Is There Really A Phenomenal Memory Scam? Or Is It All That It Claims To Be?

Some people think that Phenomenal Memory really is a scam. Others don’t quite trust it because they don’t believe the truth that Phenomenal Memory boasts it has. As a graduated student of the School of Phenomenal Memory, I can attest to the power that is within the course.

While Phenomenal Memory does look pretty scammy, and what they claim you can do seems unbelievable, there is an untapped power within your brain that has yet to be explored. So join me, as I explore the School of Phenomenal Memory, and how the company works.


Company: The School Of Phenomenal Memory (Pmemory)

Creators: Ruslan Mescerjakov

Description: A memorization course that uses visualization to be able to remember nearly anything you need to.

Price: $397

Recommended? Yes

Rating: 7 out of 10


Phenomenal Memory, known as Pmemory to the who have gone through it, is a 60 lesson course that teaches you the fundamentals to memorize anything, even, as their website claims, entire books.

In Russia, there is a guy known as Vladimir Kozarenko. He is well-known for making a system of memorization, and writing several books on memory. According to Pmemory, he’s a highly sought after lecturer and speaker over in that country.

Kozarenko created a memorization system called the Giordano Memorization System (GMS). A man by the name Ruslan Mescerjakov went through it (in Russian), and was so impressed with it, he created the course in English, for English-speaking people to take a part of.

The Giordano Memorization System uses images and visualization to help you memorize anything you need to.

How GMS Works

Pretend you want to memorize a list of something, like a shopping list, or a list of exotic animals. To memorize the list, you could memorize it with rote memorization – that is the process of saying it over and over again, to make sure it sticks with you.

GMS works a little differently. Instead of using rote memorization, they use the process of association, as well as visualization, to memorize something.

For example, pretend you need to memorize the following:

Apples, Cocoa Powder, Plastic Plates, Coffee, Noodles, Yogurt, Meat, Eggs.

Because it’s a short list, you could easily memorize it with rote memorization. But what if you memorize it by associating each thing with a certain image, and memorized it by visualizing that image in your mind?

It’s with these basic principles that The School of Phenomenal Memory is founded on. To get a better idea, and several exercises worth trying, take a look at their introductory lesson, which explains in more detail how to memorize through visualization.

The Pmemory Course

The course is broken up into 5 sub courses, where you’ll learn how to memorize various random facts, from phone numbers to important dates in history.

You’ll learn how to store information using the chain method, the Cicero method, and even the FAT (Free Association Technique) method. You’ll even learn how to make a strategy to memorize a book, from memorizing just the table of contents, to memorizing the entirety of the book in question.

When you start the course, the creators tell you to plan to do a lesson in about 2 hours. Some people take a little more, and some less.

The reason it’s so long (2 hours per lesson), is because you’re training your mind to start thinking differently, and because as you train for extended periods, you’ll start to be able to use that in day-to-day things, like memorize a 2-hour lecture that you’re a part of.

With 60 lessons to get through, this course isn’t for the squimishy of heart. Some have completed the course in 60 days, while most take around 3-4 months to finish the course.

Course 1 – Basic Training

The first course is 12 lessons long. In this course, you begin to lay the foundation of what GMS was founded on. You’ll learn to memorize large amounts of data, up to 100 elements in just one exercise. You’ll learn how to properly use various techniques, and practice a lot with your visualization, in order to clearly see all that you’re memorizing.

Many can get caught up with the first course, because they don’t see any correlation with what their memorizing and how to apply it to everyday life. But, in reality, the first course is teaching you how to memorize, so that, when you progress further, you won’t be confused when you’re taught what to memorize.

It’s like learning an instrument. You’ll start out learning a lot about the technique of playing the piano, like, for example, where to place your hands, how to keep your fingers curled, etc. If you follow the technique, you’ll do so much better when you actually go to play a certain song on the piano.

Course 2 – First Database

In the second course is when you finally put your techniques to use. Over the span of some 12 lessons, you’ll learn to take information, and store it in a database that you can easily search through within your mind. The process is fairly simple.

