Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.
I think there was a scene like this in Fize of the Gabriel Ratchets (Warren C. Norwood, pub. Bantam, 1983) when the protagonist was initiated into the Gabriel Ratchets. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the book now so I can't verify this or give more details.
@ths : This sounds similar to Damon Knight's "Special Delivery" (1954), where a superintelligent fetus controls his mother from the womb but loses his special powers upon birth, when he becomes an ordinary "red, wrinkled, puny" baby.
