Frank Parlato
It was sometime in 1988, when Keith Raniere took an IQ test. He was 27.
The test Raniere chose was the Mega Test, a creation of the Mega Society, founded by Ronald Hoeflin in 1982.
The Mega Society said its test was the hardest in the world. Only one in a million could score high.
The test wasn’t timed. You could complete it in an afternoon or a month. It was a take-home test. In the end, it was the honor system.
“When I took the Mega Test I did so because some of the problems looked interesting,” Raniere said.
He confessed that “42 problems were trivial,” and the remaining six demanded only “a little work.”
“I solved 43 of the problems in about two straight hours; the other 5… took me about eight more hours over the next four days.”
He added that it took him ten hours, which he thought at first was “inappropriately long,” though he later learned that compared to others it was “short.”
Though he spent only 10 hours, he said. He kept it for weeks before he turned it in.
There was, of course, the matter of his copying error — “one of the easier problems,” he admitted, he copied wrong. He knew the answer, but he just copied down the wrong answer. After he turned in the test, he telephoned Hoeflin himself to point out the oversight. Hoeflin agreed to give him credit for that answer.
“I scored 46 out of 48.”
Had he not found out about the incorrect answer (or rather perhaps figured out the correct answer) and had Hoefler not agreed to change it after he turned the test in, Raniere would have lost out to Marylin Dos Savant and Eric Hart and could not have claimed he was the smartest man in the world.
He Took Over the Mega Society
When Keith joined the Mega Society in the late 1980s, he assumed a large role, if not control of the Mega Society. After his arrival, the membership dwindled from twenty-six to three. The twenty-three who departed left no explanation on record.
Raniere explained:
“I was a member of the old Mega Society. I originally renamed it, The Hoeflin Research Group to brand it.”
A Study to Prove His Genius
Since so few ever took the Mega Test, there was no real way to gauge how difficult it was. Keith said he would conduct a study on the rarity of a high test score. He would define the odds against which he himself had triumphed.
There is no written backup for much of his data. The evidence, Keith explained, could not be obtained in writing. Instead, the figures came “orally,” passed to him by “Educational Testing Service officials.”
Keith’s study, in the end, proved something remarkable.
According to his biography, “He has an estimated problem-solving rarity of one in 425,000,000 with respect to the general population.” It is the kind of number that suggests he is not simply unusual, but almost mythological, a bright streak across a very dark sky.
And then comes the crown jewel: he said he is “one of the top three problem solvers in the world.”
Both claims rest entirely on the study he himself conducted, the one built on oral statements and unrecorded data.
A man conducts a study about himself and discovers that he is extraordinary.
Guinness in Australia Knows a Genius When It Sees One
Keith Raniere’s biography offers another detail: “Keith Raniere was honored in 1989 by the Guinness Book of World Records in the category of highest IQ.” Raniere’s name appeared only once, for a single year, and only in the Australian edition of the 1989 Guinness Book. The UK, and US editions did not include his record. After that year, Guinness retired the “highest IQ” category entirely. They had, it seems, decided that the category was unverifiable.
A Modest Vanguard
Over the years, Keith said he never mentioned his super-genius IQ to dazzle anyone. That wasn’t the point. He only mentioned it to show that an IQ score was just a measure of solving test problems — nothing more. And in his case, he said, it was simple: he thought about solving problems all the time.
In Keith Raniere’s universe, genius is never displayed — merely explained. He mentions it only to illuminate a principle: that IQ tests measure nothing more than the ability to solve riddles designed by strangers. It is not ego. Not vanity. Just a man caught in the gravitational pull of his own mind.
But he added,
“VERY, few people from the non-problem-solver realm stand a chance against me on [IQ tests]– they do not have the experience, they do not have the drive, they are like not “primed” to solve problems.”
And he has the study to prove it.
Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
Raniere was no genius, but he’s smarter than Richie Luthmann and got laid WAY more often than Poor Richie does even in his dreams.
Squarefoot is such a douche-canoe. “Smartest man in the world my ass! More like, “the biggest asswipe in the world”!
Fuck you, Vantard!
Keith should have been satisfied with what he had already achieved. He had gone too far with DOS. However, he didn’t see it as a mistake because he always wanted to achieve more and believed he could get away with his next project. He was never satisfied with his accomplishments; he always had to escalate things further. He is the epitome of a malignant narcissist, exhibiting all the obvious characteristics.
Given that Keith went up against Frank and lost bigtime, and wound up in prison for 100 years — I’d say that Keith’s problem solving ability leaves much to be desired, LOL.
Forming DOS was the equivalent of Keith going out of his way to put himself in prison for 100 years for no good reason (since many of those women already had sex with him before DOS was formed — and he didn’t ‘need’ to create DOS).
He practically gifted the RICO case to federal prosecutors on a silver platter, LOL. And we’re supposed to think he’s a genius? LOL.
Have a good day. 🙂
Spot on.
I would add that forming DOS was a display of his greed. He wanted more sex. He wanted more power. He needed to keep pushing limits.
Got anything else to share besides the obvious?!?!?
🤣🤣🤣
Yes. But it annoys me when comments get buried for 5 days and I lose interest in participating here. How’s Boys Town?
Greed, “too much is not enough”.
This is the best analysis and comment you’ve made on the Frank Report.