From the book The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger, Ph.D.
and Richard Poe
THE
EINSTEIN
FACTOR
 rest of us receive such messages,
Proven Techniques to Boost
Your Brain’s Performance
Today, those numinous eyes, bushy
moustache, and shock of silver hair remain
the quintessential image of “genius”, the
name a synonym for supernormal
intelligence. But as a child, Albert Einstein
appeared deficient. Dyslexia caused him
great difficulty in speech and reading.
“Normal childhood development
proceeded slowly,” recalled his sister. “He
has such difficulty with language that they
feared that he would never learn to speak…
Every sentence he uttered, he repeated to
himself softly, moving his lips. This habit
persisted into his seventh year.”
Later, poor language skills provoked his
Greek teacher to tell the boy, “You will
never amount to anything.” Einstein was
expelled from high school. He flunked a
college entrance exam. After finally
completing his bachelor’s degree, he failed
The Einstein Factor
Everything we do depends on our
minds – yet we don’t often think of
the mind as a tool whose powers
can be multiplied dramatically. 
Entrepreneurs bought thousands of
copies of Dr. Win Wenger’s earlier
book, A New Method for Personal
Growth and Development, because
his focus is not on pathology, by
opportunity. Dr. Wenger, a president
of the Institute for Visual Thinking in
Gaithersburg, MD., has made a
speciality of understanding genius.
He argues that those who make
intuitive leaps of clarity, from Mozart
to Einstein to Edison are able to
read messages their subconscious
minds are trying to send them. The
too, but are not adept at listening to
them. The gift of the gifted is the
ability to listen to their own minds.
The good news, as Dr. Wenger and
former SUCCESS senior editor
Richard Poe show in their new book,
The Einstein Factor, is that we can
learn techniques that open our
brains’ capacities for genius.
to attain a recommendation from his
professors and was forced to take a lowly
job in the Swiss patent office. Until his mid-
20’s, he seemed destined for a life of
mediocrity. Yet, when he has 26, Einstein
published his Special Theory of Relativity.
Sixteen years later, he won a Nobel Prize.
What did Einstein have that we don’t?
That’s what Dr. Thomas Harvey wanted to
know. He was a pathologist on duty at
Princeton Hospital when Einstein died in
1955. By sheer chance, fate had fingered
Harvey to perform Einstein’s autopsy.
Without permission from the family, Harvey
took it upon himself to remove and keep
Einstein’s famous brain. For the next 40
years, Harvey stored the brain in jars of
formaldehyde, studying it slice by slice
under the microscope and dispensing small
samples to other researchers on request.
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From the book The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger, Ph.D. and Richard Poe
“Nobody ever found a difference that
earmarked a brain as that of a genius,”
Harvey later explained to a reporter. Neither
he nor his colleagues found any definitive
sign that would mark Einstein’s brain as
extraordinary according to the ideas of brain
physiology of that time. But in the early
1980's, Marian Diamond, a neuroanatomist
at the University of California at Berkeley,
made some discoveries about brains in
general and Einstein’s in particular that
could revolutionize ideas about genius and
help entrepreneurs who want to become
more innovative.
One of Diamond’s experiments was with
rats. One group she placed in a super-
stimulating environment with swings,
ladders, treadmills and toys. The other
group was confined to bare cages. The rats
in high-stimulus environment not only lived
to the advanced age of 3 (the equivalent of
90 in a man), but their brains increased in
size, sprouting new glial cells, which make
connections between neurons (nerve cells).
As long ago as 1911, Santiago Ramon y
Cajal, the father of neuroeanotomy, had
found that the number of interconnections
between neurons was a far better prediction
of brain power that the sheer number of
neurons.
So, in rats, Diamond had created the
physical footprint of higher intelligence
through mental exercise. She then
examined sections of Einstein’s brain – and
found that it too, was unusually
“interconnected”. It had a larger-than-
normal number of glial cells in the left
parietal lobe, which is a kind of neurological
switching station that connects the various
areas of the brain. It has long been known
that unlike neurons, hardware of the brain –
glial cells, axons, and dendrites – can
increase in number throughout life,
depending on how you use your brain. The
more we learn, the more of these pathways
are created. When we learn a skill such as
riding a bicycle, we create connections
between brain cells that remain, even if we
The Einstein Factor
don’t practice the skills for decades. Mental
power is, in a way, connective power.
