123. Spiral Dynamics with Steve McDonald Part 1

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123. Spiral Dynamics with Steve McDonald Part 1

Recorded online on 18th May, 2020, for the podcast

We Don’t Talk About That with Lucas Land (Original at: https://wdtatpodcast.com/30)

Lucas Land: In this two part interview, I talk to futurist, Steve McDonald, about Spiral

Dynamics, which is a model for understanding human development and consciousness. It's a

fascinating conversation that I think can help us understand ourselves and other people so

much better. There's a lot of information to digest, so sharing this in two parts will hopefully

help your digestion and not give you information heartburn.

Welcome to the podcast, where we talk about things we're not supposed to, learn how to have

difficult conversations, and talk to people about what makes them different. This is the We

Don't Talk About That with Lucas Land podcast, where we do talk about that with me, Lucas

Land.

My guest today is Steve McDonald. He is a futurist and the founder of the Agency for

Advanced Development of Integrative Intelligence (AADII). AADII is a non-profit Change

Agency, and you're also the founder of Future Sense, a podcast and radio show that

broadcasts from Byron Bay, Australia. So welcome to We Don't Talk About That.

Steve: Thanks, Lucas. It's great to be here.

Lucas: So, Steve, tell us first just a little bit about yourself. I said you're at Byron Bay,

Australia, but what are you up to? Tell us just a little bit about who you are.

Steve: Sure. I'm a futurist and a change agent, and I'm particularly interested in the evolution

of human consciousness and the future of human existence.

I've got a very diverse background. I spent 15 years as a career army officer here in Australia.

For some of that time, I was a reconnaissance helicopter pilot and for most of my army time I

was an officer in the infantry, so grassroots, commanding combat soldiers. I went to war in

Somalia, Africa in 1993 on a humanitarian mission and that was primarily a US-led response

to a widespread famine which had been caused by a civil war in Somalia. So we went over

there to quieten down the civil war so that the UN could resume feeding people again. Not

long after that deployment, a couple of years later, I got out of the army, went through a bit

of a unclear phase and not knowing what was next for me, but I ended up going back to

https://wdtatpodcast.com/30



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flying and flew a rescue helicopter for five years working in emergency services. Then, while I

was doing that, I started to do some training and consulting work on the side because I had

a lot of management experience from my time in the Army. That eventually got me into full

time management consulting. I specialised in change management after a while and I

discovered Clare Graves's work back in 2003. Around the same time I was also introduced to

Ken Wilbur's work as well.

From my reasonable experience of the different encounters you can have with human nature

from war through to all sorts of extreme experiences in emergency services, what I read of

Clare Graves's description of human nature seemed a really good fit with my experience. So

straight away I gravitated towards learning more about that. I did some formal training with

Don Beck, who was one of the authors of the Spiral Dynamics book, first in Australia, then I

went to Texas a year later, and eventually I got qualified to teach Spiral Dynamics Integral,

which was under the auspices of Don Beck's school.

Also during that period, I struggled with post-traumatic stress from my work in the military

and emergency services and that knocked me over for about seven months. I couldn't work

and went through a fairly extreme sort of healing process there, but it was also a

breakthrough process as well. Developmentally, because I'd read about Clare Graves's

material, I could see it as being a transformation process, and that was really useful for me.

Then, in more recent years, I have established a charitable foundation, which is essentially a

non-profit Change Agency, as you described, and it has a global focus. I'm particularly

interested in the global challenges that humanity is facing and will face in the near future,

and how we can improve human coping capacity by understanding how to transform human

consciousness. Really, the root of pretty much all of our issues that we have in society comes

down to human values. If we can understand human values better and how they change and

how to work with the change process, then that offers an avenue to a more cohesive and

collaborative global society.

Lucas: Yes, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is exactly what you're talking about,

and I assume Spiral Dynamics is a big part of that. When I first encountered Spiral Dynamics,

what was really helpful to me was that it helped me be more compassionate to people that

were in other memes or were different than me. I could see where their values were and

where they were at.

So tell us a little more. I know we're not going to be able to really plumb the depths of Spiral

Dynamics in an hour or so, and we can share some links for people to go deeper later, but

just on a general level, what was Clare Graves's initial idea about how human consciousness

developed, and how might that help us see people differently? Then, maybe we can get into

the colours.

Steve: Sure. I think one thing that's different about Clare Graves's research is most people,

when they're wanting to do a research project, they come up with a hypothesis and then

they want to try and prove whether it's true or not. Graves started with an open-ended

question, and that's what really marks his work as unusual and very insightful.



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He was a contemporary of Abraham Maslow. There were a number of theories around at

that time about the development of human nature and psychology, and most of them had

no more than seven levels—tepped levels or stages—that we grow through during our lives,

and all of the models around really had a kind of a pinnacle—the pinnacle of human

existence: this is what you can achieve and it's the highest thing you can achieve. Graves' was

teaching psychology in upstate New York, and on the course that he taught there were five

different perspectives on human psychology that came from different sources. Inevitably,

one of the students would put their hand up at the end of the course and say, 'Dr. Graves,

which one of these is right?' and there was real frustration around those questions that drew

him to his start his own research.

So his research was based around the question: “What is the nature of a psychologically

mature adult?” and with that open question, he then had quite a diverse range of data-

gathering methods from self-reporting from university students to unannounced

observation of behaviour, which probably wouldn't be ethical these days. He also studied all

sorts of parallel research into biology—the study of brain structure and that kind of stuff.

He was smart enough to know that if he was the only guy analysing his data, then his own

perspective on the world would flavour the outcome, so what he did was he gathered a team

of seven peers whom he called his 'judges', and he would give his data to the judges and just

say, 'have a look at this and see what patterns you can find'. So it was a very open approach

that he took, and very non-directive, which I think, again, is why he came up with such

valuable information.

I can summarise his findings in kind of three areas. The first one is, he found this interesting

relationship between the complexity of life conditions and the responsive and adaptive

nature of human consciousness. He represented that as like a double helix pattern where life

conditions were one strand and the human consciousness was the other strand, and as the

life conditions changed then human consciousness responded and, as necessary, it either

became more complex or less complex to match what the life conditions were demanding.

That in itself is a really profound finding, and I guess one of the key messages out of that is

that life conditions and the complexity of our life conditions in particular—and you can

interpret that as being the complexity or the difficulty of the challenges that we face in life, is

one way of thinking about that—that's the key driver for change.

So often in the world, we see people trying to change other people through logical

arguments or emotional pressure or some other kind of tool, and yet it all comes back to the

life conditions and it's something that's often overlooked. So whatever pressure is put on a

person, they're just going to fall back to whatever the life conditions are demanding of them.

If we can, in the future, redirect our change efforts to look first and foremost at life

conditions and make sure that the life conditions are there to support whatever it is that

we're hoping to create, then that offers us completely new avenues for change, which I think

will be much more successful.

The second piece that came out of his research was an understanding of the human

experience of change, and this is essentially like a pathway or a pattern that represents the

change process. Many other people have worked on this: Joseph Campbell called it The

Hero's Journey; Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross did some wonderful work on this same pattern



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when she worked with dying patients who are adapting psychologically to the death process;

and the same change pattern can be found in the I Ching, the ancient Book of Changes from

China; and there are many, many other cultural products from different cultures around the

world. So we're basically talking about the fundamental way that everything changes in this

reality. You can reduce it to its most simple form as basically a sine wave, but a more

sophisticated understanding sees it, not as a flat wave or even a flat circle, but as a spiral. We

go through cycles and at the completion of a cycle, we may stay the same, we may grow and

move up the spiral, or may regress down the spiral as well.

So just understanding that basic pattern: that we start from stability, when life conditions

change, we feel discomfort, and our normal response to that is usually to look backwards to

the past and try and remember a time when things worked OK. So we usually go through

this regressive values search to look through the back catalogue and find if an old way of

living is going to make things better, and what that usually does is it makes things worse and

so it speeds up the change process. That's a neat little trick that evolution put into the

change process to make it quicker. Of course, speaking super generally, the world right now

is in that regressive values search where things have changed, we're not quite sure how they

should be, so we're looking backwards and going back to extreme right-wing/extreme left-

wing kind of behaviours.

Then ultimately—eventually—we move through that discomfort phase into the

transformation, which is like a chaotic time where everything falls apart. We completely let

go of our old value structures and we are personally transformed. That includes our body

chemistry, our neural networks, those sorts of things, and then we have a breakthrough, like

an enlightening moment, where suddenly we can see the world from a different perspective

and suddenly we see that there are new ways to live and we break out of that chaos and into

a renewal zone which is highly energised, and then come back to a stability which usually

brings a higher level of coping capacity.

That was the second packet of information that he produced, which is really useful. The third

one was an understanding of the layered nature of human values and human

development—that there are these steps or stages or layers that we grow through from

when we're born to when we become a mature adult. Again, it's driven by our capacity to

interact with our life conditions and the complexity of those life conditions as to how quick

we might grow through these stages, but everybody goes through the same ones. They're

represented in Spiral Dynamics as vMemes (Editor's note: short for values-attracting meta-

memes), I think that is the language they use there. Each one of those represents a discrete

framework for making sense of reality. It's embedded very deep in us; it seems to be pre-

coded because everybody seems to go through the same process, and it shows up on the

surface level as what we feel is important, what motivates us, what doesn't motivate us, our

general values, ethics and our behaviour. So all those things change when we transition from

one value system to the next.

Those are the three things: the relationship with the life conditions; the change process; and

the values progression.



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Lucas: Ok, so listeners, if you didn't get all of that, you can rewind and go back through it. I

was taking notes and I'm going to re-listen to it too, because there is a lot of good stuff

there. I think for a lot of people, if they've never heard some of these ideas before, it can be

a lot at once, but that's a really good basis for understanding how he, or was it Don Beck

that then developed the colours of Spiral Dynamics?

Steve: Don Beck and his co-author, Christopher Cowan were the ones who developed the

colours, and that was at the time when Don was going to South Africa and working there. So

that came after Graves had passed away, I believe.

Lucas: So for me, just to maybe simplify some of what you're saying, the things I find really,

really helpful in these basic things that Clare Graves was researching and finding—one is that

we all go through these stages of development. In a lot of the other systems, it's easy to

maybe see them as layered or levelled in a way that says there's people at the bottom that

are sort of primitive or backwards and then there's people at the top that are better, and

what I appreciate about Spiral Dynamics is, 'no, we all go through', and then, as you said, you

can also kind of go back. You keep going around cycles and sometimes you're moving

forward and sometimes you're moving backwards, and it just fits a lot better with the reality

of human experience, I think, that we all go through those different stages.

Steve: It does. When I started teaching Spiral Dynamics in the corporate world, particularly

here in Australia, I guess that because of the cultural differences between Australia and the

US, I ran into an obstacle in the language—the jargon that was being used in the Spiral

Dynamics book. It was like people had to learn the language of Spiral Dynamics first, then

they had to learn the concepts. It seemed like an unnecessary step, so I started to change the

language that I was using, and I eventually settled on the word 'layers' to describe of the

stages or vMemes. I use 'layers' because they are nested inside each other, so they're like the

layers on an onion or those Russian dolls—you open a big Russian doll and there's a whole

bunch of little ones inside it.

So as we grow, we start out at the basic 'Beige', survival, Hunter-Gatherer kind of value set,

and then the next value set gets layered over the top of that and the next one layered over

the top of that. So even if we're operating from quite a sophisticated value system, we still

have all of these basic value systems inside us and we can very quickly spiral back down to

them if life conditions demand that of us.

Lucas: Yes, and what I notice is so helpful is that we often—and I want to get to the colours

and break down some of the memes for people quickly—but I've heard some people say,

like … there's a certain percentage of the US that consider themselves progressives that are

in this 'Green' meme, but part of the problem is they see themselves in this Green meme and

they're looking down on the rest of those backwards other memes that are retrograde and

can't catch up, so they sort of see themselves as having arrived at the pinnacle. What's



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brilliant and beautiful about Spiral Dynamics is that says, no, you still are all those other

memes.

Steve: That's right.

Lucas: And maybe your job is really actually, instead of saying, 'hey, why don't you catch up

to me and be like me?', is to help everybody be the healthiest version of where they're at so

that they can continue to grow and develop.

Steve: I agree 100%, yes.

Lucas: And that's such a shift in how we approach, like, everything.

Steve: It is. One of the interesting things about Graves's model is that the model predicts

that people will interpret it and use it in different ways depending on which value system

they're operating through at the time, right?

Lucas: Oh yeah, interesting.

Steve: So that is also a tricky thing when it comes to the real world knowledge and

application of Spiral Dynamics. It depends where someone’s at when they learn about the

model as to how they perceive it and how they might use it, so it makes it quite an

interesting and rich topic. But one of the things in the First Tier of consciousness, which is

the first six layers or stages—so that's from Hunter-Gatherer right up to Relativistic or Post-

Modern, 'Green'—there's an inbuilt rejection factor. So whenever we make a values shift and

grow to the next value system, we automatically reject where we came from. That is an

obstacle to the application of the model. It's only really when we start to poke into Second

Tier and we start to be able to have those very clean insights without any rejection bias that

we come to the conclusion that you just made that OK, that the best thing we can do is

actually to nurture everybody and help everybody where they're at.

Lucas: OK, well before we get to too deep into that, let's back up. I'm thinking I'm going to

link in the show notes to a visual (see:

https://miro.medium.com/max/2700/1*FTlZgLIPSh_iGhpWRL2c9w.jpeg). Maybe you have

one that's your favourite or one that you've created, and I've seen some others that I can link

to. I would encourage people, as you're listening, maybe go to the show notes and get the a

picture of the colours as we're talking through the different colours to help you visualise the

idea of Spiral Dynamics and what we're talking about.

https://miro.medium.com/max/2700/1*FTlZgLIPSh_iGhpWRL2c9w.jpeg



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I know there's a lot to unpack in all the layers and all of the memes, but give us a brief

rundown of the colours in Spiral Dynamics.

Steve: Sure. The model that Graves came up with is a fractal model. In other words, you can

look at it from a different scale and it looks the same, so you can apply these colours or

layers to the individual experience that we have growing through life, and you can apply it

also to a whole species level and everything in between those scales. What I'll do as I just

quickly go through each one of the colours or layers is I'll talk about it from both of those

places—from an individual and a species level—and that'll help people understand a little bit

better.

So starting out at 'Beige', which is Layer 1—at a species level we're talking about the first

emergence of Homo sapiens from whatever we were before that: Hunter-Gatherer kind of

existence, very much embedded in nature and working in harmony with nature, and pretty

much almost on automatic in terms of life; really just responding to our immediate needs for

hunger, shelter, those sorts of things. At an individual level, that is representing when we're

first born as a baby, where we're kind of helpless, we're just eating and sleeping and existing

and there's no sort of richness of culture or anything around life. It's really like, 'oh, wow',

you know, discovering the world and trying to make sense of it and just surviving. That's an

individually-oriented layer, and as we go up the layers, they alternate between individual and

communal focus.

From the individual 'Beige', we go to the communal Tribal (Purple), which at an individual

level represents early family life, where mum and dad are kind of like the heads of the tribe

and the tribe has customs—things that are okay to do and things that are not okay to do—

and you have to learn what the customs are and just follow the guidance of the heads of the

tribe. Of course, at a species level, that is literally the old traditional tribal living where you've

got a tribal head, usually a chief, historically. The group is generally considered to be up to

about 150 people in a tribe, roughly. You've got a piece of tribal land that you live on that

has a boundary around it and life is pretty much lived inside that tribal boundary. It has an

animistic form of spirituality. At the first level, 'Beige', there's no real structured spirituality

that we've been able to understand because there's no real strong written records of life and

that stage so long ago, but certainly there was this explosion of tribal culture around about

50,000 years ago, and part of that was the development of an animistic form of spirituality

where every physical thing is seen to have a spirit within it. The mountain has a spirit, the

river has a spirit, the plant has a spirit, these kind of things.

Thinking, in the communal systems, is very long-term, whereas thinking in the individual

systems tends to be short term. So in tribal societies, like in here in Australia in Aboriginal

culture, we have stories that we know are 30,000 years old because they talk about

astronomical events that happened 30,000 thousand years ago that science is detecting—

those kind of things. It's amazing to think that stories can carry knowledge for so long

throughout history.

What happens with each of these layers is, when we live life according to the values of a

particular layer, at first it's very, very useful, but it goes through a cycle where it peaks and

then, after a while, because the universe we live in is always becoming more complex, the



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growing complexity makes our values set have an expiry date. So there comes a time when a

particular way of living no longer works so well and we have to transform to the next most

complex layer or colour in order to solve our problems. So after living the tribal way for a

while, we find that it's not working so well anymore and we go through the subconscious

transformation process driven by life conditions.

The next or third layer, Layer 3 is 'Red', which Clare Graves called Egocentric. You can think of

it, from an individual perspective, as the time when you start to become a teenager—you go

through puberty, you've got all these different hormonal and emotional drivers happening,

you want to break out of the control structure of the family, you don't want to follow mum

and dad's orders anymore, you want to make your own mark on life, discover who you are

and discover your own power—and you go through that wild phase your teenage years of

breaking the rules and just doing whatever you want to do, just to see what happens, right?

At a species level, that equates to the breakout from tribal living into a roaming warlord kind

of existence, which you still see in places like Somalia, for example. Maybe the biggest

example in history was Genghis Khan. There's a great movie about Genghis Khan called

Mongol, which shows him growing up in a tribal setting and then these raiders come in and

kill his relatives and wreck the tribe, and that pressure is enough to transform him into one

of these warlords. Of course, history shows you, I think he conquered more land on the

planet than anybody else has so far. It's very Egocentric, as Clare Graves said; it's very self-

centred and it's about changing the world to suit what you feel you need. It tends to typically

be confronting, raw; it's still not really engaging the rational mind so much, it's very much

driven by irrational urges—the instinct's wants and needs—so it's still quite primal. In

everyday society, we kind of play this out in sport—we use sport as an outlet for that kind of

raw emotional power-orientation.

