The Major System is a centuries-old mnemonic tool that helps you transform numbers into concrete words and striking mental associations to increase their memorability.

You then apply these evocative mnemonic images to help with recalling the important numbers in your life. Such as:

• Phone numbers


• PIN numbers


• Account numbers


• Birthdays


• Math formulas


• Historical dates


• The digits of pi


• Playing cards during games

Technically, the Major System is a phonetic peg system. It works either on its own or in combination with other mnemonic peg systems.

It looks like this, a simple pairing of 0-9 with a specific set of consonants:

<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_19824" style="width: 726px;"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-19824">The Major System</figcaption></figure>

Like other mnemonic devices, this means that the Major uses consonant sounds to ‘peg’ numbers to words and images, making them easier to store and retrieve from memory.

Although people have been using the Major System (sometimes called the Major Method) to commit numbers to memory for centuries, there’s a rarely taught, but incredibly powerful dimension you’re about to discover.

I call it “bi-directionality.”

It’s the very approach to the Major System that helped me get my PhD in Humanities at York University. I memorized key historical dates, facts related to the history of science, logical formulas and more.

I’ve also applied the bi-directional Major System to learning several languages. I even used it in 2015 to take second place in a memory competition against a two-time Guinness World Record holder for playing cards.

On this page, I’ll share exactly how to use this mnemonic system yourself for memorizing any number. And I’ll share use cases for how you can get started using the Major System to absorb many other types of information.

Ready to get started applying this system to everything from banking numbers to complex academic material?

Let’s dive in!

What Is The Major System?

The mnemonic Major System dates back more than 2000 years. The earliest version I’ve found is called the katapayadi. You can also find information about the ancient Hebrew version in Eran Katz’s Where Did Noah Park the Ark?

These versions show that people across many cultures have turned to this kind of mnemonic device throughout time.

In our era, it used for everything from credit card numbers and phone numbers to thousands of digits of pi.

Extraordinary as that sounds, Akira Haraguchi famously used the Japanese version of the Major System to recite over 100,000 digits of pi from memory.

A Brief History of the Major System

Historically, we know from Hugh of St. Victor that students of the Bible used a similar system to memorize the dates of Adam and his descendants.

Hugh even linked numbers to people, actions and objects back in the twelfth century in The Three Best Memory Aids for Learning History. You can find an English version of this text in The Medieval Craft of Memory.

Although Hugh was already quite sophisticated, the Major System really start to take shape in the 16th and 17th centuries through people like Giordano Bruno and Robert Fludd.

Both of these Renaissance memory masters used letters and consonants to represent numbers, but their systems were often inconsistent and lacked a standardized approach. Nonetheless, their contributions added new dimensions, such as Bruno’s influence on the development of the Memory Wheel, and Fludd’s evolution of the number-shape system of Jacobus Publicius.

When it comes to developing the standardized system we now use, these are the most important figures.

Johann Justus Winckelmann

Johann Justus Winckelmann was a German mathematician and mnemonist. He proposed a method where each digit was always associated with the same specific consonants, laying the groundwork for later developments.

Aimé Paris

As a French mathematician and memory expert, Aimé Paris simplified the associations, making the system more user-friendly. His version is nearly identical to the Major System as we know it today.

Major Beniowski and the Naming of the System

The Major System is named after Major Beniowski, the 19th-century linguist, memory expert and author of the strangely titled, The Anti-Absurd or Phrenotypic English Pronouncing and Orthographical Dictionary.

Here’s how he graphically represented the Major System in his book by embedding the consonants into each of the digits, 0-9:

Apart from his book, not much is known about Beniowski. Some people believe that “Major” refers to Beniowski’s military rank.

Although that’s the most likely explanation, the name clearly underscores Beniowski’s “major” role in popularizing and standardizing this mnemonic method. Through his teachings and writings, Beniowski helped spread the use of the system, making it accessible to a wider audience.

The name is also much easier to remember than “alpha-numeric” code.

Further Refinement and Popularization

The Major System continues to evolve and gain popularity. Memory experts like Harry Lorayne brought it to the masses.  Later books like Moonwalking with Einstein encouraged many people to incorporate the system into their learning lives.

The technique continues to evolve to this day. Many memory competitors now use a variation called the Shadow, which is still based on the same alpha-numeric code you learned earlier in the video above.

If you want to check out some of the most impressive users of the Major, check out my podcast episodes with Katie Kermode and Don Michael Vickers. These memory athletes are seriously impressive.

They’re hardly the first of my <a href="https://www.magneticmemorymethod.com/memory-champions-language-learning/" rel="noopener" targ