About Crystal Connections

The Crystal Connection version of this game is featured in my book Don’t Save The World. I designed it as a fun way for you and your friends to interconnect the many siloed ideas you hold in your mind.

Because the goal is to interconnect ideas already in your mind, it is a very personal game and there are no wrong answers. You may be tempted to fact-check connections during the game (is a mushroom technically a plant?) but the goal of the game is not accuracy. Truth has many dimensions and a connection that may seem intellectually incorrect may still be emotionally or spiritually true for the player.

By actively making these connections, you’ll strengthen them, making your personal universe more integrated and flexible. By playing this game with others, you can also learn from the surprising connections they make.

Wordplay and Connections

Crystal Connection’s sister game, Crystal Word Chain, is based on wordplay which is specific to the languages we speak. Puns, homophones and common word pairs all exist at a level of language that is largely separate from the meanings that language represents.

Language evolved out of the human desire to communicate our experience to others. Crystal Connections is about using language (words) to interconnect our personal experiences and the meanings we give them.

The connections you make during the game will likely come to you as emotions, images, somatic (body) responses or even sounds or smells. Part of the challenge of the game is to express those experiences in words. I encourage you to pause and let the word come to you. Try not to overthink it. You can always reflect on it later when the game is over.

The Glass Beads Game

The game is inspired, in part, by the Glass Beads Game from Hermann Hesse's novel of the same name. Apparently in that novel (I admit I have not read it) he doesn't really explain how the game is played, so we can feel free to make up our own rules.

It's a happy connection that one meaning for "crystal" is a high-quality form of glass, but I've resisted calling the game "Crystal Beads." I think that the object of Crystal Connections is different. I think that the Glass Beads Game is more an academic competition as Hesse envisioned it, not an opportunity for self-reflection or personal growth.