Mensa - The Society for the Highly Intelligent - Mensa's Honorary International President - Atest for your intelligence

Oct 3, 2026

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Mensa: The Society for the Highly Intelligent by Victor Serebriakoff presents the organization’s origins, growth, and internal dynamics through a critical, accessible narrative. It examines how membership is determined by an intelligence test and questions what intelligence itself means and whether such testing can be objective. The book also explores debates over hereditary intelligence, gifted children, and the idea of a parallel “word culture,” while including a standardized test so readers can evaluate and compare themselves to the Mensa acceptance level.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages164

Reading Time4 h 13 min

AccessFree to download

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface

History: the beginning

History: the takeover

History: the comeback

Can mental ability be measured?

Nature or nurture?

What are gifted people like?

About gifted children

Mensa and the world culture

About Mensans

Which way is Mensa going?

A test for your intelligence

Appendix: Mensa chronology

Addresses

Index

The 5ociety for theHighly Intelligent Victor Serebriakoff Foreword by Esaac Asiaoy MENSA The 5ocietyfar theHighly Intelligent Victor Serebriakoff Foreword by Isac Asimov From its somewhat eccentric beginningsin 1946,Mensa—the society for the highlyintelligent—now has nearly 70,000 mem-bers,of which 49,000 are in the UnitedStates.The organization receives severalhundred applications daily.This book waswritten to satisfy the growing curiosityabout Mensa. Membership is based on an "intelligencetest."But upon what is intelligence itselfbased?Can such a test be truly objective?The book touches on such controversialissues as whether hereditary intelligenceexists and the development of the giftedchildren's movement aswell as the author'sidea of a supervening influential"wordculture”among intelligent,educated peo-ple everywhere that operates in parallelwith the many conflicting ethnic and reli-gious cultures. What are gifted people like?And how dothey differ from other people?All this,aswell as an inside view of Mensa's rathercurious history,are described in this bookby Mensa's Honorary International President.Also included is a widely acceptedstandardized intelligence test so that readerscan make their own assessment of theirintelligence and compare it with theMensa acceptance level. # MENSA MENSA The SocietyfortheHighly Intelligent Victor Serebriakoff Foreword by Isaac Asimov First published in the United States of America in r986Copyright ◎1985 by Victor SerebriakoffAll rights resernved,Stein and Day,IncorporatedPrinted in the United States of Americn STEIN AND DAY/PublishersScarborough HouseBriarcif Manor,NY.10510 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataSerebriakoff,Victor.Mensa:the society for the highly intelligent.Includes index. 1.Mensa-History.2.Intellect.1.Title.BF431.5442198685-40964ISBN ontents AcknowledgementsForewordPreface 711 131 History:the beginning172 History:the takeover543 History:the comeback1034 Can mental ability be measured?1685 Nature or nurture?2076 What are gifted people like?2177 About gifted children2308 Mensa and the world culture2369 About Mensans24710 Which way is Mensa going?26311 Atest for your intelligence272Appendix:Mensa chronology284Addresses Index309 Acknowledgements Ihave to acknowledge the many kind friends who have helped me withthis book.My wife Win,John McNulty,Madsen Pirie,andHarold Galehave taken on the task of a careful and critical reading of the MSS andthey have eliminated errors where Ihave not been too wrongheaded toaccept correction.The many faults,errors and inaccuracies that are leftare poor thingsbut they are mine own. The number of those who have contributed to the book in one way oranother is too large for it to make sense to name them all but HarperFowley,Harold Gale,Ruth Whittle,Philip Poole,Adrian Berill,Christopher Cruice Goodall,Kenneth Passmore Brown,Eric Hills,Judge Brian Galpin,Sir Clive Sinclair,Jaques Schupbach,RalphSpicer,Paul Grifin,Rudolph Schroeder,Sydney Jackson,NigelScarle,Sushil Bilaney,Margot Seitelman,Sander Rubin,Udo Schulz,Jonathan Causer,and many,many more whose names do not come tomind just now have been very helpful. So have many others who have been kind enough to answer my calland offer the contributions which have been crowded outby the growingbulk of these pages. I can only express gratitude to all of them and to Mensa in general.The encouragement,the immediate,imaginative,willing and practicalhelpIhave had is none the less welcome because it can be always reliedon in Mensa and from Mensans. This is also probably the best place to acknowledge manyImentionedinearlier drafts whose nameshave been edited out in the drastic pruningof the manuscript which was needed to bring the book down to the sizerequired.These are the names of just afew of the people who havekeptMensa going and growing through the years;just some of those whohave made an impression on this observer. Mensa Here is my

FAQs

What basis determines Mensa membership in this book?

Membership is based on an intelligence test, and the book explains that readers can compare their own results with the Mensa acceptance level.

Does the book treat intelligence testing as objective?

The book raises controversial questions about what intelligence is and whether an intelligence test can truly be objective.

What topics does the author cover about gifted people and children?

It describes what gifted people are like, how they differ from other people, and discusses the development of the gifted children’s movement.

Oct 3, 2026

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