Rating: 
Summary: I can photoread this book in just 1 minute!
Review: This book is 5% content 95% marketing.
After reading this book with such an agresive marketing in which Scheele spends whole chapters advertising his other products without giving you any useful information, I started to wonder how many of the reviews in this forum are reliable. Just as an exercise check out any other hot book and compare the number of reviews it gets. It does not even approach half this one! I have no doubt that Scheele marketing department has a lot to do with many of the 5 star reviews of this book especially when the one star reviews start to catch up.
As far as the 5% content of the book, you can get most of the information from some detailed reviews found here.
Many of the concepts touched in the book like previewing a book and mind mapping are certainly valuable however they are better covered in other books.
Rating: 
Summary: A good book!! check it out.
Review: I came across this lovely book few months ago. Truly speaking this book does make a huge difference in your reading speed, provided the techniques are followed exactly as the author states. Photoreading has been a hot subject of debate for quite some time now. Some say it works, some don't seem to share a similar vision. Whether it works or not still remains a mystery. There is no clear cut evidence to date whether it really works in isolation or not. The author himself tacitly admits that it's not photoreading alone, it's the "Whole mind system" that works in synergy with the photoreading. Tony buzan in his book "Speed reading" talks about human eye seeing thousands of words at a time, similar to photoreading. I strongly believe that to learn a new subject one must approach with an open mind i.e not to let your thinking be clouded by previous notions. If you approach this book in a similar fashion,(ignoring the negative reviews) i guarrantee that you will experience great results, with your reading speed sky rocketing. You'll be reading hundreds of books in far less time you previously took and yes...enjoying your reading too. However, don't get discouraged by the intial hitches. Just beleive in the system and press on. Give this system at least 2 months try before giving your verdict. I'm sure you won't regret buying this book! I don't care whether the "photoreading" thing works or not but as long as i get good results, i don't mind. Relish the fruit. Who cares from which tree it came.
Rating: 
Summary: Mind Expanding
Review: Great Book.
Wont just help you read more efficiently.
If you are open-minded and ready to let go of what intellectual logic tells you and desire to connect to something beyond your left-side processing mind, this book can help you expand your awareness and open up doors to perception where you can find new worlds within you.
Being a student of Kabalah and Talmud it was interesting to see many of the techniques I've come across over the years presented in a book which teaches advanced reading skills. For example this is the first time I came across an idea similar to the Jewish yalmuka (skullcap) in a non-Jewish context. The "tangerine effect" describes placing an imagined tangerine on the top of your head which helps to connect to the sub-conscious mind. If you are strongly intellectually and logically grounded then I don't think you will gain much out of this book. To go through the 5 steps to reading presented in this book will actually take longer than reading the old way. I think the best way to gain from this book is to relax and play with the ideas in your own way. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read Only for Those Willing to Give up Hard Work
Review: I loved this book, and within a month of playing with the techniques described in this book my reading speed and my ability to recall conceptual information has skyrocketed. Most of the negative reviews about this book are from reviewers who reference the need for hard work. Until two years ago, I would have had a negative of this book as well. However, two years ago, I dropped my belief in the equation SUCCESS=HARD WORK.
I spend more time napping, more time working with my imagination, and more time feeling light and playful. My enjoyment of life, the harmony in my family relationships and YES the amount of cold, hard cash in my bank account has increased dramatically since I traded hard work for play. Maybe I have a mindset a little more open to new ideas and a little more confidence in the untapped capacities of our individual minds and conscsiousness: in any case I have achieved wonderful results from the photoreading techniques in this book. For me, it was an excellent investment in money and in time. Yes I spent a month playing with it before I got good at it-but is that any different in spending a month playing with a video game, or kicking soccer ball around in order to get good at it? Like anything else, this will be a fabulous book for some and a waste of time for others. I gave it a four star rating because I think it could have been written a little better.
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Summary: Strangely enough, it works
Review: I first discovered the ability to PhotoRead on accident, when I spontaniously discovered I was understanding concepts while reading about a page a second. It was amazing the level of understanding I had. I purchased the PhotoReading Whole Mind System in order to re-capture that state. The only complaint I have is that although this does work, it's not as "fun" for me as regular reading. Also, I hoped that it would help me read at work in between taking phone calls. However, it seems easier to grab paragraphs than it does to "get into state" only to have the phone pull me back out before I've even cracked open the book.
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Summary: I used my whole mind to dramatically advance in Pool!
