
9. "Move now into some of what it is that your genius is a genius at, either
there in this garden or space or just beyond it, or by moving back through
the memories of your genius. Continuing to be this genius, engage in some
of what it is that this genius is a genius at, and study the feelings in the body
of this genius doing that, not just what the genius sees and hears. What are
the perceptions of this genius, while your genius is doing this thing he, she
or it is a genius at? As this genius, make all these sensory perceptions of
your genius utterly real to your listener as you resume describing now ..."
10. "Good, eyes still closed, moving perhaps even deeper into this
experience, still continuing to be this genius. Please give special note to the
details of body feeling in this genius, especially the characteristic posture of
this genius, the characteristic gestures and pattern of movement, the
feelings in each part of the body associated especially with when this thing
at which the genius is a genius ... when this thing goes really well or goes
into a full a-ha! What are the feelings in the face of this genius? What are
the feelings in the neck and shoulders of this genius? In every other part of
the body of this genius, while being especially effective at this thing your
genius is a genius at? All these body-related feelings of the genius,
especially, please now make utterly real to your listener as you resume
describing now . . . "
11. "Since you are now being this genius, you can move freely through this
genius's memories. Go now to the moment of greatest understanding or
12. "Thank you ... please walk now in front of a big, full-length mirror. See
this genius there facing you in the mirror. Now abolish the mirror, have the
genius standing there and you back here, facing each other. Project a warm
feeling of thanks to your genius. Perhaps your genius is also projecting
thanks to you for the opportunity to share some of the experiences which
mean so much to him or her or it. Now have your genius hand you a tiny
cellular pocket phone. See your genius also pocketing his or her own little
cellular phone. Let the felt understanding between you be that you can tap
this genius any time, not just when you're in special experience, for what this
genius is special for ... and that this genius can tap you for what you're
special for. Even if this genius is only an extension of your own resource
base, this seems to work better when set up reciprocally, on a two-way
basis. And now ..."
13. "Listen closely while this genius points out something especially
important in this experience, or tells you something you especially should
know in this context. Listen intently, see what happens, for just a moment ..."
(Five- to ten-second pause) "... and report what this special insight or
perception was, to your listener beginning now . . ."
14. "Returning with full awareness to here and now, fully refreshed, coming
fully present, and feeling pretty darn good! When you come back from the
five-minute break, please be with a new partner for the most important part
of this experience. When you return five minutes from now, please sit with a
new partner. Thank you."
(Or snap off the tape recorder at the point of "feeling pretty darn good" in
that step. If working alone and from the tape as guide, your debriefing will
need to be on paper — see below.)
(De-briefing)
16. "In debriefing, please keep eyes open this time, and if you can stay in the
present tense, so much the better — telling it like it's happening now instead
of having just happened. Instead of, ‘I was walking down this path,' say more
like ‘I'm walking down this path, it's all bricks with moss over, grass with dew
sparkling to either side ...' and so on, and try to stay in present tense if you
can. So, in present tense, eyes open, please tell your new partner everything
you experienced, especially from the part where you became the genius and
saw surprising differences between the way the genius saw the garden and
the way you'd seen it earlier. So please begin describing now . . ."
(Two to four minutes later, with first lull in buzz-murmur, gently "bing" three
times, saying gently ...)
17. "Even at some risk of incompletion, please now make sure your partner
also has air time. You can finish your present sentence, and then it's time to
let your partner begin describing now . . ."
(Optional, if you feel this session has been going really well, you may elect
to include this Step 17-A next. Otherwise, skip on to Step 18.)
[17-A. "Now for a minute or so, not only describe your genius to your partner,
show your genius to your partner. The expressions on your genius's face;
the way that genius sits, stands, moves about; your genius's characteristic
posture and patterns of gesture and movement — please show these to your
partner and vice-versa."]
(Two to four minutes later, half-minute single "bing" and then a half minute
later, three "bings," saying:)
18. "On your own, with blank tape and a tape recorder, you can go back to
this or any garden, to this or any genius, as often as you please, first on this
one skill or subject until you've fully mastered it and then on as many others
as you like."
19. "The main thing is to go back and forth between this kind of experience
at genius level understanding and skill, and real-time practice and
conventional learning at that same understanding or skill. If you've never
touched a keyboard but had Rachmaninoff for your genius this time, then as
soon as you can, go over to a real piano in real time and try some ‘plink-
plunk.' Then go back to Rachmaninoff and be that genius again, then back
to the piano in real-time again, back and forth like that if possible 2 to 4 times
per day for several days, 10 to 30 minutes each way each time. All of a
sudden, it'll come together and you'll be that genius and playing the piano
well in real time, and all that skill and perception will be yours. And so on for
whatever skills or subjects you please, hours of this combined inner and
outer experiencing accomplishing what years of conventional effort could
be."
20. "For now, please return to this space here, fully refreshed, and
determine how, as soon as possible or in the next 12 hours, you can get in
some real-time learning or practice of the same skill or subject you've just
been a genius at. Soon as you can, begin that alternation and drive your
own skills, within a day or so, all the way up to where that genius was and
then beyond. Thank you for making this experience happen."
The foregoing was a very detailed "recipe for an experience," but note how
simple as A-B-C it really is:
A. The more you describe something while examining it, the more
you will perceive.
Or,
2. You can simply go into the garden from memory, and/or from the
following capsule of summarized instructions. Bring on the genius.
Enter into and become that genius. Compare and build sensory
perceptions, first in the garden and then at the activity in which your
genius is a genius.
In either case, decide now what skill or subject you're going to build by High
Leverage technique this time. Stick with that skill or subject, through this
and/or subsequent procedures — and through that alternating between
various inner "genius" experiences and outer "real-time," conventional-level
experiences and learning efforts — until you've built your actual high
proficiencies therein. Time enough afterward to pick up other skills, other
subject learnings. Complete what it takes to build genuine real-time personal
proficiency in the one first, to "legitimize" for you that continuing on to as
many others as you please will be a personal-growth investment and not just
an indulgence in whimsy.
Instruction summary
Here, then, is the "do-it-yourself" capsule of summarized instructions for the
"Model Method" of Deep Recall, High Leverage, Learning:
One of the ways you, yourself, can discover new techniques of your own for
accelerated learning, and fresh skills, is to use the above from time to time
on yourself, "putting on the head" of teachers, real or imaginary, who are
extraordinarily good at just that ... teaching!