Why I founded Prudentia

I was a member of another well-known high IQ society – you have most certainly heard its name – in the years 2002 to 2014. It was the first high IQ society I joined, and for a long time I had no interest in joining any other high IQ society. As a matter of fact, it was the onlyhigh IQ society I knew that regularly held real-life, face-to-face gatherings in Austria. These gatherings were the primary reason why I was interested in being a member of such a society: in order to meet people in person and learn how to handle them. Previously, I had almost no contacts to intellectual peers face to face, but as I had a couple of penpals who were apparently very intelligent it was obvious that there had to be some who could match my cognitive abilities.

In the course of the years I learned more about the history of that high IQ society. It turned out it was founded by a psychologist in the 1960s, who had good intentions. He wanted to create a society both for highly educated people and for people with little formal education. His intention was to encourage those with little education to go back to school, study and obtain degrees so that they would be able to rise into positions in society which would enable them to use their intellect for the benefit of mankind.

Unfortunately it turned out that the society did not live up to its promises. One of the reasons may have been that the founder was not strict enough when admitting new members. As I heard, sometimes he would admit members even if they did not score high enough on the admission test. It also turned out that many members who did not have university degrees had no interest in studying and were satisfied with their lives although they were not in positions respected by society. In the end, the high IQ society deteriorated because some of these people became members of the board of directors and used their power to actively suppress those members who had higher aspirations. This is what eventually made me leave that society.

I founded Prudentia in July 2018 because, after four years of communicating with high IQ people mostly via the Internet, I was longing for real-life, face-to-face meetings again. It was clear that the aforementioned people in the other well-known high IQ society would not accept me. After a lot of pondering over various concepts (including the idea of a society that is not about IQ, but about academic credentials) I finally concluded that I would try to found a new society for people with an IQ of 140 or higher and encourage people with higher education and university graduates to join it.

Prudentia is an international society and therefore not limited to Austria or any other place. I will try to make an effort to find people living close to our current members who might be interested in joining as well, so that we will have real-life, face-to-face gatherings at various places in the world. My plan also includes scientific debate and opportunities to work on research projects together with other university graduates. Let's hope I will succeed.

Claus Volko, cdvolko (at) gmail (dot) com