Richard Welch Explains Mental Photography for Speed-Reading

This is similar, if the not the same idea, as photoreading (by Paul Scheele). I have researched it and, IMHO, it is nonsense. I know there are the rare cases such as Kim Peek or a handful of other savants, but a normal brain with normal demands could not operate this way.

Ramon Campayo is a proponent of speed-reading at hyper-fast levels, so I don't discount the possibility. Tony Buzan is also a proponent, though he strikes me as more of a preacher rather than a practitioner.

I think there might be something to speed-reading as the are many reputable people out there do read at high speeds, but I don't think it is orders of magnitude of difference (800-900 wpm versus 300-400 and different rates for different material) and I think a lot of us slow plodding readers do it when she peruse news articles, etc. It is often called idea-culling. Frankly, I often find some of the things that have keen interest in are often covered obliquely in a throw away sentence or as they say, reading between the lines. And I tend to read stuff I am interested in at a much slower pace and several times.

Further, if you research speed-reading you'll see many knowledgeable people question its efficacy.

Recently I took a cursory interest in photic stimulation, which Dominic O'Brien claims helped his performance by 20-30%. Photic stimulation is a blinking of LED lights at a certain frequency to attune the mind to certain beta (alpha?) levels. Interesting but still a little hokey IMO. And researching the companies that sell them gave me more pause.

I would like to know Ben Pridmore's opinion on both speed-reading and photic stimulation. He strikes me as someone who has thought a lot about these things, researched it, tried it, and willing to give an honest assessment.

Here is an interesting article from Slate magazine on speed-reading: http://www.slate.com/id/74766/

Yeah, the only person that I know who actually benefits from speed-reading training is Ramon Campayo. But this guy, 100,000 wpm? thats a joke.

There are new pages about speed reading and speed memory.

This actually works! I was sceptical at first but I decided to give it a try. When I started doing the dictionary I could feel my brain tingling inside after about an hour, something was happening! I have also by 'coincidence' run into someone who has done this technique naturally from birth, she never even heard of mental photography. Do not pass it off too quickly, you could miss out on a lot.

@Blake -- How many words per minute are you obtaining with this method?

Sorry to be skeptical, but reading 100,000 words per minute with the book upside down sounds like snake oil to me.

Dear Josh,

I have been trying in vain to locate Richard Welch the Father of Mental Photography because I admire his work so much but have had no luck. I wanted to attend his workshops in the US but all the phone numbers listed on his website do not connect and a recorded message tells you that the phone numbers have been disconnected.

Can you help please? My email id is what you can write to me back at as you can see it, since you are the moderator.

Hi Russ,

I don't know how to contact him. If his phones are disconnected and there is no professional website online about it, maybe it's a sign.

Be careful: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and there is no evidence that "Mental Photography" works. I recommend reading the article that Dan linked-to above: http://www.slate.com/id/74766/

Josh

it works for me i use it daily, and now after 3 weeks im seeing results in my studies, and i'm only a junior in high school.

How exactly does it work? How quickly can you read a page with this method and still understand what is on the page? Do you read the books upside down?

Hey hey , i have been searching relentlessly to locate any sort information or reviews expounding the authenticity of this product , but couldn't find anything. I have the mental photography course and will commence very soon with these exercises and keep you updated.

I think that reading 100,000 words per minute is impossible, but I'd be interested to hear your opinions on the course, as well as the specific claims that it makes. :)

@Josh Cohen: Great site! (I just stumbled over it today while looking for practical examples of using memory towns for learning languages.)

Anyway, speed reading. Personally, I tried different approaches to speed reading several time during my university time because I am a very lazy person. Having read a lot of different books on the topic, I found the different explanations very frustrating. I also "tried" Paul Scheele's method which is basically the same as Richard Welch's. Kind of anyway.

Recently, I have come across a copy of Owen D, Skousen's Alphanetics Rapid Reading Program. (I guess in the 80s and 90s that sounded really cool.)

Anyway, the point is - and that was also the cause of my personal frustration - you cannot expect these methods to work if you are not willing to put in a lot of time for practicing speed reading, which is not the same as reading.

According to Skousen speed reading consists of three different subskills which must be acquired separately. The Skills are rapid but smooth EYE MOVEMENT, UNDERSTANDING (combined with concentration and vocabulary building) and REMEMBERING.

