The Gods Play Chess, Don't They?

AS IT IS now played in both hemispheres on this planet, chess is war, total war, a war of annihilation. The opposing player is not just the opponent, he becomes the enemy who must be destroyed. Was it always like this? The thesis of this book is that it was not, that in its origins, in a faintly remembered time, chess was primarily a game of self-revelation used by initiates to the priesthood to study and transcend the internal warfare going on inside all of us all the time. Invented thousands of years ago, chess was played to teach initiates the art of esoteric warfare.