The Master Game

In 1968, Robert S. De Ropp Put out a book called the master game. It caused quite a stir at the time among those looking for spiritual literature, and it sold about 200,000 copies.

His fundamental premise was that everyone wanted or needed “a game worth playing,” and it was finding and playing an important game that brought meaning and satisfaction to life. In his book he listed 3 low games, one neutral game, three higher or meta-games, plus one which he called the master game. And furthermore, according to De Ropp, the games people chose to play indicated their “type” as well as their level of inner development.

A defining trait of the lower, or object-games, was they all required validation from the outer world.

• The first lower game was “Hog in the Trough,” and the purpose of this game was to push your way in, elbow the other hogs aside, and consume as much as you can. This game is fairly obvious in modern life – materialism, overconsumption, and it’s expressed in endless commercials on television, whether for cars, beer, beauty products, or something else.
• A second lower game was labeled “Cock on a Dunghill,” and the purpose of this game was to get attention, prestige, validation… to become well-known. This game is also woven throughout modern life… in seeking popularity, Facebook friends and likes, followers on Instagram or other social media and the urge to be a celebrity or online influencer.
• The final lower game, labeled “Moloch,” was the seeking of glory, victory, domination… expressed in mixed martial arts, sports of many kinds, and the desire to be “the greatest nation on earth!”

While it’s easy to see the negative or even pathological expressions of the lower games, another game – the Householder – whose desire was to have and raise a family — was seen as neutral, the basic biological game on which the survival and continuation of the human race depends.

A defining trait of the higher or meta-games is the desire to express an inner quality or awareness… and to bring that passion or commitment out into the world. De Ropp articulated three…

• The artist game… defined as the longing to bring beauty (whatever the form or medium happened to be) into the world.
• The science game involved bringing more knowledge (of whatever type and subject matter) into the human community.
• And the religion game, whose aim is loosely defined as salvation.

De Ropp noted that it was exceedingly difficult to play these high games, at least in their pure form, in modern life. You’re an artist… you find your craft and become a potter, bringing your artistry into the world of clay. But you want to support yourself doing it, and soon find that simple utilitarian items, like plates, bowls, and goblets, sell really well while your hand-built wall-hangings with ancient, archetypal, and nature-based themes never move from the shelves. Soon you’re cranking out the bowls and hiring 6 employees, renting factory space, and running advertising campaigns to produce and promote “your brand.”

Or you want to do cutting research, but your proposal must fit the requirements of whatever committee approves the grants according to what gets funded these days. Religious salvation – corrupted by institutions who sold forgiveness… or offered to those who slaughtered the heathen – those who saw the pathway to salvation differently than your team – has — in the western world — gone entirely out of fashion.

But, according to De Ropp, within the religious game, there were always those – saints and mystics –playing by different rules and with different aims… the aim of awakening, of full consciousness… those playing the Master Game. To those playing the master game, the goal was to emerge from the narrow shell of the personal ego and come closer to union with “the universal consciousness” … aka the Great Mystery.

To primal cultures the Great Mystery referred to the source and origin of everything — all facts, shapes, forms, and expressions of existence … everything that could be experienced and known — emerged from it. It was a focus of reverence, the matrix/mother of our being, the background and context within which we live, know, and perceive.

To stretch toward the vast and magical “unknown,” we have to move beyond our “self.” When this self is shrunk and removed from center, the world around it expands correspondingly, and feelings of wonder, magic, and magnificence develop and flower. The methods of all mystical and spiritual traditions – the rules of the Master Game — involve forms and techniques to break the obsession and self-referencing of the “I,” and to open to “the other world,” the vast and unknown realms beyond its confines.

The practices and avenues to move beyond the self are many and varied. Some involve expressions of surrender, praise, gratitude, or prayer. Others use the physical, sensory world (ordeals, fasting, breath, yoga, sound); evoke the emotions through fear, love, compassion, devotion, or ecstatic dance; address the mind, (usually in the form of quieting it, as in meditation); or nurture the imaginative/visionary realm through dreams, art, poetry, shamanic trance, or the use of plant allies.

These practices can range from austere to elaborate, easy to difficult … from vision quests and initiatory rites to the simple expression of gratitude. But at their core there’s one thing in common: a shrinking or removal of attention and energy from the self in its ordinary and consensual reality, and a corresponding emphasis on all that lies beyond … that changing, fluid, magical, and mysterious “world” of the unknown, and the profusion of possibilities to perceive and engage with it.

To experience this “Great Mystery” is to know God, the Source, our creator. To experience does not mean to think about or understand. To experience means to be intimate with. For millennia, developing a relationship of appreciation, gratitude, and respect with this Unknown was the ultimate task of life. Creating, nurturing, and sustaining this relationship led to a sense of belonging, of finding one’s place in the universe, of having a home. To do so resulted in deep feelings of peace, and a sense of wonder, purpose, and connectedness with all parts of creation.

Throughout history, playing the master game required great effort and discipline, but De Ropp saw the obstacles as even greater today. To quote… “watched over from cradle to grave by a paternalistic government, protected from overwork by unions, from hunger by the bounty of scientific agriculture, from pestilence by the art of medicine… soothed by tranquilizers or stimulated by antidepressants, perpetually hypnotized by the unending circuses offered by television radio, and the movies, why would anyone ask for more? When the third room is comfortable, save, and full of delights, why should we strive to enter the fourth?”

His answer was “freedom.” It was only through love of and seeking for “the unknown,” could one be free of unconscious drives and the tyranny of the personal ego … only then could we engage the adventure and mystery of discovering all that’s beyond the self we know now. To feel and follow that call is the adventure of a lifetime.

Aho!  (August 3, 2023)