In 1930, a rainbow descended on Charles Darrow, of Germantown, Pennsylvania.

It all started when this unemployed heating equipment salesman cognited on something that was better than winning the lottery. He had an idea that not only changed his life dramatically, but has probably even affected yours. While sketching on an oil cloth that covered his kitchen table, he revised and perfected a board game that had bounced about since 1902.

Darrow called his refined version "Monopoly."

The purpose of the game was to quickly purchase and improve as many real estate properties as possible, so as to extract exorbitant amounts of rent from opponents, while paying as little rent oneself as possible.

The goal of the game was all the other players' Monopoly money, leaving one filthy rich—at least in his imagination—and all his opponents suffering pitifully in the poorhouse. (Darrow could have called his game "Greed.")

Because Darrow wanted his game to mirror life, and since life seems to be what happens to you while you're making plans, he added numerous unpredictabilities.

For example, there were many rules of limitation, such as the obligation of a player to move his piece only the number of places on the board indicated by his roll of the dice; the obligation to "go to jail" if one drew that "Chance" card; and, the obligation to pay hefty rent to another player if one landed on his "Marven Gardens" improved with four hotels (which Darrow misspelled Marvin Gardens).

There were also abundant rules of allowance, such as the right to collect a $200 salary whenever one passed "Go"; the right to purchase unowned properties when one landed on them; and, even the right to remain in jail for a while, if one preferred.

Although each player hoped to amass all the improved properties, and, therefore, all the money of his opponents, only one player's dreams would eventually materialize into an overwhelming real estate monopoly.

Charles Darrow offered Parker Brothers, Inc., of Salem, Massachusetts, the opportunity to market Monopoly, but there was a crucial problem. Although Darrow understood the definition of the word game, Parker Brothers—one of the most successful game manufacturers and distributors in the world—did not.

Monopoly was too complicated for the public to ever understand, Parker Brothers told Darrow; the public would never be interested in playing Monopoly. Besides, the Corporation concluded, Monopoly contained "fifty-two fundamental errors."

Parker Brothers knew a bad game when it saw it and rejected Monopoly, flatly.

What forced Parker Brothers to eat its own words only a few months later was the wife of the Corporation's President. She heard how much excitement a friend was having playing Monopoly and persuaded her husband to go to the F. A. O. Schwarz department store and buy one of Darrow's handmade games. Then she set up the Monopoly board, squared off with her husband, and the two of them put the financial screws to each other until 1:00 AM.

Three days later, the unemployed Charles Darrow found himself in the President's office at Parker Brothers negotiating a deal. One year later, Darrow retired a millionaire.

In other words, you do something with the desire of obtaining some objective, in accordance with rules, some of which permit and some of which prevent you from taking certain actions…and you hope that you win.

There is an infinite number of games you can play, but the purpose of each must be to obtain some objective, or goal, or — as they say in the literary and motion picture industry, "There must be a weenie!" — something everyone is chasing. Otherwise, if you don't seek to have something, there is no reason to do anything and you have no game.

Rules of allowance must not predominate. If regulation baseballs were "superballs," and if basketball hoops had to be mounted at a height of only three feet, and if all golf holes were required to be [physically changed to] par one, well…. Then sales of "peanuts and Cracker Jack" would plummet, the National Basketball Association would be a dim memory, and golf courses would be covered with condominiums. The rules would be too lenient and the events would no longer be games.

Conversely, rules of limitation must not predominate, either. For example, if regulation baseballs had to be made of solid iron, and if basketball hoops had to be mounted 100 feet high, and if golf holes were required to be [physically changed to] at least par 50, again, good-bye Cracker Jack and National Basketball Association, and hello time shares. The rules would be too restrictive and the events would no longer be games.

For any game to remain a game, there must be a reasonable balance between the rules of allowance and those of limitation.

Every game must also include a chance of winning and a chance of losing. If either winning or losing is certain, again, there is no game.

Some activities are minor, common, and not particularly exciting, but they are still games. Baking a cherry pie may not seem like much of a game if you've previously rolled out pie dough 500 times, but until your creation comes out of the oven without running over or the crust browning too much, you can't be sure you've won.

