Updates: Added more pictures, edited and added links to the end, more scans forthcoming.

Etheric-Astral Mnemonics

“Be like hollow bamboo” – Tantric Song of Mahamudra

“I look back to times of antiquity where men composed books by putting knots in cords” – Mongolian proverb

My preface of sorts starts with an explaination of how I came to create this little system from scratch. It started when I came across a term “Memory palace” method associated with the Jeusuit priest Rici

This made my already dim view of Mnemonics even lower. However I was interested to read that there was an older more “traditional” method of use of Mnemonics in learning Chinese. Unfortunatly I have no need for Mnemonic memory devices for learning languages. However, I came across this term Memory palace.

After reading more on this concept, I struck me as being similar to something I had already known about. I realized that the “Journey method” of Mnemonics akin to the “Little system” of Astral projection written about in the book The art and practice of Astral Projection by Ophiel.

Considering this I realized that Mnemonics is an essential key to Etheric-astral projection and thus I propose a combination of the systems and methodologys into a more functional, rational and workable unit.

This also solved another

After reconsidering the mnemonic methods to memorize the order of 52 cards from Perfecting your card memory by Charles Edwards, I came across a bit more material than I did over 10 years ago when I came across the reference in a manual on card sharping.

Theory and methodology:

The good thing, at least for now is that this requires no money and you don’t have to buy anything that I am selling. This is not a pre-packaged memory system rehashing gimmicks or techniques already written in some other book, out of print no less.

You will have to do a fair amount of reading. And later on collecting the references and the basic items needed to work with the system yourself. Please don’t try and promote these ideas as “novel ideas” which means you haven’t actually internalized them yourself but are excited and willing to promote or tell them to others.

Please be prepared to read Section 1 of Ophiels The art and practice of Astral Projection. The instructions for this method begin actually at page (60). You can go ahead and look and jump forward to that section that starts with “HERE ARE YOUR FIRST INSTRUCTIONS AND DIRECTIONS” and read it to get an idea of what the “Little method” is and return here.

Go ahead and take a look and then come back here.

Shortly after I finished typing this the Silvercord domain expired so you’ll have to use the archive version here: http://web.archive.org/web/20100727032341/http://thesilvercord.com/hu/books/ophiel.html#sec1

So it helps to understand that mnemonics devices are actually non-local constructions of Etheric-astral matter. The method of associating these with locations in an actual location facilitates the projection of the etheric body and the astral eye observes the movement and position of the etheric body. If you transfer your consciousness to one of these vehicles you are essentially “there”. This is the basic concept of the method and also a watermark of skill with it. Anyone can learn Mnemonics but its much harder but more rational to actually realize that what you are creating is not an euphemerical thing but a construction of etheric-astral matter.

Therefore one must take the issue more seriously than simply forming pictures in ones head. What I have done is connect the “Little method” with the “Journey method” of Mnemonics.

Mnemonic devices are constructions on our “Visuo-spacial-sketch-pad”. Chinese just happens to use the Canonical word ordering of Subject-Verb-Object. This is the “proper” grammar of visuo-spacial devices because Objects in Space are the Objects-of-Action of a Subject or Person.

Projection occurs on all kinds of levels, what is lacking is usually consciousness at the location of projection. In other words Person Action Object. Person being the Vehicle and the Consciousness transferred to that vehicle. You are more than just a body as you will come to learn and the mind is not a container, and the mind is not part of the brain.

One of the issues of medieval philosophy is the proposition: Am I a nervous system without a mind or am I a mind without a nervous system. This is called the Psycho-physical problem. The psychologist deals with the model of the mind separate from a nervous system and a neurologist deals with a nervous system without a mind. You cannot be a fence sitter on this issue however Animism is the best solution.

This also is the method of movement in the astral or dream state. If you simply try to manipulate a dream like you do in reality, the dream will stop and you will wake up. It takes a long time, perhaps lifetimes to simply learn how to move differently than how you are accustomed in dreams.

Confucious said: “A man’s worth is determined by the order in which he prioritizes his sensory functions”. In other words: “Ethics orders perceptions”. Ethos the greek word meaning Habits, orders perception like how a sniper adjusts windage and elevation. We develop and learn good Habits in the spacio-temporal ordering by doing. Other longer term associations will come from using the method(s).