Review: I purchased The Photoreading Whole Mind system because I read about 4 books per week the old fashioned way and it took so much time that I had little time for other things. When I purchased the book, I photoread several books on charisma, influence and persuasion in order to better my dealings with people. I saw little change, and I really didn't get it. The book was sitting on my desk for months before I decided to pick it up and go through it again. This time, I photoread the book. I went to a local bookstore the next day and photoread 3 books on the game of Pool, 1 book on Geometry and another on Physics. The next day I went out to shoot pool and my game had DRAMATICALLY increased! I shot like I had been shooting seriously for years instead of one year. People began asking me if I had a pool table in my home! Do I play in a league? Do I do tournaments?!? I'm elated! The Photoreading Whole Mind System is new and exciting and a little unbelievable. I believe this is the reason the system will be so difficult for some people to grasp and utilize. It is truly UNBELIEVABLE. And you must BELIEVE you know the information you have photoread in order to have access to it. Children may be able to pick up the system easier than adults because they already believe they have super powers and can do anything! Adults may have to set it aside for a while and come back to it several times before they want something so badly that they make it work for them. Once they have their first success with the program, it'll be easy to gain the second... and easier, still to gain the third and fourth. Since using photoreading to enhance my pool game, I have photoread many books having to do with confidence, charisma, people, body language and much more. My dealings with people have improved dramatically and my intuition and self confidence have increased. I'm certain that, if you can believe just long enough to get that 1st success, you can use Photoreading to accomplish whatever it is that you would like to accomplish.
Rating:
Summary: yes, it works
Review: No, it's not a magical solution to your problems. Like most things worthwhile in life, you have to work at it. The reason many people think this book is fake believe so only because they approached it thinking that it was a magical answer to their problems. No, you can't place a hose in your ear and pump the data in, you actally need to try and *believe* that it can work for you. Remaining skeptical while trying will only produce your own predetermined results. I read the book a few times, but the first time I actually sat down and truly gave it my all, i noticed increased awareness and things started to make sense. If you give this book the chance it deserves, it can actually work. **Don't expect instant results!**
Rating:
Summary: This is NOT a magical solution to your reading problems
Review: I first discovered Photoreading in April of 2000 while desperately searching for a new way to increase my reading speed. I immediately ordered the Personal Learning Course directly from Learning Strategies. The first exercise was to Photoread a dictionary and think of the first word that comes to mind and try to locate it mentally, and then check its location in the dictionary. I failed over and over at this exercise until I finally got discouraged and moved on to something else. The next day I decided to enroll in the Photoreading seminar hoping that this was what I needed to learn the system. I left the seminar feeling even worse than I did after the dictionary exercises. At this point I had completely given up hope that the system could work for me. I was convinced that I was doing something wrong and everyone else was doing something right. After a few months time I decided to give the PLC another shot and ended up getting the exact same results as before. Since you can attend a live seminar again free of charge I decided to give the seminar another shot about a year later. I still had hope that I was going to get the system to work for me, but again I produced the same results as before, just this time I had a more positive attitude. I've been to the live seminar twice, I've started the PLC over and over again, and I can't tell you how many times I've been through the Photoreading book, or listened to the Photoreading Paraliminal tape. Maybe I'm part of that 1% of people that just don't get it.
Rating:
Summary: One Toke Over the Line
Review: Same review as I wrote for Howard Stephen Berg's "Super Reading Secrets": 'Just another in a spate of hallucinogenically self-evident books on reading like a maniac. I read faster than anyone I know, but I've always read faster than anyone I know. And, in evidence to my claim, when asked questions about what I've read, I don't require that the questions be formatted as multiple choice or as verbal "meta tags" that merely require recognition/recall. I'm happy to provide context and interpretation. Of course, I may misinterpret, but the questioner can readily determine that I have thoroughly read the book and have a good grasp of its broad issues as well as many of its fine points. The main reasons I read so quickly and effectively are:
***1. I learned to read very early--before first grade--and in an extremely positive and supportive atmosphere which made fast and attentive reading seem as normal as breathing. In short: I developed the HABIT of reading, reinforced EARLY, often, and for many years.
***2. I was MOTIVATED to read. My parents gave me extraordinary reinforcement through the manifest joy they shared with me in seeing me reading. (They also were brilliant professional people who were emotionally balanced and loving.) My reading "environment", that is, was superbly supportive.
***3. OPPORTUNITY. My home had thousands of books--a miscellany of types/genres. They were readily accessible whenever I wished to read.