After a while, again, life conditions change, driving us to change to a more complex way of

being and we move to the fourth layer, which is coded 'Blue' in Spiral Dynamics. Clare Graves

called it Absolutistic and it takes us into a new zone which I call the rational zone. This is

because, up until now, in 1, 2 and 3, we've been primarily driven by emotions, instincts, basic

needs, whereas once we move from 3 to 4, the frontal lobes develop to completion and so

our rational mind takes charge and we're able to rationalise away some of our emotions and

urges. We start to conceive of cause-and-effect relationships so we can live in a much more

disciplined and structured way. That change in humanity, historically, came about around the

time of the Agricultural Revolution, where we learned how to crop on a large scale so we

didn't have to spend all day working on subsistence farming or gathering food; we could

actually settle down and build towns and large cities and have specialised people doing the

large-scale agriculture to feed us. The extra complexity that came from living in large groups

like that meant that we had to develop this rational-minded approach that allowed us to

follow rule sets and live a disciplined life so that we could live cohesively within towns and

cities. So the mindset that comes with this—from a personal perspective, this is kind of when

you've run yourself ragged as a teenager, living the wild life, and you suddenly had this

realisation that, 'OK, I've got to knuckle down and get on path here, I can't just live my life

like this because I need a regular income, I need future goals' and those sorts of things. So

that's when we settle down into more mainstream life, when we move into this fourth layer.

The thinking associated with it is typically looking for a higher authority to give us written



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guidance on how to live our life. We're basically looking for a set of rules from a higher

authority, and often, for many people, that comes in the form of religion. It was around this

time in history, when humanity emerged into this fourth layer of being human, that the

religious books from our main structured religions were written—from this kind of mindset

of 'there's a certain way to live, there's only one right way to live, actually, and here are the

rules for that, and if you follow those rules and everything will be good.' The rewards for that

come way in the future because we're in a communal system and its long-term thinking, so

you hear people from this mindset saying, 'OK, if I do really well in my career, by the time I

retire, I'm going to get a gold watch and I'll have money saved up and things will be great';

from a religious point of view: 'if you live a good life, follow God's rules, then when you die,

you'll go to heaven and be rewarded there.' So the rewards always come later in this

mindset.

Then, as with all the value systems, after a certain time, if your life conditions become more

complex, then you will also transition out of this one. So it really does come back to life

conditions. There are still places on the planet where people are living quite happily at Tribal

Layer 2—like in the wild rainforests of Papua New Guinea, for example, just north of

Australia—because they don't need to live any different. They have everything they need,

their life conditions have stayed stable for thousands of years, and there's been no driver for

them to move out of that value system.

Lucas: Just real quick, there are areas of Bolivia in the Amazon, in northern Bolivia, where

there are tribes that haven't been contacted, and luckily they have some protections that

they are left alone. I know people feel like we've encroached on so many places and it's hard

to imagine people living like that, but these are modern people living that way, so that's true.

Steve: Absolutely. It also speaks to the power and the resilience of these simpler value

systems—basic survival, basic tribal and family bonds, basic power requirements—that they

are able to last so long successfully, and like I said, they don't go away; they're still nested

inside us even when we're living in more complex places.

Lucas: Well, I'm pausing you, maybe kind of halfway through to reflect on this, because it

tickles some of the things I'm always interested in. Part of it is our very, very short memories

that we have as human beings to not remember that for 90+ percent of Homo sapiens'

existence, we did exist in more tribal groupings, and so of course they lasted that long.

They've outlasted us already, right? For thousands of years compared to the short amount of

time that we've been in the kind of civilisation that we are now.

Steve: Yes.

Lucas: So this is where we'll end Part 1 of our conversation. Stay tuned next week for the

conclusion of this conversation with Steve McDonald.



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123. Spiral Dynamics with Steve McDonald Part 2

Recorded online on 18th May, 2020, for the podcast

We Don’t Talk About That with Lucas Land (Original at: https://wdtatpodcast.com/31)

Lucas Land: This is Part 2 of my conversation with Steve McDonald about Spiral Dynamics. In

this episode, we make the leap from Tier 1 to Tier 2 and talk about what the heck that

means. If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, you might want to listen to it first since we're

picking up where we left off last week.

Welcome to the podcast, where we talk about things we're not supposed to, learn how to

have difficult conversations, and talk to people about what makes them different. This is the

We Don't Talk About That with Lucas Land podcast, where we do talk about that with me,

Lucas Land.

Anyways, OK, continue with the Spiral.

Steve: Absolutely, and just to comment briefly on what you said, if we look back at history,

we'll find that the duration of these value systems is getting gradually shorter and shorter

and shorter as we progress. So we lived for the longest time as hunter-gatherers and then

our tribal existence maybe goes back 50,000 years, and then look at the next thing that I'm

going to talk about--the Scientific-Industrial era, which is 'Orange' Layer 5, which Clare

Graves called Multiplistic; he called it Multiplistic because the way of thinking involves

looking at multiple options and then choosing the best option in life--and that only started

some 300 years ago, and it's just coming to an end now. If this same pattern continues, then

the next value system that we're moving into now is going to be even shorter.

So the transition out of 4, communally-themed, and into 5, which is individually-themed,

lasted quite a long time--the transition period--but some of the main milestones were the

Scientific and Industrial Revolutions and also the European Enlightenment. They were the key

waves of change that brought us into the to the fifth layer, 'Orange'. Most people will be

very familiar with this because with this one, it's basically mainstream life in a lot of the world

at the moment--it's the rat race, it's the strive drive existence, it's the mainstream economy

where you've got to have enough money to be able to survive in the world and you've got to

work to get money for it. It comes in for a lot of criticism right at the moment, because many

https://wdtatpodcast.com/31



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of us are moving into what's next--the sixth system--and we're looking back and rejecting

the Scientific-Industrial world and saying, 'wow, it's bad.' But of course, when it first

emerged, it was really, really good. It transformed life from the Middle Ages onwards, and

took us out of that sort of dark agricultural existence that was happening at the tail end of

Layer 4, so there have been lots of good things about 'Orange'. It's got us to the moon and

back, for example, so it's a relatively complex way of problem-solving that's allowed us to

leave the planet, and of course, there've been all sorts of amazing breakthroughs in science

and our understanding of the world and ourselves. It has played its path out, though, so

we've seen peak of it. Because the world is becoming more complex, the capacity of this way

of being human to solve our problems has declined sharply and is continuing to, right at the

moment, so we're seeing a lot of our social systems that have been designed from the

Scientific-Industrial mind--like our economy, our political system, those sorts of things--are

not working so well anymore, and that pressure is driving us to what's next. What's next is

back to another communal system, the sixth or 'Green' layer or value system.

Clare Graves called this one Relativistic because it involves the development of the capacity

to put yourself in someone else's shoes and so the world is in relative place, truth is a relative

thing. You can see that playing out quite strongly at a global scale at the moment. I was to

generalise, I'd say as a species from a planetary level, we're maybe approaching the halfway

point in the transition between 'Orange', the Scientific-Industrial era, and 'Green' Layer 6, this

Postmodern-Relativistic era. If the time pattern holds, then this 'Green' layer is probably only

going to last couple of decades before we make this huge leap into Second Tier

consciousness on a global scale.

So the last system in the First Tier of consciousness, Layer 6 'Green', sometimes called

Postmodern--Graves called it Relativistic--it's a very interesting layer because it's kind of like

the bookend on First Tier existence, so part of what comes with this layer is a tendency to

look back at our whole life, to take stock of our life and attend to anything that needs

healing within us. Some of those things might be associated with previous layers, so maybe

we've got family issues which are from our Layer 2 existence and we've got to go back and

kind of fix those. Maybe we've got power issues from Layer 3 left over that we didn't quite

resolve when we are living through Layer 3, and so part of Layer 6 is a very strong healing

motivation at a personal level, and also at a planetary level. Everyone's looking at the planet

and saying, 'wow, we've got to heal the planet as well.' So what we're seeing on a planetary

level is a theme is re-localisation. Power was centralised in the Scientific-Industrial layer, and

now power is being decentralised in this communal Layer 6. You can see that as the

effectiveness of our centralised government decreasing--that's one of the drivers, of course--

and people are looking to rebuild the local community--that's a really, really strong theme--

and also to resource themselves locally again. So you're seeing the emergence of locally

grown organic food so people can know where their food has come from, know that it's not

poisoned with chemicals and they can trust the supplier. People are looking to generate their

own energy locally as well. There really is a kind of a self-sufficient local village theme

happening. At the same time, on a global scale, we've got this global village emerging as



3

well through the benefit of our social media technology, where the world's become a much

smaller place. We can have members of our family--maybe they're not blood family, but they

feel like family anyway--who spread right around the world, and we can talk to them just like

we can talk to people that we're in the presence of, through our social media. So same thing

playing out.

This value system is very network-centric, so it's very much about building a trusted network

and operating within a trusted network. It has a tendency to want to flatten hierarchies, so

that's really a rejection of the previous system, 5, which built hierarchies, and those

hierarchies became dominating and unfair. As a result of that, there's a reaction to want to

bust them down and make everything flat, make everything a level playing field, give

everybody equal rights, equal access, equal benefits, and make this a flat social structure.

Lucas: So before we jump to Tier 2, I really like what you're saying about 'Green'. Looking

back, thinking of it as an individual's life--I think is helpful maybe to take it out of judging

others a little bit--but looking back on your life and what mistakes you've made and how

you've grown and changed, and on the social level, it does seem, today in the US as we're

recording, is Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday and so that's a big holiday in the US and I've

seen all these memes on Facebook today quoting MLK and also pointing out ways that he's

misquoted, etc. There seems to be a real energy behind looking back at our history and

really trying to name and unpack those things that weren't so great as we were developing,

and naming those things. It just made me think of that when you were saying that 'Green'

really reflects back on what came before.

Steve: It's very true. We're seeing a lot of history being revised at the moment as well, for

that reason. People are looking back on things from a different perspective and of course,

history is always written at the time by whoever's dominant in society, and it's very much

flavoured by the value system that we're looking through.

Lucas: And I think what happens is, we've looked back, but we also recognise that not

everybody is necessarily at that same level of 'Green' or understanding, and so now we're

looking back at some 'Blue' and 'Orange' that's sort of taken over and had a bit of a

resurgence. Also we see that in the previous history, and so now there's almost this, as I was

saying before about Green, how some some people have said that Green kind of holds this

danger almost of being stuck--where we think we've arrived because now we're looking back

and we're seeing the problems throughout history and the other ways of looking at things,

and we see the people who maybe are are still operating in those different ways or different

layers and we know that they're wrong, so we just need them to understand where we're at

and get to where we are, and they don't when we try to explain it to them, right? To me, it's

a little bit comical because it's almost an inability to understand this whole process--that if

somebody is in that other place, you're not going to move them anywhere by just looking

back and going, 'yeah, but you're wrong!'



4

Steve: Exactly. It comes back to their life conditions. That's the ultimate driver.

Lucas: Right. Which maybe leads us to the leap to the Second Tier.

Steve: I was just going to add just a couple of little nuances about the First Tier. So the

communal systems--2. Tribal, 4. Agricultural-Absolutistic, and then 6. Postmodern--the

communal systems are where we form our ethical frameworks because they're all about

community, and when you're living in a community, you've got to have agreements on

ethics, right? The individual systems--1, 3 and 5--tend to bust out of that and they're mostly

about breaking the rules. When we're in the individual systems, our perspective is one of

wanting to change the outside world to fit with what we want or need, and when we're in to

communal systems, the perspective is wanting to change ourselves to fit with what the world

requires of us. So you get that alternating dynamic and part of the reason why the emerging

Postmodern looks a little comical and seems a bit silly is that this a new ethical framework

developing, and people want the world to instantly change to fit with what they're feeling.

But it's really not within the capacity of a communal system to bring about global change

like that. That's the role of the individual systems--historically anyway.

Lucas: Interesting.

Steve: So really, most people wouldn't understand this, but the primary role of the

Postmodern era is to change who we are internally--change our values and change our

understanding ourselves--to prepare for the next individual system, which is, of course, the

leap into Second Tier.

Lucas: OK, well, let's leap.

Steve: Clare Graves described the change between Layer 6 and Layer 7 as a Momentous

Leap. When he looked at his data, he looked at the magnitude of change that happened

between layers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, and it was relatively uniform in terms of the the scope of

change, but the change in coping capacity between 6 and 7 was off the scale--like seriously

off the scale. He wrote that there's more coping capacity in 7 alone than there is in all of the

first six added together. It really is a quantum leap we're talking about here. He also

described the shift from First Tier to Second Tier as most likely being the most difficult shift

that we've ever been through as well. It's kind of like, I often talk about a slingshot, in a

metaphorical sense: you've got to pull the elastic band backwards and put a whole lot of

tension on it to make the stone or whatever it is, go forward, right? And we see this slingshot

dynamic in the change between the systems that we go through. So for this change into

Second Tier, we've got to pull that slingshot back way, way further than we have before. A



5

whole lot more tension is needed in order to shoot us so far up into Second Tier. That's why,

when we look at the world at the moment, we see all this massive tension developing, and all

of these problems that are bigger than any problems that we've had before are developing.

That's tied in very much with this transition into Second Tier, and it's what will drive the

transition into Second Tier consciousness.

Steve: One of the major differences between First Tier and Second Tier is, when we pop into

'Yellow' Layer 7, for the first time we have left- and right-brains operating in an integrated

way--the left and right brain hemispheres, I mean, operating in an integrated way--whereas

in the First Tier, that individual versus communal alternation that we get between the

systems is the result of the domination of left-brain for individual living or the domination of

right-brain for communal living. So we've got that switching between left-brain, right-brain,

left-brain, right-brain, and then when we pop into Second Tier, all of a sudden the two

hemispheres synchronise. It's that synchronisation which is partially responsible for the

improvement in coping capacity. Basically, we can think about two things at once. It gives us

the capacity to hold paradox and work with paradox, whereas in First Tier, if we look at a

paradox, it kind of blows our mind trying to try to figure it out.

Steve: Another thing that happens in this shift into Second Tier is that our entanglement

with the first six values systems falls away; is greatly reduced. So, it's like, in the First Tier,

every time we grow into a new value system, we're filling our cup up a little further, and by

the time we get to Layer 6, the cup's full and almost overflowing. Our mind is full of survival

issues, family issues, power issues, living righteously and issues around that, following the

rules, succeeding in a world that's competitive, and then fitting into a loving community and

being liked and accepted within the community and connecting deeply with people. We've

got all of that happening all at once in our system, and that's that's why the cop eventually

overflows and it's that overflowing that makes us transform into a bigger cup in Second Tier.

So, moving into Second Tier, all of that busyness and entanglement falls away and it creates

a massive psychological space that's free, basically, so everything seems simpler, easier. We

look back on First Tier and wonder, 'wow, how was I ever caught up in all that stuff so much?'

So it's very freeing; it's a great feeling of freedom to move into Second Tier.

Layer 7 is the first time where we can in an inherently sense and observe value systems

operating in other people. When we're in the First Tier and we bump into somebody who's

operating from a different value system, they just seem strange, weird, maybe wrong in their

way of living life, but in Layer 7, we see that these people just operating on a different

frequency than me--and incidentally, thinking of these value systems as frequencies is a

really good way to understand them and make sense of them--so suddenly we can sense all

these different frequencies from the previous value systems and when we meet somebody,

we can directly sense the frequency and understand, 'OK, they're coming from this particular

value set', and we also develop a kind of shapeshifting capacity where we can meet them

where they're at. So we read their frequency, we understand their frequency--we've got it

inside us because we lived through it--we can switch down to it consciously and we can



6

interact with them from their frequency, which is an amazing tool for resolving conflict. This

transition through 6 to 7 will basically bring the capacity for us to live peacefully with each

other. It's just a matter of getting everybody through the change process eventually.

Some of the characteristics of 7 are that there's this multidimensional awareness that opens

up, and part of that is this capacity to sense the different value systems as frequencies in

people. We also open up to to spiritual dimensions as well, and there's a movement now

towards the integration of science and spirituality, which is very much driven by this Layer 7

mindset. So we might not have a fully formed picture of it in Layer 7, but we know that it's

possible; we recognise that, 'OK, all that religious and spiritual stuff is actually just

interdimensional reality' and at Layer 7 we go about trying to form a cohesive understanding

of that. Layer 7's very much like waking up as a baby in a new world and soaking in a new

world because everything looks different to us.

Clare W. Graves wrote that it really is a new beginning; it's a whole new beginning over again

for humanity in Second Tier. Instead of being driven by survival, which is primarily the major

theme right through the First Tier: 'How do I survive in the world?', in Second Tier that

switches to: 'Who am I being in the world?' He called the Second Tier "being layers", "being

stages" instead of survival stages.

Even though we're operating with an integrated brain--left-right-hemisphere integration--

there's still an individual flavour to Layer 7. That doesn't go away, that general flavouring, it's

just less extreme.