A ‘RETARDED’ ACHIEVEMENT
Was Einstein’s mental development
affected by some analogy to the swings,
ladders, treadmills, and toys of Diamond’s
super-rats? Did he, in some sense, learn his
inventive mental powers? Einstein himself
seemed to think so. He believed that you
could stimulate ingenious thought by
allowing the imagination to float freely,
forming associations at will. For instance, he
attributed his Theory of Relativity not to any
special gift, but to what he called his
“retarded” development.
“A normal adult never stops to think
about problems of space and time,” he said.
“These are things which he has thought of
as a child. But my intellectual development
was retarded, and I began to wonder about
space and time only when I had grown up.”
In his Autobiographical Notes, Einstein
recalled having the first crucial insight that
lead to his Special Theory of Relativity at
age 16 while he was daydreaming.
As a boy, Einstein had a favourite uncle
named Jakob who used to teach him
mathematics. “Algebra is a merry science,”
said Jakob once. “We go hunting for a little
animal whose name we don’t know, so we
call it x. when we bag our game, we pounce
on it and give it its right name.” Uncle
Jakob’s words stayed with Einstein for the
rest of his life. This encapsulated his
attitude toward mathematical and scientific
problems, which to Einstein always seemed
more like puzzles or games than work.
Einstein could focus on his math studies
with the concentration most children reserve
for play.
“What would it be like,” Einstein
wondered, “to run beside a light beam at the
speed of light?” Normal adults would
squelch such a question or forget it. Einstein
was different. He played with this question
for 10 years. The more he pondered, the
more questions arose. Suppose, he asked
himself, that you were riding on the end of a
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From the book The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger, Ph.D. and Richard Poe
light beam and held a mirror before your
face. Would you see you reflections?
According to classical physics, you
would not – because light leaving you face
would have to travel faster than light in
order to reach the mirror. But Einstein could
not accept this. It didn’t feel right. It seemed
ludicrous that you would look into a mirror
and see nothing. Einstein imagined rules for
a universe that would allow you to see your
reflection in the mirror while riding a light
beam. Only years later did he undertake
proving his theory mathematically.
Einstein attributed his scientific prowess
to what he called a “vague play” with
“signs”, “images” and other elements, both
“visual” and “muscular.” “This combinatory
play,” he wrote, “seems to be the essential
feature in productive thought.”
My project of the last 25 years has been
to develop techniques and mental
experiences, based in part on Einstein’s
methods, that work in the short term and
also develop the mind’s permanent powers.
Einstein is the most spectacular modern
example of a man who could dream while
wide-awake. With few exceptions, the great
discoveries in science were made through
such intuitive “thought experiments.”
Inventor Elias Howe laboured long and
hard to create the first sewing machine.
Nothing worked. Then, one night, Howe had
a nightmare. He was running from a band of
cannibals – they were so close, he could
see their spear tips. Despite his terror,
Howe noticed that each spear point had a
hole bored in its tip like the eye of a sewing
needle.
When he awoke, Howe realized what
his nightmare was trying to say: On his
sewing machine, he needed to move the
eyehole from the middle of the needle to
down on the tip. That was his breakthrough,
and sewing machine was born.
Insights from dreams have inspired
rulers, artists, scientists, and inventors since
Biblical times. But day after day, year after
year, the vast majority of people squelch
their most profound insights without even
The Einstein Factor
knowing it. This defensive reflex – which I
call The Squelcher – blocks us from
achieving our full potential.
But dreams have their limitations. They
are notoriously hard to control. We have not
yet learned how to summon them at will.
And, most of the time, we forget them.
In March 1977, a group of us had heard
about the revolutionary experiments
Russian scientists were making by tapping
the subconscious for accelerated learning.
Although no one at that time had published
reliable accounts of the exact procedures,
we reconstructed these as best we could
from old corners of the scientific literature.
We decided to conduct an experiment in
Arlington, Va.
I don’t thing any of us really expected
dramatic results.
We were completely surprised. Nearly
every technique produced striking results for
almost everyone in the group. Especially
memorable was the experience of a
participant whom I shall call “Mary”. Like all
of us, she had agreed to embark upon some
new learning experience just prior to the
workshop. She chose the violin. Mary had
her first lesson just one week before our
experiment. Until that time, she had never
touched a violin in her life.
The week following our workshop, Mary
had her second lesson. She worked as a
secretary in a Washington office and had
only a moderate amount of time to practice.