***4. FOCUS. All the above factors gave me great powers of concentration when reading. I never remember NOT reading and have rarely felt anything but anticipatory pleasure when contemplating a book or article or poem, etc., I had intended to read. I was ready, willing, and able, with visceral pleasure, to plunge into a book.
***5. PLASTICITY OF READING TECHNIQUE. Like a tool kit, some items I read with mental verbalization (such as poetry) and others without verbalization (technical material). In general, the more affective or aesthetic in orientation, the more I'm likely to verbalize. (Who wants to speed read Shakespeare?)
The more sheerly informative or formally declarative a book is--that is, the more non-affective is its content, nothing is to be gained--except reinforcement of ineffective habits perhaps?--by subvocalizing the words. (Exceptions to the rule, to be discussed elsewhere: Some extraordinarily well-written informative literature has abstract beauty, architectonic economy, and/or intrinsic order--e.g., an elegantly written technical manual, or an ingeniously written computer program.) With such info-laden, and relatively affective-empty materials, I skip the subvocalization and dramatically accelerate my reading speed and factual comprehension. My selection of technique is invariably intuitive and immediate, without conscious choice. Even if I stop and contemplate the consequences of a given info-laden paragraph, I will have read that paragraph very quickly, without subvocalization. Following that reading, the subsequent few moments are invested in reflection upon that paragraph and perhaps its connections--its innate "hyperlinks" to other paragraphs within the same text, other texts, knowledge I otherwise have, and various degrees of conscious and semi-conscious connections to information, relationships, and experiences within my memory and current awareness. Reading is not only about comprehension, fast or slow, as I have indicated in my observations about reading affective materials. Indeed, reading is also about: being affected by the reading; being transformed in heart and mind; reconceptualizing habitual thinking, perceptual, and feeling patterns; pure pleasure; vicarious participation in imaginary domains; etc. These are also reading skills, and skills that "power" or "photo" reading do not even address. They are options not considered. (Some do obliquely mention such reading skills/aspects, without addressing the concerns I've expressed. As such, the various speed reading books omit many of the aspects which make reading a valuable, exciting, and pleasurable experience, and which motivate many of us to read in the first place. If the authors were intellectually honest and clear with the reader, the entire genre of speed reading books would acknowledge that they primarily address info skimming and gleaning skills.)
No book can teach such intuitively and immediately available reading virtuosity within a few weeks, any more than any basketball coach can teach the fluid moves of Kobe Bryant in a summer clinic. Of course, there's a difference: all persons of normal intelligence, I submit, can develop a much greater degree of reading virtuosity, while physical virtuosity is more sharply related to biological determinates. Reading virtuosity is more a result of fortunately provided, or consciously chosen, psychological determinates, including the formation of determinable reading attitudes and habits.
Also, and not "PC" (politically correct): intelligence does make a difference. Of course it does! Does not rapid/ fast/ speed/ any-other-type-of-reading involve interpretation? Is the meaning and implications of the words, sentences, and paragraphs self-evident? Of course not! So intelligence must necessarily matter. Yet, importantly, none of this should dissuade any of us from working to improve reading skills, of which speed is only one component (if an important one). We all can. I am simply arguing against any misplaced "affirmative action" in reading education. You are where you are in your skills. Accurate assessment is vital. You will do yourself no favors by fantasizing of reading pages at one glance. (Yes, you can learn to skim very quickly and effectively, and remember an enormous amount of information--especially when such skimming is complemented by interspersed and selective reading of chosen sections of the material you're reading. If one has never learned to so skim, and especially if one also reads slowly and ineffectively, learning to skim with skill can seem like an epiphany! One's new skimming skills produce results that are superior to one's previous reading results. One is thus converted to Berg's or Scheele's "super reading" or "photoreading", misinterpreting the chosen reading system as THE reading system.
Quick attitude changes, I suspect, can immediately help develop better reading skills by simply moving the reader from his/her (unfortunately) typical somnambulistic state to a more conscious and focused state of mind. That shift of conscious purpose may be the chief value--to the extent there is value--in such books as Howard Stephen Berg's (or Paul Scheele's).
Rating: 
Summary: Poppycock
Review: I try to keep an open mind, but I found the strategies that Scheele outlines are, at best, hit-or-miss. In other words, I don't believe it's impossible to subconsciously absorb some of the material that you photoread, but it's unlikely that you will be able to retrieve it to the extent that you desire. I did find some value, however, in the idea of purposeful reading, although I am still highly dubious of any speed-reading strategy.
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