As you progress through these lessons, you’ll learn the steps of reviewing the material that you’ve memorized, as well as memorize some 125 pieces of information (all of which, you’ll keep in the first database that you’ve made).

At the end of the second course there is a simple little test, where they’ll ask you to recite certain parts of your database, in order to make sure you’ve actually been doing the work, as well as showing you just how easy it is to search through your database.

Course 3 – Foreign Languages

In course 3, they dedicate 11 lessons just for you to learn how to properly memorize foreign languages. The lessons themselves have examples from Russian words and phrases.

The great thing about the course is that if you’re interested in learning a different language, it is easy enough to learn how to memorize a foreign language, and apply it to your specific language. In these 11 lessons, they teach:

  • – Learning the pronunciation of words

  • – How to memorize groups of words

  • – Memorization of study texts

  • – How to memorize structural models

  • – Memorize grammar rules, the gender of nouns, adjectives.

  • – How to memorize verb tenses

  • – Memorizing dialogs

  • – How to study with audio books

Course 4 – Books and Complicated Texts

Course 4 is where many people are interested in getting to. In this course of 16 lessons, you’ll learn the art of memorize entire books, and well as seeing how easy it is to memorize lectures, and even recite lectures and speeches, all from memory.

You’ll learn how to take apart books, so that you can memorize them more efficiently, as well as how to use various methods of memorization together, so that you can quickly and easily memorize those books.

It should be said that it’s not a complete memorization. While you can memorize the books word-for-word, that takes a lot of effort, and a lot of planning.

The memorization you’ll mostly be doing, is taking the phrases in the books, putting them in your own words, and memorizing them that way. While it will result in slightly different wording/phrasing on your end, you’ll achieve the same idea as what the book was trying to convey.

Course 5 – Codes and Passwords

Have you ever wanted to be able to memorize your credit card info, or all the phone numbers of you family members? Have you wanted to be able to remember the serial numbers of a particular product that you’re trying to fix?

If so, then this course is just for you. In it you’ll learn how to memorize and remember long passwords, so that you can keep your accounts safe. You’ll also learn how to remember bank info, pins, and any other number-type-thing you want to memorize.

In this course, they’ll also teach you how to make strong passwords, how to remember zip codes and where people live, as well as fax numbers, and email addresses.

Thoughts From A Graduated Student

I graduated the School of Phenomenal Memory about a two or so years ago. I had learned of Pmemory a long while back, and was interested in it, but never had the courage to actually purchase the course.

There were several reasons I didn’t purchase the course before I did:

  1. How The Site Looked Like A Scam. When someone starts boasting of things that seem too good to be true, then it’s probably is too good to be true. And so when you read of being able to memorize faster, with less effort, and memorize entire books, you start to really wonder whether it’s true.
  2. It Requires A lot Of Time. With having to spend at least 2 hours on each lesson, and with there being 60 lessons in it, that’s over 120 hours that you have to dedicate to this course. I had to make sure I had enough time to devote to this type of study so that I would truly get phenomenal memory.
  3. It’s not Cheap. The course costs nearly $400 (without any discounts), so I had to make sure I had the extra money to pay for this course before I actually bought it.

Pmemory Kept Calling

Every so often I would remember Pmemory, go to its website, and read everything they had for free. I would watch the video’s and hear the testimonials from all the previous graduates. And I was hooked.

I felt as though I just had to know whether Pmemory was really all that it claimed to be. With all the various studying that I had done, and would have to do in the future, I finally decided to take the plunge and enroll in the course.

Find Ways To Save Your Pennies

They have a 10% discount for students, as well as a coupon code 90days, that can help you get the course for a cheaper amount. Using the coupon code allows you to get half of your money back only if you complete the course within 90 days, and send in a testimonial as well.

Using those two codes helped bring the costs down significantly. It also made me have to get through the course within 90 days, so that I would get my money back. And that’s what I did.

