Memory: How to Develop, Train, and Use It

One of the most influential thinkers of ‘New Age’ philosophy promises in this book, to show the readers how to cultivate the memory in such a way as to improve one's entire life. With secrets hidden for almost a century, this book will teach you to train the eye as well as the ear to improve your ability to recall names, faces, numbers, music, facts, and much more.

Atkinson was a prolific writer, and his many books achieved wide circulation among New Thought devotees and occult practitioners. He published under several pen names, including Magus Incognito, Theodore Sheldon, Theron Q. Dumont, Swami Panchadasi, Yogi Ramacharaka, Swami Bhakta Vishita, and probably other names not identified at present. The works published under the name of William Walker Atkinson generally treat themes related to the mental world, occultism, divination, psychic reality, and mankind's nature. They constitute a basis for what Atkinson called ‘New Thought’. Due in part to Atkinson's intense personal secrecy and extensive use of pseudonyms, he is now largely forgotten, despite having obtained mention in past editions of Who's Who in America, Religious Leaders of America, and several similar publications—and having written more than 100 books in the last 30 years of his life. His works have remained in print more or less continuously since 1900.

Memory: How to Develop, Train, and Use It by William Walker Atkinson is a classic self-help and psychology book devoted to understanding memory and learning how to strengthen it through deliberate mental training. First published in the early twentieth century, with editions appearing in 1912 and 1919, the book contains twenty chapters and approaches memory not merely as the ability to recall names, dates, or facts, but as a fundamental part of thinking, learning, judgment, and everyday life. Atkinson's central message is reassuring: a weak memory should not necessarily be accepted as a permanent limitation. Memory, in his view, can be cultivated by improving attention, observation, association, and the quality of the impressions we make on the mind. Although some of his psychological explanations reflect the ideas of his era rather than modern neuroscience, the practical emphasis of the book remains accessible and surprisingly relevant to anyone interested in improving memory, concentration, learning, and mental discipline.

Atkinson begins by challenging the narrow idea that memory simply means having either a "good" or "bad" memory. He argues that memory is much more important because almost every form of intellectual activity depends upon the ability to retain and reproduce previous impressions. Knowledge, experience, judgment, planning, and even personal identity are connected with what the mind has retained from the past. Without memory, experiences would arrive and disappear without forming a useful body of knowledge. For Atkinson, memory is therefore not an isolated mental trick but one of the foundations of conscious life. He also connects memory with character because remembered experiences allow people to learn from previous successes and failures instead of constantly repeating the same mistakes. This opening argument gives the book a broader purpose: improving memory is ultimately a way of developing the mind itself.

An important distinction in the book is between memory, remembrance, and recollection. Atkinson draws upon earlier thinkers, particularly John Locke, to explain that memory involves the power to revive previous impressions, while remembrance may occur spontaneously and recollection involves a deliberate effort to bring something back into consciousness. This distinction is useful because it changes the way the reader thinks about forgetfulness. The problem is not always that information has disappeared. Sometimes the information was never properly impressed upon the mind in the first place; sometimes it has been stored but lacks an effective path of retrieval. Atkinson therefore proposes a natural sequence for memory development: first give attention to something worth remembering, then impress it clearly upon the mind, strengthen the impression through exercise, and finally learn how to recall it when needed.

From this point, the book turns toward cultivation. Atkinson repeatedly stresses that attention is the gateway to memory. People often complain that they cannot remember a person's name, a paragraph they have read, or an event they witnessed, but the real difficulty may have occurred at the moment of perception. If the mind was distracted, indifferent, or only half-conscious of what was happening, there may be no strong impression available for later recall. This is one of the most practical ideas in the book. Better memory begins not when we try to retrieve information but when we first encounter it. In modern terms, the book's advice resembles the idea that effective encoding requires focused attention rather than passive exposure.

Atkinson supports his argument by discussing remarkable examples of memory and people who appeared to possess extraordinary powers of retention. These celebrated cases serve an important psychological purpose: they encourage readers to stop assuming that memory has a fixed and narrowly defined capacity. The author is less interested in turning ordinary people into performers capable of memorizing hundreds of unrelated items than in demonstrating that mental abilities can be trained. His emphasis is on practical usefulness rather than spectacle. This distinction becomes particularly clear when he examines the many "memory systems" that had been marketed over the centuries.

The chapter on memory systems is one of the book's most interesting sections because Atkinson is surprisingly critical of artificial tricks. He discusses ancient mnemonic traditions associated with Simonides and the use of imagined places, objects, symbols, and associations to remember information. He acknowledges that association and visualization can be useful, but objects to complicated systems that turn memory into a collection of elaborate tricks. His criticism is that such methods may allow someone to perform impressive feats without actually strengthening the underlying natural powers of observation and recollection. Atkinson wants memory training to become part of ordinary mental life rather than an artificial performance designed to impress other people.