I actually wanted to write more about this but for now I will just cut to the chase:

Speed reading depends a lot on your mental state, and I do not think you will come around some relaxation or even meditation methods. (This might be a problem for Christians. Even though I think, Christian meditation should work as well. Anyway...) Besides practicing your eye movement on exemplary target texts and building vocabulary accordingly, the most important skill, you need to to practice in order to improve your speed reading, is remembering. Move your eyes quickly but smoothly over a paragraph and try to recall what you have just read.

Developing this skill (REMEMBERING) is, IMHO, the most important one of the three skills suggested. In fact, the author says that as soon as your eye movement gets better, your understanding (comprehension) will come back as well.

So now, if you think about it. This is basically the same as saying: You move your eyes over a text (SEEING) and understand its content. How well your understanding (comprehension) really is, you will see, when you try recalling what you have just read.

So, in principle, if you have sufficiently trained your recall ability (combining the remembering process with mind-mapping), I am willing to believe that the results proposed by Scheele and Welch are possible. In principle, anyway.

Then again, as you can be an excellent speed reader at a word-per-minute count of let's say 5,000, 2,500, or even 1,200, why bother trying to train your recall to get up to 25,000 and more. As I said, you must submit yourself to the program as Jason Bourne did. And this program requires you to use visualization and relaxation techniques extensively. I think that is where a lot of the frustration and failure comes from: by not being in the right state of mind - as phony as this may sound.

After having read a lot about speed reading, I think Skousen is the most sincere about it. IMHO anyway. ;)

I had tried the ZOX Pro training ,but I trained my self only in Photographing . I skipped other trainings such as eye chart , relaxation , and distraction index . I tried this for over 16-17 days but I couldn't find any results . So now I have stopped training mainly because I couldn't recall the information by photographing . The information I could recall was only from those which I had speed read .I believe that the power of the mind is phenomenal but I doubt mental photography . If you can , please convince me by giving me scientific reasons of how mental photography works so that I can regain confidence and start my training once again.

If there were people who could read 25,000 words per minute, I hope they would let themselves be tested by scientists. I can't believe these kinds of extraordinary claims without seeing hard evidence, especially when the people who claim these results are trying to sell me something. :)

I will keep an open mind if someone can cite a scientific study, but, in the meantime, this is still the most believable article I've read about speed reading: http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/articles/2000/02/the_1000word_dash.html

The way clear this doubt is :

1. Scientist should do a research on mental photography.
2. Then , they should publish their conclusion on whether mental photography works or not.
3. If scientists fail step 1 and 2 , they should study the brain of a mental photographer and publish their report.
4. If step 3 also fails, then a video should be made and published on the internet where a mental photographer photographes 2 books of Quantum physics and bio chemistry and then takes a test from the book where he scores full marks.

Only then can the authenticity of mental photography be determined and we be liberated from our confusion on whether mental photography works or not.

Are you coming to the LHS reunion, 56/57 together on Oct. 5th. No one has heard from you

Well, the Mental Photography sounds like bs to me. I mean, savants may be able to do that, but the brain of the average person is not made to work like that. But speed reading, that, I have my own opinions. I stumbled across speed reading about last year, when I was researching how does one achieve the full potential of one's brain. That's when I realized something. I have been practicing speed reading since I was child, and I wasn't aware of it. I'm telling you, speeding works. As a kid, my teachers have always said I was bright. I could memorize passages from textbooks much quicker than my peers, and some people even said I might be a genius. But IQ tests show otherwise; I only have a score of 119. I have been baffled as to why I could achieve so much more, when I was doing so much less. I'm not trying to preach, or brag, or sell any product. Just learn the basics, make a habit out of it, and speed reading could be the most productive asset in your life.

@Andy: Side note: IQ tests don't measure intelligence or what your brain can achieve. See this forum thread for a discussion about it.

Richard Welsh is a fraud in my opinion. A number of us took that course (which was identical to photoreading) and NO ONE was able to do anything that was claimed.

When we applied for the money back guarantee that he offered, none of us received a nickel in return.

BUYER BEWARE!

