82-year-old memory master to coach students

Pioneer of the memory movement to hold seminars in Dubai, Sharjah

Most people use only a fraction of their mental capacity, but even a poor memory can be strengthened using special techniques, an 82-year-old memory improvement expert said.

Dr Francis Xavier, an Indian pioneer of the memory movement, also known as the father of the popular Memory Filing System (MFS), can register and repeat 100-digit numbers within 7 to 8 minutes. He also has more than 100 telephone numbers, 400 stories, the entire periodic table of atomic weights and several other things on quick recall.

He can also remember 2,200 years’ worth of calendar dates (AD1800-4000).

Dr Xavier said: “I was born with a very poor memory, something that people can inherit, but that didn’t stop me from developing it. I want to tell people that they can become memory masters by developing their ability to remember.”

Dr Xavier has authored 15 books and held seminars on memory improvement all over the world for 55 years.

He is making his debut in the UAE on March 31 at the Grand Excelsior Hotel in Dubai and on April 1 at Grand Excelsior Hotel in Sharjah to teach students how to boost their memory. The training programmes, to be conducted under the title ‘Ignite the spark of genius in your child’, are designed to make students “exam-ready masterminds”, he said.

The MFS technique can be used as a filing system, Dr Xavier said. “Unfortunately, in schools and colleges, they don’t teach techniques to memorise. Such a system can help students remember points and not the word by word recall from the textbook,” he said.