And then Layer 8, 'Turquoise'--'Intuitive', some people call it--is the most complex communal

system that Graves documented. He said quite openly he didn't have enough people in his

participant set to really analyse it effectively--out of 1,065 people that he studied, he only

had six people who ended up changing into Layer 8 during the time of his research--and so

all he could do was just write a few sketchy words about it. He said it seemed very spiritually-

oriented. It sort of fits with the concept of the noosphere, which comes from the worker of a

Jesuit priest called Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who wrote a lot about consciousness. He

described a layer of consciousness around the whole planet--so in the same way that we

have an atmosphere and an ionosphere, he described this noosphere, he called it, which is a

layer of consciousness wrapped around the planet--and whereas Layer 6 is is working within

networks, Layer 8 taps into this noosphere, like it's a kind of sophisticated Internet, and tunes

into it. Again, there's no real good, clear descriptions of this in writing yet, but my sense of it

is that we're tapping into what people in the New Age community are calling the fifth

dimension. So it's that same experience of getting access to information and connection

between us that we haven't had access to before; literally adding an extra dimension to our

existence.



7

With regard to Layer 7, with all the compounding challenges that we're facing globally and

the clear lack of capacity to solve those problems right now, I see Layer 7 as kind of being

like the first responders on the accident scene. As enough people pop into Second Tier at

Layer 7 and they can network effectively, globally, and bring resources together, they're

going to do a triage on humanity and the planet and say, 'OK, what do we need to fix

urgently here?' They can rapidly change things in order to allow the continuation of human

life, in particular, on the planet.

By the time we get to 8, 8 is about stability, and this is the case for all of the communal

systems. So the 1, 3, 5, 7, the individual-oriented systems, they change the world. Often that

can be a fast and chaotic process--look at the Scientific-Industrial era as an example--and in

the communal systems, the even numbers, they bring stability. So they kind of say, 'OK,

we've done that now, let's settle down with documents and procedures, get some ethics that

we all agree on, and let's bring some stability to this.' That's going to be the task of Layer 8

in Second Tier, is bringing that global stability, and it will be a new and very sophisticated

form of global society. That's really as much as we can say based on ... I'm even extending

Graves's understanding a little bit through my own experience and other research.

Lucas: I don't know if you have the same experience, but as you were going through the

layers and explaining them--and I'm taking notes in an outline format--I'm still seeing them

in a linear sort of order, so I switched to look at the image. It's an image I'm sure you've

seen. It's got people at each layer, illustrating them, but they're all nested. It's a habit of our

brains, because it's the way we've been trained and taught to think in terms of linear

progression. I hope people are still looking at the image or using that image to really

understand what Steve's talking about, because when I looked at the image and suddenly

went, 'oh, yes, OK, it's nested, right?' So Turquoise isn't apart and separate and somewhere

else from all of the other layers. It doesn't detach. And we tend to think of it that way, don't

we? It's still a habit of the brain.

Steve: That's very true. Also, part of the issue is that there are so many different aspects to

the arrangement of human consciousness--how it's structured--that you can't represent

them all in one drawing, so the linear drawings are kind of useful for understanding the

progression; the nested drawing is really useful for understanding how these are not discrete

things; they're just new layers that get added to what's already there.

Lucas: And then if you're looking at a 2D image, you're still missing that spiral aspect that

really includes moving up and down, and it's not just a one way thing, either.

Steve: Exactly. And you know, I've been thinking for years about how to make a single image

that captures all of this stuff and I haven't found a way yet.



8

Lucas: It's a lot to put in one image. I mean, you should kind of give the 2D image a break.

Like, it's hard to put all of this into one perfect image.

Steve: It is. At the end of the podcast, I'll give you a link to a talk I did in Switzerland in 2018

(see https://www.futuresense.it/resources/), which gives a basic introduction to the model

and talks a bit about the transition that the world's going through at the moment, and I'm

using a nested image in that presentation there so people can look at that.

Lucas: Cool. That was fantastic. That was so much information and really, really well

explained clearly, and I really appreciate you taking the time to go through all of that. I have

one more question before we do our wrap up questions for you: In any system--there's so

many different systems out there for personalities or for, as you were saying before, Clare

Graves was looking at five different systems or teaching five different systems for

understanding, like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and things like that--in all of these systems,

it seems like there's an element of truth, but then there's always these dangers. It's not

necessarily because the the model isn't true, but it's how it gets used by people or the ways

that it gets distorted or often weaponised, I would say, so what are some of the dangers or

cautions that you might give about this system and how people approach it and use it as

they're maybe digging deeper and trying to understand Spiral Dynamics?

Steve: Sure. One of them is to do with the way that it's being taught. Historically, when

people go to a course in Spiral Dynamics, one of the first things that people are taught is the

value systems, and it's generally, in the past, been taught as a staged developmental process.

The danger is that people are often attracted to understanding those value systems as like

pigeonholes, and they want to put things in the pigeonholes. They'll think of somebody I

know and say, 'oh, yeah, that that person goes in this Green pigeonhole, and that person

goes in the Blue pigeonhole, and what about that system or that book I read? Oh, yeah, that

goes in that pigeonhole', and that is a misunderstanding of the system.

What I've done over the years is I've changed the sequence that I teach it in and I teach

people about the change experience first, because that naturally takes them through the

pathway of starting on one level of complexity and finishing on a new level of complexity, so

they get an understanding that it's actually a journey from one place to the next. I say the

best way to think about value systems is as windows that you look through at the world, so

rather than thinking that they're boxes that you put things in, think that each value system is

a different window and you get a different perspective when you look through that window.

So you can take a person or a system or an object and look at it through a number of

different windows and you'll see it differently. Through some of those windows--in other

words, value systems--you might like it, from other ones you might dislike it. So just think of

it as like windows, or maybe even a set of glasses that you put on, to give you a different

perspective on the world. In truth, that change from switching from one window or set of

glasses to the next, is actually happening at the deepest level; the frameworks that we have



9

for making sense of reality at a very, very deep subconscious place that we can't really get in

touch with. That's the most common error that I see people making with Spiral Dynamics, is

they want to pigeonhole people and things into the value systems.

One of the second biggest issues I've come across is a misunderstanding of the nature of

Second Tier consciousness, and even Ken Wilbur has suffered from this over the years. It's

come from the fact that when they first developed written assessments--online assessments

in particular--for Spiral Dynamics, when they wrote the multiple choice questions for

Turquoise, they wrote them in such a way that they were really attractive to somebody who

was operating from the Green value system, and so a whole bunch of people who were

actually situated around the Green value system as the dominant value system, suddenly

thought they were Turquoise. They suddenly thought that they were Second Tier and it

threw out their calibration of the whole spiral, because they looked back on Orange and

below as if they were First Tier, and they thought Green was Second Tier. In their own mind,

they thought they were Turquoise, right? They didn't theink they were Green. That's had a

huge impact globally and I still see it. I go so far as saying most sources that you look at on

the Internet that talk about Spiral Dynamics suffered from this issue of mistaking Green for

Yellow, and it's an ongoing issue.

Are you aware of The Change Code book that just came out?

Lucas: Yes. Actually, I'm going to be interviewing Monica Bourgeau later this year.

Steve: That's great. So Monica asked me to review the book before it was published and I

managed to correct that issue in her book, so that's one source that I can point to in this

respect.

Lucas: It goes back to what we were saying earlier about Green, and how Green has these--I

guess because it's sort of, you know, it's this edge case, this liminal space, right? It's at the

end of Tier 1 where you kind of think like, 'oh, yeah, well, we've really we've really arrived,

and aren't we so much better than everything that came before?' So it's it has this flavour of

being really easy to think, 'we're a lot further along maybe than we are', and not always

willing to look at what some of the drawbacks or problematic parts of that that layer are.

Steve: Yes. There's another relationship within the value systems that, as far as I know, Clare

Graves never documented. It's come out in later years as people have understood the model

more, and that is there's a shadow relationship amongst the value systems and it works three

layers down. They say generally a person will be spread across about three value systems.

There'll be one which is your dominant value system, there'll be the previous one, which

maybe you've still got a part of you working in, and then they'll be the next one, which you



10

just starting to push into, so you kind of spread across roughly three different value systems.

That's a generalisation. Whatever your dominant value system is, its shadow will be three

steps down. So if you're at 6, then your shadow is Layer 3, which is Egocentric, and so that's

why we see a lot of egocentric behaviour in New Age communities, and generally in people

who are operating from that Layer 6. It's a shadow aspect, so they don't realise it themselves,

but they're playing out a lot of egocentric stuff without knowing it. One of the most obvious

examples or evidence of this in the world is the selfie, right? Look how the selfie has grown

with the growth of Layer 6 and social media. It's like: 'Look at me.'

Lucas: That's so interesting.

Steve: It's very interesting. And so you can look at the other value systems in the same way.

So Orange, 5, the shadow is 2, which is Tribalism, and you get tribalism within corporates,

right?

Lucas: Yes.

Steve: And the shadow of 4 is Layer 1. When Layer 4 was sailing around the world and

conquering new countries, like the Spanish in South America and stuff, their shadow was

Layer 1, so when they came across people at Layer 1, they didn't even regard them as

human. They saw them as savages and wanted to kill them--ironically, wanted to kill them,

right?

Lucas: Oh, that's really interesting. I feel like that's a whole episode in itself, just unpacking

how colonisation was really us attacking our shadow as a species, almost.

Steve: Eexactly. Yes.

Lucas: Well , you've been very generous with your time. I'm thinking of calling the closing

segment I've been doing, Getting Out and Getting Deeper because I want people to always

have something they can do and then some resources and recommendations to go deeper.

We both want to recommend things where people can get out and people can get deeper.

There's a lot we've already recommended and I've been taking notes and putting things in

the show notes, but I want to recommend that people spend some time, maybe they need to

go back. If this is your first experience or your first encounter with Spiral Dynamics, maybe

just go back and re-listen because it's a lot to take in and it can be a bit overwhelming.

Maybe just re-listening to that and observing; getting out. Sometimes I feel like action steps

are always about making change, but sometimes a good action step is about observation.

I'm a permaculture fan and that's one of the the main key components of permaculture, is to



11

observe, and I think Clare Graves gets a lot of wisdom and insight from all of the observation

and research. So maybe the action step I want to suggest to people is just observe; don't get

too excited, but listen again to all the the good stuff Steve was sharing and then get out and

just watch in the world and see what you notice in what you're reading and what you're

listening to. And then, going deeper, I mentioned to Steve before the show that I read a

book by Ken Wilbur last year called The Theory of Everything, I believe, which is sort of a, I

think, summation of a lot of his work. That goes a lot deeper. And as you said, there are

some things where people aren't ... there's some debates and arguments about what Ken

Wilbur gets right and gets wrong, but I highly recommend that book for an entry point to

Ken Wilbur and an entry point to a lot of these different things, where he's looking at a lot of

these systems like Spiral Dynamics and trying to connect the dots in a way that helps us to

maybe see the world in a more complete way. I don't think he's claiming it's fully complete,

but I highly recommend Ken Wilbur's The Theory of Everything.

So, Steve, what do you want to tell people to get out, and how can they go deeper?

Steve: I'd just like to firstly say that I found Ken Wilbur's work extremely valuable. In my early

years of trying to make sense of the spiral and Clare Graves's model, Ken Wilbur's work and

his structure around Integral Theory and the AQAL structure was really, really useful for me.

It made a huge difference, so I'm a big fan of his work. I find his books difficult to read, so

what I did was I swapped over to the audio sets. There's a company called

www.soundstrue.com. They put out Ken Wilbur audio sets where he's being interviewed and

talking about his stuff and I find it much easier to digest so I just offer that as an option as

well. In terms of my recommended action step, as I was explaining, one of the characteristics

of all of the First Tier value systems is this tendency to reject different value set, so I just

invite people to notice when that rejection factor comes up inside them, just day to day as

they're interacting with other people--maybe when they're watching stuff on the Internet or

television or whatever they do. Often it'll show up as anxiety or fear too. So just notice that

and pause for a moment and just reflect on the possibility that you're bumping into a

different set of values here, and it's not that something is inherently bad or a person is

inherently wrong. It may just be that they're operating from a different value set, which

values different things, has different motivations, different behaviours. With that kind of

practice, it helps you work yourself into that witnessing state where rather than getting

buffeted by the turbulence of life, you're noticing those bumps, but you're just standing back

and looking at it as an observer. That's really good material for self development, and it will

help with the transition into Second Tier consciousness if you can go that way.

Lucas: Well, Steve, where can people find you on the Internet? And I will include links to your

website and stuff and your podcast in the show notes. But tell people where they can find

you.



12

Steve: Yeah, cool. So I have a blog Eman8 (www.eman8.net)--and I'll give you the link to

that, Lucas--which has got a bunch of public talks that I've done over the years, some with

video. There's some really basic information about Graves's model on there; some images

that I probably need to update to0. I've been thinking about it on this talk, but that's my

blog. May Change Agency is www.aadii.org, and I also do that weekly podcast that you

mentioned called Future Sense. There's a site for that: www.futuresense.it, and that's got links

out to Apple and Android podcast platforms.

Lucas: Fantastic. Well, I'm pretty sure this is going to have to be a two-parter because you

were very generous with your time and your knowledge, and I really appreciate you taking

the time to share with us today, Steve.

Thanks, Lucas. I really enjoyed talking to you. It's been a great conversation. Thank you.

Thanks for joining us today on We Don't Talk About That with Lucas Land. If you like what you

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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328125853

Introduction to The Spiral Dynamics and The Spiral Coriolis Force

Article in JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN PHYSICS · October 2018

DOI: 10.24297/jap.v14i3.7623

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5796

Introduction to The Spiral Dynamics and The Spiral Coriolis Force

I.M. Fabbri

University of Milan,Department of Physics, Via Celoria 16, 20133 Milan, Italy.

[email protected]

Abstract

The spiral dynamics of a point-like body of mass m in spiral differential geometry are introduced. New ideal

motions have been studied, the uniform spiral motion and the uniform spiral-polar motion. The analysis is

proposed by comparing the ideal spiral motions with the ideal circular motions. The theoretical forces acting

on a point-like body of mass m moving in spiral frames were analyzed. The spiral and polar components of the

Coriolis forces were compared.

Indexing terms/Keywords: Coriolis force; Newton’s laws; Schwarz-Christoffel conformal mapping; spiral

coordinates; relative motions; inertial systems

Subject Classification: QA1-939, QA1-43, QC1-999, QC1-75, QC120-168.85.

Type (Method/Approach): Coriolis force, relative motions, inertial systems.

Date of Submission: 25 August, 2018

DOI: 10.24297/jap.v14i3.7623

ISSN: 2347-3487

Volume: 14 Issue: 3

Journal: Journal of Advances in Physics

Website: https://cirworld.com

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

5797

Introduction

To find explicit solutions to physical phenomena and engineering problems it is necessary to choose an

appropriate coordinate system. In fact, the choice of the coordinates must represent the geometry of the

problem so that the corresponding mathematical formulation is simplified as much as possible. For example,

elliptical geometry is used to explain the phenomena associated with galaxies and circular geometry is used to

explain tropical cyclones. However, the limits of circular and elliptic geometries in explaining Nature are more

than evident and the resulting models are not adapted to the reality of many events.

The term theory derives from the philosophy of the Ancient Greeks, and was associated with the meaning of

”looking at, viewing, beholding” that originates from the word ”thaumas” or wonder [1].

After the works of many scientists such as Copernicus, Brahe, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, it became accepted

that the physics of the Greeks was not viable for practical purposes.

Galileo used practical experiments as a research tool and presented his treatise in the form of mathematical

demonstrations [2].

In formulating his physical scientific theories, Newton [3] introduced new mathematical tools, ”the method of

fluxions and fluents” [4], which we know today in their formulation of the differential calculus proposed by

Leibniz [5].

The Coriolis effect is a deflection of moving objects when the motion is described relative to a rotating frame.

The mathematical expression of the Coriolis force appeared [8] in connection with the theory of water wheels.

Nowadays, the term Coriolis force is mainly used in connection with meteorology.

A particularly important problem in this category is the description of the movement of water particles of

tropical storms with respect to the coordinated axis that rotate with the Earth. In this case the coordinates in

which the Newton’s laws are valid is that of fixed stars as an ideal inertial system [9].

The behaviour of hurricanes is explained in terms of classical physics using the Newton’s second law and the

thermodynamics of the moist air. Around a low-pressure centre, the pressure-gradient force directed inward

balances the Coriolis force and the centrifugal force, both directed outward.

However, the hurricane consists of a characteristic spiral formed by dense clouds that surround a cloud-free

eye also in the form of a spiral that can range from a few kilometers to 100 km across.

Starting from these simple empirical observations, the correct inductive scientific method to analyze the

phenomena of the hurricanes, as would be taught by the philosopher Francis Bacon [6], can not disregard the

appropriate mathematical tools. As depicted in the frontispiece of the ”Novum Organum” [6], the spiral

differential geometry can be imagined as a new galleon passing between the mythical Pillars of Hercules

standing at the sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, marking the exit of the well-protected Mediterranean waters in

the Atlantic Ocean, opening a new world for exploration. Galileo, the first pioneer of the scientific method

wrote (see pag. 4 in [7]) ”

Philosophy is written in this grand book -I mean the Universe- which stands continually open to our gaze, but

it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in

which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and

other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without

these, one is wandering around in a dark labyrinth.”

Since the Nature is mostly spiral-shaped, it can not be well understood unless one first learns to understand

the language of spiral geometry.

5798

Consequently, the motion of the air around the central axis of rotation of the hurricane and its inward and

outward flows should be described in the most appropriate geometry, that is, in the spiral geometry.

The force on a passenger who moves on a bus traveling along a trajectory depends on the geometry of the

trajectory itself (see for example [10]). If the path of the bus is circular, we refer to the rotating frame, but if the

path is spiral-shaped, we must introduce the spiral reference system.

In this pioneering paper, the orthogonal spiral differential geometry [11, 12] is used to introduce new ideal

motions, namely the uniform spiral motion and the spiral-polar motion.

These ideal spiral motions are then used as methods for introducing the concept of fictitious spiral forces.

