(hear me out)

I studied cognitive psychology in college. My first academic exposure to astrology was an experiment done by Bertram R. Forer in 1948.

A psychology professor at UCLA, Forer created a personality quiz to test on his class. Students were given a detailed breakdown of their personality type. Students graded the quiz on the accuracy of the descriptions.

The average score was 4.26 out of 5 (meaning almost all of the students felt the quiz results were an accurate unique description of their personality).

The trick was that:

every student received a copy of the same description.

It wasn’t unique.

Forer’s paper read:

1. You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.
2. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.
3. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.
4. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.
5. Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you.
6. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.
7. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.
8. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.
9. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof.
10. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
11. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.
12. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.
13. Security is one of your major goals in life.

for his full paper, peep link below:

Almost every student believe their the above 13 descriptions were uniquely tailored to them.

They were wrong.

This cognitive bias is know as the Barnum Effect aka the fallacy of false validation.

The Barnum Effect is the psychological phenomenon where people believe vague statements or personality descriptions apply specifically to them, despite the same statements being applied to millions of others. This effect is often seen in practices like astrology, fortune-telling, and certain personality tests, where the wording is designed to be broad enough to resonate with almost anyone, leading people to perceive the information as highly accurate and personalized.

The kicker:

He got these 13 descriptions straight out of astrology columns from a newspaper. Different descriptions were taken from multiple signs in the same issues.

The take home:

We all have a cognitive bias to believe an astrological interpretation of our personality is true.

That previous statement is a fact.

It doesn’t mean astrological interpretations can’t be accurate.

It means we have a very strong unconscious bias to believe however it reads because it helps us feel special.

This study stuck with me for a long time.

This stand up bit perfectly captures how I have felt about astrology:

Astrology, as a divination tool for personality has never vibed with me.

The universe I live in allows for people to change their behavior.

• Every person can be hard working.
• Every person can be overly-critical.
• Every person (at least) 2 sides to them.

Because I think Carl Jung was right about the psyche, and that the creator of Internal Family Systems should win a Nobel Prize:

I think we all have the entire zodiac in us, but 11/12ths of us is buried in our shadow.

Rediscovering An Earth-Based Calendar

While I know appreciate the zodiac as a map of 12 distinct types of ‘starting characters’ humanity tends to produce,

and that my zodiac chart lets me see default settings my ‘starting character’ can fall into,

I’m now more interested in the Zodiac as a time-keeper.

One of my deep desires is to cultivate a nature-based calendar my family can live within.

The idea came to me when I saw John Churchill talking to Aubrey Marcus: (1:37 to 1:40 mark)

Yall, these 2 minutes rocked me. I still think about it.

I saw this shortly after I had reconnected with my Irish ancestry through Peia’s art.

This video left me with a subtle taste to want to learn an Earth-based calendar.

The felt sense is that it’s my duty to begin developing a second calendar so my children can have ‘duel citizenship.’

The Gregorian Calendar will allow them to play in the modern world, and the Gaian Calendar will allow them to play in Nature more deeply.

My first step to cultivate this new calendar was to schedule the release of major projects this year in accord with the Summer and Winter Solstice.

• for the summer solstice I released the Dharma Artist Collective.
• i’ve got another one coming this year for the winter solstice

It might sound goofy, but for my personal development, linking a Gaian-based rhythm (the solstices) to entrepreneurial creations, is the best gift I can currently imagine and actually do, for my kids.

• My entrepreneurial projects are designed to allow me to be a present father during their formative years.
• Anchoring the machine I’m creating to support my family to a rhythm of earth feels like it’ll help my dense ego begin to notice her majesty.
• I also secretly hope a child raised in tune with the rhythms of the moon will grow superpowers (¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

My second step was to launch the Focused45 challenge in honor of Lughnasadh.

This past weekend, with help from Caitlyn, I’ve found the next step to connect to a Gaian-based calendar.

The Zodiac Games

I asked 327 artists to submit a video of them creating a website from scratch.

They have 3 weeks.

Community votes on best submissions.

1st place gets $2,000

2nd and 3rd get $500

Everyone is gunna learn how to make a website.

(and learning how to create a website is how you plant a garden in the shimmer)

There will be a game like this at the start of each Zodiac.

This first one is called ♍Virgo 1.

Each zodiac the community gets to vote on what the mission build will be. (the mission build means what we’re going to learn as a community how to create)

As the community grows, the winnings grow.

The top three winning submissions are shared with the public as a public good.

All submissions live in the community (imagining the library of tutorials the community will create in a year gets my heart pumping)

And most important, selfishly, I get to feel the glorious feeling of paying artists to make art.

