Cult

Like many other people, I too carried into this life an old emotional fear of being identified by the Inquisition as a heretic, a blasphemer, a cult member, and being burned (again) at the stake. The traditional Inquisition trigger-word was 'witch' but that was taken over by Walt Disney movies. A new word was needed to put a chill of fear down your spine. They chose the word 'cult'.

Being labelled a cult is one of the worst things that can happen to a gameworld. Like during the witch hunts, the accusation alone is often enough to condemn an organisation, group or project in the eyes of the public.

There is a high cost to introducing new jargon in a gameworld. One man recently wrote:

I'm curious why you're choosing to use the word 'gameworld' when the word 'institution' already exists?

It seems a bit problematic to me in some ways:

• Using different language to commonly understood words makes Possibility Management more "other" and hence less accessible.
• The word "gameworld" strongly associates PM with the geeky gaming subculture.
• It will sound immature or childish to many people, again potentially alienating some.
• It makes it seem to me that PM can't quite handle the hard reality of institutions, needing to 'gamefy' things instead

What about using the already-existing term 'institution' instead?

Here are some ideas we consider about this:

Is WhatsApp an institution? Is a relationship an institution? A Marathon run? A family? A culture? A movie production team? A blues band? A SCUBA Diving club? A bicycle repair shop? A Permaculture project? etc. Each of these are just as much a gameworld as modern culture's familiar banks, multinational corporations, armies, churches, public schools, governments, police forces, 'economy-realities', and Starbucks franchises. Each and every gameworld is unique, yet each and every gameworld is made from the same components, including a Context, the Rules Of Engagement, a Codex, the 4 Archetypal Lineages, and its semi-permeable membrane. Each gameworld is just as arbitrary and no more 'hard reality' than a few children setting up a temporary 'cowboys and indians' playspace gameworld. All gameworlds are temporary.

Realizing that civilization's 'institutions' are mere gameworlds is a wake-up call that we have been giving our center and authority away to false assumptions, to habitual thinking, to imaginary constructs.

The capitalist patriarchal empire's gameworlds have enslaved the minds and hearts of many human beings for thousands of years. Does this prove that these particular gameworlds are the 'real' gameworlds? No. It proves that uninitiated human beings are gullible and naive.

You support the values of every gameworld you play in, regardless of whether you play in a gameworld consciously or unconsciously. By using the distinction 'gameworld' you gain the power to choose wisely about the gameworlds you play in. You also gain the power to build new gameworlds that make existing gameworlds irrelevant.

Who can create and own an institution? Only those holding power positions behind-the-scenes in the ruling regime.

Who can create and own a gameworld? Anyone group of three or more gameworld builders.

The power in using the distinction 'gameworld' is that it makes the global playing field equal. Anyone who has the awareness and talent and commitment to build a gameworld can build a legitimate gameworld. Even if only three people in the entire world have ever heard of or participate in a particular gameworld, it is still a legitimate gameworld.

Using the term 'gameworld' for all the gameworlds we humans build and interact with each other through opens up tremendous possibilities for personal and cultural evolution. And right now, in this time in human history, we seriously need both personal evolution and cultural evolution.

Another man wrote:

Cults have a tendency to use language exclusive to themselves.

 

Archearchy, thoughtware, gameworld...

 

If you use commonly used language and expressions your work will both become more accessible to the mainstream, and also more open to scrutiny, both of which would be of benefit to the work that PM is doing.

 

If we use this definition of a 'cult', then modern culture is indeed a cult, as well as any religion, any university, any corporation, any sport, any military organization, any government, any club like Boy Scouts or Knitting Circle, etc. Each gameworld has had to invent new language exclusive to themselves to communicate and think about the distinctions that are relevant to their activities and interactions.
We in the Trainer Guild talk about this exact consideration amongst ourselves quite often.

We have come to the strategy regarding this question of how to remain 'accessible to the mainstream' by making PM accessible to the mainstreamers who find their way to the edge of mainstream thoughtware. Here they experientially discover that mainstream culture in fact has an edge, even if no one in the middle of mainstream tells us about this. A mainstreamer who discovers the edge and stays there, rather than bouncing back from fear of the edge, becomes a bridge builder. The many entry-level platforms for PM open code thoughtware serve as bridges to next culture.

In our experiments in distinctionary.xyz and sparkexperiments.org, for example, we found that trying to make the distinctions with inaccurate mainstream vocabulary leaves the mainstream reader stuck in their mainstream thinking and worldview. It just doesn't open any doorway into new possibility.