Hi, Take a look at Howard Berg, reading 30.000 wpm. (youtube demo). And take a look at Kevin Trudeau Mega memory. The first part of his book worked fine for me, even with a little brain damage and suffering from ptsd. critics say it.s bull s***, but again, part one improved my memory working with nummbers, also by creating images one, afther some time becomes more creative. just like playing sudoko. According to Howard Berg we learned the wrong way, our mind must not spell words, but the mind is naturally recognising images. people can thus learn to recognise words and even compleet tekst. thats how one can read much faster and also the more logic mind is not involved. normally if you look at a word, the logic mind can quenstion it, for example not knowing the word, or thinking about it. slowing down reading speed. I belief indeed that the mind was not build for reading the way we learned, but to recognise things, like a tree, car of tekst. one can look at a tree and knows the tree. As for blinking lights (LEDS), this is simpel, we learn better when relaxed. This is the alfa brainstate, to induce such state people try many things: Alfa braintapes. Barok mucis (60 beats/min), lights, biofeedback etc. normaly you are in a beta state, relaxing is alfa. You don't need lights, better use a braintape (holo sync) or listen to Barok mucis when learning. I have a one channel EEG for neurofeedback. I can train FOCUS, to sharpen my concentration and at higher level train focus and relax at the same time. Peak performance. Even NASA used it. Most memory champs invent there own systems. So, do a google search for biofeedback/neurofeedback, learning and barok mucis (check out the book superlearning ostrander), and braintapes for learning, kevind trudea's mega memory, and howard berg. recently i came a cross a new problem in memorizing nummers. These nummers for example: nM5rTTH.. you see, memorizing nummbers is easy, but now i have to find a way tot remember small letters and big letters (Cap). so we must train our self and find out for our self, this build self esteem for many people forget this important factor. (basic) school was not easy and many of us have bad experiences. Even if one could demonstrate good skills there is alway's a fear of faillure. You must learn to belief in your self and in your skills, build selfesteem. good luck Frans

There's another discussion thread about Zox Pro here: https://artofmemory.com/forums/zox-pro-4506.html

You are idiots for saying this doesnt work. And the program also says that the first thing a person will feel is disbelief and other emotions the five states of consciousness. You are not in a conscious state when you zox. You will not feel reading. When we take pictures of things it flips the picture backwards. Same thing with our eyes. And the subconscious mind is 85 percent uncharted territory it knows no bounds. Eliminating subvocalizing which is reading when there is no possible way to read it upsidedown and a rate of 2 pages per second you begin to access a whole part of your brain. I felt it ive got perfect scores on very hard subject. In fact for two days when I started I felt like s*** because I overheated my brain. Its a muscle that we never used since we were kids. It got shocked. Everytime I photograph I feel the back of my head is tingling storing all info. To trigger it back to the conscious yoi have to train to allow the conscious the guard to let the subsconcious pass knowledge this is the hardest part. Its like an intrusion to the conscious mind. But it takes training and positive mindset. People here are saying they just skip to the good parts. Your a f*****g idiot every excercise contributes to opening the pathway to subsconcious and keeping it open. Thats why all of you didnt get results because your doing something you dont believe in. Famous people have done this like one of the astronauts of apollo 13. That should tell you something. Its very dangerous to get this information out to the wrong hands. Thats why I cannot find any info about richatd welch or actual in dept explanation. But I know for a fact this program is real. The mind is limitless. We accomplished so many secrets in life only using 15% of our brain. So believe people that your capable of even more.

No need for insults.

It is a myth that people only use 10% or 15% of the brain. Here are some links to read:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_of_brain_myth
• http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-only-use-10-percent-of-brain/

Endorsement by one astronaut doesn't mean it works. NASA's research say that it doesn't work.

People on this site already know that the human mind is capable of more than most people imagine, because many of them can memorize shuffled decks of cards in a minute or two or hundreds of random digits in a few minutes. Everyone here is very open to the idea that "superhuman" abilities are possible. There is also a lot of snake oil out there. Photo reading appears to fall into that category, in my opinion.

Alright people let me make a deal. I'll try this product first off and I'll determine if this products works or not. This is a very interesting topic but I believe in possibilities. The human mind is capable of doing alot of extraordinary stuff and I believe that is why a lot of famous people are succeeding in life because they somewhat used the full potential of their brain.

If it worked, NASA's research would have shown that.