Marriage is a game. The players' goal is usually to stay together and enhance each other's survival for as long as they both live. The rules include one's rights to communicate, disagree, kiss and make up, maintain fidelity, and stay in love. One is not allowed to remain too silent, disagree irreconcilably, kiss others too passionately, or murder one's spouse in his sleep. There is a chance of winning. Of course, in games you win some and lose some. Half of all marriages in the United States today end in divorce.

Games can be rather dull and boring, such as hoping to spot a comet on its eventual return. Or, they can be intense and chaotic, such as raising a child, which can be like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.

Your vocation is another game. So is educating yourself in a subject, enjoying a well-deserved vacation, attacking an infestation of aphids on a rosebush, spending another holiday with relatives without becoming homicidal, or almost anything else that you do.

Games may be played knowingly or unknowingly. Roger has arthritis. There is limitation to his pain; for example, he will not die directly from it. On the other hand, he is allowed to receive frequent sympathy, avoid some unpleasant tasks, and may even be catered to continually. Of course, arthritis could not possibly be a game…it couldn't…could it?

A game is most easily recognizable as a game if you are winning, in which case it's great fun. If you are losing, well…even Monopoly then seems more like just an arduous exercise in exasperation and despair. Incidentally, how does life look to you?

Those who are successful and, therefore, winning tend to see life as an adventurous game. Those who have suffered too many defeats (usually because they don't understand all the rules), however, feel overwhelmed. To them, life seems to be anything but a game, but it is.

The best games are gigantic, magnanimous, knock-your-socks-off, ethical games that you are fully aware that you are playing. Particularly ethical games are broadly beneficial to yourself, your family and friends, and your environment. They increase all the players' understanding of life and result in extensive happiness.

Unethical games, such as robbery, betrayal, murder, and even disease, are especially destructive and result in extensive unhappiness. Usually they are recognized as games by the originators, but not by the victims. The 11 September 2001 attack on the inhabitants of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was a game for Osama bin Laden. Of course, the subsequent retaliation against him was the next "playing period" in a continuation of the same game by America.

The worst possible games are those that are extremely unethical and that you are playing without even knowing it.

To easily discover a game that you are unknowingly playing right now, just identify some aspect of your life in which you are particularly unhappy. That is also an area in which you probably think you know all the rules, but you don't.

Some 2,650 years ago, our Western world believed in the egocentric assumption espoused by the Greek Philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras, who taught that our sun and the stars revolved around the Earth, which was located at the center of the physical universe. That idea was also subscribed to some 150 years later by the Greek philosopher Aristotle and heavily promoted in about 150 AD by Claudius Ptolemy, of Alexandria, Egypt, and was known as the Ptolemaic theory.

For most of the last 2,500 years, all the "authorities" have known that everything in the universe revolved around us. It has been an indisputable fact.

Finally, in 1530, less than five centuries ago, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus released his work "De Revolutionibus," in which he asserted the astounding claim that the earth revolved around the sun, an idea that was in diabolical contradiction to sixteenth century religious dogma. Fortunately, for himself, Copernicus died before the Catholic Church could torture or kill him.

The Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo courageously agreed with Copernicus' writings, whereupon the Church inquisitors abruptly summoned him. Then they threatened him with torture and death, forced him to kneel before them and renounce the idea that the earth revolved around the sun, and then condemned him to life imprisonment for having believed what the Catholic Church knew could not be true.

When the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno also agreed with Copernicus and Galileo, and even suggested that there might be other solar systems, and that some might even be inhabited by intelligent life forms, and that some might even be superior to humans, he laid his life on the line for the sake of truth. Abruptly, he was tried for blasphemy before the Inquisition in 1600, condemned to a torturous death, and burned at the stake. The Church could not be wrong.

Today most religious authorities still indoctrinate man that he is the only intelligent life in the entire universe and those of modern science instruct him that his species originated some 150,000 to 222,000 years ago, from sub-human ancestors of some 6,000,000 years before that.