This will also lead to the proper means of constructing ideas and statements or grammar. Take for example Algebra, which is an Arabic word. Arabic is read from right to left. But an algebraic line is read from left to right. The eyes naturally scan from left to right.

When Chinese is written from up to down you read from right side to left side. As you go from the upper right to the left side. However characters are drawn from the Left to the right. In isolation they are read from the right to the left. But this is only a technical distinction. The radical is usually on the left hand side of the character, with some exceptions. Radicals are Iconic elements of Chinese characters.

This means they are self-referential. In other words, they get context from themselves not from you. True Chinese is anti-formalist in contrast to Korean Hangul or the Japanese “improvements” upon the “perfect” chinese system. The same can be said of simplified characters.

They are gimmicks at best but the real crime comes when the actually structure and quality of the minds of the people are altered. Hangul was “invented” by upper class twits that could not relate to the man-on-the-street. We can say that Hangul contains elements of a primitive Mnemonic system using the position of the mouth and tongue to indicate how the character is drawn.

Something that needs to be said about Short term memory and Long term memory. Short term does not mean short term it means that you have to dig down to get the information. Long term memorys are actually chemically encoded into the DNA vis a vis the RNA in the cerebellum. They lie on the surface.

I’ve heard people say such things as: “I forgot how to speak English” or “I lost my Chinese”. This is not possible if they were ever “yours” in the first place.

There is a “logical” progression from a mere Mnemonic system to Etehric-astral projection. The Visio-spacial constructs would be non-local eg. Chinese room -Chinese box. They don’t exist “inside the head” so to speak. When “mapped” to a known structure or building, essentially you are projecting them “outside” the head, not using the visual cortex. Illustrating the difference between pretention and intention.

Inside the head may exist in a reigon in the mind ie. Phase space, but most likely that is still a mental representation of an external space. Which is why in feng shui we say that the internal qi environment matches the external qi environment. You build the blueprint and floorplan first, then ignore the creation of the actual structure. If you make a model, most likely what would happen is that model, say a dollhouse would simply become a mini, rather than meta or macro “Memory palace”.

For the record, I don’t agree with using Mnemonics to learn traditional Chinese characters. There is a different approach to be used here. First in the tradition of the Major system of Mnemonics, instead of the Chinese numbers, you must use the Sanskrit numbers 1 through 9 to associate them to the phonetic sounds of the initials and finals of Mandarin in row and column form.

I have a screenshot of a chart at the end of this document following the scans of the two index cards for the deck of cards I suggest using for ones Journey method of Mnemonics.

[mouth and tongue]

The mnemonic major system exploits an obvious but useless novelty that consonants or finals can be grouped according to the similar positon of mouth and tongue. If this reminds you of Hangul than you get a bronze extrapolation award. I think a large hint here is my discovery from studying the Japanese version of the Homa ritual, is the Tantric alphabet influenced the writing of Korean, Japanese and other cultures such as Thai and Indonesia.

All interstingly cultures that in one way or form reject the world view of the Chinese. You will find various knee-in-jerk cultural and conceptual objects to Mnemonic … Case in point…

An icon is a container. For example the radical of Wood contains hundreds of thousands of characters that are no longer in use today. Technology is only our present understanding of things and that is constantly being changed and updated from moment to moment.

[skill sets]

For those outside the subject matter the means to count in chinese follows a Base 2 or Base 10 or progressively to a Base 60 convention. In other words, learn how to use an abacus or Lets learn how to count in Chinese.

How ironic, notice the skill set you need are anything that anyone in china 3,000 year ago would have had. To use an abacus, to read and write in Chinese and to gamble. I cant wait till I have children of my own.

Something must be said here for the convention of counting in chinese. If your not up on Base 2, Base 10 or Base 60 conventions just understand that you don’t say “thirteen” in Chinese (a lucky number I might add) you say: “103” or One, Ten, Three.

Something must be said here about the Decimal. A decimal can be seen as a small Zero. Zero means nothing. Zero in Chinese is Ling. It’s a pictogram of a cloud. Zero is space.

So it makes more sense when a single Chinese coin is (1) and Strings represent (100) literally 100s of 1s. And (1000) is 100s of 10s. Ten-thousand is 10s of 1,000s.

1, 10, 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 represents denomination not the denominator. Understand the difference beween Cardinal, Ordinal, Nominal and Serial.

