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The most well-known high IQ society (HIS hereafter) is Mensa. But did you know that there are many more—much more exclusive—high IQ societies? In his book The Genius in All of Us: Unlocking Your Brain’s Potential (Adam, 2018) Adam chronicles his quest to raise his IQ score using nootropics. (Nootropics are supposed brain-enhancers, such as creatine that supposedly help in increasing cognitive functioning.) Adam discusses his experience taking the Mensa test (Mensa “is Mexican slang for stupid woman“; Adam, 2018) and talking to others who did with him on the same day. One highschool student he talked to wanted to put that he was a Mensa member on his CV; yet another individual stated that they accepted a challenge from a family member, since other members were in Mensa, she wanted to show that she had what it took.

Adam states that they were handed two sheets of paper with 30 questions, to be answered in three or four minutes, with questions increasing in difficulty. The first paper, he says, had a Raven-like aspect to it—rotating shapes and choosing the correct shape that’s next in the sequence. But, since he was out of time for the test, he says that he answered “A” to the remaining questions when the instructor wasn’t looking, since he “was going to use cognitive enhancement to cheat later anyway” (Adam, 2018: 23). (I will show Adam’s results of his attempted “cognitive enhancement to cheat” on the Mensa exam at the end of this article.) The shapes-questions were from the first paper, and the second was verbal. On this part, some words had to be defined while others had to be placed into context, or be placed into a sentence in the right place. Adam (2018: 23) gives an example of some of the verbal questions:

Is ‘separate’ the equivalent of ‘unconnected’ or ‘unrelated’? Or ‘evade’ — is it the same as ‘evert’, ‘elude’ or ‘escape’? [Compare to other verbal questions on standard IQ tests: ‘What is the boiling point of water?’ ‘Who wrote Hamlet?’ ‘In what continent is Egypt?’ (Richardson, 2002: 289) and ‘When anyone has offended you and asks you to excuse him—what ought you do?’ ‘What is the difference between esteem and affection?’ [this is from the Binet Scales, but “It is interesting to note that similar items are still found on most modern intelligence tests” (Castles, 2013).]]

So it took a few weeks for Adam’s results to get delivered to his home. His wife opened the letter and informed him that he had gotten into Mensa. (He got in despite answering “A” after the time limit was up.) This, though, threw a wrench into his plans: his plan was to use cognitive enhancers (nootropics) to enhance his cognition and attempt to score higher and get into Mensa that way. However, there are much more exclusive IQ clubs than Mensa. Adam (2018: 30) writes:

Under half of the Mensa membership, for example, would get into the Top One Percent Society (TOPS). And fewer than one in ten of those TOPS members would make the grade at the One in a Thousand Society. Above that the names get cryptic and the spelling freestyle. There’s the Epida society, the Milenija, the Sthiq Society, and Ludomind. The Universal Genius Society takes just one person in 2,330, and the Ergo Society just one in 31,500. Members of the Mega Society, naturally, are one in a million. The Giga Society? One in a billion, which means, statistically, just seven people on the planet are qualified to join. Let’s hope the know about it. If you are friends with one of them, do tell them. At the top of the tree is the self-proclaimed Grail Society, which sets its membership criteria so high — one in 76 billion — that it currently has zero members. It’s run by Paul Cooijmans, a guitarist from the Netherlands. About 2,000 people have tried and failed to join, he says. ‘Be assured that no one has come close.’

Wow, what exclusive clubs! Mensans are also more likely to have “psychological and physiological overexcitabilities” (Karpinski et al, 2018) such as ADHD, autism, and other physiologic diseases. How psycho and socially awkward a few members of Mensa are is evidenced in this tweet thread.

just a reminder that everyone in mensa is a fucking psycho pic.twitter.com/kaIrUNgXhn — jamieloftus 🏂 #edfringe (@jamieloftusHELP) October 2, 2018

How spooooky. Surely the high IQ Mensans have un-thought-of ways of killing that us normies could never fathom. And surely, with their high IQs, they can outsmart the ones who would attempt to catch them for murder.