Materials and Methods

The polar and spiral geometry

Let’s start considering the Schwarz Christoffel conformal mapping

0

1

1

( ) ,j

z nk

j

jz

f z G x d F

(1)

And let’s consider the simplest case 0, 1, 1, 0, 1.j j jx k j k j

In terms of Cartesian coordinates1, if , 0G R F we obtain the polar coordinates

cos ,

1sin .

x r

y r

(2)

Whilst, if we choose , 1G C G ig , we obtain the spiral coordinates [11, 12].

cos ,2

sin , .

gg

gg

x e

y e R

(3)

The spiral coordinates, like the polar ones are curvilinear, their basis vectors change at all points in space.

For the polar coordinates, the covariant basis vectors are identified as

ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆˆ cos sin ,

1ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆˆ sin cos ,

r

x yg i j i j

r r

x yg i j r i r j

(4)

Where ˆ ˆ,i j are the Cartesian unit basis vectors.

For the spiral case

1 Henceforth 1 indicates the formulas in polar coordinates and 2 in spiral coordinates.

5799

1 ˆcos sin

ˆ ˆˆ , tan ,1 ˆsin cos

ˆ ˆˆ2 cos sin ,sin

ˆcos sinˆ ˆˆ

s

gg

gg

gg

igx y

g i j e g G

jg

eg G i G j

G

g ix yg i j e

g

,ˆin cos

ˆ ˆˆ sin cos .cos

gg

j

eg G i G j

G

(5)

Where G represents the angle between the spiral and the polar basis vectors.

In polar coordinates, the contravariant dual basis vectors are identified as

sin cosˆ ˆ ˆ ˆˆ ,

1

ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆˆ cos sin .

r r rg i j i j

x y r r

g i j i jx y

(6)

While, the spiral contravariant dual basis is

2

2

ˆcos sinˆ ˆˆ ,

ˆ1 sin cos

ˆ ˆˆ sin cos sin ,2

ˆcos sinˆ ˆˆ

1 sin

gg

gg

gg

g igeg i j

x y g g j

g e G G i G j

g ieg i j

x y g g

,ˆcos

ˆ ˆˆ cos sin cos .g

g

j

g e G G i G j

(7)

The position vector in polar coordinates can be written as

ˆ ˆ1 ,rr rg rg (8)

Whilst, in spiral coordinates

2 2

2ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ2 ,

1

ggg e

r g g g ggg g

(9)

5800

The covariant ˆ ˆg g g and contravariant ˆ ˆg g g metric coefficients in polar

coordinates are identified as

2

2

1 0,

0

1 1 0

.10

gr

g

r

(10)

Whilst, in spiral coordinates

22 2 2 2

22

2

2 22 22 2

2 2

11 0

0 sin1 ,

100 1

2 cos

0 sin 0.

1 0 1 0 cos

g gg g

gg g

g

Ggg e g e

G

g Geg e

g G

(11)

Uniform spiral and circular motions with constant phases

Uniform circular motion describes the motion of a point-like body of mass m along a circular path at constant

speed. The distance of this body from the axis of rotation remains constant at all times.

Similarly, the uniform spiral motion of a point-like body of mass m is characterized by constant kinetic energy

along a spiral path.

Figure 1: a) The spiral uniform motion, b) the circular uniform motion.

In terms of coordinates, if we identify the trajectory of the body with ,r t t we have

5801

cos ,1

sin .

x t r t t

y t r t t

(12)

while, in spiral coordinates , , . ., 0, 2t t i e n

cos ,

2 sin ,

.

tg t

g

tg t

g

x t e t

y t e t

t t t

(13)

In polar coordinates, the velocities are identified by2,

cos sin ,

1sin cos .

x r r

y r r

(14)

By using the following relations

ˆ ˆ ,

1

ˆ ˆ ˆ .

r

r

g gr

rg g r g

r

(15)

eq. (14) can be rewritten as ˆ ˆrr rg g or as

2 2 2

,

ˆ,1

,

1.

2

rrr r

r

k

r r

T m r r

(16)

In spiral coordinates

cos sin ,

2 sin cos ,

.

gg

gg

x e gg

y e gg

(17)

2 /x dx dt

5802

By using the following relations

ˆ ˆ ˆ ,

2

ˆ ˆ ˆ .

g g g g gg

g g g gg g

(18)

Eq. (17) can be rewritten as ˆ ˆr g g or as

1 2

1

2

,

2 ,

ˆ.

r r r

gg

k

(19)

The kinetic energy can be written as

22 2

2 2

2

1 12 1 .

2 2

gg

dx dxT g me g

dt dt g

(20)

The uniform circular motion is obtained for .T const , which means, . ,r const R , where R

is a constant.

Whilst, the uniform motion along the spiral path 0.const is obtained for

1 1 2 2 1

2 1

*

0 2 1

1

2 1

221

2

2 1

, , , 0,

1 1ln ln ,

1 12 ln ln ,

,

.

g t

S

e K K K R K K t

t K K t gg g

t K K t gg g

Kt t

g K K t

Kt g

g K K t

(21)

For .r const , eq. (16) can be simplified as r r and for .const eq. (19) as S Sr g r r ,

where ˆS k , is defined the spiro-angular velocity.

The acceleration in polar coordinates is identified as3,

3

2 2/x d x dt

5803

2

2

cos 2 sin sin cos ,1

sin 2 cos cos sin .

x r r r r

y r r r r

(22)

or in terms of the basis polar convectors

2 ˆ ˆ1 2 ,r

rr r r g g

r

(23)

In spiral coordinates, the acceleration becomes

22

22

cos 2 sin ,

2 sin 2

gg

gg

x e g g gg g g

y e g g gg g g

cos ,

.

(24)

or in terms of the basis spiral convectors

ˆ ˆ2 ,r g g g g gg g g

(25)

For the uniform circular motion, eq. (23) reduces to

2

22

ˆ ,

ˆ ˆˆ ˆ cos sin ,

1,

.

R

R r

cc

c

r R g

g g i j

va r R

R

v r R

(26)

Whilst, for the uniform spiral motion eq. (25) reduces to 0

2 2

0 0ˆ ˆr g g g g .

It appears clear that the spiro-centrifugal acceleration has two components, the first along the direction of

movement g and the second one orthogonal to it.

According to eq. (21), acceleration for uniform spiral motion is reduced to

5804

0 0

0

0

0

0

22 1

2

2 1

* * * *

2 1

*

0 2 1

2 2

1

1 2

2

1

ˆ ˆ ,

1 1ˆ ˆˆ cos sin sin cos ,

1 12 ln ln ,

1,

1 .

g

g

sp

g

sp

Kr g g g

g K K t

g g K K t e t t i t t jg g

t K K t gg g

K g ea r

g K K t

v r K e g

(27)

Taking into account for eq. (21) and eq. (25), it is possible to rewrite the spirocentrifugal acceleration for

uniform spiral motions as

0

0

2* *1

2

2 1

2* *1

2

2 1

sin cos ,

2

cos sin .

g

g

Kx e g t t

g K K t

Ky e g t t

g K K t

(28)

Figure 2: a) centrifugal Force versus time b) mass m moving on a stretch of spiral curve and c) circular curve.

5805

Comparing the eq. (26) and eq. (27) it is possible to notice that, while in the first case the centrifugal

acceleration is constant, in the second it depends on the time. Consequently, a mass in a circular curve will

experience a constant centrifugal force perpendicular to the direction of uniform motion, while a mass in a

spiral curve will experience a spiro-centrifugal force perpendicular to the direction of motion as a function of

time.

A constant centripetal force is required to maintain uniform circular motion, whereas a time-dependent spiro-

centripetal force is required to maintain uniform spiral motion. In many real physical cases, such as the motion

of a car in a turn [13], the centrifugal force Fc is compensated by the friction force Fcp = μmg which is

generated between the tire and the road surface and depends on the mass itself and on the gravitational

acceleration g. When a vehicle is cornering, the centrifugal force acting outwards must be balanced by lateral

forces on the wheels so that the vehicle is able to follow the curve of the road,

0

2

2 2

1

2 1

1 ,

12 .

c

g

sc

F m R mg

K gF me mg

g K K t

(29)

Observing eq.(29) (2), we notice that there is always a maximum time to exit a spiral curve for a ”safe turning”

avoiding lateral slippage, defined by

02

12max 2

1

12 .gK gK

t eK g

(30)

The spiral-polar uniform motion

We now consider a point-like body of mass m which is characterized by constant spiral path 0 , 0,

and the constant kinetic energy 0T T where 0T is a constant.

Figure 3: The spiral-polar motion of a mass m.

The spiral-polar motion is composed of the spiral motion t superimposed to the rotation ψ(t). In terms of

coordinates, if we identify the trajectory of the body with ,t t we have

5806

cos ,

2 sin ,

.

tg t

g

tg t

g

x t e t

y t e t

t t t t

(31)

The velocity is characterized by

cos sin ,

2 sin cos ,

.

gg

gg

x e gg

y e gg

(32)

using the following relationships

ˆ ˆ ˆ ,

2

ˆ ˆ ˆ .

g g g g gg

g g g gg g

(33)

Eq. (32) can be rewritten as

1

1

2

2 2

,

,

ˆ2 ,

ˆ, ,

ˆ ˆ .1 1

J

L J L

r r r

gg

k

k

gr g g

g g

(34)

Results and Discussion

The polar and the spiral Coriolis forces

Imagine that we have two right-handed frames, the inertial frameF with origin O and the basis vectors

ˆˆ ˆ, ,i j k and frame F'with origin 'O and the basis vectors ˆˆ ˆ', ', 'i j k .

Now, let’s consider a point P in space, its position in frame is

ˆˆ ˆ ,OP xi yj zk (35)

5807

and in frame F'

ˆˆ ˆ' ' ' ' ' ' ',O P x i y j z k (36)

we also note that ' ' ,OP O O O P

The velocity observed in the inertial frame F is

' ' 'ˆˆ ˆ' ' ' ' ' ' ' 'ˆ ˆˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ' ' ' ' ' ' .O O Odx dy dzdO O dO P dx dy dz di dj dk

v i j k i j k x y zdt dt dt dt dt dt dt dt dt dt dt

(37)

If the frame F'

rotates uniformly with constant angular velocity in respect to the inertial frame F then

eq. (37), according to eq. (16), becomes

' ' ' ,

' ' ' ˆˆ ˆ1 ' ' ' ',

ˆˆ ˆ' ' '' ' ' ' .

Ov v v O P

dx dy dzv i j k

dt dt dt

di dj dkO P x y z

dt dt dt

(38)

Figure 4: Coriolis relative motion a) Circular b) Spiral.

If each point of the frame F' moves with uniform spiral motion with a spiralangular velocity

,g

S S Se K with respect to the inertial frame F , then the eq. (37) according to eq. (19),

becomes

5808

' ' ' ' ,

ˆˆ ˆ' ' '' ' ' ' ' ,

' ' ' ˆˆ ˆ' ' ' ',

2 ˆ ' ˆ ˆ' ',

ˆ ' ˆ ˆ' ',

ˆ ' ˆ ˆ' '.

O S S

S S

S S

S S

S S

v v v O P g O P

di dj dkO P g O P x y z

dt dt dt

dx dy dzv i j k

dt dt dt

dii g i

dt

djj g j

dt

dkk g k

dt

(39)

Since is constant, the effect on the axis ˆˆ ˆ', ', 'i j k due to the uniform spiral motion is that of a partial

rotation .

If we define

2 2 2

2 2 2

''

' ' ' ˆˆ ˆ' ' ' ',

.OO

d x d y d za i j k

dt dt dt

dva

dt

(40)

taking into account the eq. (38) for the uniform circular motion, the acceleration

'''

1 .Od O Pdvdv dv

adt dt dt dt

(41)

becomes

'' 2 ' ' ,

'' ',

1'

' ' ,

0.

Oa a a v O P

dva v

dt

dO Pv O P

dt

d

dt

(42)

Taking into account the eq. (39) for the case of uniform spiral motion, the acceleration

'''

2 .S

Od O Pdvdv dv

adt dt dt dt

(43)

5809

becomes

'' 2 ' ' 2 ' ' ,

'' ' ',

'2 ' ' ' ,

,

ˆˆ ˆ' ' ' ' ' '' ' .

O S S S S S S

S S

S S

SS S

S S

a a a v O P g v g O P

dva v g v

dt

dO Pv O P g O P

dt

dg

dt

dx di dy dj dz dkv g v

dt dt dt dt dt dt

(44)

As can be observed from eq. (44), the fictitious forces are four:

1) the Coriolis force 2 'Co SF m v , acting perpendicular to the direction of motion,

2) the spiral-centrifugal force 'ce S SF m O P with one component along the direction of motion and

another perpendicular to it.

3) the spiral force 1 2 'sp SF mg v which acts along the direction of motion.

4) the spiral force 2 'sp S SF mg O P with one component along the direction of motion and another

perpendicular to it.

The spiral-polar coriolis Force

If each point of the frame F' is spiro-rotating 0 with spiral-angular velocity S S and

angular velocity L J L S in respect to the inertial frame F then eq. (37) according to eq.

(34) becomes

'

1

' ' ' ,

' ' ' ˆˆ ˆ' ' ' ',

2ˆˆ ˆ' ' '

' ' ' ' ' ,

.

O J S

J S

S

v v v O P g O P

dx dy dzv i j k

dt dt dt

di dj dkO P g O P x y z

dt dt dt

g g

(45)

and the acceleration

'' ''

2 .J S

Od O P d O Pdvdv dv

a gdt dt dt dt dt

(46)

5810

becomes

'

2 2

'' ' ' ,

'' ' ',

ˆˆ ˆ' ' ' ' ' '2 ' ' ,

' 2 ' 2 ' ' ' 2 '

' ' .

J S

J S

J S

O J S J J J S J

S S

dO Pv O P g O P

dt

dva v g v

dt

dx di dy dj dz dkv g v

dt dt dt dt dt dt

a a a v g v O P O P g O P

g O P g O P

(47)

Eq. (47) highlights many new terms compared to the classical case of circular force.

Although the analysis of these terms is interesting, it goes beyond the scope of this article and its use refers to

other specific researches.

Figure 5: The spiral-polar coriolis relative motion.

Conclusions

The predictions of many natural phenomena such as the intensity of tropical storms (hurricanes/tornadoes) by

scientists are unsatisfactory. The reason of this is intrinsic, their spiral motion is quite unknown.

In this paper, for the fi rst time, the spiral dynamics is introduced with the study of the two basic uniform spiral

and spiral-polar motions.

New projects such as CYGNSS (Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System) were launched by the US space

agency (NASA) to study tropical storm systems [14] and predict rapid changes in their intensity.

This paper has introduced new physical quantities to be measured to better under-stand the physical

behaviour of the masses of water that spiral in tropical storms.

5811

In particular, the spiral centrifugal forces and the Coriolis forces that can be used to calculate the intensities of

the storms.

Spiral trajectories are currently used by airplanes and spacecrafts, as cars follow spiral curves in their

movement. The spiral dynamics allow an analytical study of the forces acting on the moving masses along

spiral trajectories.

Moreover, the spiral dynamics could be used to study the motion of stellar bodies in spiral galaxies and their

gravitational waves.

Applications can be countless and many new tools can be designed.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares that there is no confl ict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.

Funding Statement This research was funded by "Progetto Centro di Ricerche di Fisica Matematica"

Municipality of Sesto San Giovanni, Milan province.

Acknowledgments none.

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[13] F.Kost, Basic principles of vehicle dynamics, Fundamental of Automotive and Engine Technology, Springer

Fachmedien Wiesbaden, pp 114-129, 2014.

[14] C.S. Ruf et al., New Ocean Winds Satellite Mission to Probe Hurricanes and Tropical Convection, Bulletin of

the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 97, Issue 3: Pages 385-395, 2016.

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Introduction to Spiral Dynamics

by Andrew Langford

Spiral Dynamics – a System of Worldviews

Spiral Dynamics (SD) is one example amongst

several of a system that attempts to map our bio-

psychological development – although SD is unique

(and contentious) in that it goes on to propose that

individual bio/psycho development AND

social/cultural development proceed on similar lines.

Spiral Dynamics can be thought of as a progressive

system of worldviews that proposes that we travel

through a knowable/predictable path of

developmental phases according to changes in the

external environment.

Life Conditions awaken Ways of Thinking

SD proposes that individuals grow and develop

through exposure to experiences and circumstances

– these, the experiences and circumstances, are

known as ‘Life Conditions’ in SD terms and

experiencing various Life Conditions awakens

characteristic ‘Ways of Thinking.”

Everybody has the capacity to think in all ways,

according to SD, but as our exposure to Life

Conditions is uneven, so we are all at unique places

on the spiral of different Ways of Thinking.

That is, each of us has different Ways of Thinking

on the go, caused largely by the different Life

Conditions we have been in and are experiencing.

The idea of vMemes

However, SD claims that the Ways of Thinking –

which are made up of various contributing memes,

cluster together around a core meta-meme. This

meta-meme is, in SD terms, called a vMeme (where

v stands for Values) and it acts as a kind of attractor

that holds a cluster of memes together in something

like a coherent whole.

This makes it possible to reduce the variety of

individual uniqueness into some ‘categories’ and

propose that a person, a group of persons or, even, a

whole society, is thinking from a describable,

limited number of vMemes or from certain ‘centers

of gravity’.

A Summary

The graphic below attempts to summarize the Spiral

Dynamics system. Each vMeme (confusingly

labelled a ‘meme’ in the graphic) is assigned a color

and the vMemes are arranged as a hierarchy

according to the level of complexity found in the

Life Conditions that generated this Way of

Thinking.

Beige is used to signify least complex Life

Conditions and, consequently, least complex Ways

of Thinking. Turquoise is used to signify most

complex Life Conditions and, consequently, most

complex Ways of Thinking.

