Before I ever read the book The Men Who Stare at Goats, I had watched the movie. The movie starred George Clooney, and was loosely based off of Jon Ronson’s 2004 book by the same name.
The movie is fiction, plain and simple, the book is not. The book is a work of non-fiction, and was written by one of my all-time favorite journalists Jon Ronson.
Ronson is a short, pudgy, and round Englishman who shares a similar sense of curiosity as myself. Unlike some journalists his work is hardly serious. Which is not to say that he isn’t serious about his work, but in the sense that he doesn’t write about geopolitical politics, or the president’s most recent tweet.
Instead his writing, podcasting, and screenwriting seem pretty much apolitical. He investigates weird, quirky, and esoteric topics; and writes about them with a bit of humor.
In the case of The Men Who Stare at Goats, he writes about the very real attempts that the U.S. military made to find and create secret psychic soldiers, and their attempts to use drugs like LSD for mind control experiments. All were proven unsuccessful.
The Mind is a card game, a popular one at that. It has won awards, and was even nominated for the prestigious Spiel de Jahres. The game is simple, sweet, and very quick to play.
The idea of the game is that players must work together to place cards in an ascending order (lowest to highest) without talking to each other or seeing one another’s hands. There are as many as 12 levels of difficulty to complete depending on the number of players, and card numbers can range from 0-100.
The game itself plays up on this idea of psychic power. On the front cover of the box it reads “Let’s Become One.” This would suggest that players have to read each other’s minds to be successful at playing it.
This of course is not the case. There is a logical explanation for why people seem to develop these amazing powers of intuition and mind reading while playing the game. The explanation is written in the rules, but I don’t want to spoil the fun.
For the purpose of this article I will say that psychics, and psychic powers, do not exist (a controversial opinion). Still the idea of psychics are fascinating to people, and despite the lack of evidence proving these beings exist, people continue to believe in them. Which is part of what makes The Mind so fun.
I am a skeptic, but I think the idea of superpowers are very appealing, which is what attracted me to Ronson’s book in the first place. It is also what I find attractive about The Mind.
The game is simple, so simple in fact some people claim it isn’t a game at all. Sure, you could make that argument, since the rules are almost lacking, but truth of the matter is those people didn’t have the idea for it, and are probably just jealous of all the success the game has had.
These people are kind of like the James Randi, better known as the Amazing Randi. I like James Randi, I think he is a cool dude, who has a very clear and defined purpose. To expose charlatans. However, in this case, and keeping with the psychic theme, I invoke his name as a negative.
Randi is a retired stage magician, who for decades has been challenging and exposing psychics and paranormal phenomenon as fraudulent. Prove him wrong and you could win $1 million. Randi has never been proven wrong.
People who hate The Mind, are allowed to hate the game, however to say it is not a game is being a bit unfair. Decrying the simplicity of it ruins the fun for everyone, sort of like how Randi ruins the careers of “psychics”. Sure you could play a version of the game by simply using a deck of card, or better yet create your own with blank notecards and a pen, nothing is stopping you from doing those things. But it doesn’t change the fact that the game is fun.
As a skeptic I know psychics aren’t real, if they were I’m convinced that the U.S. military would have found one by now. Instead, as Ronson makes plainly obviously in his book, the military is just as inept at finding these people as the rest of us are. If they are hidden in plane sight then they are doing a helluva a job.
Still The Mind for a moment lets me pretend I am in fact psychic. It lets me indulge in a comic book fantasy where I have powers, and might even be a member of the X-men. That is what I like about the game.
I also like it because it is a game of attention. I’ve written about how board games are great because they require you to not be so focused on screens (as I type on a computer). I spend probably a good 75% of my time in front of a screen. Something I am all to aware has social, emotional, and cognitive effects on myself and other people.
Board games are great because they are connecting, and The Mind is awesome because there is no room to check texts, or looking something up on the internet.
Just about any game you play still has some basic downtime where you could be answering e-mails, or do something that is disconnecting. With The Mind this isn’t possible. You have to be all in 100% of the time, and completely focused on your fellow players. If your not you won’t win.
By writing this I’ve given some of the magic away in regards to the game, but that’s alright.
Verdict
The game is also small, quick to play, and portable. I’m pretty stingy, I hate to spend money, but at $12 to $14 it is a value game. Some games cost as much as $100 and only get played once. If you ask me The Mind is a worth the buy, and once you get bored of it just pass it on to some friends who haven’t played it yet.
Lakeshore Game Night 