Numbers can be used as Nominals or for Measure. Which is why I say to use the Sanskrit numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 0 to represent anything in writing concerning Mnemonics unless you want to spend an entire chapter trying to get people to understand the difference between Base 2, Base 10 and Base 60 conventions. And while your at it teach them to use an abacus and compose books by making tiny knots in strings. Have fun!

I mentioned earlier my research into the origins of playing cards. It’s a perfectly reasonable proposition to consider where something originated from and if this can be drawn to a culture that wrote in a dead

language and this can be found in canon somewhere outside of the modern trends and interpretations and bias of a specific individual.

What I found recently was interesting. The pentacles in tarot is based on a Chinese hole coin. For the record a pentagram and hexagram are “two sides of the same coin” used for different purposes. I wont go into that here.

The staff is based on a string of these Chinese hole coins hence the name Strings. Obviously a coin sword is where sword came from. Which are Chinese hole coins held together with strings. Also the knots on the strings also hold some significance.

Which is why Chinese was originally supposed to be written vertically like Mongolian script. So it seems reasonable to associate the coin sword with Cups because the western eye somehow turned the Chinese character for 1,000 upside down and viewed it as a cup.

Bamboo can certainly replace Strings as a model. That’s what it is, its not a metaphor or analogy its a model. The specific shape of cylinder is what is important here. It can be a Bamboo chime or a Metal chime. Keep in mind that swapping a metal chime cure with a wood chime cure (east in west, west in east) classically has been shown to cause apparitions to appear. Do not be too concerned with this since this is essentially what you want to facilitate by using the String or Bamboo cure in your Journey method.

Taking a glance at page 75 Ophiel says that many ghosts are simply etheric projections. Etheric and Astral are just different ways of saying Hun and Po.

In contrast to the Roman room method, the importance of the use of playing cards has to be emphasized even more. The mechanisms of splitting and cutting are brought into play as playing cards are shuffled, cut and stacked and when used in divination they are layed out in rows and columns.

This is actually an important point to make about the difference between the alphabet soup western rote learning method and my Etheric-astral mnemonic device.

Its much like “losing” your car keys. They aren’t really lost they are just somewhere in your house.

“The journey is not the destination” The start of the journey begins by sorting and ordering our indexed brains.

I’ll finish up with the heavyer stuff.

Meaning of the Chinese hole coin and its relevance to Mnemonic device:

The term Pentacle and Chinese hole coin are essentially interchangeable. However some explaination is in order for this. A pentacle is classically represented by a coin with a pentagram on it. The planet venus has a unicursal orbit which tends to form this star pattern.

However, contemplation of geometric shapes gives us intuition of Universal space. The star is the only shape not represented in nature. This concept is carried over to Luna or the moon. So how do we go from the Sigil of Saturn, the Unicursal orbit of Venus, and the Body of the moon?

Geeze do I really need to go into all that. I’ll try not to. The sigil of Saturn when drawn represents the encompassing of Mars as movement and energy. Imagine here a genie trapped in a clay bottle with a stopper. Saturn is the clay pot. Mars occupys the #5 position with Venus. Venus unifys, Mars seperates.

I take issue with this because a lot of people seem to use diagrams and symbols which they don’t fully understand. The sigil of Saturn is not a one dimentional shape. You would have to have three different Heluo set up like three dimentional chess and plot the lines according to different positions, mainly in the corners of the sigil of Saturn.

The only center position is #5 at the center of the middle Heluo. If you look at the flying stars diagram it is quite obvious how it pops out at you in three dimensions. A yantra is a “thought projection” of 4 dimentions rendered in 2 dimentions on a one dimentional surface. You have to ignore the limitations of the medium, the flat surface.

The most important point here is just that the exit-point in the #5 section. Now this is a complex way of illustrating the limitations of the Pentagram. The pentagram is used for banishing. The eastern hexagram is used for collecting. Specifically the one I have drawn below. Not only have I drawn it, I have taken liberty to put the equasion for calculating the area.

This may be your first exercise in Mnemonic devices. And the transpositional concept of a Symbolic system of logic. For the concrete proposition translates or transposes to the abstract, the shape I have drawn below. Please note that it is not to scale. This is one of the important points. If you created a Mnemonic device, a slide rule to so speak. You can always take this construction and place it somewhere.

Read further on in Ophiels books to get hints on what I will eventually instruct. Do not use pentagrams in the directions use the symbol I have created to “collect” and guide the energy from these directions towards “the center”. (look for future revisions for clarification of this)

You always want to create your Hexagon from only triangles (Saturn’s natural shape) so you want to use the length of one side.