Nevertheless, after Mary had played a few
minutes, her astonished instructor
announced that he was going to reenroll her
in his advanced class! At our second
experimental workshop, just a few weeks
later, Marie gave a fine concert with her
violin.
Mary owed her precocious ability to the
“Raikov Effect.” Using deep hypnosis,
Soviet psychiatrist Dr. Vladimir Raikov
made people think that they had become
some great genius in history. When he
“reincarnated” someone as Rembrandt, the
person could draw with great facility. Later,
the subject remembered nothing. Many
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From the book The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger, Ph.D. and Richard Poe

would scoff in disbelief when shown artwork Gillette Co. in 1980. Executives were to
they had done under hypnosis. pretend that they were shafts of hair. While
Raikov demonstrated that talents in their “hair” identities, they brainstormed
unleashed under hypnosis left significant over what qualities would most please them
effects even after the sessions. So the in a shampoo. Some wanted a powerful
method was more than an experimental cleanser that would root out dirt from the
oddity. It was a practical scalp. Others, fearing for
tool for learning. Moreover, their split ends, asked for a
as we were to discover, it
could be achieved without
If you assume milder formula.
In the end, the human
the aid of hypnosis. The another identity, you “hair shafts” settled on a
Raikov Effect is like the new shampoo that would
ancient practice by which may be inspired. automatically adjust to
prophets, oracles, and
tribal shamans took on the Gillette executives every hair need. Silkience,
the product they invented,
identity of gods, spirits,
animals and inanimate
created a product by remains one of the leading
shampoos on the market.
objects, in order to gain pretending to be George S. Patton
knowledge. thought himself rein-
In the Broadway shafts of hair. carnated from great
musical Camelot, the generals of the past. This
wizard Merlin “transforms” odd belief may have
the young boy who will catalyzed his eerie genius
become King Arthur into various animals in for applying the lessons of ancient battles to
his imagination. While souring aloft as a modern mechanised warfare. Michelangelo
hawk, Arthur hears Merlin ask, “What does imagined his statues as living beings,
the hawk know that Arthur doesn’t know?” awaiting only his hammer and chisel to free
Arthur looks down and realizes that the them. His vision somehow aided
hawk can see no borders in Britain. He Michelangelo’s genius for “freeing” forms
resolves to forge a single nation from the from the stone.
feuding tribes below. The Stinger missile is one of the most
Although fictional, this episode was sophisticated “smart” weapons that the
inspired by a real tradition in Celtic folklore. high-tech arsenal has. It homes in on its
In an old Welsh epic, a bard boasts, “I have target by infrared scanner. Once locked on,
been in many shapes… I have been a drop it can outmanoeuvre a jet fighter. But the
in the air; I have been a shining star… I Stinger still depends upon human operators,
have journeyed as an eagle… I have been a using intuition. Expert Stinger shooters
shield in fight; I have been the string of a report that, just after hearing the beep that
harp… There is nothing which I have not means they have “acquired” the target and
been.” just before pulling the trigger, they always
Perhaps these flights of imagination – if stop and ask themselves, “Does it feel
such they are – inspire creative thinking right?” They know that if you fire the missile
simply by juxtaposing a set of perceptions when it “feels” wrong, you miss. But when it
that do not ordinarily belong together in the “feels” right, you hit your mark. Military
subject’s mind. Efforts to “force” a fit behavioural experts call this the “K check,”
between these odd components will yield a for “kinesthetic check”.
provocative new gestalt or insight. Nobody understands how it works. In
Such “force-fitting” played a big role in a some way the eye, the mind, and the body
productive brainstorming session at The co-operated subconsciously to determine

The Einstein Factor Page 4 of 10

From the book The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger, Ph.D. and Richard Poe
the most accurate trajectory for the missile.
That means taking into account the speed,
size, and range of the target, the speed of
the missile, the timing and angle of its firing,
and event he anticipated action of its
homing technology. Any conscious attempt
to compute this many variables would
overwhelm even an Einstein. Yet ordinary
soldiers – including illiterate Mujaheddin
partisans, who used the Stinger to sweep
Russian helicopters from the Afghan skies –
do it easily and consistently under combat
conditions.
PURPOSEFUL DREAMING
The K check is that majestic freedom
that comes only when we have mastered
basic disciplines and technical skills. It is
power unleashed when right and left
hemispheres of the brain work together. I
have developed the following technique to
bring together learning and inspiration in the
conscious form of dreaming called “Image
Streaming.”