Little do they know!

I will disclose to you not fanciful speculation, but statements reflecting truth from beyond the top of the IQ scale.

Intelligent life has existed on this planet for many millions of years and is extant not only across our Milky Way Galaxy, but throughout the entire physical universe. There are many games among the stars.

"Alphabet agencies" of our United States Government (CIA, FBI, DOD, DIA, DOE, et cetera), and the governments of many other nations, are currently and knowingly involved in a game that some of our "upstairs neighbors" are playing in this sector of our Galaxy. France and Russia, for all practical purposes, have publicly admitted it.

Although the home base of these extraterrestrial players is currently a mystery to every government on this planet, I will tell you the truth: It is actually some 100 light-years away, in the constellation Pegasus.

One might assume that the distance from there to Earth would ensure that the game would necessarily move at the speed of molasses, but he would be wrong. Albert Einstein never proved that the 186,000 mile (or 300,000 kilometer) per second speed of light can not be exceeded.

In his theory of relativity, Einstein knowingly postulated an assumption, which is reflected in what we know as the Minkowski space-time notion, to which many scientists subscribe. Many other scientists, however, currently believe that the Galilean space-time notion—which allows that an object can exceed the speed of light (super luminosity)—is valid.

No one has ever proved that the speed of light can not be exceeded. Most people merely like to allege that it can not be exceeded, because they think they should be more impressed with the more recent work of Mr. Einstein than with the historic work of Mr. Galileo, although they have minimal understanding of either and a serious misunderstanding of Einstein's theory.

In fact, the speed of light can be exceeded and interstellar spacecraft can travel 100 light-years in no more than a few weeks.

Unfortunately the governments of this planet do not have a clue as to the intensity of the game in which they are involved, or its allowances and limitations, or its actual purpose or goal. They suspect that they may, but they are babes in the woods.

You, also, are actually participating at this very moment in that same game. The bad news is that the civilization of Earth has been losing so badly, and for such a long time, that you are not even aware that you are playing that game.

In a still broader scope, your existence and activity in this physical universe is still another game. The persistence of matter and various forms of energy, space, time, and centrifugal force, gravity, and numerous other laws of the universe are the rules that both allow and limit your various activities. For example, you are allowed to privately think any thought you like and relocate yourself in space to the extent of your abilities, but are limited from transporting your body through time and walking through walls.

Not only are the allowances and limitations in this physical universe multitudinous, but many of the rules are unknown to man. Therefore, the physical universe may seem like a relatively big game, but is actually quite minor. There are many other, and much more interesting, games outside that one.

The good news is that it is possible for you to realize that you are deeply involved in an extraterrestrial game in this sector of our Galaxy, and discover the purposes and goals of both that game and the game of the physical universe, and understand all the rules…and even win.

It was with those objectives in mind that I released "The Genius Formula Series," "The Uncommon Sense Series," and "The Whole Truth Series," composing "The Mega Genius^® Lectures," in which I even reveal both the purpose and goal of life. The 100 "Mega-Truths" in those lectures are some of the most important rules of life. Still more revealing lectures will follow.

Some of what I have just told you may be beyond your reality at this moment. I think, however, that if you understand the definition of the word game, and spend a few minutes reviewing the games you are playing in your day-to-day life, and their rules and objectives, you can gain some valuable insight into yourself, your actions, and those of others.

Then why not do the following:

1. Expand your consideration of your actual capabilities.

2. Dream up a much bigger game, with a highly ethical goal.

3. Then play it!

Your single limitation is not even the stars, but only your imagination.

Mega Genius^®

1 February 2002

NOTICE - Although these "Mega Genius^® Intelligence Briefings" originate from beyond the top of the IQ scale, they are not substitutes for "The Mega Genius^® Lectures" -- "The Genius Formula™ Series," " The Uncommon Sense Series," and "The Whole Truth Series," -- which are the fundamentals of wisdom.  To learn how to skyrocket your intelligence in three easy steps with "The Genius Formula™ Series" of six lectures, in mp3 downloadable format, just select the glowing treasure chest below.