I actually purchased this course recently and have just started listening to it. From my perspective, what mental photography actually does is strengthen the corpus callosum which is the part of the brain controlling interhemispheric communication, in other words how well the two sides of your brain can connect with each other. Albert Einstein's corpus callosum was 15% larger than the average human, and had a remarkable ability to create vivid visualizations with his 'thought experiments', essentially making up 70-80% of what we know about physics in that overactive imagination of his. Essentially what you're doing is restoring your visual learning skill you had as child, being the third party witness to the emotional reactions to thoughts, beliefs, and experiences, and quite significantly your environment. My comment to Samir, whom said he did not fully embrace the responsibilities of the program, could be that your full visual capabilities cannot be harnessed without the other exercises, especially the exercise that teaches you to concentrate without other thoughts in your head while intaking information, and the eye chart drill to relax your focus and reduce the tension in the face and eyes, the cause of tunnel vision physically which will affect the flow of energy in your brain, and therefore your experience and interpretation of the world. So put very simply, by engaging your brain with information in a relaxed visual state and focusing deeply for extended periods of time, you build your ability to paint pictures in your mind of your choosing and focus as opposed to mental fuzziness that comes with a lack of time spent in deep concentration and study, and relive memories as if you were actually there, allowing you to clarify your intentions and desired outcomes to communicate your vision more congruently to others, which then combined with getting off your rear-end has the ability to create massive change in the world, nations, communities, families, and individuals themselves most importantly. I have high hopes, I've saved this page and will report and share my experience with you all

Peace Damien

@Damien: I am still extremely skeptical, because what you are saying is not what the program is claiming. The program appears to be claiming that one can read 100,000 words per minute, which is impossible as far as I can tell.

PLEASE DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT.

As mentioned previously by another, you will NOT get a full refund if you are not satisfied with the product.

I think that it's pretty clear that this product doesn't do what it claims. I strongly recommend not buying it.

When someone can prove, under controlled conditions, that they can read 25,000 to 100,000 words per minute with books upside down, and still understand the bulk of what they are reading, then we can have a serious discussion about it. Until there is proof, it should be considered a scam.

I highly respect Ramon Campayo, and this seems very similar to what he says about processing speeds. Humans take in 80,000 bits of sensory information a second.

There marketing choices seem to inspire controversy. Of course, a few weeks ago I thought mnemonics were not very effective. Will give it a shot and report back.

Thanks for creating this wonderful site.

I never get full refund too as the product doesn't work at all. SCAM! Stay away!

Josh Cohen, do you think we can get credit card company's help on this. Definitely want a full refund. The testimonial is fake... and Clickbank won't bother whether it is partial or full refund. I wish I came across this post earlier. How many people have been scammed by this scam artist???

@Jeff Thanks, I'm glad the site is useful! I don't think that the "80,000 figure" (if accurate) could be extended to "words read on a page and understood".

@Jane I don't know what you can do about that. If you believe that fraud has taken place, and you are in the US, the FTC has a hotline.

Unfortunately I'm not in the US, someone can report to them if you bought the product... do good for others as well if you do that. Stop them from selling the product!!!

I will see what the credit card company can do to get full refund. Hopefully it can be done.

The only reason he gave was I've time to go through the whole course so no full refund will be given! For crap product - won't do you any good even you've gone through the course a hundred times!!!

DON'T BUY ZOXPRO!

This is why i can't take people who don't do thorough research and make bogus claims about how it doesn't work and it is scam. First off, Jane if you wanted a full refund knowing that it didn't work for you then should've requested one before the 60 days or at the sixty days. Secondly, It's not about reading that fast with full retention. It is about storing the information to the subconscious mind and triggering back to the conscious mind by exercising the brain with all the techniques. Thirdly you don't have to give up reading at all because all the information you stored or when the pathway to the subconscious is open, you just simply use the recommended techniques to trigger stored information to the conscious mind. You need to commit to the thirty days to get use to it and a next 30 days to see improved results. The problem with this convo. Is that some of you are not working hard enough at it and then come on a website and discrediting its capacity to work for you. Furthermore you read all these so-called website and their negative opinions about the product without consulting with the owners themselves. Then you agreed with their bias opinions and miss the opportunity to accelerate your learning capabilities. Look I didn't mean to come off harsh but that the truth, ZOX DOES WORK OK. HENCE IF THE ZOX PRO SYSTEM WAS A SCAM THEN MANY PEOPLE WOULD HAVE SAID SO BY NOW AND THEY WOULD BE OUT OF BUSINESS. FURTHERMORE DR. SHANNON PANZO IS THE COORDINATOR AND DR. WELCH IS RETIRED. PEOPLE PLEASE FOR ONCE THINK FOR YOURSELF AND STOP LETTING OTHERS INFLUENCE YOU DAMN. P.S. MANY PEOPLE ARE TESTIFYING ABOUT THIS PRODUCT AND IT'S FAIRLY NEW ON THE MARKET. THANK AND GOODBYE.

