You are interested in a King’s Card Game as a participant or as an organizer?
Then please read on!
Since there has been some unexpected confusion recently, here is our position on the King’s Card Game:
In the history of the project, there have always been short-term games, although the project had originally been conceived for a longer-term life context.
Without these games, however, the whole project as it is today would not exist, and neither would our book, "The Guru Paradox".
You may find more details in the Essay, in our book (which we currently attempt to translate to English) and also in the many other texts that we have published here on this site.
Many of the short term games have been proclaimed by interested private persons after they had read the Essay. Some members of today's Collective have taken part in some of these, from the very beginning or at least from very early on.
For conceptual reasons, the Collective itself long since stopped organizing short-term King’s Card Games though.
Nevertheless, some members of the Collective were present at the last open game, and that might happen again in the future as participation is a private affair.
These people then join as simple participants and hence they are not responsible for the "success". This demand, despite it being absurd (given such private games are free of any charges) has actually been made, even though it is so obviously diametrically opposed to the concept of the game as much as it is opposed to the setting.
Why people make demands on a free experiment as if it were an expensive seminar with top-class leadership and a comprehensive coverage is quite casually understandable from our analysis: The all-pervasive victim structure.
Unfortunately, this borderline strategy, which is explained in detail in the book, cannot be resolved by recognition. And it can not be smiled away with a prayer or a commandment, that is precisely why the project exists.
For professionalism and responsibility in supporting games we are available as a Collective gladly in the context of seminars, consultation and coachings.
We have created this opportunity so that people who are interested in learning about our concrete approach and our extensive knowledge can have a secure framework for this transfer of knowledge.
Yet, free King’s Card Games are not in our care and are not subject to our responsibility. These are purely private events.
Such games are always to be offered at the net-cost price and may be played only in accordance with the Creative Commons, where the basic game idea of a hierarchy that is transparent and made flexible through authorization mechanisms is registered as such. The condition applies that our authorship is clearly recognizable and comprehensibly named for all participants.
If a game is open to public participation, our copyright furthermore does not allow any surplus to be generated in any way, for example by "donations" to the organisers or the turnover of a café directly related to the event or the organiser, as is often the case in communities, for example. This would exclusively be possible as an exception with our written permission, which is generally an option.
This protective step unfortunately became necessary after two communities of the so-called "new culture" had already exploited the game as their own invention to amuse paying guests. The game, which only makes sense as the overall framework, was trimmed accordingly. In the best case it might have been entertaining, in the worst case it has encouraged unhealthy dominance and control strategies. It certainly could not promote the intended emancipation from the endless perpetrator-victim-shame spiral.
In addition to this hopeless muddle of unreflected alienation mechanisms, there are various "coaches" who have used the game in their seminars, mixed with other obscure techniques and of course without mentioning our authorship or the permission necessary for commercial offering, or who want to use it now.
These events have confused, saddened and worried us.
Frankly, we find it negligent of the so-called "coaches" to use a tool whose function and mode of operation is simply not understood. On top of that with people seeking help. This is dubious and dangerous.
We explicitly warn against New Age charlatans and recommend to ask for the expertise of the provider of all methods offered for personal development! Especially in the community scene, we have experienced plagiarism, imposture and pretence when it comes to certified methods. We advise you to take care.
Whoever wants to organize a game out of serious and not monetary interest should have no problem to contact us beforehand.
We are happy to make our channels available for invitations to any game, because we hope and believe that in this way people can get closer to the core thesis. It is our intention to convey it. So that something may really and lastingly change with people and the world!
An invitation can therefore on request be sent via our mailing list, where all our newsletter subscribers are automatically registered. Such invitation must name venue, time and costs and include an extensive and comprehensible framework of rules and setting.
Up to now we have additionally often made invitations public via our newsletter, Facebook and the blog, and have been there to help with the wording of the invitation and to answer questions. Usually we knew the organizers from direct personal contact in our process work or in coaching sessions, so we did have some basic trust in them grasping the general idea and strict setting necessities.
But we don't want to do it that way anymore.
The book has recently led to people playing the game who do not have the least bit of understanding of the framework and the approach, and sometimes did not care to even read it fully. They rather pursue their own agendas, such as marketing the game or solving relationship problems. Our primary goal is to prevent such structurally autonomous exploitation logic.
So we only do quality monitoring for open games on request in the explicit context of a consultation or a coaching.
We want to ensure quality, for us and for you:
So, only if an invitation is posted here in the blog and distributed via the newsletter, you can be sure that we were actually involved with our expertise and that you have a safe eye2eye-level setting with no hidden hierarchies.
Meanwhile, an invitation exclusively via the mailing list is always autonomous.
Such games are not discussed or planned with us in terms of content and organization and are not supervised by us. They might be having the same or a similar name only.
In the sense of evolution this is allowed and even encouraged!
But then it might not be a King’s Card Game, but rather the usual green mash of a “we are all nice people”-get together.
With such games it is not certain whether people may have negotiated with the organizer some special regulations, which in our opinion make the game simply pointless. For example, that a dog may be walked at virtually any time regardless of the king's command, that the Essay has not been read at all, or that certain people should not/may not participate etc.
In short: With games exclusively sent via the mailing list, no quality assurance is given from our side.
Of course, this also applies to games that people organize privately.
Just a few weeks ago there has been one where we were called to help at short notice, in a combination of participants that could at best be based on a total misunderstanding of what such a game is and what it is actually designed for.
But after all, it has been good enough for the shortest CE-joke:
"Two couples are playing the King's Card Game."
The game planned for Easter this year, supported and supervised by us, has unfortunately been cancelled due to Corona.
We currently do not know if the organizer will put it on again, but there are others seemingly ready to put something up this summer.
If you want to organize a game yourself and ensure maximum quality, i.e. you don't want to fall into all the structural traps that we have already sufficiently mapped out, because they repeat themselves structurally and automatically, you are welcome to contact us for a consultation.
Before your game, not during.
Georg
on behalf of the Collective