This feels like it has the ingredients to be something special.

Because I think the Shimmer War is calling those who are willing to shoulder the responsibility to learn how to make regenerative companies.

Let’s switch it up and get mythopoetically dramatic.

The Realm of the Father

Buckle up, we’re getting weird.

This spring I released The Shimmer Series.

Two weeks ago I shared what I see as the spiritual war we’re in.

Last week I wrote about the Jungian levels of development.

Punchline:

If you notice The Shimmer, and can see what Moloch will do if left to it’s current momentum, you’d conclude it’s time to grow up.

What is The Father Asking Of Us?

The second level of development in the Jungian model I shared is the Realm of the Father.

This is the stage of life we’re we have to acquire competence that helps the community.

In simpler times that meant:

• learn to hunt
• learn to protect the youth
• learn to grow food
• learn to read the seasons

In our times, things are more complex.

The call to competence is different.

The 3rd Shimmer Movie: Evangelion

For the readers keeping score at home, there are currently two movies in the Shimmer Canon.

1. Annihilation
2. Memento

The third has arrived.

The other night I genuinely prayed to e guided to a movie that fit the vibe of the mythos I’m cultivating around the shimmer. (a story for another time)

The move I found was Evangelion.

When I was a kid my mom once threatened to cancel our cable subscription so the company gave us some free premium channels.

We were lower middle class that watched a lot of television. A premium channel was a significant event.

One of the three channels was a Japanese channel that aired anime 24/7.

I lived for it.

Evangelion is regarded by many forums and communities online as one of the best animes every created and somehow I had never noticed it.

Check out the trailer.

It takes practice, but if you can hold the dramatic mythopoetics alongside a giggle, I see this movie as another mythogem to add to the Shimmer Collection, alongside Annihilation and Memento.

Evangelion hits a few potent notes for me:

1. Humanity has been hit by a devastating alien impact.

I think we were hit by a massive impact between 2010 and 2015.

2. There is a new alien species on the planet

This show calls the aliens ‘angels.’ I refer to them as Crawlers (from the book Annihilation).

While directly fighting them is not the right metaphor, the scale and power reflected in this show is helpful to our modern blind eyes.

3. To meet the problem, humans will have to learn to create their own versions of these Angels

This means creating companies. When you can see myths, you will notice that corporations are one of the strongest story-weaving golems humanity has ever produced.

4. ‘Children’ are being called to pilot these new creations

We’re the kids. We grew up in the 90s. We were promised Peter Pan and Sleeping beauty fantasies.

When you’re ready to grow up, you’ll see the war that’s here, and that a part of growing up is learning how to pilot a company.

5. Because this is how we help build the future.

The war is a war of stories.

Because of the current world we live in, a fundamental competency required to help humanity, is to learn how to create and pilot regenerative companies.

As I was watching the trailer, I had a little mythopoetic insight.

We are in the war but most of us can’t see it.

We’d rather it not be the case, but the war calls for the ‘children’ to pilot the suits.

The Dharma Artists who are capable are morally obligated to create companies.

This is the machine the boy has to pilot.

The ‘Angels’ being fought — they are the companies possessed by Moloch.

Is The Boy Ready To Grow Up?

The two darkness retreats I’ve done have had significant impacts on my life.

During my first one, a major insight was that, if I want to be the kind of father I know I can give to my children, I need to integrate my shadow desire to wield power.

That I am called to learn the difference between orchestration and manipulation if I want to help the world and be a present father.

My second one, another major insight was, if I want to be the kind of father I know I can give my children, I have to learn how to pitch my vision.

It took me 32 years to see a path where I can create wealth for myself and others and still be a good person.

(the truth is a lot of you reading this have within you a powerful part that doesn’t believe you can do this)

• and this part ‘until made conscious, will control your life and you’ll call it fate

For me, growing up means to learn how to play the entrepreneurship game.

Not to create a company that I mythologize to such importance that I choose to raise it instead of my children:

• but to create an elegant machine that helps people without me having to be present,
• that helps them so much that they are happy to pay a fair amount in exchange for the help,
• that allows me to ignore everything when my child wants to show me her drawing.

It also happens to be true that we seem to be at a crises moment in human evolution, and that this crisis moment is a struggle between stories;

and that if we could step outside of our adolescent judgement of corporations, we’d notice they’re one of the most powerful story machines humans can build.

Being an entrepreneur is not the goal.

It’s a skill.

One that if you don’t have, it’s worth prioritizing getting.

To those this disappoints, I hope you’re able to navigate your resistance (and if you have a better plan for building the future, tell us).

To those this excites, I hope to see you in the game.

To those that want to train together, check out DAC.