A woman named Jamie Loftus got into Mensa and she says that you get a discount on Hertz car rentals, a link to the Geico insurance website, you get access to the Mensa dating site “Mensa Match” (there is also an “IQ” dating site called https://youandiq.com/), an email address, a cardboard membership card, and access to Mensa events in your area. Oh, and of course, you have to pay to take the test and pay yearly to stay in. (Also read Loftus’ other articles on her Mensa experience: one where she describes the death threats she got, and another in which she describes how Mensans would like her to not write bad things about them (Mensans). Seems like Mensans are in their “feels” about being attacked for their little—useless—club.)

One of the founders of Mensa—Lancelot Ware—stated that he “get[s] disappointed that so many members spend so much time solving puzzles” (quoted in Tammet, 2009: 40). If Mensa were anything but “members [who] spend so much time solving puzzles“, then I think Ware would have stated as much. While the other founder of Mensa—Ronald Berrill— “had intended Mensa as “an aristocracy of the intellect”, and was unhappy that a majority of Mensans came from humble homes” (the Wikipedia article on Mensa International cites Serebriakoff, 1986 as the reference for the quote).

So, when it comes to HISs, what do they bring to the world? Or is it just a dues-paid club so that the people on top can get money from people attempting to stroke their egos saying “Yea, I scored high on a test and am in a club!”

The supervisor of the Japanese Intelligence Network (JIN) writes (his emphasis):

Currently, the ESOTERIQ society has seven members and the EVANGELIQ has one member. I can perfectly guarantee that the all members exactly certainly undoubtedly absolutely officially keep authentic the highest IQ score performances. Especially, the EVANGELIQ is the most exclusive high IQ society which has at least one member.

Do you think the one member of EVANGELIQ talks to himself a lot? From the results of Karpinski et al (2018), I would hazard the guess that, yes, he does. Here is a list of 84 HISs, and there is an even more exclusive club than the Grail Society: the Terra Society (you need to score 205 on the test where the SD is 15 to join).

So is there a use for high IQ societies? I struggle to think of one. They seem to function as money-sinks—to sucker people into paying their dues just because they scored high on a test (with no validity). The fact that one of the founders of Mensa was upset that Mensa members spend so much time doing puzzles is very telling. What else do they do with their ‘talent’ other than solve puzzles all day? What has the Mensa group—and any of the other (quite possible, but 84 are linked above) hundreds of HISs—done for the world?

Adam—although he guessed at the end of the first Mensa exam (the Raven-like one)—got into Mensa due to his second Mensa test—the verbal one. Adam eventually retook the Mensa exam after taking his nootropic cocktails and he writes (2018: 207):

The second envelope from Mensa was waiting for me when I returned from work, poking out beneath a gas bill. I opened the gas bill first. Its numbers were higher than I expected. I hoped the same would be true of the letter that announced my new IQ. It was. My cognitively enhanced score on the language test had crept up to 156, from 154 before. And on the Culture Fair Test [the Raven-like test], the tough one with the symbols, it had soared to 137, from 128. That put me on the ninety-ninth percentile on both. My IQ as measured by the symbols test — the one I had tried to improve on using the brain stimulation — was now 135, up from 125, and well above the required threshold for Mensa Membership.

Adam used Modafinil (a drug used to treat sleeplessness due to narcolepsy, obstructive sleep apnea, and shift work sleep disorder) and electrical brain stimulation. So Adam increased his scores, but he—of course—has no idea what causes his score increases: the nootropic, the electrical stimulation, practice, already having an idea of what was on the test, etc.

In any case, that’s ancillary to the main discussion point in this article: What has Mensa—and other HISs—done for the world? Out of the hundreds of HISs in the world, have they done anything of note or are they just a club of people who score highly on a test who then have to pay money to be in the club? There is no value to these kinds of ‘societies’; they’re just a circlejerk for good test-takers. Mensans have a higher chance of having mental disorders, which is evidenced by the articles above by Jamie Loftus, where they threaten her life with their “criminal element”.

So, until I’m shown otherwise, Mensa and other HISs are just a circlejerk where people have to pay to be in the club—and that’s all it is.