The Ecphorizer

Review: Victor Serebriakoff's MENSA
Paul Gregson

Issue #62 (January 1987)



MENSA, The Society for the Highly Intelligent, by Victor Serebriakoff.
Published by Stein & Day, New York.

This book is a "must have." Recent members will learn a lot about Mensa. Long-term members will learn more about the New York in-fighting of the sixties. This is the definitive history of Mensa since its casual beginning in a railway carriage in England in 1945. That such a society exists today for our benefit is largely due to the untiring efforts of Victor Serebriakoff.

He reviews the virtues and unvarnished vices of our oddball association, particularly the curious destructive tendencies of some lunatic members. I have seen some of this behavior — we all have. His book lays out case studies of Mensa activities in the US, Britain, and throughout the world. This is a handbook for anyone who would like to study our unique social structure, especially with a view to improving it.

See page 198 for a neat way to stimulate membership growth in your area. Read of his admiration of Margot's [Margot Seitelman, Exectutive Director of American Mensa from its inception in 1961 until her death in 1989]  work on our national behalf. Irish Mensa has some surprises, and have you ever wondered about South African Mensa? Mensa behind the Iron Curtain? Of course, the membership figures in the British Channel Islands Mensa "are ridiculous."

Mensa needs to learn from this book.

Copies are available from Amazon .


PAUL GREGSON is originally from the Isle of Man. This may explain why he takes particular interest in the Irish and Channel Islands Mensa groups. Curious folk, these island-dwellers.

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