This would be ideally placed over the abdomen with the yellow dot being the navel. The sternum and pubic bone just at the top and the bottom of the outermost octagon.This allows one to collect

enviormental energy and bring it into the microcosmic orbit. This is an indispensible tool to treat “morbid qi”. As you can see going from the innermost octagon we have (1). The next we have (3) and the outermost we have (6). We also have a point in the middle. Which would be (M).

136.1, the synodic earth year.

So understand the importance of constructing your collection hexagram correctly with this ratio because of its significance to the Synodic earth node. But it could be shrunk to any size retaining its association to the concrete proposition of what it represents. If you had a true master. This should have been one of your first Mnemonic constructions using the occult sciences.

So I have taken liberty to explain something that has never been dealt with ever before in any language in this manner quite this way.

“The circle with the one inch square is found here” –上清黄庭内景经 Ch7. Attaining the Tao

‘ means NOT. The area outside the diagram in the hole of the coin is “Not universe”. The area in the coin, is U or Universe or Universe of discourse. This is not a quantum universe per se. This is not a logical universe or a mathematical universe it is a rational universe at least.

Remember this is an Etheric-astral projection method using constructions of Etheric-astral matter. The astral body or the lower self is concerned with things as survival, and is computational. “You” do not do math, a part of you does math. This is not the part of you that is connected to your higher nature. We simply do not use computations or irrational numbers or equasions in a Mnemonic and or a Symbolic system?

Because they do not belong there. I find it endlessly amusing the proposition of many physicists that claim to be able to tell us the composition of the atmosphere on Saturn with mathematical sequences they probably feel only they understand. How do they know? Did they travel there? Well lets get them some credit. They are just poorly trained and deviated. They most likely like a real world Dr. Doom able to project their astral vehicle to other dimensions to gather information.

And bring it back to interpret into mathematical equasions in a so called Universal language. Why do I care? That is all you can do with your astral body? The limits of your understanding of higher space is rendering dimensions as orders? Submiting this as proof

This an analogy or metaphor, this is a human construct. The U in the hole of the coin is found in both the inner (M) and outer (M’) reigon of the diagram. Because the “hole” in the coin represents A universe. A universe not the universe. Uni means one. We have many universes and we can stack them one upon the other. This is why the Chinese coin is used to represent “Heaven and Earth”.

I know what some people are thinking. What is outside the coin? Another universe perhaps? Space. Space inside another universe? Space inside a domain that has in its reigon a coin with a hole in it? The basic reason for this is simple. The complex answer I would like you to take to a professor or expert to explain it to you. Unless he looks like smoke is coming out of his ears after reading this document.

If so then I’ve done my part. Seriously, the basic reasoning is this. Let us imagine that U is a 3x5 card not a hole in a coin. Generally Venn diagrams tend to be rectangular not square. Then again, this is not a flawed Venn diagram or other variation. This is a tri-literal diagram that has all reigons closed off.

Heaven to the Chinese is white. Earth is black. I wont go into all the reasons for this just accept that this is how things are in this model. That is what this is. A model. If you were to glue a white card onto a black wall what would you have? You would have a white U on a black wall U’. Try forming a set from a BIG black wall (or the expanse of space) and a SMALL white card. This in itself is a set with its own flaws like the Venn diagram.

If you try to represent Negation by coloring the entire card black, you are only coloring this universe black. A black card on a black wall certainly is negation. But the white card represents Tautology, and you cant have a white Tautology universe in a black expanse of space. Even if space looks quite black, this is not how our mind space works.

So our BIG “not universe” is white and our SMALL card is white. This is the natural order of things. Tautology, the white heaven and white card simply exist. This is the nature of how things are without interpretation. Thus, Tautology. We cannot represent true negation by simply coloring the card black that is a COP OUT. And your ordinary mathematicians may not be up on the “occult” reasons for why we are making an important issue of this.

Just accept that Heaven is white, the coin, and Earth is the hole in the coin. In a preheaven universe earth is black. In the postheaven universe earth is yellow. There, I have already explained another distinction. The M reigon in the coin should be colored yellow. Because it is the INNER reigon of this diagram that does not exist in a Venn diagram or other types of diagrams.