The fact is, we are always dreaming.
Evidence suggests that the stream of
images in our minds literally never ceases.
Even when our minds are preoccupied with
work, conversation or other demanding
tasks, the sensory mechanisms continue to
generate imaginary sights, sounds, smells,
tastes and feelings. Many of these images
consist of memories, triggered by random
associations. Others are echoes or
reinforcements of our conscious thoughts at
the moment. How, then, can we best gain
access to the remarkable flow of
subconscious perception?
Over the last 25 years, I believe I have
found an answer. The Image Streaming
technique that I developed opens the mind
to a flow of symbolic imagery as potent as
that of any dream. But, unlike dreaming, you
can practice Image Streaming while you’re
wide-awake, and you can do it virtually
anytime, anywhere. Ten minutes of Image
Streaming per day will suffice to induce
profound, positive change in your life.
The Einstein Factor
• The first “commandment” of Image
Streaming is to describe the images that
come to you aloud.
• The second “commandment” is to use
all five senses.
• The third “commandment” is surely to
“use the present tense.” Even if the
image has already vanished from sight,
you should never say, “I saw such-and-
such,” or “I am looking now at such-and-
such.”
The idea here is to connect and mine all
the different parts of your brain at once.
Through speech and imaginations, an
Image Streamer talks, listens, sees, smells,
tastes, feels, analyzes, reflects, wonders,
creates and generates mental imagery all at
the same time. This unusual combination of
activities spans or bridges many opposing
“poles” of the brain. Over the past 15 years,
the quest to achieve balance between the
brain’s analytical left hemisphere and its
creative, pattern-sensing right hemisphere
has become a fad. Describing the brain as
divided merely between left and right has
been over played. Important functions are
just as likely to be separated between top
and bottom or front and back. But any
activity that links opposite sides, or “poles”,
of the brain contributes toward the brain’s
balance and increases its resources. Image
Streaming is one of many possible “Pole-
Bridging” exercises.
The value of Image Streaming was
given some unexpected confirmation in a
preliminary experiment at Southwest State
University in Marshall, Minn., in 1988.
Physics professor Dr. Charles P. Reinert
asked 79 of his first year students to
compare the effect of two mental exercises
on IQ. Half the students used the Whimbey
Method, a standard program that uses work
problems to build analytical skills. For each
hour of study, these students’ IQ scores
gained .4 of a point. The other group used
Image Streaming – they gained more than
twice that, or .9 points.
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From the book The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger, Ph.D. and Richard Poe
You’re ready? In a comfortable chair,
turn on you tape recorder. Sit back, close
your eyes, and … nothing happens?
If you are among that 30 percent of the
population that has difficulty generating
mental imagery, don’t despair. Everyone
has an Image Stream. You simply need to
learn how to stop squelching yours. The
following simple techniques
will give you access to your
Image Stream.
Take a piece of paper.
In Image
Pick two corners or sections
of the room you are in. On
Streaming, you
one side of the paper, write must be ready
about one corner. On the
other side of the paper, write for anything: to
about the other. Describe the
first corner only in terms of
feel sand, smell
colour, texture, form and feel.
As you describe the second,
gingerbread, or
use only abstract terms – see a point of
having nothing to do with
sensory impressions. You can light. Listen to
say, “There’s a picture in the
corner,” but nothing about your mind!
how those objects look or feel.
Take about five minutes to
produce your descriptions.
Look over you results. Which description
is more interesting? Which conveys more?
Obviously, the first description. It involves
more neurological contact because as you
hear or read a description overflowing with
vivid sensory impressions, your brain
automatically “lights up” in the appropriated
sensory areas, as it lights up in a dream.
The more different senses you evoke, the
wider the base of neurological contact.
Get started. Start by describing
something.
Your physical surroundings; the room
where you are sitting; some scene you pass
in the course of the day. It is important that
your describe it aloud – to a tape recorder
or another person.
Treat the tape recorder as a telephone,
as though you are describing the scene to a
friend. Your goal should be to describe it so
The Einstein Factor
richly that you literally force the reality of it
onto your listener, through the sheer
richness of details and raw sensory
description.
When in doubt, just keep talking. Don’t
edit. Don’t worry about making nice
sentences. If you’re wondering whether to
include some nuance or some triviality in
your description, go ahead and
describe it. There is no “right”
way to describe something. The
only mistake you can make is
to hesitate, to stop, or to edit.