This leads to one of the book's most important principles: association is essential to memory. New information becomes easier to retain when it can be connected with something already familiar. A name becomes more memorable when it is connected with a person's appearance or circumstances; a fact becomes easier to recall when it is linked with related knowledge; a place becomes memorable when its features are consciously observed and connected with one another. Atkinson sees the mind as a network in which impressions become more accessible when they have meaningful relationships with other impressions. His approach is therefore less about mechanically repeating isolated information and more about creating mental connections.

The idea of the subconscious record also plays an important role in Atkinson's explanation. He believes that many impressions remain stored beneath the immediate level of consciousness even when we cannot consciously recall them at will. Something apparently forgotten may return later when an appropriate association or circumstance brings it back. This explains why a familiar smell can suddenly remind someone of childhood, or why a forgotten name may return when a related subject is mentioned. Atkinson encourages readers to trust that the mind may retain more than conscious awareness immediately reveals. His practical goal is to improve the organization and accessibility of those stored impressions.

The chapters on attention and association then provide the foundation for the more specialized memory exercises that follow. Attention is treated as an active faculty rather than something that simply happens to us. The reader is encouraged to deliberately notice details instead of looking without really seeing or listening without really hearing. This becomes particularly important in the chapters devoted to training the eye and the ear. Atkinson argues that better memory requires better observation, because the mind cannot retain details that it never properly noticed. Training observation therefore becomes a form of memory training.

The practical chapters make the book especially useful for readers searching for ways to remember names, faces, places, numbers, music, events, facts, words, books, plays, and stories. Atkinson does not treat all forms of information as identical. Different material may require different approaches, but the underlying principles remain attention, clear impressions, association, repetition, and deliberate recall. For names, the reader is encouraged to pay close attention when a person's name is introduced rather than allowing the introduction to pass unnoticed. Remembering faces similarly depends upon careful observation of distinctive features instead of relying on a vague overall impression. Remembering places involves consciously noticing and organizing the details of an environment.

Numbers present a different challenge because they often appear abstract and disconnected from meaning. Atkinson therefore discusses methods for giving numerical information stronger associations. His broader lesson is that abstract information becomes easier to remember when the mind can give it some structure or relationship. The same principle applies to music and occurrences: information becomes more memorable when it is actively observed, connected with context, and mentally revisited. The table of contents reflects how systematically Atkinson applies his ideas, moving from general memory principles into increasingly specific forms of recall.

The later chapters extend these methods to remembering facts, words, books, plays, and stories. Here Atkinson's approach moves beyond rote memorization and toward understanding. A story is easier to remember when its sequence, characters, events, and relationships are understood. A book is easier to retain when its central argument and structure are grasped rather than when individual sentences are mechanically memorized. Facts similarly become more useful when they are organized into a coherent framework. This makes the book particularly relevant to students, readers, professionals, speakers, and anyone who needs to retain substantial amounts of information.

The final chapter of general instructions brings the different strands of the book together. The reader is essentially asked to make memory improvement a regular mental habit. There is no single magical exercise that can replace consistent practice. Attention must become more deliberate, observation more careful, associations more meaningful, and recollection more active. Atkinson's philosophy is that the mind responds to intelligent use just as a physical faculty responds to exercise. Memory improvement is therefore presented as a gradual process rather than an overnight transformation.

One of the most appealing features of Memory: How to Develop, Train, and Use It is its confidence in human mental potential. Atkinson does not want readers to define themselves by phrases such as "I have a poor memory." Instead, he encourages them to examine how they are using their minds. Forgetfulness may sometimes arise from inattention, weak observation, lack of interest, poor association, or insufficient practice. This perspective shifts the problem from fixed personal deficiency to something that can be worked on.

At the same time, modern readers should approach the book with historical awareness. Atkinson's ideas belong to the New Thought and early popular psychology traditions of his period, and some of his explanations of the subconscious and memory should not be treated as equivalent to contemporary scientific psychology. The book is best appreciated as a historical self-improvement manual containing practical observations rather than as a modern scientific textbook on memory. Project Gutenberg classifies the work under psychology and identifies the 1919 edition, while noting that the text is in the public domain in the United States.

Overall, Memory: How to Develop, Train, and Use It is a practical and encouraging book about learning how to remember more effectively by first learning how to pay attention. Its deepest lesson is that memory does not begin with recall; it begins with perception. If we observe carelessly, we remember poorly. If we observe attentively, connect new ideas with existing knowledge, and deliberately practice recollection, the mind becomes better equipped to retain and retrieve what matters. Atkinson's approach may be over a century old, but its central advice remains easy to understand: take notice, create meaningful associations, exercise the mind, and make remembering an active part of everyday life. For readers interested in how to improve memory, memory training techniques, better concentration, remembering names and numbers, study skills, mental discipline, and classic self-help books, Atkinson's work offers a thoughtful historical introduction to the idea that memory is not merely something we possess—it is something we can consciously develop and use.