The inner reigon here is defined just as it is defined in SOME bagua maps. Is the Bagua map “confusing”? Calling something stupid or nonsense or illogical or crazy or superstition does not change its truth. We are seeking intellectual honesty at least. Which is too much to be expected from some people. There is a term “yellow brain” that comes to mind when I think of this. To the Chinese yellow is always in the middle. The so-called yin and yang symbol is also likewise flawed (but let us consider that the two dots are Sirus A and Sirus B). It is the Chinese version of a Venn diagram. But the S between black and white is known as the “Yellow dragon”.

Yellow is always neutral. It is not positive or negative. The depth point of something is always this “Yellow” which is the color of earth. Hence, “The earth is the center of the universe”. This small universe, earth is yellow and the center. The square and the cube in higher dimensions represents perfected man.

These are profound metaphysical and occult truths. They are not meant to apply to the “big universe”, the space outside the coin so to speak. The “negative space” is not like in a Venn diagram. Negative space is like carbon paper that “prints” in a “negative space” behind the diagram. The hole in the coin essentially represents this “negative space”.

Interestingly enough in Venn diagrams, red is used rather than black for representing compliments and or negations. Which may bring new insight into the Preheaven-Postheaven difference between Earth: Black and South: Red.

“An elixir of 36 Ophiuchi has the capacity to bring some awareness into a person of perfection of placement, beauty, the nature of the underlying energies associated with feng shui principles.”

Confucious said: “In the beginning was heaven and heaven made earth and in between was birthed the medium”. The medium generally is the creation or creativity that exists within some limitation. This limitation is defined by “brackets” of heaven and earth. The air inside a soap bubble is the same as the air outside but it is defined by the membrane it is encapsulated.

Before heaven made man heaven first made the atmosphere “the medium” for him to thrive. Our minds existed first before our bodies (Sattva guna) and this illustrates the inner universe versus the outer universe principle. Creation must exist within a limitation, a framework.

The reason for this is because a universe to man is where he can live and man requires an atmosphere or medium between heaven and earth. This is a symbolic logic type of universe not the universe of physics or astronomy. Or limitless imagination of the ephermerical Buddhist or the Illusory body or any other Suchness. Uni quite simply means ONE and man certainly qualifies as a universe in and of himself.

This universe (of discourse) represents a space that is bracketed or compartmentalized from the space outside it. In Pythagorean theorm, a point extended becomes a line, this line turns at right angles and all further unextended angles are extended forming a cube. Which is as far as you can extend in space.

This is a theoretical given of geometry, but has anyone ever made known to you what this space is that all this extension is happening in? This space is outside the universe, the hole in the coin and outside the coin and outside the room you are in now, and outside the atmosphere of the planet earth and so on.

Introducing the concept of Universes within Universes. So we have reached the point in the exposition where we introduce Strings or stacks of individual coins from where Knaves or Staves were derived from in Tarot. Strings or Bamboo’s are Columnar constructions of individual universes or simply containers ie. Hollow bamboo where we can store things.

I really don’t have to spend as much time on these other elements the “three suits” because the foundational principle is at least touched upon by explaining the Chinese or should I say the Eastern or Dualistic-realist universe.

“Midway between the heart psychic-center and that of the throat, in a space about four inches long, a tube-like psychic-organ is said to exist. If the vital force be quiescent within it, sleep ensues; and if the vital-force be in motion within it, dreamsoccur.” –The yoga of six doctrines

This is a hint at the structure of a hollow cylinder bears some importance here and I just tied it all together with this Mnemonic system which integrates with Etheric-astral projection. You can thank me later. No applause just throw money.

Now Ophiel is not around anymore and I am not aware that he wrote any more books talking about the symbols to use in the Journey phase of the instructions of the “Little system”. I have done the work also for you in that regard.

To summarize we will use three traditional symbols or tropes as anchors for our “Journey method” of Mnemonics and Etheric-astral projection. You can use other targets as you so desire. Its best to stick within a structured “Universal” schema. Such as the bagua map. Or should I say *A* bagua map.

Givens have to be made-known. I have pretty much done most of the work for you. There is actually a lot of development that has to go on here. This is like a HTML for dummys book. You still need something to design and you have to do the coding, have a server, have a domain, ect.

The beauty of a universal schema is that most of it will be unconscious. Lasting associations will occur as you simply use the system. It is a function of experience.

