The Ecphorizer

The Mismeasure of Mensa 4
Lottie Fish-Bate

Issue #32 (April 1984)


Deux ex Mensa



The December and January installments told the dismal story of how World Wars III and IV left

mens sano in coporae sano...apparently means altar in the sauna, body in the sauna

a world populated only by Mensans in Antarctica and a remnant of Nazi war criminals in South America. The March episode carried time-traveler Lottie Fishbate's narration of how these Immensans of South America were apparently extirpated by 2033, but how they re-emerged in the mid-21st century, deriding the Mensan religion. Immensan radicals denied even the existence of Mensa prior to World War III. In any case, they belittled the incense sauna bath rituals as Jewish parodies of Christianity. Lottie's ire aroused, she rises to the defense of the faith of our mothers .....

[quoteright]That the Mensan baths were prefigured in earlier religions, I see no reason to deny. Our Mensan ritual is simply the true and complete expression of the prior religious principle, "cleanliness is next to godliness." (I admit that we have been as yet unable to find this saying in the newly discovered Mensa texts.) Jewish repetitive cleanliness is combined with the Christian insistence to clean the inside, not just the outside. Thus we sweat out the toxins from inside instead of just washing the dirt and such from the surface.

Now to deal with a really substantial criticism. The Immensans have pointed out that the new documents include statistics on the religious affiliations of Prior World American Mensans. Clearly stated from several documents at various periods from 1945 to 1967 is that Mensans listed themselves variously as Jews or as either, protestant or Catholic Christians, much like the general population. This is truly shocking, I admit. Mensans did not appear to the public as a religious sect, and Mensans even listed themselves as members of the old religions. This argument in the final analysis turns back upon our detractors, however. The statistics all the more prove the religious origin of the American Mensa sect. Only 40% of the members claimed traditional affiliations, no doubt the newer members who had not yet been initiated into the secret mysteries. The other 60% were various off-beat, non-committal, or negative respondents who were the baptized members who had been instructed to exercise discretion to prevent persecution of their religion.

We now know that the early Christians as a security measure required a three year training program before baptizing new members into their faith. During this time the catechumens were forbidden to even attend the sacred meal and were not even told that the food had just been changed into Christ's substance. Among their contemporaries, the early Mensans were among millions of Masons and similar cultists who were at beginning or intermediate levels in the process of being initiated into the higher mysteries of their particular faith. Clearly, the high level of stated irreligiousness by Mensans was simply a protective facade, once again a play on our title, the Mensa-gate Cover-Up

The word "Mensa" or "Mensan" itself has aroused great controversy in this religious parody argument. The extreme Immensan attack regards the word as originally "men-san", a conjugate word arising from the interaction of English and Oriental culture. The abject servility of the latter in regards to authority led to powerful Occidental males being called "men-san" in general, just as that suffix was added by the Japanese to the name of any individual in higher authority. Savoring the taste of power, the English and American male recipients of such fawning by geishas, etc., took up the name as an arrogant, male chauvinist name for their society and their god. This was what most Immensans asserted until recently.

The John Birch texts disprove such nonsense. "Mensan" was not the original word from which "Mensa" was derived as a flippant name for a male chauvinist god; the word "mensa" came first. The derivation of the word "mensa" itself is not absolutely clear, even from the largest unabridged dictionaries yet found. It is true that a word "mense" does mean "manly conduct", but this means in the sense of "civility" or "dignified manner." This is a very rare word, labeled as merely dialect (Scottish). For lack of any better case to fall back upon, the modified Immensan position now focuses on this word. Yet the word is never found in print except in dictionaries! Much more commonly the word "mense" or "menses" is employed as a synonym for menstruation. Mensan Fundamentalists have "always" taught this origin for our name, that our God has built in a regular recognition of Him in the superior sex. Fortunately, this position also lacks support, for it was the mainstay of their doctrine that only women could be saved, because there is no salvation without shedding of blood.

No, these similar words now can be disregarded, for we have found what the word mensa itself means! Mensa (or "mensae") means a tablelike object; specifically the upper part or top of an altar. The incense in our saunas which we enter after the Mensa-Gate Cover-Up is, of course, placed on such an object! What better proof that Mensa originated from the time the name was first used as a full-blown religion? Yet a phrase, "mens sano in coporae sano," has been found which proves the even earlier origin of the Mensa religion. It apparently means "altar in the sauna, body in the sauna," that is, "godly body and altar in the sauna." We even know the religion in which this earlier group was active. The 13th ed. Ency Britannica tells of an Ethopian tribe called Mensa whose members were Moslem! That such an extremely small number of Mensans in the 20th century statistics called themselves Moslem, proves that Moslems could be admitted at once to the inner circle of initiates.

If Lottie doesn't get caught in her time machine, there may be even more ...in the future.


Descended from the 20th Century Fish clan known so well to our readers, Lottie Fish-Bate continues to spin her tales of high fantasy...  In this installment Fish-Bate foresees a time when, having found no practical use for Mensa, mankind finally turns it into a religion.

More Articles by Lottie Fish-Bate



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