According to the SD analysis, the overall system is

never- ending – that is, complexity in Life

Conditions will continue to develop and, therefore,

Ways of Thinking will also need to develop to keep

up.

There is, therefore, no end-point, no ultimate

completion, no enlightenment, only a (possibly

predictable) progression of Ways of Thinking that

emerge in order that we can make sense of and

function in increasingly complex futures.

We will be using the Spiral Dynamics colors and

concepts to good effect in a later element on

Leaderful Communities.

The progression critique of SD

A strong critique of spiral dynamics is that it

assumes systems progress, that conditions for

humans on the planet are getting ever ‘better’ and

that we are becoming more ‘civilized’ by the day.

That older vMemes give way to more recent ones

because we are developing in a positive way.

Once we ask and answer the question of ‘for whom

are conditions getting better?’ where whom includes

at least all human beings or, better still, includes all

living beings, the idea of universal positive progress

looks distinctly contentious.

A more nuanced view is that Spiral Dynamics

reflects the path of a world system that manifested

with deep distress, emerging first around the time of

transition from Purple (gatherer-hunters, tenders of

the wild, early agriculturalists) to Red (emperors,

their courtiers and military officers living in

defended cities supported by serf and slave

agriculture – that is, a “patrix” or patriarch matrix

based culture). This happened circa 6000 years

before present (BP) for cultures in what was the

Fertile Crescent and was stimulated by disastrous

climate change – from moist/warm to arid/cold –

caused, it is thought, by fresh water from melted

glaciers upsetting the saline stratification of the

Atlantic Ocean and switching off the Gulf Stream.

This patrix based culture expanded, especially to the

north, east and west, to eventually become the

dominant culture of the Eurasian Continent and later,

the American Continent.

Since these times, those of us affected have been

attempting to recover (without consciousness and

without complete success) from these early and

inhumane cultures built on fear, panic and sudden

scarcity.

Only now, after thousands of years blundering

through an incomplete and non-linear recovery (one

step forward, two steps back), those of us with this

Red culture in our backgrounds might be getting

some glimpse of what a distress-free, ecologically

regenerative and socially just culture might look like

and may have just reached the place where

conscious healing of the patrix is possible.

Cultures with less pressure from climate change

(less dense populations with space for movement,

more adaptable, more experienced with and less

traumatised by variable climate …) may not have

been panicked into the pathway described by SD. If

some of them did go this way, their subsequent

immersion in wild nature was sufficiently healing to

allow them to emerge on quite a different pathway

than the one described in Spiral Dynamics. The

Iroquois Nations are one such example of a large,

regional, diverse and yet coherent nature-immersed

culture that reached patrix escape velocity sometime

before the 1400’s.

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By Ava Klinger|June 8th, 2017|Blog|1 Comment

One Comment

1.

Tom Palmer June 9, 2017 at 8:15 pmLog in to

Reply

Very insightful article thanks for this Andrew.

https://gaiauniversity.org/introduction-to-spiral-dynamics/

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From my perspective and understanding of SD,

it seems the notion that the vMemes represent

some kind of linear ‘progress,’ where things are

in some way improving on the whole, is a ‘tier I’

view that should be questioned (as you have).

From a tier II, or integral view (beginning with

the transition from green to yellow in SD terms),

this notion of progress is largely rejected – at

least progress in the sense that one vMeme

comes along and replaces another in the name of

progress.

We can recognize this thinking as a response to

post-modern green, which attempts to make all

perspectives equally valid while at the same time

seeing itself as superior to previous ways of

thinking and resulting in a somewhat awkward

contradiction of values.

With the transition to tier II yellow, the pattern

fundamentally changes from one vMeme

looking to replace all previous ones, to the view

that all vMemes contain some elements of

usefulness as necessary steps – instead of

looking to discard them for something new, one

looks to integrate, transcend and include them.

My one critique of this article is that the Red

vMeme seems to be presented as a big mistake

we would have been better off without, with no

attempt to ascribe any value to its existence.

If we look at SD through the lens of increasing

complexity as you have described, I can’t help

but see Red (and each vMeme) as necessary

steps on our pathway to developing our ability

as a species to deal with the complexity that will

allow us to survive long-term. That could very

well include the ability to counter an (inevitable)

naturally-occurring extinction event at some

point in the future.

This not to discount the destructive elements of

Red or any other worldview which are still

clearly influential and should be acknowledged

– only that we might also acknowledge these as

necessary steps in our evolutionary journey as a

species.

For example, without having passed through

such stages it’s fairly safe to say that something

like Gaia U would not exist in the form that it

does. I am grateful it does!

Very open to hearing other perspectives.

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is

licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

License.



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67Approaching Religion • Vol. 5, No. 2 • November 2015

albion m. butters

A brief history of Spiral Dynamics

For nearly two decades, the theory of Spiral Dynam-ics has been used to dynamically model human evolution and information systems. In that time,

however, many different versions and applications of the model have emerged. This article will diachronically trace the history of Spiral Dynamics, from the founda-tional theory of Clare Graves to its initial introduction by Don Beck and Chris Cowan and subsequent adaptation by Ken Wilber. A brief exploration of the various camps and their competing interpretations of Spiral Dynamics will permit some critical analysis of the model itself.

The goal of this article is to provide a historic al overview of Spiral Dynamics, including its back-ground and history, its creators and their differences, and the ways in which it has been and is being applied in the world. To do this coherently first requires an explan ation of what Spiral Dynamics actually is – in brief, a system that describes conceptual models that humans use to explain the world around them – as well as attention to the various forms that have emerged over the course of its evolution.1 Furthermore, as Spiral Dynamics is not without its critics, the article discusses several major objections that have been raised.

1 Given the differing interpretations of Spiral Dynam-ics, in some cases it seemed best to let the authors speak for themselves. Sources included their books, articles on the subject, and interviews that are pub-licly available on the internet. My goal is to present a critical and neutral, if cursory, appraisal of the system. I have not personally received teaching or training in Spiral Dynamics.

Origins of the systemIn 1952, Clare W. Graves (1914–1986)2 began work on something he called the ‘Theory of Levels of Human Existence’. Its goal was to explain why people’s reactions and motivations are so varied. Fourteen years later, he published his first version of a seven-level thinking model. With the continued col-lection of data over the next decade, there were sig-nificant changes in this model. By 1973, Graves was conducting mind–brain research in terms of mental development shaped by neurological structures and networks, chemical agents and external phenomena.

In many ways, Graves’ real contribution was his focus on the collection of data and its application; his system was not merely theoretical, but based on over thirty years of close observation of subjects. The data collection methods that Graves used might be viewed as quite controversial by today’s standards. For instance, he used his students as test subjects, but without telling them that he was doing so, and he spied on them through two-way mirrors and tape-recorded them without their knowledge (Rice 2014). Ethical considerations notwithstanding, Graves (1974) finally published an eight-level system that consisted of two tiers; six levels in the first tier (sub-sistence) and two in the second (being):3

2 Archives of Graves’ work can be found at a website dedicated to his life and research (Graves 2001–5).

3 Because the definitions given here express the codes of what will later become Spiral Dynamics, I do not repeat them again later. Although very basic, they

should also provide a sufficient foundation for the reader to understand what the different levels repre-sent. See also figure 2. For an in-depth presentation, see Beck and Cowan 1996.

68 Approaching Religion • Vol. 5, No. 2 • November 2015

1. Automatic (A-N): motivated by survival and physical imperatives;

2. Tribalistic (B-O): seeking social stability, use of totems and taboos;

3. Egocentric (C-P): individualism and the use of force to acquire objects of desire;

4. Saintly (D-Q): recognition of the value of rules, marked by focus on religion;

5. Materialistic (E-R): authoritarianism, dogma is trumped by pragmatism;

6. Personalistic (F-S): concern with belonging, concern for others;

7. Cognitive Existence (G-T): on threshold of true humanity;

8. Experientialist Existence (H-U): beyond animal needs, drive to make life stable.

To identify these levels, Graves used a lettering system with two helices – Helix 1 identifying ‘life con-ditions’ and Helix 2 denoting ‘awakened capacities in the mind’ – respectively represented by the ranges A-H and N-U. These form the basis of the eight-level system of Spiral Dynamics. More than forty years later, this letter system continues to be used, with people reporting that it helps keep in perspective the relationship between people and the culture in which they are embedded.

Just as Graves’ work fundamentally informed what would later be known as Spiral Dynamics, he himself was influenced by others in the field of trans personal psychology. In particular, one can find parallels between his system and Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which uses a five-level pyramidal structure to map the evolution of people’s needs: physiological ones, safety, love and belonging, esteem and, finally, self-actualization (later replaced by ‘transcendence’). In Maslow’s system, people are con tinually evolving , moving from one level to the next. Graves and Maslow’s relationship was not so simple, however. In true academic fashion, they strongly debated the merits of Graves’ system; Maslow reportedly argued for eight years before adopting it himself. The bone of contention – the nature of the ‘ultimate state’ of being – was actually very significant in terms of the future form of Spiral Dynamics. Maslow was deeply committed to the idea of humans developing in an ‘open’ way with no limitations. In his words, it was a matter of ‘non-interfering receptive perception versus active controlling perception, enlarging con-sciousness, the ineffable experience’ (Maslow 1962,

cited in Graves 1970: 155).What did ‘open’ mean in practice? Observations

of people who had made it to the highest level in Maslow’s system (self-actualization) suggested that that state may not be the pinnacle of development after all. In other words, further attainments and yet higher modes of functioning remained. For this reason, it was important to be able to introduce new categor-ies (Graves 1971). Graves integrated this approach in his system, not only formulating the eighth level of H-U (called Turquoise in Spiral Dynamics) as a further expansion of consciousness and reflecting the ability of humans to attain new coping mechanisms by means of new thinking systems, but also propos-ing the potential existence of even another level (I-V, or Coral) that represents a third tier of development. This last level was purely theoretical when Graves’ students Don Beck and Chris Cowan wrote the first seminal book on Spiral Dynamics in 1996, and that ‘mystery meme’ still remains mysterious today. Purportedly, very few people appear to be demon-strating the attainment of such an evolutionary state, making it difficult to describe even what character-istics it may possess. An important point, however, had been made: the system needed to be open – like a spiral.

Spirals and rainbowsIn Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change (1996), Beck and Cowan use a number of wonderful examples grounded in nature – frac-tals and seashells, ribbons of DNA and galaxies – to explain why they named their system after a spiral: ‘Behold the eloquence of the spiral. Consider the internal integrity, the elegant architecture.’ And, ‘Spirals are alive, magical, powerful, and multi-dimensional’ (Beck and Cowan 1996: 26). Spirals can be said to reflect the nature of thought, sometimes returning to the same place but eventually progress-ing. Being ‘expansive, open-ended, continuous, and dynamic’, the spiral is a model that both visually and functionally represents the evolutionary develop-ment of consciousness.

It is likely that Graves himself lent inspiration to the name Spiral Dynamics. This is suggested by his own description of the nature of his work:

The psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating spiraling


process marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order behavior systems to newer, higher-order systems as an individual’s existen-tial problems change. (Beck and Cowan 1996: 28; Wilber 2000: 5)

Perhaps more important than the person who gave the name, however, is the way in which the system was interpreted to also represent the evolutionary development of groups. Graves’ work was extended beyond the individual to the collective, resulting in a much more rich interpretation of the spiral model and a quantum leap in its potential applications.

In this way, Don Beck’s description of the spiral would build on that of his mentor:

A spiral vortex best depicts the emergence of human systems, or memes, as they evolve through levels of increasing complexity. Each upward turn of the spiral marks the awaken-ing of a more elaborate version on top of what already exists, with each meme a product of its times and conditions. And these memes form spirals of increasing complexity that exist within a person, a family, an organization, a culture, or a society. (Beck 2002: 9)

The use of the term ‘meme’ (Dawkins 1976, Csikszentmihalyi 1993) was a conscious decision here, evoking the scientific language of evolution and the cultural language of information transfer. To accurately convey Graves’ emphasis on values, that word was abbreviated in the Spiral Dynamics system and appended to make ‘VMEME’, defined as ‘the magnetic force which binds memes and other kinds of ideas in cohesive packages of thought’; extended further, VMEMEs ‘structure the thinking, value sys-tems, political forms, and world views of entire civili-zations’ (Beck and Cowan 1996: 30). In this way, Beck and Cowan mapped their grand theory of VMEMEs directly onto Graves’ theory of levels of human exist-ence, following his eight-level model of evolution. But they chose not to represent the different VMEMEs with numbers. From the very beginning, they were cautious about creating a hierarchical structure in which ‘higher’ automatically meant ‘better’. Instead they used colours.

Over the course of its history, the face of Spiral Dynamics – that is to say, its colour scheme – has changed a number of times, from black-and-white to

different colours to those of the rainbow. While each such change has had its own logic, they have not been without controversy.

During the earliest stage of the theory, the differ-ent levels of development did not have any colours at all. Colours were supposedly first introduced when Chris Cowan was making slides to be used as teach-ing materials. He claims that colours were merely a design element, being better than black-and-white to illustrate the different levels.4 Accordingly, he says, they had no metaphysical significance, nor were they based on the colours of the Indian seven-chakra sys-tem.5 In fact, a conscious choice was made to not make them match the spectrum of the rainbow.6

But that is exactly what Ken Wilber would later do. Integrating the eight VMEME levels as ‘altitude markers’ of ‘waves of consciousness’, he specific-ally followed the ‘natural’ colour progression of the chakras, which resembles that of a rainbow (Wilber 2006a: 66).7

Such a radical change of palette did not go unchal-lenged, and it serves well to illustrate the types of contention that were introduced as Spiral Dynamics evolved. For instance, Cowan was very critical of the move; ‘Because Wilber tries to apply but doesn’t actu-ally understand Gravesian theory, he confuses the levels/colors like a novice. He doesn’t know Green from Orange or Yellow’ (Spiral Dynamics 2001–12b). The issue was not just about colours, of course. The colour scheme underlines a much deeper issue that

4 As will be seen below, this statement contradicts Cowan’s adherence to the original colour scheme as having great significance.

5 The assignment of colours to the chakras is some-times attributed to Western influences. However, while they certainly feature prominently in New Age interpretations of the subtle energy body, their ori-ginal appearance dates back to Buddhist and Hindu tantric texts in India. Cf. Guhyasamāja-tantra , Kālacakra-tantra, and Cakrasaṃvara-tantra, which are more than a thousand years old; see also the sixteenth-century Sat-cakra-nirūpana and the Pādukā-pañcaka, translated by Sir John Woodroffe (pseud. Arthur Avalon) as The Serpent Power in 1919.

6 See Cowan and Todorovic’s NVC Consulting website Spiral Dynamics (2001–12c). For the sake of conveni-ence, quotes taken from that site are attributed to Cowan himself.

7 It is also worth noting the respective value differences of the chakras: 1) food, sex, power; 2) heart and com-munication; and 3) psychic and spiritual.


Cowan had with Wilber’s synthesis. In his view, by picking and choosing different elements, changing names and focusing on ‘types and categories’, Wilber loses sight of the essence of Graves’ primary quest: ‘the engine that drives human emergence – why we are and what leads us to change to be something dif-ferent’ (Spiral Dynamics 2001–12d). The degree to which this is true is a matter of debate – and to be sure, it is extensively debated online – but what is clear is Cowan’s attachment to typologies and being faithful to Graves.

Cowan further criticizes changes to the original colour scheme as ‘paintballing’, ignoring the thought that went into it. This does appear to be the case. The colours used in Spiral Dynamics are much more than just a design element. They alternate between ‘deny-the-self ’ cool (even numbers) and ‘express-the-self ’ warm (odd numbers), and there is a logic to the col-ours themselves (e.g. Beige represents the savannah where early survival-focused hominids lived, Red evokes the colour of blood and violence, Turquoise is the colour of Earth seen in a holistic way from space). For his part, Beck continues to use the original colour scheme. He also refers to the alternation in terms of warm (I/ME/MINE) and cool (WE).

Differing interpretationsAs already seen above, Spiral Dynamics would end up taking different forms. Generally speaking, one can speak of three dominant interpretations, all of which continue to be propagated today, based on the teachings of the two followers of Graves and Wilber.

Although the work of Clare Graves was also picked up by others (e.g. Hughes and Flowers 1978, Lynch and Kordis 1989), it was developed and promoted the most by a pair of social scientists: Don E. Beck and his graduate student, Christopher Cowan. They first met Graves in 1975, and their co-operation continued until his death in 1986. Beck and Cowan worked on the theory for another decade before publishing Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change (1996). It

was during this twenty-year period that they devel-oped the colour scheme and shifted to VMEME ter-minology, and although their mentor was not with them the entire time, they had his blessing to make such changes. As Beck notes, ‘While Graves supplied the original blueprint, he cautioned me on numer-ous occasions to continue the research, to branch out far beyond what he could imagine, and pursue “the never-ending quest” ’ (see Beck’s website, Spiral Dynamics Integral).

For Beck and Cowan, the research quest meant applying the theory on the ground. Between 1981 and 1988, Beck made more than sixty trips to South Africa. He and Cowan are credited with helping Nelson Mandela to change the consciousness of South Africa – bringing about a peaceful end to apartheid – when much of the nation’s population was bent on revenge against its former oppressors. As seen in the movie Invictus (2009), Mandela devised the strategy of using a rugby game to transcend racial and class

Figure 1. Levels and colour schemes. Modified with permission from PiALOGUE <http://pialogue.info/definitions/Integral_Altitude.php>.


identification and unify the country. In actuality, this was Spiral Dynamics being used, not to alter peoples’ value systems, but to highlight and bring into focus a value system that was already there.