[reorder]

So next we move to Swords which differ from Strings because the coins are flat.

To summarize, you will use feng shui cures as points in the “Little system” of projection and you will use these locations in your “Journeys” integrating a simple mental paint-by-numbers into a true metaphysical system that leads to exploration and experience of the world outside the body and nervous system and emotions as physiology associated with theoretical theorys and medical theorys based on equivalent protocols.

The feng shui cures of bamboo chimes, metal chimes, coin swords and coins along with colors, scents, and positions in a known room or structure will be the basis for your personal “Journey method”. Or you can simply store your mental constructs in a bamboo stem and label them according to a prescribed convention.

I have left a lot of between-the-lines as a test for the next generation of prodigys that will arise from this method. There are a lot of exciting developments that can come from this. Lastly but not leastly…

The cards:

I will not spend a lot of time on the issue of cards. They can and will be used by you with the methods for various reasons. You could even use a deck of ordinary playing cards and or tarot cards of different systems and place them in locations as targets. The test will be to memorize a string of 52 cards shuffled

in any order. This will be easyer since each card has a different face, you can very well forget the numbers and suits as they appear to have no relevance to the characters on the cards.

This will change however as I have other theorys as well as other modifications to Ophiels astral projection methods.

In the book Perfecting your card memory by Charles Edwards, he teaches a method to use Mnemonic devices memorize any order of shuffled playing cards. His method assigns characters to the cards associated with the suit and number of the card. For example, ignoring the vowels, aCe of Diamonds adding the vowel O becomes “DOC”. Two’s use T, three’s use R, four uses F, Five uses V and so on. I will scan his charts at the end of the book to give an example for people to see visually what I am talking about. His system is not too important here anyways.

I propose propose an alternate method using the Water margin playing cards which has two decks of 52 cards, each has a picture of a character from the water margin plus 2 "jokers" each that makes 108 cards in total. For the hideouts or pigeon holes we cannot use Chinese provinces because there are not enough. So I have also given you food for thought by using a specific augry diagram from an unmentioned book.

The diagram is a 3x3 grid first divided into only four sections that are divided into 3x3 grids. There are 32 radians associated with this chart. The “pigeon holes” inside the diagram can be filled with cards leaving the center most square empty as convention requires. There is much to be suggested here.

I like the 3x3 grid divided into 3x3 because this gives us 81. If you add 9 more levels you have a

To save space, I have scanned the index for the two sets of decks at the end of this document. Anyone that can read and write Chinese can quickly take two different decks of cards (different color backing is a good idea) and write the appropriate characters listed in the rows on the cards, which is ironic because you would be using mnemonics to associate the written notation to the appropriate character from the Water margin.

This is just a “rough draft” if you will to spark interest. But I will give a few hints on how this deck of playing cards will help with Mnemonic devices and “Journeys”. In a conventional system to memorize a deck of playing cards in any order (or to call out a missing card) you have to use some ad hoc trick to place an image with a suit and number. Here the work is done for you with the images on the cards.

My system is easyer than any of the other methods, provided you know the characters from the water margin and can already read and speak Chinese at least to some degree. This will be easyer for some to start over with another dialect. Or learning formally the written word order and grammar of Mandarin Chinese for speakers of other dialects.

Its not as hard as it seems or looks in fact its quite easy. If you think Chinese is hard, your plain stupid or foolish.

As to the hideouts or pidgeon holes consider that if you assign 36 to the outside radius of the below diagram, and divide the 3x3 into further 3x3 sections, for a total of 81 and remove the center “pot” you have 72 hide-outs or pidgeon holes for a total of 104 leaving only the four “jokers” of each deck that’s 108.

Also consider if you were to arbitrarily assign 300 chinese characters to three different copys of the diagram you would have ¾ of the bulk of all written materials in Chinese spanning over 5,000+ years. If you were use use the jokers put aside to mentally visualize which chart you are using the first, second, third or fourth set of 104 characters, with a joker in the middle of each one you could remember 104 x 4 for 416 chinese characters assigned in order of frequency and usage and have over ¾ of all characters memorized in a fixed sequence without little effort.

Index 1 and 2 of the Water Margin Playing Card deck:

This draft will be updated periodically. I will add some more pictures and graphs. A link to the scans of all the water margin playing cards can be found here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/114411749809002189504/Jun282012?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Supporting links:

http://www.ludism.org/mentat/PlayingCardSystems