Enid Blyton, the novelist, says that she receives directions from what she
terms her ‘undermind’ that ‘the story must be 40,000 words long’ and sure
enough, the book ends almost to the word. The unconscious appears to
possess mind-boggling computational power. There are many cases in his-
tory to illustrate this. As an example, let’s look at Zerah Colburn.
Zerah Colburn was born in 1804, the son of a farmer of Vermont, USA.
When only six, not yet able to read or write, the young Zerah began giving
public demonstrations of his mathematical skills. One of the most spec-
tacular feats related to the number 4,294,967,297, which until shortly before
his time was thought to be prime by mathematicians. Leonhard Euler, one
of the greatest mathematicians in history, labouriously calculated on paper
that it was divisible by 641. When Colburn, ignorant of all this, was given
the same problem he swiftly arrived at 641 ‘by the mere operation of his
mind.’ The really significant feature about Colburn is that he was totally
unable to explain how he had reached his conclusion. Having never had for-
mal education, he was entirely ignorant of elementary mathematical rules,
and could not even perform the simplest multiplication and division sums
on paper. Everything was done in his head, where he literally saw the com-
putation form up clearly and effortlessly before him. 3
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