In 1999, Beck and Cowan ended their profes-sional relationship. The bitterly contested issue between them was apparently Cowan’s decision to register and trademark the Spiral Dynamics name, while Beck wanted to keep it open for academic use. A further point of conflict was Chris Cowan’s deci-sion to join forces with Natasha Todorovic (formerly a stock market trader, with a degree in business administration) to create NVC Consulting, which made further collaboration difficult.8 Cowan’s new partnership led to an edited book of Graves’ papers, a welcome contribution given the vast body of material that Graves produced but never published (Cowan and Todorovic 2005), and until July 2015, Cowan and Todorovic offered training in Spiral Dynamics® at their Santa Barbara headquarters and around the world.9 As a result of this work and further study of Graves’ writings, Cowan found ‘glaring errors in previous renditions of [the book] Spiral Dynamics which we are trying to address’ (Spiral Dynamics 2001–12d). After his recent death, however, the cur-rent status of this project remains in question. Yet it is important to note that from Cowan’s perspective, there is not ultimately such a divide between Graves’ theories and Spiral Dynamics; some of the term-inology may have changed, but the core remains the same. By thus positioning himself in relation to the Graves’ canon, Cowan was able to level a critique against heterodox interpretations.

Treating the system more diachronically, Don Beck divides the development of Spiral Dynamics into three phases: 1) Graves technology (1975–95);

8 Personal communication with Don Beck (interview via Skype, 29.7.2015). It is worth remarking here that the main developers of Spiral Dynamics were all white males until this point. A discussion of gender in relation to Spiral Dynamics, both historically and in relation to the system itself, is unfortunately outside the scope of this article, but represents an important area for future research.

9 I wrote to Christopher Cowan in June 2015 for the purpose of this article. I received no reply, but in August I received an email from his partner Natasha Todorovic, wherein she informed me that he had tragically just passed away. I also wrote to Ken Wilber through his publisher and his websites, but received no reply.

2) Spiral Dynamics proper (1996–2001), including a relatively brief period after his split with Cowan; and 3) Spiral Dynamics integral, or SDi (2002–).10 In creating this new iteration, he cited the influence of Ichak Adizes and John Peterson. Most importantly, he was drawn to the work of Ken Wilber, whose A Theory of Everything (2000) presented an eight-level system with four quadrants (4Q/8L).

In a statement announcing their partnership, Beck showed clear appreciation of what Wilber’s integrative work could bring to Spiral Dynamics. In particular, he cited the ability of the All Quadrants/All Levels/All Lines (AQAL) model to ‘further extend the functionality of Spiral Dynamics on personal, organizational, and societal levels’. The two systems share a quantitative systems thinking approach with an emphasis on openness and evolution, and in this sense they were ideally suited to complement one another. Beck was also appreciative of the way in which ‘this relationship with Ken and his vast follow-ing has created a quantum leap of interest in Clare W. Graves and Spiral Dynamics and, more than any other influence, has projected this conceptual system onto the global screen’ (Integral World nd). Such exposure had financial benefits, to be sure, but connecting with Wilber’s wider network also meant potential synergy with other thinkers and meetings with global power brokers: the White House, leaders in Congress, and 10 Downing Street.

It did not take long for tensions to arise, however. The first signs of disagreement between Beck and Wilber already appeared in 2002. As Beck stated in 2008, ‘While I did some work with Wilber, that all began to wane six years ago because of his constant distortion of the Spiral Dynamics/Gravesian model’. A further example of the differing worldviews of Beck and Wilber is found in the former’s interest in continued scientific research of Graves’ theory, including fMRI studies.11 Beck notes that this was a clear point of divergence between him and Wilber: ‘My friend Ken wouldn’t even talk to me about it because he had such adversity to anything that is not spirit based’ (Beck 2008).

10 See Frank Visser’s extensive website dedicated to Integral theory, Integral World nd.

11 For a detailed study of fMRI on Graves’ value theory (that subjects react more swiftly to stimulus words in alignment with their worldview than those that are not), see Caspers et al. 2011.


The two were now on clearly separate paths: Beck founded the Center for Human Emergence in 2004 and Wilber established the Integral Spiritual Center in 2005.12 They both continued to teach Spiral Dynamics in relation to Integral Theory, but in different ways. Wilber’s Integral Spirituality (2006) simultaneously redefined and marginalized Spiral Dynamics while also outlining its limitations for spiritual application:

Here’s the point: you can sit on your medita-tion cushion for decades, and you will NEVER see anything resembling the stages of Spiral Dynamics. And you can study Spiral Dynamics till the cows come home, and you will never have a satori. And the integral point is, if you

12 Wilber would have much greater commercial success, but he has never provided compensation for his use of Spiral Dynamics. Beck confesses some resent-ment over what he sees as Wilber’s exploitation of the system. Personal communication with Don Beck (interview via Skype, 29.7.2015).

don’t include both, you will likely never under-stand human beings or their relation to Reality, divine or otherwise. (Wilber 2006a: 38)

The relationship of Wilber’s integral/external and internal/social four-quadrant model to Spiral Dynamics is a tricky one. For Wilber, Graves’ levels belong in the lower-left ‘WE’ quadrant (cultural development) and correlates appear in the upper-left ‘I’ quadrant (psychological development); Integral Theory by and large integrates – or assimilates – Spiral Dynamics within these two.

This divergence of interpretations can serve to illustrate an important difference in approaches to transformation: ‘inner-directed’ (more focused on the individual) versus ‘outer-directed’ (more socially focused). Wilber’s work clearly falls into the former category. This is evidenced, for example, by his psychological and spiritual attention to conscious-ness (and interest in Eastern religious traditions), if not by his use of first-person pronouns to define the quadrants in his model. Although personal

Figure 2. SD and the AQAL Model. Formless Mountain <http://www.formlessmountain.com/aqal.htm>.


transform ation is included in Beck’s presentation of Spiral Dynamics, his model is more interested in social structures and cultural values.13

Cowan completely rejects this positioning on the basis of Graves’ theory actually ‘integrating’ them all. Given the distance between his camp and that of Wilber, this type of contest (i.e. whose level of ‘inte-gration’ is greater) and functional disconnect is not surprising. Cowan is not a fan of Wilber’s interpret-ation of Spiral Dynamics in the first place. Indeed, he states that his criticism of Wilber is primarily based on what he perceives to be a misrepresenta-tion of that system, such that followers ‘have been led down a rabbit trail into a labyrinth of all quadrant, all level nonsense. For the people who really know the Gravesian theory, reading it is a cringe a minute’ (Spiral Dynamics 2001–12d).

Beck’s response is very different – and, well, inte-grative. Even years after his self-declared distancing from Wilber, he still sees the value of Spiral Dynamics and Integral Theory being used together. He is still committed to SDi. Positioning remains an issue, but in this case a logical argument is made for why the spiral should occupy the centre of the quadrants of the AQAL model instead of being partitioned inside them. According to Beck (2012), having the spiral span the four boxes helps to remove the concept that they are self-contained entities, and it shows the movement taking place between them. After all, the spiral is not static, but dynamic.

Wilber’s response to all this has been to belittle Spiral Dynamics and its creators. In his infamous ‘June 8 rant’ in 2006, he would state ‘I personally love SD as an intro model (seriously), and we will defin-itely continue to use it…’. This is followed by an ad hominem attack on both Cowan and Beck: ‘And what do you make of the fact that the two guys who devel-oped SD, nobody really wants to work with?—and in fact, they even refuse to work with each other, as if to put an exclamation mark on the point’ (Wilber 2006b).

This remark does raise an important question. Given the emphasis on personal evolution in Spiral

13 The distinction between these approaches to trans-formation is helpfully presented by Ronnie Lessem in his presentation of a new modality that combines the two, which he calls Integral Dynamics. Lessem’s system also addresses the linear nature of Spiral Dynamics . See Lessem et al. 2013: 8–9.

Dynamics (as well as Integral Theory), why so much contention? The overall impression one gets is of an extremely intelligent set of people sharing the moti-vation to advance the world yet still enmeshed in very human (and not ‘second-tier’ human) dynamics. While the system is described as being very ap plicable to external situations and patterns in the world, how is the outside observer to measure its success in terms of personal growth?

A spiral soteriology?There has been integration of Spiral Dynamics and religious systems, despite the fact that Spiral Dynamics does not in and of itself consist of a reli-gious or spiritual dimension, other than as a tool to describe various belief systems in relation to the VMEMEs. Grounded in empirical research, it is not a belief system in and of itself. From the outset, Clare Graves did not appear to have a spiritual agenda. As noted by Cowan:

Dr. Graves probably couldn’t have meditated himself out of a paper bag and was not especi-ally interested in the esoteric consciousness studies that fascinated many of his humanistic and transpersonal-oriented peers. His curios-ity was more as to why they were so fascinated, how they thought about psychological health and the mature human being, and whom transpersonal approaches might help and why. (Spiral Dynamics 2001–12d)

Nor did Beck and Cowan add a religious layer when they adopted Graves’ model. If anything, Cowan’s sense is that doing this – using Spiral Dynamics as a ‘spiritual ladder’ or ‘grading scale to assess apostles and sort the elect and deserving from the rest of the herd’ – is cultic and should be avoided (Spiral Dynamics 2001–12e). It is not clear whom Cowan is talking about, but cases do exist. For ex ample, as one Christian author writes: ‘By virtue of the fact that you reading this book, you are somewhere on the upper levels of the spiral’ (Meier 2009: 4).

Over time, Spiral Dynamics would come to inform a systemic rethinking of Christian mission and com-munity. Over the years, dialogue has been achieved, and to some extent this process has been facilitated by the founders. Although Chris Cowan was an athe-ist and his attitude primarily scientific, he saw value


in the way that Spiral Dynamics outlines how reli-gious matters tend to be approached by people at dif-ferent levels. Ken Wilber has shown interest in engag-ing with Christian leaders on the topic of Integral Life, which includes Spiral Dynamics. Don Beck has been much more active with faith organizations (as demonstrated by his willingness to give workshops at the progressive Unity Church of Dallas, Texas or the Northbrae Community Church in Berkeley, California).14

Despite his academic background in the ology and Koine Greek, Beck’s interest in religion is not about religion per se, but ‘memetics’; by this he means the value systems that undergird religion and are expressed in rituals. In his view, Christianity is in need of resuscitation, and Spiral Dynamics can help illuminate the crisis in which value systems are being lost in the modern world. To use an example, he finds that children today are not being presented with challenges of sacrifice and discipline (aspects of Purple and Blue). Lacking the neurological equip-ment at that age to make subtle nuances of judgment about values and ethics, until they learn the code of obedience at the Blue level, there’s no chance that they will understand the globally integrated level of Turquoise. In Beck’s view, the recruitment of people into fundamentalist organizations (e.g. ISIS) reflects the type of vacuum that arises when people’s needs at the level that they are at are not being met.15

To further contextualize the way in which Spiral Dynamics can be applied to spiritual modalities, it is important to note that it differentiates between the things that people think about and how they think about them. The former is comprised of objects of analysis, while the latter involves the mode of analy-sis itself. Thus, Spiral Dynamics locates atheism and theism on the Blue (D-Q) level, both of which include ‘true believers’ whose worldviews are absolutist. Religious expression is exhibited in other modalities as well. For example, aggressive proselytization can be seen as a Red attitude, in contrast to Green’s ecu-menical pluralism.

As Christianity today faces multiple crises of identity and attrition, and contemporary Christians

14 This relationship has matured to the point that all of the ministers in its Kansas City seminary are trained in Spiral Dynamics.

15 Personal communication with Don Beck (interview via Skype, 29.7.2015).

struggle to make sense of their faith, some churches have also turned to Spiral Dynamics (e.g. Integral Christianity, The Emerging Church, Seventh-day Adventism). The system is being used to provide people with a broader perspective of Christianity and, more specifically, their relationship with it. The system can even be used as a lens to be turned on God – or constructed belief systems vis-à-vis different types of divine presence and agency. As an example, one can point to Bruce Sanguin’s readings of Christ through the lens of Spiral Dynamics: the traditional Christ as Scapegoat (Blue); the modern demythologized Christ, as seen in the work of Bultmann, or Christ the successful leader (Orange); the egalitarian or post-modern Christ (Green); the cosmic Christ as the ‘pat-tern that connects’ (Yellow), as seen by Teilhard de Chardin; or the mystical Christ (Turquoise), in which the entire universe is perceived as the body of God. This is not a theological overview as much as a com-parative reappraisal of Christian teleology, which has potential consequences for Christians and the nature of their faith. This becomes apparent in Sanguin’s own story of transformed understanding: ‘When I was introduced to the map of Spiral Dynamics, I began to see the Christ as metaphor for the spiritual, evolutionary impulse itself, which is expressed dif-ferently at different stages of development’ (Sanguin 2014). If it sounds like Sanguin has forsaken a trad-itional form of faith for Spiral Dynamics, it’s because he has. On his personal website, he announces that after 27 years he has resigned from congregational ministry (Sanguin nd).

Critiques of Spiral DynamicsCriticism has been directed at Spiral Dynamics on a number of levels. Some criticisms are largely aca-demic, but much more serious allegations have been brought as well. Is it a cult? A money-making scheme? A hierarchical system designed to control the masses?

One charge brought against Spiral Dynamics is that its language lends itself to people not being aware of the context in which it arose and operates, at least not in a way that influences are explicitly represented on its map. Are other meanings implicit in the map-ping? More specifically, does Spiral Dynamics support outdated colonialist attitudes, such as associating the primitive Beige level with the savannah (i.e. Africa)? Beck’s past work in South Africa provides a poten-tially rich case study to examine these questions.


His current work on increased racial polarization in the United States, however, can be seen as a reflec-tion of his deep concern for issues of race and power. Ultimately, he argues, ‘Race is not about race – it’s about value systems.’16

In terms of those value systems, it is impossible to deny that Spiral Dynamics uses a hierarchical model, yet it is critical to stress here that Spiral Dynamics is not just about ascending the ‘ladder’. Each level has a shadow aspect – or what Wilber calls a ‘mean’ side – of unhealthy manifestations, and each level has its own set of challenges to be worked through. Spiral Dynamics attempts to tackle the issue of hierarchiza-tion by locating it as a human tendency, both over-all and arising within the system itself. For example, one of the dangers explained by teachers of Spiral Dynamics is the tendency of people to climb to the Green level and then think that they are above or ‘beyond’ others. A related problem at this level is reductionism that seeks to deny hierarchies! When power structures and educational systems are viewed through the lens of Spiral Dynamics, different types of discourse are highlighted in terms of their respec-tive values. The keywords associated with Green – pluralism, multiculturalism, etc. – are used by a number of academic disciplines (e.g. cultural stud-ies) to lump things together. Wilber problematizes this as the ‘Mean Green Meme’ of the cultural elite (Wilber 2003, 2006a), but he is careful to stress that there are also healthy aspects of Green (e.g. the civil rights movement, feminism, environmentalism). In short, there are two aspects to every level, healthy and unhealthy, and a method of hermeneutical self-reflexivity is used in order to identify where the latter may be expressed in the system itself.

From the point of view of comparative philosophy, the epistemology of the system may be called into question. As Bonnitta Roy notes, Spiral Dynamics and Wilber’s structural view (e.g. AQAL frame-work) use Western modalities of thought that can ignore process-oriented understandings of reality.17 In brief, the danger involves trying to impose rigid categories and language on a dynamic state of affairs. Beck responds to Roy by inviting her to examine how Spiral Dynamics works in practice (for example, in

16 Personal communication with Don Beck (interview via Skype, 29.7.2015).

17 For a full treatment of this topic, see Roy 2006: 118–52.

Palestine) (Beams and Struts 2011). Whether or not this criticism is valid deserves further discussion (especially considering Graves’ express intent for the system to be open and the emphasis of his suc-cessors on its ‘dynamic’ nature), but it requires an understanding of Roy’s process model as informed by Herbert Guenther’s writings on the Tibetan Buddhist trad ition of Dzogchen (rdzogs chen). Such a discus-sion will have to wait.

The writings of the researcher Michel Bauwens include some of the most scathing criticisms of Spiral Dynamics to date, despite the fact that they are almost a decade old. Bauwens begins by declaring that Spiral Dynamics is being used as a cloak for ‘neoconserva-tive interpretations of reality’, quoting Beck as having praised George W. Bush as a ‘great leader’ (Bauwens 2005). In fact, the involvement of Wilber and Beck with politicians extended to Bill Clinton and Al Gore as well as Bush (and his brother Jeb) (see Wilber 2000: 83).18 Furthermore, in Spiral Dynamics, con-servative ideology is identified with Blue values and liberalism with higher values; on this basis alone, it is difficult to believe that Beck or Wilber would be championing the former.