Starting The Course

As I started the course, I noticed how much effort I had to put into it to achieve the success that they wanted you to achieve. Sometimes I had to work on one lesson for 3-4 hours, making sure I memorized everything right and got the exercises perfect.

As you start, you begin to learn the basics of how to memorize in images and visualization. And it’s not easy.

If you’re not a visual person, you learn to tap into that part of you that is under-developed. Everyone can visualize, it’s just a matter of practicing.

Something they start teaching you immediately is how to memorize numbers, and other characters that you may need to memorize. You memorize all these by using something called FC’s (Figurative Codes). A FC is just an image that you choose to remember for a certain number.

For example, the image of a nose is the FC for the number 1. That way, whenever you have to memorize the number 1, you can easily visualize a nose, and you’ll be able to remember the number 1.

You may be asking, why not just memorize the 1 and remember it?

You could, if 1 was the only number that you have to memorize. But when you have to memorize a string of numbers, say, 135465723481879, remembering something that long isn’t easy. That’s why they teach you FCs, so that you can quickly memorize a long string of digits.

Progressing Quickly

With only 90 days to be able to get the course done, I went through the course almost as quickly as possible. The course requires that you do a maximum of one lesson a day, or a minimum of three lessons a week. I probably did close to 6 a week for many of the weeks.

As I progressed through the second course, I noticed how I could memorize things a little quicker now, and be able to remember if I remembered them, and know where to go to find what I memorized.

There are many times where you’ll memorize something, usually with rote memorization, and either forget how it starts, or forget that you’ve memorized it.

With Pmemory, and GMS, it teaches you how to memorize things to certain images, so that you’ll know that if you go to that certain image, you’ll find what you’ve memorized. While it sounds complicated, it’s pretty easy to understand once you’ve learned it.

It’s sort of like Pmemory teaches you to make a mental bookshelf within your mind, so that when you memorize your long strings of information, or those books, you’ll be able to stick them on that bookshelf, so that you know where to find them when you need them.

Of course, not everything in the course was as well put out as it could be.

The Downsides To A Text-based Course

Because of the course being nearly entirely text-based, when you get to the third course, the foreign language course, you can have a hard time.

I struggle with pronouncing foreign words, and so I had to find someone else to pronounce the words that I was memorizing, usually online somewhere, so that I made sure I memorized those words correctly.

I would spend nearly 3-4 hours trying to get through the lessons, finding pronunciations, clips, and other things to help me along. In the end, I had to skip around with the third course, because of how much time I had to spend for each lesson.

It would have been helpful if the course had in some way audio components, so that all these foreign words weren’t as hard to master.

On the flip side, this third course did help me get a better understanding of how to memorize phrases and words that were new to me. It also gave me some crazy ideas to try in the future, if I ever have time to try.

Learn To Memorize Entire Books

With the fourth course upon me, I tore into it rapidly, and found out that it’s not as easy as it seems. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s not challenging, but it can be hard. Especially if you don’t make sure to apply GMS to your every day-to-day life.

They teach you how to memorize books that you understand, books that you don’t understand, and books that you have no clue what their talking about (like a medical book, or phycology manual).

You learn how to incorporate several different memorization methods, and overlay them to get a book memorized.

Like noted before, when you memorize with GMS, taking what you’ve learned, putting it into your own words, and then memorizing it. So while you are memorizing books, you’re not memorizing them word-for-word.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t memorize books word-for-word with GMS. It will just take a little longer, and you’ll have to use a lot more images to get the job done.

Finishing The Course

Going through the fifth course was pretty much a breeze as they had you memorize random digits, email accounts, and bank info. If you applied yourself thus far within the course, then these lessons really aren’t that hard.

But they do teach you good concepts on how to memorize you information, like phone numbers and addresses.

Finishing the Pmemory course is an achievement within itself. Many people don’t make it through the entire course. Some don’t even make it to the 24th lesson!

So it truly is an honor to be able to have completed this course. It has changed how I view memorization, and how I’m able to memorize complex things, as well as day-to-day information.

