The Spiral Case

The Spiral Case

One man. Six colours. A thousand questions. This Monday, the case of consciousness gets personal…

There I was again. A private eye in a world of shifting truths, boots echoing through the fog, chasing something I couldn't name yet. Used to think this gig was about climbing higher—reaching enlightenment, maybe. Turns out, it’s not a ladder. It’s a spiral. Twisting. Turning. A staircase through the soul.

That’s where Spiral Dynamics comes in.

It’s a map of human consciousness, drawn in colour-coded stages. A way to track how people, institutions—even entire civilisations—evolve. And it doesn’t move in straight lines. It loops. It circles back. It deepens.

Beige is where it all starts—the raw need to survive. No morals, no meaning. Just keep breathing. Then comes Purple: tribal, mystical, clinging to ritual and family like a security blanket. Red storms in next—angry, impulsive, drunk on power. Empire lives here. So do rebellious teens and warlords in suits.

Then you hit Blue: order, rules, structure. The good book. The badge. The system. Safety in submission. But order grows stale, and Orange breaks out—ambitious, rational, all-in on science and self-made success. Green follows, softer, woke to pluralism and empathy. Every voice matters. Every truth has a seat at the table.

They’re not just stages. They’re crime scenes. Places we visit, sometimes get stuck in. Clues to who we’ve been—and who we might still become.

But here’s the rub—people get stuck.

They hit Green, think they've found paradise, and pitch a tent. Start slinging labels, calling anyone Blue or Orange the enemy. Preach tolerance while cracking skulls. That’s not transcendence—that’s regression. They tumble back into Red, clawing for power like street thugs in a holy war.

But there’s another way. A way forward.

Yellow.

It’s not a protest sign or a pulpit. It’s a perspective—a wide-angle lens. Yellow doesn’t need to win the argument. It listens, adapts, moves like jazz. It’s the first colour that sees the whole spiral and doesn’t flinch. Flexible. Creative. Strategic. The thinker who stops thinking he’s the centre of the universe and starts dancing with the chaos.

Then there’s Turquoise.

Now we’re getting metaphysical. This isn’t just a higher stage—it’s a wider field. A cosmic beat. A sense that the whole damn world is breathing, alive and interconnected. The self dissolves. The All begins.

And somewhere above that? Coral.

We’ve only got whispers. Saints. Sages. Enlightened ones. The ones who didn’t just glimpse the mystery—they became it. Christ. Buddha. Maybe even that strange old man in the alley who seems to know too much. The spiral doesn’t end. It opens.

Now, don’t get me wrong—Spiral Dynamics is a hell of a map. But the Tao? The Tao doesn’t need a map. It is the terrain.

The Tao isn’t concerned with stages, charts, or colour-coded egos climbing their way toward self-importance. It doesn’t care what flag you fly or which chakra you’ve polished. The Tao flows—quiet, effortless, unconcerned. It doesn’t ascend. It aligns.

While the ego climbs, striving for Yellow, chasing Turquoise, fantasising about Coral like it’s the VIP lounge of existence—the Tao just is.

Spiral Dynamics is the story of the ego trying to do what the Tao does naturally: harmonise with what is. It’s the ego building ladders to heaven when the Tao simply sits under the tree and watches the clouds go by.

In the spiral, every colour has its agenda. But in the Tao, there is no agenda. Just the Way. And the Way? She doesn’t argue. She doesn’t push. She invites.

Clue #1: Growth isn't about ascending. It's about integrating.

The First Lead

I drank my coffee and stared at the case file they never wanted opened: religion.

Spiral Dynamics helped me make sense of it. At first, there was Blue—clear as stained glass and twice as brittle. Rules, absolutes, chapter and verse. God said it. That settles it. Fundamentalism thrives here, a fortress of moral certainty built to keep the chaos out and the faithful in.

But something happens when the questions start seeping in, like rain through a cracked roof.

That’s where Orange rolls in like a scientist with a flashlight. Rational, logical, a little smug. It pokes holes in scripture, calls out contradictions, dismantles dogma with the precision of a scalpel. For a while, Orange feels like freedom. But it’s lonely at the top of the intellect, and truth starts to feel cold without meaning.

Then Green shows up, barefoot and bleeding heart, saying maybe we all had it wrong. Maybe everyone has a piece of the truth. Inclusivity replaces certainty. Institutions fall. Faith gets deconstructed like a bad alibi. But Green’s mistake is thinking all beliefs are equally true—when some just aren’t.

Each stage had its moment. Each stage left its scars. But deconstruction? That wasn’t the end. It was the alleyway that led to something deeper.

I walked the beat through every colour-coded precinct. Each one swore it had cracked the case. A holy flash. The big reveal. “This is it,” they said.

But then—no. It wasn’t.