Yet Wilber has expressed dismay with liberalism, finding it internally flawed and self-contradictory for its denial of the stages which led to it. For this reason, he has seen American politics to be ‘a sick version of a higher level versus a healthy version of a lower level’ (Wilber 2000: 88). It is important to note, however, that he is not satisfied with that state. Ideally there would be a healthy version of the higher level. But Bauwens continues:

More generally, SD operates as a business, aggressively defends its sole use of terminology … ; and is marketed to business and political leaders as a means of social manipulation. Now imagine the world vision of someone using SD in that fashion: he moves through the world as a superior being, seeing poor sobs [sic] around him, in need of enlightenment, knowing that only a tiny few have the potential to become like him. Just like Ken Wilber, who has decided a priori that the Hindu-Buddhist Advaitic

18 A discussion of political orientations and Integral Politics extends far beyond the scope of this present paper. However, for Ken Wilber’s discussion of a trans-partisan ‘Third-Way’. See DeVos 2008.


non-self doctrine is the final word in spiritual evolution, this making interreligious dialogue in fact impossible, quite a few Beck supporters hold similar but more secular views about the a priori superiority of their form of being in the world. Unbelievably (at least to me), I have even encountered SD-influenced people, who main-tain that the poor people in the Third World ‘have a right to experience hunger and poverty’, as it corresponds to their developmental level! (Bauwens 2005)

To take these points one by one, it is certainly true that Spiral Dynamics does have a business model. People engage in training sessions, they are certi-fied, and they pay for this. This is true for both Spiral Dynamics® and SDi, as well as enrolment in Wilber’s Integral programme. It may be noted, of course, that many types of specialized training involve financial investment and trust.19

The ‘superior being’ critique again raises the issue of hierarchization. After all, it is perhaps impossible for values not to be attached to a system. Recognition that large segments of the world’s population are still at relatively rudimentary levels of evolution – to put it in terms of Spiral Dynamics, moving from Purple, Red or Blue into Orange – is described as being nec-essary in order to help facilitate that evolution. From the perspective of psychology, working with people where they are at does not automatically entail an attitude of superiority. The goal of Spiral Dynamics is, in Wilber’s words, to ‘transcend and include’. The fact that lower VMEMEs do not understand and may be in conflict with higher VMEMEs does not mean that the higher ones are antagonistic towards the lower ones. And while it is always possible that a Spiral Wizard dictator could try to use Spiral Dynamics to rule the world, Graves’ initial work suggests that those who have evolved to have tier-two (Yellow and Turquoise) values have only increased compassion and concern for those in the first tier.20

19 These training programmes support a broader appli-cation of Spiral Dynamics in the world, from HR and executive management training to organizational system reform to nation building.

20 If one pauses briefly to see what activities the founders of Spiral Dynamics are engaged in, there is an impressive list: Beck and Cowan worked exten-sively in Africa (as mentioned above), in 2007 Beck spoke at the United Nations on the topic of its Global

Furthermore, one reads again and again that the gradation of the spiral is only part of the process. Cowan clarifies that ‘this is not a hierarchy of wisdom or decency or even intelligences, much less happi-ness and worth’ (Spiral Dynamics 2001–12a). When goals are provided for the different eight VMEMEs, they are horizontal within each level; rather than asking people to evolve out of where they are located, practic al solutions involve growth in that very level.21 For example, those with a predominantly Purple VMEME should aspire to protect tribal ways and rituals, honour traditional festivals and ceremonies, preserve the sacred places, protect the bloodline and propitiate the spirits of the ancestors by preserving the ways of the folk (Beck and Linscott 1991: 14). When Beck uses such language as ‘cleaning up the spiral’, not even remotely does it mean a cleansing of people at different levels of development (akin to racial cleansing) or even dispensing with those levels. Rather, it refers to applying focus to them and shift-ing their expression from negative to positive aspects in order to promote movement and evolution. A con-crete example can be seen in terms of dema goguery (Red or Red/Blue), which prevents people from moving to new levels, versus Red’s concern with free-dom and being able to explore. How is the impasse of the negative expression to be broken? Beck explains that it is the task of Yellow – being integrative – to help facilitate the shift.

It is important to clarify, however, that the task belongs to the Yellow VMEME rather than ‘Yellow’ individuals (Beck 2011). Just as Buddhism paradoxic-ally seeks to effect awakening through the recogni-tion of non-self, Spiral Dynamics puts emphasis on human nature rather than a reified identity. Examples used to describe the different levels sometimes do combine personification (both archetypal and actual) with strong language – Beck (2011) identifies Qaddafi with Red/Blue, for instance, but correlates of the sys-tem’s relationality with individuals in the world can be argued to be a helpful device. At the end of the day, real people provide the data that informs the system!

Emergence Plan and travelled to the Middle East to present an alternative to conflict between Israel and Palestine, and Wilber has most recently been focusing on conflict resolution.

21 This is an important part of the theory that has not been discussed. For a detailed discussion of the trans-formation of VMEMEs, see Beck and Cowan 1996: 34–47.


ConclusionAs its title admits, this article merely presents a brief introduction to Spiral Dynamics. That said, the gen-eral model and the dynamics between the major players have hopefully been laid out in sufficient detail that those who are drawn to delve the system more deeply may do so in a way that best matches their interest.

The future of Spiral Dynamics depends on such interest. Its champions are of an older generation, and the loss of Chris Cowan will certainly have an impact on its diffusion. Students of Spiral Dynamics are found all around the world, however, and many of them have been working with it for several dec-ades. As a mature system, perhaps the most difficult phases of schism and sectarian rancour have passed. In discussions today, for example, personal attacks are discouraged. Finally, Spiral Dynamics is not just a theory. By being applied in practice, whether in corporate training sessions or political and religious contexts, there is every reason to believe that Spiral Dynamics will continue to become more established and grow.

Albion M. Butters, PhD, lectures in the Department of Comparative Religion at the University of Turku. While he is specialized in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, his interests also include intersections between alternative forms of religion and cultural stud-ies. He is currently writing a book on ‘spiritual fiction’, The Spiritual Evolution of Comics:

The Birth of ‘Spi-Fi’.

ReferencesBauwens, Michel, 2005. ‘A critique of Wilber and Beck’s

SD-Integral’, P/I: Pluralities/Integration, no. 61, <http://www.kheper.net/topics/Wilber/SDi_critique.html> (accessed 2.10.2015)

Beck, Don, 2002. ‘Interview with Jessica Roemischer: the never-ending upward quest’, What is Enlightenment, 22, pp. 4–22

—2008. Email response to Graham Wilson’s blog ‘When dynamics spiral out of control’, <http://www.the-confidant.info/2008/when-dynamics-spiral-out-of-control/> (accessed 30.3.2015)

—2011. Interview with Russ Volckmann, PhD, ‘Fresh perspective: spiral interventions’, Integral Leadership

Review, October, <http://integralleadershipreview.com/4120-fresh-perspective-spiral-interventions-with-dr-don-beck/> (accessed 30.3.2015)

—2012. ‘The integral dance: how a master code pollinates and preserves the culture of bumblebees’, column in Integral Leadership Review, <http://integralleader-shipreview.com/7174-the-master-code-spiral-dynam-ics-integral/>(accessed 30.3.2015).

Beck, Don, and Christopher Cowan, 1996. Spiral Dynam-ics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change (Malden, MA, Blackwell Publishers, Inc.)

Beck, Don, and Graham Linscott, 1991. The Crucible: Forging South Africa’s Future (Denton, New Paradigm Press)

Caspers, Svenja, et al., 2011. ‘Moral concepts set decision strategies to abstract values’, PLoS ONE, April, <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3069966/> (accessed 25.3.2015)

Cowan, Chris, and Natasha Todorovic (eds), 2005. Clare W. Graves: The Never Ending Quest (Santa Barbara, ECLET Press)

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, 1993. The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium (New York, HarperCollins )

Dawkins, Richard, 1976. The Selfish Gene (New York, Oxford University Press)

DeVos, Corey W., 2008. ‘Transcending both sides of the political divide: integral trans-partisan politics’, blog published on 26.5.2008, <https://www.integrallife.com/video/integral-trans-partisan-politics> (accessed 25.3.2015)

Graves, Clare W., 1970. ‘Levels of existence: an open system theory of values’, Journal of Humanistic Psychology , 10(2), pp. 131–55

—1971. ‘A systems conception of personality’, paper presented at the Washington School of Psychiatry, 16.10.1971, <http://www.clarewgraves.com/source_content/ WSP_cc_edit.html> (accessed 25.3.2015)

—1974. ‘Human nature prepares for a momentous leap’, The Futurist, April, pp. 72–87

Hughes, Charles, and Vincent Flowers, 1978. Value Systems Analysis: Theory and Management Application (Dallas, Center for Values Research)

Lessem, Ronnie, with Alexander Schieffer, Junie T. Tong, and Samuel D. Rima, 2013. Integral Dynamics: Political Economy, Cultural Dynamics and the Future of the University (Transformation and Innovation) (Burlington, VT, Ashgate)

Lynch, Dudley, and Paul Kordis, 1989. Strategy of the Dolphin: Scoring a Win in a Chaotic World (New York, Morrow)

Maslow, Abraham, 1962. Toward a Psychology of Being (Princeton, NJ, D. Van Nostrand Co.)

Meier, J. J., 2009. God in the Mirror: Reflections on the Physiology of Faith (Bloomington, IN, Universe Books)

Rice, Keith E., 2014. ‘Clare W Graves’ research’, website of Integrated sociopsychology and the author, <http://integratedsociopsychology.net/graves_research.html>

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(accessed 25.3.2015)Roy, Bonnitta, 2006. ‘A process model of Integral Theory’,

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—2003. Boomeritis: A Novel That Will Set You Free! (Boston , Shambhala)

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Spiral DynamicsSpiral Dynamics (SD) is a model of the evolutionary development of individuals, organizations, and societies.It was initially developed by Don Edward Beck and Christopher Cowan based on the emergent cyclical theoryof Clare W. Graves, combined with memetics as proposed by Richard Dawkins and further developed byMihaly Csikszentmihalyi. A later collaboration between Beck and Ken Wilber produced Spiral DynamicsIntegral (SDi), with Wilber subsequently incorporating his own modified version into his overall Integraltheory.[1]

Development of the theoryOverview of the VMemes

Factions and lineagesTimelineSpiral Dynamics integral (SDi)

CriticismInfluence and applicationsNotesReferences

University of North Texas (UNT) professor Don Beck sought out Clare W. Graves after reading about hiswork in The Futurist. They met in person in 1975, and Beck, soon joined by UNT faculty member ChrisCowan, worked closely with Graves until his death in 1986. Beck made over 60 trips to South Africa duringthe 1980s and 1990s, applying Graves's emergent cyclical theory in various projects.[2] This experience, alongwith others Beck and Cowan had applying the theory in North America, motivated the development of SpiralDynamics.[3]

Beck and Cowan first published their extension and adaptation of Graves's emergent cyclical theory in SpiralDynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change (Exploring the New Science of Memetics) (1996).They introduced a simple color-coding for the eight value systems identified by Graves (and a predicted ninth)which is better known than Graves's letter pair identifiers. Additionally, Beck and Cowan integrated ideasfrom the field of memetics as created by Dawkins and further developed by Csikszentmihalyi, identifyingmemetic attractors for each of Graves's levels. These attractors, which they called "VMemes", are said to bindmemes into cohesive packages which structure the world views of both individuals and societies.[1]

Through these value systems, groups and cultures structure their societies and individuals integrate withinthem. Each distinct set of values is developed as a response to solving the problems of the previous system.Changes between states may occur incrementally (first order change) or in a sudden breakthrough (secondorder change).[4]

Contents

Development of the theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Edward_Beck

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_cyclical_theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_W._Graves

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_theory_(Ken_Wilber)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_North_Texas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_W._Graves

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_cyclical_levels_of_existence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics

Overview of the VMemes

VMemes as described in Spiral Dynamics (1996)[5]

Color Gravescode Description Attributes

First Tier

Beige A-NSurvivalSense. TheInstinctive VMEME

Automatic, autistic, reflexiveCenters around satisfactionDriven by deep brain programs, instincts and geneticsLittle awareness of self as a distinct being(undifferentiated)Lives "off the land" much as other animalsMinimal impact on or control over environment

Purple B-O KinSpirits. The ClannishVMEME

Obey desires of the mystical spirit beingsShow allegiance to elders, custom, clanPreserve sacred places, objects, ritualsBond together to endure and find safetyLive in an enchanted, magical villageSeek harmony with nature's power

Red C-PPowerGods. TheEgocentric VMEME

In a world of haves and have-nots, it's good to be a haveAvoid shame, defend reputation, be respectedGratify impulses and sense immediatelyFight remorselessly and without guilt to break constraintsDon't worry about consequences that may not come

Blue D-Q TruthForce. The PurposefulVMEME

Find meaning and purpose in livingSacrifice self to the Way for deferred rewardBring order and stability to all thingsControl impulsivity and respond to guiltEnforce principles of righteous livingDivine plan assigns people to their places

Orange E-R StriveDrive. The StrategicVMEME

Strive for autonomy and independenceSeek out "the good life" and material abundanceProgress through searching out the best solutionsEnhance living for many through science and technologyPlay to win and enjoy competitionLearning through tried-and-true experience

Green F-S HumanBond. TheRelativistic VMEME

Explore the inner beings of self and othersPromote a sense of community and unityShare society's resources among allLiberate humans from greed and dogmaReach decisions through consensusRefresh spirituality and bring harmony

Second Tier

Yellow G-T FlexFlow. The SystemicVMEME Accept the inevitability of nature's flows and forms

Focus on functionality, competence, flexibility, andspontaneity

Find natural mix of conflicting "truths" and "uncertainties"Discovering personal freedom without harm to others orexcesses of self-interestExperience fullness of living on an Earth of suchdiversity in multiple dimensionsDemand integrative and open systems

Turquoise H-U GlobalView. TheHolisticVMEME

Blending and harmonizing a strong collective ofindividualsFocus on the good of all living entities as integratedsystemsExpanded use of human brain/mind tools andcompetenciesSelf is part of larger, conscious, spiritual whole that alsoserves selfGlobal networking seen as routineActs for minimalist living so less actually is more

Coral I-V unknown unknown

While Spiral Dynamics began as a single formulation and extension of Graves's work, a series ofdisagreements and shifting collaborations have produced several distinct factions. By 2010, these had settled asChristopher Cowan and Natasha Todorovic advocating their trademarked "SPIRAL DYNAMICS®" asfundamentally the same as Graves's emergent cyclical theory, Don Beck advocating Spiral Dynamics Integral(SDi) with a community of practice around various chapters of his Centers for Human Emergence, and KenWilber utilizing recolored SDi levels subordinate to his Integral framework, with a greater focus onspirituality.[6]

This state of affairs has led to practitioners noting the "lineage" of their approach in publications.[7]

The following timeline shows the development of the various Spiral Dynamics factions and the major figuresinvolved in them, as well as the initial work done by Graves. Splits and changes between factions are based onpublications or public announcements, or approximated to the nearest year based on well-documented[8]

events.

Vertical bars indicate notable publications, which are listed along with a few other significant events after thetimeline.

Factions and lineages

Timeline

Bolded years indicate publications that appear as vertical bars in the chart above:

1966: Graves: first major publication (in The Harvard Business review)[9]

1970: Graves: peer reviewed publication in Journal of Humanistic Psychology[9]

1974: Graves: article in The Futurist (Beck first becomes aware of Graves's theory; Cowan a bitlater)[10][11]

1977: Graves abandons manuscript of what would later become The Never Ending Quest[12]

1979: Beck and Cowan found National Values Center, Inc. (NVC)[13]

1981: Beck and Cowan resign from UNT to work with Graves; Beck begins applying theory inSouth Africa[11][2][14]

1986: Death of Clare Graves[15]

1995: Wilber: Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (introduces quadrant model, first mention of Graves'sECLET)[16]

1996: Beck and Cowan: Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change[1]

1998: Cowan and Todorovic form NVC Consulting (NVCC) as an "outgrowth" of NVC[11][17]

1998: Cowan files for "Spiral Dynamics" service mark, registered to NVC[18]

1999: Beck (against SD as service mark)[17] and Cowan (against Wilber's Integral theory)[19]

cease collaborating1999: Wilber: The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Vol. 4: Integral Psychology (first SpiralDynamics reference)[20][21]

2000: Cowan and Todorovic: "Spiral Dynamics: The Layers of Human Values in Strategy" inStrategy & Leadership (peer reviewed)[22]

2000: Wilber: A Theory of Everything (integrates SD with AQAL, defines MGM: "Mean GreenMeme")[23]

2000: Wilber founds the Integral Institute with Beck as a founding associate around this time[24]

2002: Beck: "SDi: Spiral Dynamics in the Integral Age" (launches SDi as a brand)[17][25]

2002: Todorovic: "The Mean Green Hypothesis: Fact or Fiction?" (refutes MGM)[26]

2002: Graves; William R. Lee (annot.); Cowan and Todorovic (eds.): Levels of HumanExistence, transcription of Graves's 1971 three-day seminar[27]

2004: Beck founds the Center for Human Emergence (CHE),[28] listing Wilber among "keypersonnel"[29]

2005: Beck, Elza S. Maalouf and Said E. Dawlabani found the Center for Human EmergenceMiddle East [30]

2005: Graves; Cowan and Todorovic (eds.): The Never Ending Quest[31]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECLET

2005: Beck and Wilber cease collaborating around this time, disagreeing on Wilber's changesto SDi[6]

2006: Wilber: Integral Spirituality (recolors the levels to align with chakras)[6][32]

2009: NVC dissolved as business entity,[13] original SD service mark (officially registered toNVC) canceled[18]

2010: Cowan and Todorovic re-file for SD service mark and trademark, registered to NVCConsulting[33]

2013: Dawlabani: MEMEnomics, the Next Generation Economic System; Beck is contentadviser, writes foreword[34]

2014: Maalouf: Emerge! The Rise of Functional Democracy and the Future of the Middle Easton collaborations with Beck; Beck writes foreword[35]

2015: Death of Chris Cowan[36]

2017: Wilber: Religion of Tomorrow (further elaborates on the recoloring)[32]

2018: Beck et al: Spiral Dynamics in Action[37]

By early 2000, Don Beck was corresponding with integral philosopher Ken Wilber about Spiral Dynamicsand using a "4Q/8L" diagram combining Wilber's four quadrants with the eight known levels of SpiralDynamics.[32][38] Beck officially announced SDi as launching on January 1, 2002, aligning Spiral Dynamicswith integral theory and additionally citing the influence of John Petersen of the Arlington Institute and IchakAdizes.[17] By 2006, Wilber had recolored the levels in his AQAL system, diverging from Beck's SDi.[32]

Later influences on SDi include the work of work of Muzafer Sherif and Carolyn Sherif in the fields ofrealistic conflict and social judgement, specifically their Assimilation Contrast Effect model[39][40] andRobber's Cave study[41]

As an extension of Graves's theory, most criticisms of that theory apply to Spiral Dynamics as well. Likewise,to the extent that Spiral Dynamics Integral incorporates Ken Wilber's integral theory, criticism of that theory,and the lack of mainstream academic support for it are also relevant.