After a few days of this
exercise, your ability to
describe surroundings will have
improved vastly. As soon as
you have grown comfortable
with the descriptive process,
start describing scenes and
pictures that aren’t physically
there, but exist only in your
mind.
Imagery comes more easily
in a relaxed, but alert, state. A
simple method for attaining this
state is “Velvety-Smooth
Breathing.” Close your eyes
and keep them closed for the next 10
minutes. Don’t look for any images. Focus
instead on your breathing. Breathe in and
out so smoothly that there is no pause
between the “in” breath and the “out” breath.
It is just one, long continuous, flowing b-r-e-
a-t-h, like a slow, sensuous sigh. Let it
stroke you, as you might stroke a smooth
piece of velvet.
Then, with your eyes closed, try
describing a familiar person or object in
great detail: your mother, your child, or your
spouse. Then describe the Taj Mahal or
another interesting building.
Now, having read the instructions for
Velvety-Smooth Breathing, please put down
this magazine and actually try the
techniques before moving on.
If you succeed in this simple task,
congratulations! You have just started
“working” with mental imagery. Many people
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From the book The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger, Ph.D. and Richard Poe
will deny that they saw an image. But is
psychologically impossible to describe a
person or object from memory without first
forming a mental image of it.
Now you are ready to experience
spontaneous imagery.
When awaiting spontaneous images,
you must be ready for anything. You’re not
“supposed” to see any particular thing.
Imagery can come in any form. A fence, a
face, or a tree branch. The feel of touching
sand, a whiff of gingerbread, or even an
emotion. Or it might be a splotch of colour, a
few criss-crossing lines, or a pinpoint of
light.
It is vital to report every image you see,
no matter how vague, trivial, or puzzling.
Bob S., who was participating in the Image
Streaming session with me in Ravenna,
Ohio, felt he shouldn’t. For when he closed
his eyes, he immediately got a perfectly
clear image of an old automobile tire. He
tried to block the tire out of his mind,
because her refused to believe this was
what he was “supposed” to be seeing. But
as Bob finally described the tire to his
partner, a realization crept over him. He had
seen this tire before. It was the right rear tire
of his fiancée’s car. He had the impression
now that there was something wrong with it.
“I dashed out and phoned my fiancée,”
recalls Bob. “I got her father, and he was
the one who went out to check that tire. He
found the side was bruised and cut almost
through.” Had the weakened tire blown out
on the freeway at 65 mph, it could easily
have killed everyone in the car. This
incident stands out not as unusual, but as
typical. Our subconscious minds are
spewing forth images, hunches and subtle
perceptions almost 24 hours each day.
Stay alert. The moment an image or
impression congeals in your awareness,
describe the dickens out of it! Many people
fail at this point, because they think the
image must remain in their conscious view
the whole time they’re describing it. Not so.
Even if it flickers for one second and
disappears, you can still keep describing it
The Einstein Factor
from memory, just as you described he Taj
Mahal. Indeed, the act of describing will
bring it back into view.
Don’t worry about accuracy. It doesn’t
matter it you “fudge” a bit. Feel free to
enhance, exaggerate, or make up parts of
your description, if these embellishments
give the image more vividness and life.
Remember to fudge in all five senses.
Sometimes noting a certain smell will
provoke a visual image, or a sound will
remind you of a taste.
The Image Stream is self-reinforcing.
Almost any stimulus will serve to get it
started and trigger the stream of images.
But from that point on, it is your own flow of
verbal description that keeps the Image
Stream going. In general, the more you
describe something, the more of it you get.
Remember that the first commandment
of Image Streaming is to describe the
images out loud. Many beginners think they
know better. When they bother to describe
the images at all, they do so silently, to
themselves. This is one of the surest ways I
know to fall asleep. In fact, if you are
troubled by insomnia, I strongly recommend
Image Streaming silently as you lie in your
bed.
Image Streaming won’t work without
having a friend listen to you as you “stream”
or using the tape recorder as though a
friend were there to listen.
Remember that the Image Stream
makes use of all five senses, not just sights.
Your brain is so wired that vision will always
tend to dominate the creative process.