@Derrick Garrett Jr: Are you affiliated with the company?

You wrote: "Secondly, It’s not about reading that fast with full retention."

Actually, the product does claim to increase reading speed while 'uploading' books into your brain. Here is exactly what it claims:

Achieve a MINIMUM SPEED of 25,000+ words per minute – over 100 times faster than the average level of reading. After all this time, we still haven’t found a top speed limit! Be able to ‘upload’ books into your long-term memory in a matter of minutes

According to the research I've seen, including NASA's, it is impossible to read 25,000+ words per minute. The claims that these products make are completely absurd. If you want to claim that it works, please link to the studies. So far, the study I've seen shows that these kinds of products don't work.

I’ve been trying this system for a while.

While yes, it does work somehow because after I mentally photograph I feel tingling and sort of scratching in my head (something is happening there in the brain area). And then again – The cons is - this stuff requires a lot of time. 10 books a day is AT LEAST 2 HOURS only to PHOTOGRAPH (despite all the other stages of ZOX’ing). And then – You have to devote another at the very least 60 minutes to speed read a book you photographed. All in all – It’s a lot of time and effort to put into. 3 Hours a day is the LEAST you MUST do to feel the system works in like 25 - 30 days. But I'm quite devoted to it and can't get the idea out of my head.

ON THE OTHER HAND – While doing Dictionary Drill I was successful and I could see clearly where the exact word that pops into my head is. (This also worked great when I visited Casino’s – I played Roulette and correct numbers that will roll in happened to pop into my head once I asked myself – what will be the number this time.) Then again – CONCIOUS mind is a very HUGE obstacle. (For example in Casino – Once you WIN you get all exciting – “Oh sh*t, this actually works” and then you’re out of ALPHA stage – so no more right answers for you till you calm down and concentrate again - ussualy it's hardly possible because of amazement).

So it’s tricky – BUT something’s happening and SOMETHING works. (Also everytime after photographing I can FIX an image I have seen recently in high detail for like 10 seconds.) (For example a face of another human I meet when passing by, all this is highly detailed - and also - I see everything in 180 degree vision - as opposed to tunnel vision).

However it works in the very specific way - You have to build a communication with it. For example at first you get one small word (In dictionary drill) and a place of it - it's just like a flashback and that's it. After a while you get more words coming out, more information - and after some time it's all out. And after some more training you are able to get a whole picture)

I would very much like to chat with anyone taken this training aswell.

10 books a day is AT LEAST 2 HOURS only to PHOTOGRAPH (despite all the other stages of ZOX’ing). And then – You have to devote another at the very least 60 minutes to speed read a book you photographed. All in all – It’s a lot of time and effort to put into. 3 Hours a day is the LEAST you MUST do to feel the system works in like 25 – 30 days.

How many books are you reading per week? What books have you read with this method?

BUT something’s happening and SOMETHING works.

It claims to let you read at least 25,000 words per minute with 77% comp., which is impossible. It looks like a scam to me.

Please read all the comments above.

Feel free to discuss it in the Zox Pro forum thread.

Here's what I'd discovered about photoreading ... there is no reading comprehension nor recall at those astronomical speeds. That's complete false advertising.

What I'd discovered, however, is that when I'm actually taking a course and I wanted to get more information about a particular area, I'd almost intuitively know, which book to look up, for that information. I believe that since I was photoreading many books on the subject matter in the library, part of my unconscious was indexing that information.

And thus, I see it as a research tool, not some super speed reading course. So if you diligently photoread, many texts and related materials on your subject matter, chances are, when you're taking it slow, studying that stuff for real as in a classroom setting, you'll have a better way of answering questions which come to mind.