In addition, there have been criticisms of various aspects of SD and/or SDi that are specific to thoseextensions. Nicholas Reitter, writing in the Journal of Conscious Evolution, observes:[42]

On the other hand, the SD authors seem also to have magnified some of the weaknesses inGraves' approach. The occasional messianism, unevenness of presentation and constant business-orientation of Graves' (2005) manuscript is transmuted in the SD authors' book (Beck and Cowan1996) into a sometimes- bewildering array of references to world history, pop culture and othertopics, often made in helter-skelter fashion.

Along those lines, Spiral Dynamics has been criticized by some within academia as leading to a "cult-like"community of practice with its simplification of Graves's work. As a result, they instead base their workprimarily on the same Gravesian theory that underlies Spiral Dynamics.[43] However, others accept SD or SDias the basis for further academic work.[44]

Spiral Dynamics integral (SDi)

Criticism


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichak_Adizes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AQAL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzafer_Sherif

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Sherif

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realistic_conflict_theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_judgment_theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realistic_conflict_theory#Robbers_cave_study

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graves%27s_emergent_cyclical_levels_of_existence#Criticism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_theory_(Ken_Wilber)#Criticism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_theory_(Ken_Wilber)#Reception_in_mainstream_academia

The culture around SD and SDi has also been viewed negatively due to the prominence of the business andintellectual property concerns of its leading advocates.[45]

Metamodernist philosophers Daniel Görtz and Emil Friis, writing as Hanzi Freinacht, note that SpiralDynamics provides unique insights, while also criticizing it for combining too many dimensions ofdevelopment into one measurement. Their multi-part system combines aspects of SD with other developmentalmeasurements, describing SD as the "awkward uncle" of their "Effective Value Meme" concept.[46] They alsoentirely dismiss the Turquoise level, saying that while there will eventually be another level, it does notcurrently exist. In support of this assertion, they note the lack of critique of metamodernism (which theyroughly equate with the Yellow level), and explain those who self-identify as Turquoise as confusing levelwith their non-SD dimensions of development, state and depth. They also warn that attempts to buildTurquoise communities are, in their view, likely to lead to the development of "abusive cults" as a result oftrying to make the Turquoise level real when (in their view) it is not.[47]

Spiral Dynamics has influenced management theory, which was the primary focus of the 1996 SpiralDynamics book.[42][48][49]

It has also influenced integral philosophy and spirituality, and the developmental branch of metamodernphilosophy. Both integralists and metamodernists connect their philosophies to SD's Yellow VMeme.[23][46]

Integralism also identifies with Turquoise and eventually added further stages not found in SD or SDi,[32]

while metamodernism dismisses Turquoise as nonexistent.[47]

SDi has been referenced in the fields of education,[50] urban planning,[51] geopolitical conflict resolution,[35]

cultural analysis,[52] and economics.[34] Specific examples of use include economic development inGhana,[53] and corporate leadership at Whole Foods.[54]

1. Butters (2015), pp. 68-692. Viljoen, Rica (29 May 2018). "Back to the Future – The South African Crucible Revisited". In

Beck, Don (ed.). Spiral Dynamics in Action: Humanity's Master Code. Chester, UnitedKingdom: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1119387183.

3. Beck and Cowan (1996), p. 34. Cook (2008), p. 46–475. Beck and Cowan (1996), pp. 47, 197, 203, 215, 229, 244, 260, 275, 2876. Butters (2015), pp. 69, 71–737. Christianson (2015), "Orienting Details"8. Butters (2015)9. Lee, William R. (2002). "Preface". In Lee, William R.; Cowan, Christopher; Todorovic, Natasha

(eds.). Levels of Human Existence: Edited Transcription of a Seminar at the WashingtonSchool of Psychiatry, October 16, 1971. Santa Barbara, CA: ECLET Publishing. pp. vii–viii.ISBN 0-9724742-0-X.

10. Beck et al (2018), p. 1511. Todorovic, Natasha. "About Us" (https://spiraldynamics.org/about/). NVC Consulting. Retrieved

24 August 2020.12. Cowan, Christopher C.; Todorovic, Natasha (2005). "Editors' Foreward". In Cowan, Christopher

C.; Todorovic, Natasha (eds.). The Never Ending Quest. Santa Barbara, CA: ECLETPublishing. p. v. ISBN 978-0-9724742-1-4.

Influence and applications

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamodernism


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamodernism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1119387183


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-9724742-0-X

https://spiraldynamics.org/about/


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-9724742-1-4

13. "National Values Center, Inc" (https://mycpa.cpa.state.tx.us/coa/). Texas Comptroller of PublicAccounts. Retrieved 4 February 2021. (search for "National Values Center", click "details" then"Public Information Report"; results cannot be bookmarked)

14. "[Archive Document 74R SR00901F]". Senate Resolution 901, Act of 3 May 1995 (http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/74R/billtext/html/SR00901F.htm). Texas State Senate. (Notes Beck'sresignation from UNT)

15. "In Memoriam..." (https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn96027707/1986-01-16/ed-1/seq-4/)The Concordiensis. Union College, Schenectady, NY. 16 January 1986. Retrieved 2 August2020.

16. Reitter (2018), pp. 42–43]]17. Butters (2015), p. 7118. U.S. Service Mark 75,477,781 (http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=75477781)19. Cowan, Christopher; Todorovic, Natasha. "FAQs: Integral" (http://www.spiral-dynamics.com/faq

_integral.htm). Spiral Dynamics Online. Retrieved 24 August 2020.20. Visser, Frank (1 September 2003). Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion. SUNY series in

Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology. SUNY Press. p. 229. ISBN 978-0791458150.21. Wilber (1999)22. Cook (2008), pp. 300, 34423. MacDonald, Copthorne. "Review Of: A Theory of Everything" (http://www.wisdompage.com/toer

evw.html). Integralis: Journal of Integral Consciousness, Culture, and Science. 1. Retrieved12 August 2020.

24. "About Us" (https://web.archive.org/web/20041210175837/http://www.integralinstitute.org/history.htm). Integral Institute. Archived from the original (http://www.integralinstitute.org/history.htm)on 10 December 2004. Retrieved 24 August 2020.

25. Beck (2001)26. Hampson, Gary P. (June 2007). "Integral Re-views Postmodernism: The Way Out Is Through"

(https://integral-review.org/pdf-template-issue.php?pdfName=issue_4_hampson_integral_re-views_postmodernism.pdf) (PDF). Integral Review (4): 131. Retrieved 4 March 2021.

27. Graves, Clare W. (2002). Lee, William R.; Cowan, Christopher; Todorovic, Natasha (eds.).Levels of Human Existence: Edited Transcription of a Seminar at the Washington School ofPsychiatry, October 16, 1971. Santa Barbara, CA: ECLET Publishing. ISBN 0-9724742-0-X.

28. Schuitemaker, Lisette; Merry, Peter; Voorhoeve, Anne-Marie (31 October 2012). "The Case ofthe Center for Human Emergence Netherlands". In Zoeteman, Kees (ed.). SustainableDevelopment Drivers: The Role of Leadership in Government, Business and NGOPerformance. Edward Elgar. p. 258. ISBN 978-0857934895.

29. "Organization: Key Personnel" (http://www.humanemergence.org/organization.html). Center forHuman Emergence. Retrieved 25 August 2020.

30. Lessem et al (2016), p. 114, 11931. Combs, Allan (April 2007). "Book Review: The Never Ending Quest". Review. Journal of

Transformative Education. 5 (2): 192–197. doi:10.1177/1541344607303850 (https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1541344607303850).

32. Visser (2017)33. U.S. Trademark 85,125,521 (http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=85125521),

U.S. Service Mark 85,125,521 (http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=85125521)34. Frey Horn, Laura (January–February 2014). "Said Dawlabani, MEMEnomics" (http://integrallea

dershipreview.com/11091-said-dawlabani-memenomics/). Book Reviews. Integral LeadershipReview. 14 (1). Retrieved 4 March 2021.

https://mycpa.cpa.state.tx.us/coa/

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/74R/billtext/html/SR00901F.htm

https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn96027707/1986-01-16/ed-1/seq-4/

http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=75477781

http://www.spiral-dynamics.com/faq_integral.htm



http://www.wisdompage.com/toerevw.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20041210175837/http://www.integralinstitute.org/history.htm

http://www.integralinstitute.org/history.htm

https://integral-review.org/pdf-template-issue.php?pdfName=issue_4_hampson_integral_re-views_postmodernism.pdf


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-9724742-0-X



http://www.humanemergence.org/organization.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doi_(identifier)

https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1541344607303850



http://integralleadershipreview.com/11091-said-dawlabani-memenomics/

35. Volckmann, Russ (August–November 2014). "Elza S. Maalouf, Emerge! The Rise of FunctionalDemocracy and the Future of the Middle East" (http://integralleadershipreview.com/11764-elza-s-maalouf-emerge-rise-functional-democracy-future-middle-east/). Book Reviews. IntegralLeadership Review. 14 (3). Retrieved 4 March 2021.

36. Rice, Keith E. (20 August 2015). "Fare Thee Well, Christopher Cowan!" (https://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/2015/fare-thee-well-christopher-cowan/). Integrated SocioPsychology.Retrieved 24 August 2020.

37. Mummery, Graham (January–February 2014). "Secular, Sacred, Scientific" (http://integralleadershipreview.com/16278-16278/). Book Reviews. Integral Leadership Review. 18 (2). Retrieved4 March 2021.

38. Wilber (2000), pp. 145–146, 149, 15139. Maalouf, Elza. "Large Scale Psychology presentation at The Engaging The Other Conference

in San Francisco" (http://www.humanemergencemiddleeast.org/build-palestine-blog/2008/08/large-scale-psychology-presentation-at-the-engaging-the-other-conference-in-san-francisco).Center for Human Emergence Middle East. Retrieved 4 March 2021.

40. Rice, Keith E. (4 October 2015). "Assimilation-Contrast Effect" (https://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/theory/assimilation-contrast-effect/). Retrieved 3 August 2020.

41. McTaggart, Lynne (May 2011). The Bond: Connecting Through the Space Between Us. NewYork, NY: Free Press. p. 187. ISBN 978-1-4391-5794-7.

42. Reitter (2018), p. 4743. Cook (2008), p. 4444. Frey Horn, Laura (21 May 2006). A Phenomenological Study of Individuals at Spiral Dynamics

Integral (SDi) Theory Second-Tier Levels of Development (https://www.academia.edu/6336134) (PhD). The George Washington University. Retrieved 21 Aug 2020.

45. Butters (2015), pp. 75–7646. Freinacht, Hanzi (10 March 2017). "Effective Value Meme". The Listening Society: A

Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book One. Metamoderna. pp. 305–325. ISBN 978-8799973903.47. Freinacht, Hanzi (10 March 2017). "Major Implications §Death to Turquoise". The Listening

Society: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book One. Metamoderna. pp. 327–330. ISBN 978-8799973903.

48. Cook‐Greuter, Susanne R. (1 December 2004). "Making the Case for a DevelopmentalPerspective". Industrial and Commercial Training. 36 (7): 275–281.doi:10.1108/00197850410563902 (https://doi.org/10.1108%2F00197850410563902).

49. Laloux, Frederic (20 February 2014). Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to CreatingOrganizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness. Nelson Parker. ISBN 978-2960133516.

50. Nasser, Ilham (June 2020). "Mapping the Terrain of Education 2018–2019: A SummaryReport". Journal of Education in Muslim Societies. 1 (2): 3–21. doi:10.2979/jems.1.2.08 (https://doi.org/10.2979%2Fjems.1.2.08). (non-paywalled updated version (https://iiit.org/wp-content/uploads/Mapping-Report-2019-2020-2-8-20.pdf))

51. Weichelt-Kosnick, Kristina (2020). "Alternative Ways to Promote Sustainable ConsumerBehaviour—Identifying Potentials Based on Spiral Dynamics". In Planing, Patrick; Müller,Patrick; Dehdari, Payam; Bäumer, Thomas (eds.). Innovations for Metropolitan Areas. Berlin:Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-60806-7_12 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2F978-3-662-60806-7_12).

52. Viljoen, Rica; Laubscher, Loraine I. (1 June 2015). "African Spirituality: Insights from the Cradleof Mankind". In Spiller, Chellie; Wolfgramm, Rachel (eds.). Indigenous Spiritualities at Work:Transforming the Spirit of Enterprise. Information Age Publishing. ISBN 978-1681231556.

53. Viljoen, Rica (2015). "Navigating Transformation in a Purple Country". Inclusive OrganizationalTransformation: An African Perspective on Human Niches and Diversity of Thought. Gower.ISBN 978-1472422996.

http://integralleadershipreview.com/11764-elza-s-maalouf-emerge-rise-functional-democracy-future-middle-east/

https://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/2015/fare-thee-well-christopher-cowan/

http://integralleadershipreview.com/16278-16278/

http://www.humanemergencemiddleeast.org/build-palestine-blog/2008/08/large-scale-psychology-presentation-at-the-engaging-the-other-conference-in-san-francisco

https://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/theory/assimilation-contrast-effect/



https://www.academia.edu/6336134






https://doi.org/10.1108%2F00197850410563902




https://doi.org/10.2979%2Fjems.1.2.08

https://iiit.org/wp-content/uploads/Mapping-Report-2019-2020-2-8-20.pdf


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Beck, Don Edward; Cowan, Christopher C. (8 May 1996). Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values,Leadership, and Change. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1557869401.Wilber, Ken (28 December 1999). Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Vol. 4 : Integral Psychology,Transformations of Consciousness, Selected Essays. Shambhala. ISBN 978-1570625046.Cowan, Christopher C.; Todorovic, N. (February 2000). "Spiral dynamics:: the layers of humanvalues in strategy". Strategy & Leadership. 28 (1): 4–12. doi:10.1108/10878570010335912 (https://doi.org/10.1108%2F10878570010335912).Wilber, Ken (29 August 2000). A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics,Science, and Spirituality. ISBN 978-1570627248.Beck, Don (2001). "Spiral Dynamics in the Integral Age" (http://www.integralworld.net/sd-i.html).Integral World. Retrieved 2 Aug 2020.Todorovic, Natasha (2002). "The Mean Green Hypothesis: Fact or Fiction?" (http://www.spiral-dynamics.com/documents/MGM_hyp.pdf) (PDF). Spiral Dynamics Online. Retrieved 24 August2020.Wilber, Ken (3 October 2006). Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in theModern and Postmodern World. Integral Books. ISBN 9781590303467.Cook, John Edward (October 2008). The Role of the Individual in Organisational Cultures: aGravesian Integrated Approach (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229674300) (PhD).Sheffield Hallam University. Retrieved 20 August 2020.Dawlabani, Said (2013). MEMEnomics, the Next Generation Economic System. Select Books.ISBN 978-1590799963.Maalouf, Elza (2014). Emerge! The Rise of Functional Democracy and the Future of the MiddleEast. Select Books. ISBN 978-1590792865.Christianson, Tom, ed. (2015). Innovate Development: Emerging Worldviews & SystemsChange. Integral Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4951-5908-4.Christianson, Tom, ed. (2015). Developmental Innovation: Emerging Worldviews & IndividualLearning. Integral Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4951-5909-1.Butters, Albion (17 November 2015). "A Brief History of Spiral Dynamics" (https://doi.org/10.30664%2Far.67574). Approaching Religion. 5 (2): 67–78. doi:10.30664/ar.67574 (https://doi.org/10.30664%2Far.67574).Lessem, Ronnie; Abouleish, Ibrahim; Pogačnik, Marko; Herman, Louis (2016). "Cultural andSpiritual Emergence: Spiral Dynamics". Integral Polity: Integrating Nature, Culture, Society andEconomy. Routledge. pp. 111–128. ISBN 978-1472442475.Wilber, Ken (2 May 2017). Religion of Tomorrow: A Vision of the Future of the Great Traditions–More Inclusive, More Comprehensive, More Complete. Shambhala. ISBN 978-1611803006.Visser, Frank (May 2017). "A More Adequate Spectrum of Colors?" (http://www.integralworld.net/visser101.html). Integral World. Retrieved 24 August 2020.Beck, Don; Larsen, Teddy Hebo; Solonin, Sergey; Viljoen, Rica; Johns, Thomas Q. (29 May2018). Spiral Dynamics in Action: Humanity's Master Code. Chester, United Kingdom: JohnWiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1119387183.Reitter, Nicholas (Jun 2018). "Clare W. Graves and the Turn of Our Times" (https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cejournal/vol11/iss11/5). Journal of Conscious Evolution. California Institute ofIntegral Studies. 11 (11). Article 5. Retrieved 4 March 2021.

54. Mackey, John (1 May 2006). "The Upward Flow of Human Development" (https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/tips-and-ideas/archive/upward-flow-human-c2-a0development). Whole FoodsMarket. Retrieved 19 August 2020.

References






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http://www.integralworld.net/sd-i.html

http://www.spiral-dynamics.com/documents/MGM_hyp.pdf


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781590303467










https://doi.org/10.30664%2Far.67574


https://doi.org/10.30664%2Far.67574





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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Institute_of_Integral_Studies

https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/tips-and-ideas/archive/upward-flow-human-c2-a0development

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Documents

123. Spiral Dynamics with Steve McDonald Part 1