That’s all right. But, when we describe
mental images into our tape recorder, we
should take care to include in those
descriptions other senses as well, especially
those of taste and scent, which are often
neglected. LSD researchers discovered that
psychedelic compounds tend to break down
the boundaries between different senses so
that you might “hear” the colour red or
“smell” a Bach concerto. Image Streaming
seems to draw much of its Pole-Bridging
power from this hidden mechanism, playing
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From the book The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger, Ph.D. and Richard Poe
upon links between senses that most of us
thought were quite distinct, in a process
called synesthesia.
Synesthetic perceptions seem to flood
our cortex from the limbic brain, without
most of us being aware of them. The
Squelcher blocks these signals from our
consciousness, but synesthetic vestiges
emerge in common turns of speech, as
when we speak of the “coolness” or blue,
the “sweetness” of a woman’s voice, or a
“piercing” sound. These metaphors make no
rational sense. Yet, we understand them
instinctively.
Full-fledged synesthesia is unusual,
unnecessary and sometimes unpleasantly
distracting. Dwelling upon in consciously
can be as futile and enervating as
obsessing over our own heartbeat or trying
to “feel” the secretion of our glands. As with
may other bodily functions, synesthesia
does its best work when we are totally
unaware of it.
But its work is critically important in
Image Streaming.
Here are some more techniques to get a
good Image Stream started:
• Recall the most beautiful natural
landscape you have ever seen – a real
place you have been to, not an
imaginary one.
• Stare at a 40-to-60 watt light bulb for 30
seconds or so. Then close your eyes
and describe the afterimage you see.
• Describe an old dream you recall, filling
in the gaps with “fudged” remembrance
of sensory details to keep your
momentum going, if necessary.
• Recount a story you have read, heard,
or seen in a movie, and embellish it.
• Listen to music. Nineteenth-century
French music, such as Ravel, European
classical music (1750-1825), and
progressive jazz are among the most
effective.
• Blindfold yourself and walk around the
house feeling objects and describing
them.
The Einstein Factor
• Eat or smell something blindfolded and
describe the experience in detail.
Are you having problems with The
Squelcher? Leap over your self-
consciousness by creating the “Surprise!”
effect in your mind. You need to set up an
“Answer Space” – a psychological area you
cordon off to attract surprising messages
from our right brain, much as you would set
out a bird feeder to attract birds. For
example, imagine yourself wandering
through a garden and coming upon a
mysterious door leading to another
enclosure. Picture yourself opening that
door suddenly. What do you see? A solution
to your problem will often reveal itself in that
moment, just beyond the “threshold”.
In general, as with ordinary Image
Streaming, the degree to which you are
surprised by what you see in your answer
space is roughly correlated to its value.
INTERPRETING INSIGHT
Interpreting your visions, like Image
Streaming itself, grows easier with practice.
Eventually, you will gain an instinctive feel
for the language of your right brain, letting
you make quick interpretations much of the
time. When you’re beginning, however,
adhere to the following eight-step regimen
in analyzing an image:
1. Ask yourself if the image is literal or
symbolic. The best way to judge is
simply to think about it in a relaxed state
and see what pops to mind.
2. Decide if the image represents fact or
feeling. In other words, have you
discerned something that’s true – or are
you just expressing your feelings about
it?
3. Identify key associations. Associations
are simply those secondary thoughts
that the images bring to mind. Think
back over the Image Stream or play
your tape and clear associations with
other images, places, people, and things
will occur to you.
4. Start compiling your personal decoder.
Symbolism in the mind is highly
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From the book The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger, Ph.D. and Richard Poe
personal. Keep track of the images that
recur in your Image Streams. They are
your own symbols; becoming familiar
with them will make you better at
discerning what your subconscious
brain is trying to tell you.
5. Apply the “when-then” test. That is, why
did the things in your Image Stream
happen in the order they did? If you saw
a crystal ball turn into an egg when it
was removed from the fire – ask
yourself why it didn’t happen the other
way around. If you put the egg back into
the fire, would it become a crystal ball
again? These speculations, while they
appear nonsensical, reveal hidden
cause-and-effect relationships and they
will trigger insights about your problem.
6. Last is best. In Image Streaming, as in
brainstorming of any kind, the best ideas
are not usually the first to bubble up, but
tend to occur toward the end of the
session.
7. Pursue the specific. Vague, general,
philosophic conclusions are probably
not the real message. Image Streaming
insights are highly specific. If
generalities are all that emerges, try the
“Surprise!” thresholding technique.