I’d almost intuitively know, which book to look up, for that information.

How does it differ from skimming?

My take on skimming is that it's a jerky, start/stop process, where you're actively reading, as in the Mortimer Alder approach. Effective, but somewhat stress inducing when the material is too new.

Photoreading, however, is more a throwback to something like a Qigong or a mental yoga, where your attention is not so much on the material but on maintaining a type of state of mind. Perhaps it's an alpha-theta mix. So yes, it can be learned from a simple Qigong book and thus, no one needs to waste money on dubious seminars like photoreading. All photoreading does is replace the microcosmic orbit with something sophomoric like moving one's attention to a tangerine above and behind one's head.

In Qigong, ppl may develop that state by running his primary attention through the body's microcosmic orbit and developing a relaxed breathing style. Here's a reference and there's plenty of free material on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcosmic_orbit

And then, while maintaining this state, one can flip the pages of the book, keeping the focus on the breathing and sense of detachment from the material.

Afterwards, one can then read the table of contents and appendices slowly, also maintaining the Qigong state.

And finally, with the book put away, start to jot down points, which you feel may be of importance or whatever comes to mind, from what that experience was about.

And thus, if you practice the above on let's say the entire library set, related to the primary subject matter, when it comes time to skim for an actual research assignment, your recognition increases quite a bit. Also, when you hear something in class, you also start to want to read an outside reading, to get more depth, as something in the lecture, triggers an unconscious sense that that material was explored in one of the books in the library.

Afterwards, you can skim whatever you like, as it's not important to read the entire text of the alternate reading sets.

one can then read the table of contents and appendices slowly ...with the book put away, start to jot down points, which you feel may be of importance

I would include those things under skimming. Reading a general overview via the TOC and appendices, and then rephrasing the material in one's own words will increase recognition of the material when you encounter it again. Mind state helps, but that is not unique to photo reading...

Yes, IMHO, photoreading is a cheap attempt at mixing Qigong/eastern stuff, with western skim reading ideas w/o really delving into the true benefits of either of its preceding source materials.

I find this quite interesting, I've actually bought the course and have been doing it for the past 6 months and let me tell you, that it's not impossible. Well I'm not exactly scanning at 25000 wpm, I'm roughly at 10,000. And it's not exactly reading, you're not reading specific words or even a block of them, you're taking a snapshot of the page... Completely different task. That link you keep putting up, that's for focusing on a specific word or a block of them, hence speed reading, this isn't that. What I don't get, is that people are quick enough to call it a scam and then you find out that they haven't really entered into it wholeheartedly or gave up after a week. Lol but anyway, it takes a long time and the photoreading aspect does work.

I don't know the exact relationship between the products/systems, but please read this thread. NASA's 28-page report on the topic says that PhotoReading doesn't work. I'd be willing to change my opinion, but only after seeing PhotoReaders tested in careful experiments...

Guys I have some questions regarding mental photography. .anybody those who tried can u come 4 a chat?

If you have a question, you can ask it directly.

I have some questions regarding some techniques and Josh if u r using this product then come for a private chat..that would be better

Here is a related article about speed reading: The harsh Truth About Speed Reading.

@John: I haven't used the product. The best place to ask questions is in the forum.

hi, if zox pro has worked for someone ,please mail me .i have some questions. thank you

@dimond: If you want to ask questions, the forum is the best place for that. Please read this discussion.

one of my friends tried zox for 2weeks then he abandond it.after that he has a lot of distraction and his memory has been damaged and sometimes he sleepwalks.please tell me what should he do now?

I don't know the answer to that. For questions about neurological/medical conditions, I recommend contacting a medical professional like a doctor.

I've tried the program for 3 years and I can say it works, only on MENTAL CLARITY and NOT, MENTAL POWER.

I have the program (zox pro) and I´m trying it. I´ve tried it before but quit after a couple of days. It does take a lot of time, I try to put in 6 hours a day. 3 in the morning and 3 at night. I´ll see how long I can keep it going this time. If anyone has had any real success, please explain the process and time spend, as well as the kind of results gotten from this.

Thanks!

@Rolling You might want to read this and this as well as all of the comments above (on this page).