Do I have Phenomenal Memory?

I the question that does need to be asked is, do I have phenomenal memory? And the answer would have to be, sadly, no. But there are good reasons for why I don’t.

Pmemory teaches you how to memorize differently, remember differently, and even, think differently. GMS is a way of life, not a way to memorize. You have to apply it daily, and use it as often as you can, so that it will become automatic. When you do, then you will truly have phenomenal memory.

It’s like going to the gym. If you don’t regularly go to the gym, lift weights, and exercise, you won’t get into shape. On top of that, it takes time to get into the shape that you want to be in.

The same is for Pmemory.

Making sure you use it on a regular basis, and keep training with it is what you need to do to succeed. Unfortunately, I didn’t do that.

While I had many ideas, I never took those ideas and made the realities. I made plans to memorize certain foreign languages, and build databases to hold family members information. But time got away from me, and I never found it again to do what I wanted.

Phenomenal memory is achievable. It just requires training, time, and commitment to see it all the way through, no matter the cost.

Is Pmemory A Scam?

No, Pmemory is no scam. I’ve been through it, and see it’s potential. I’ve met and know of guys who have gone farther than me with Pmemory, and have done some crazy things with it. It’s a memory training program that I definitely recommend if you are interested in teaching yourself to learn a different way.

There is a well-known Swedish man named Mathias Ribbing. He actually used Pmemory to earn the title of a Grand Master of Memory. He’s written several books in Swedish, as well as started his own memory school, teaching the same core concepts.

Ribbing is just one example of the many people who have used Pmemory to help them in their day-to-day life. I’ve met another guy who was able to use Pmemory to leverage a job, even though he had no experience in that certain field.

There seems to be no height as to what Pmemory can do.

For more information on Pmemory, and what’s possible, feel free to head over to their website, which can be found here.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is based on our research and analysis. However, we are not liable for any inaccuracies or errors, and readers are encouraged to conduct their own investigations. If you have concerns about the legitimacy of a website, feel free to reach out to us via our contact form to initiate a discussion.

14 thoughts on “Is There Really A Phenomenal Memory Scam? Or Is It All That It Claims To Be?”

    • The site can sometimes go down periodically, unfortunately. Also, unfortunately, I have no authority in much of what Pmemory does or doesn’t do. If the site doesn’t come back up with in the next few weeks, there are a group of Pmemory students who may be putting together a new memory course that will be based off of Pmemory. So you may need to stay tuned for that.

      Reply
        • I’ll see if I can find out anything – I sent an email and message to two different people, but nothing net. I’ll update this post if I find out anything.

          Reply
  1. pmemory is like magic thing everyone want to have the skill i can not wait, but when we go to their site it asks to login, and we do not know anyone to contact and find out what is going on.
    so Mr Andy if you can find any news about them it will be very kind of you…
    Thankyou

    Reply
  2. Hello Andy
    did you find out anything about pmemory? it is very strange when we search we can not find any news anywhere, if you have any idea could you let us know…
    thank you…

    Reply
    • It looks like it’s down completely. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to be coming up any time soon. I’ll see if anyone is interested in creating a memory course for everyone interested in pmemory.

      Out of curiosity, the more people interested in the course the more I could get some graduates interested in helping create a new course. Do you have any friends or relatives who would be interested in purchasing a new memory course?

      Reply
  3. Mille Grazie – thank you a million times for the great article! I cited you on my blog and hope this is okay? In case you shouldn’t want that just write something and I’ll change the according to text. Personally, I’d be very happy about a new course put together by graduates:)

    Kind regards
    Laureen

    Reply
    • Definitely, it’s okay to cite us on your blog. The new course is still in the works, from my understanding, and I have no clue if it will ever be released, but I’m sure it will be great if/when it comes out.

      Reply
  4. Hi Andy
    Hope you’re doign good .
    I just bought the program yesterday but cannot access the course.
    Do you still have the contacts of some administrators in GMS?
    I do not want to lose my hard-earned money

    Reply

Leave a Comment