8. Look for the “Aha!” If an answer or
insight is still eluding you, look at your
Image Streaming again for an element
that seems particularly pregnant with
emotion, meaning, or importance, and
ask for the answer again. It may jump at
you with an “Aha!”
CHANGING HISTORY
Einstein once wrote that “all the valuable
things, material, spiritual, and moral, which
we receive from society can be traced back
through countless generations to certain
creative individuals.”
He was talking about people like
Imhotep. Who can imagine Egypt without
her pyramids? If not for those famous
monuments, most people would have little
idea who the Egyptians were, and the world
of the pharaohs would have remained as
The Einstein Factor
obscure to us as India’s lost city of Mohenjo
Daro. Yet the invention of the pyramid was
in no way inevitable or intrinsic of the
Egyptian soul.
No such structures would have existed
in Egypt had it not been for the genius of a
single man. Five thousand years ago, the
pharaohs of Egypt were buried in squat,
mud-brick structures called “mastabas.”
Then the court architect Imhotep had a
better idea.
Instructed to build a tomb for the
pharaoh Djoser, Imhotep piled an incredible
850,000 tons of limestone into a structure
soaring 200 feet above the desert. Nothing
like it had ever built, not in Egypt, not
anywhere. From the glass pyramid in the
courtyard of the Louvre to the Transamerica
Pyramid that dominates the San Francisco
skyline, today’s architects continue to
imitate Imhotep’s work. Indeed, each time
modern builders lay one stone upon
another, they are in debt to this man, who
virtually invented the craft of stonemasonry.
This was not only the first pyramid, but the
first high-rise stone edifice for any sort that
men built. Imhotep’s genius is still with us.
When modern track and field events
began in the 19th century, it was considered
physically impossible for a human to run a
mile in four minutes. Decade after decade,
the greatest runners fell short of this
milestone. Then, on May 6, 1954, Roger
Bannister stunned the world by doing the
impossible – running the mile in three
minutes and 59.4 seconds.
Since then, four-minute miles have
become the routine.
For centuries, the greatest chess
masters in the world tested their mettle by
playing blindfolded. It was long believed that
three blindfolded games at once marked the
limit of human capacity. Then in 1933,
Alexander Alekhine successfully played 32
simultaneous blindfolded games. Later,
grand masters left Alekhine’s record in the
dust. Koltanvovski set the current record,
playing 56 blindfolded games in 1960. He
won 50 and drew the rest.
Page 9 of 10
From the book The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger, Ph.D. and Richard Poe

improvement. But if we wish to unleash the

THE KNACK OF GENIUS full power of our genius, we must find that
Over the years, my studies have led me crucial catalyst, that simple trick or knack
consistently to the conclusion that geniuses that brings our bodies, sense, and minds
are little more than ordinary people who into critical focus.
have stumbled on some knack or technique
for widening their channel of attention, thus
making conscious their subtle,
subconscious perceptions.
Some years ago, I visited a friend
whose son was trying out for the high
school baseball team but feared he wouldn’t
make the cut because of his poor batting I’ve concluded that
average. I worked with the boy for about an
hour. The boy discovered that he had the genius is a knack,
greatest success when he imagined a tiny
flyspeck on the baseball and aimed his bat
a technique for
at that, rather than at the ball itself. It gave
him the extra focus he needed to connect
widening your
with the ball.
This may seem a trivial insight, but its
channel of attention.
effect on the boy was astonishing. In
baseball, a .250 to .300 batting average is
To unlock your gift,
quite good. But during the first 10 games of
the season, this boy batted .800! He not
find your key.
only made the team, but went on to be
named most valuable player of the league.
But the most surprising discovery was
yet to come. I did not see this boy again
until several years later. He was still playing
baseball, and he clearly remembered our
one-hour session as having marked the
turning point in his athletic career. But the
boy had entirely forgotten the details of what
he had learned at that session. He
remembered nothing about the flyspeck and
no longer consciously envisioned it when
striking the ball. Indeed, he was just as
mystified as his teammates as to just how
he had become a great batter so quickly.
It’s easy to argue that this boy must
have had a talent for baseball all along. I’m
sure he did, but when I met him, there was
none in evidence. Only when he discovered
the trick of the flyspeck were his latent
talents catalyzed. All of us possess hidden
talents, often in the very areas where we
think ourselves weak. Study, practice, and
hard work can bring incremental

The Einstein Factor Page 10 of 10