Every shiny new system turned suspect as the truth got slippery. Changed its name. Changed its shoes. That’s when the real clue hit me, like a whisper through a confession booth:

Clue #2 Each stage solves a problem—until it becomes the problem.

The Stakeout

The night was quiet, but I knew better. Quiet’s just noise with a silencer.

Noir was born from smoke-filled rooms and broken promises—an orange-and-green cocktail with a twist of disillusionment. The blue world had promised order, morality, a place for everything and everything in its place. But the war ended, and the dream faded. Orange chased profits, green chased justice, but both left bodies in the alley.

That’s where noir lives. In the shadows of failed systems. Sceptical of truth, allergic to authority, always asking: what’s really going on here?

Nick Grayson’s been on the beat long enough to know the spiral’s stacked like a crooked poker game. He’s not blue—he doesn’t buy the gospel of order anymore. Orange never satisfied him; too slick, too hollow. Green? He tried that once. Got burned by good intentions and mob justice.

No. Nick’s in the yellow now. Poor bastard. Trying to hold the city’s contradictions without falling apart. Seeing all the sides, but belonging to none. His curse is clarity—and clarity’s lonely work.

Clue #3: The detective isn’t just solving the case—he’s decoding the system.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out my novel featuring Nick Grayson.

The Red Herring

The city’s loud these days. Not just sirens and subways—I'm talking soul noise. Everyone’s screaming, no one’s listening. It’s like a five-way shootout in a dark alley: Red, Blue, Green, Orange, even a stray Turquoise or two. Guns blazing. Everyone thinks they’re the hero. Hell, some think they’re the messiah.

Social Media didn’t cause it, but it poured gasoline on the fire. We’ve chucked every stage of consciousness into a blender, hit purée, and called it society. What we got ain’t a smoothie—it’s a street brawl. Worldviews clashing. Value systems on the fritz. No wonder everyone’s exhausted.

But then there’s the Political Nomad. The lone wolf. Doesn’t wave a flag. Doesn’t kneel at any ideological altar. He walks the spiral like a man who’s seen it all, slept in every trench, and figured out no colour gets it right. His weapon? Empathy. Not the sugary kind—but the hard-earned kind, forged in the fires of nuance.

He doesn’t see enemies. He sees wavelengths. Frequencies. Filters. And suddenly, the chaos starts to make sense.

Clue #4: Conflict isn’t always about right and wrong—it’s about wavelengths.

The Final Interview
Book Review: Metaphysics of War

He came in like a ghost from another age. Name was Julius Evola. Tall order of a thinker—part mystic, part soldier, all fire and steel. If anyone ever tried to wrestle modernity to the ground with a fountain pen, it was him.

Metaphysics of War isn’t a book you read—it’s a book that smokes a cigarette while reading you. Evola wrote with the urgency of a man watching the sacred drown in the swamp of the secular. He wasn’t just defending tradition—he was mounting a full-blown counterattack. And credit where it's due: the man understood myth, ritual, transcendence. He saw the warrior not as a brute, but as a vessel for the divine.

There’s a quote he drops from Seneca, like a dagger in the dark:
“There is only one sight able to command the attention of even a god, and it is that of a strong man battling with bad luck, especially if he has himself challenged it.”

That’s the kind of line that makes you stand straighter. Evola’s genius lies in moments like these—when he calls us back to the noble struggle, to fight not just with fists, but with soul.

But here’s the twist in the tale. Evola was also an Italian Fascist during the Second World War. He praised the Aryan race, denigrated others, and wrapped it all in esoteric justifications. If Spiral Dynamics teaches us anything, it’s this: some men climb far in one direction, only to find they’ve circled back on themselves. Evola clawed his way up the mythic spiral, but he never stepped past the red-blue axis. Discipline without integration. Transcendence without empathy. Strength, sure—but no softness. No synthesis.

Still, Metaphysics of War is worth reading. Because even in the shadows, there’s light. He offers a blueprint for meaning in action, for soul in struggle. If you can separate the gold from the grit, you’ll find value there—just don’t mistake it for gospel.

Clue #5: A warrior without integration becomes a fanatic.

The Big Reveal
Here's the twist, sweetheart:

The path to wholeness isn’t up or down—it’s around and through.

See, all this talk of colours, levels, systems—it's just the ego trying to draw a map of a place the soul already knows by heart. Spiral Dynamics is clever. Useful, even. But the Tao? The Tao just moves. No labels. No stages. Just flow.

Growth, whether spiritual or social, ain't about clinging to a rung on some cosmic ladder. It’s about recognising where you’ve been, understanding where others are, and learning to dance through the spiral like it’s a smoky jazz club—one step forward, two steps back, a spin, a slide, a stumble into grace.

Noir taught me not to trust anything that claims to be the whole truth. Everyone’s selling something—an ideology, a doctrine, a colour-coded worldview. But truth? Truth plays it close to the vest. You’ve got to chase it through alleys, question every motive, and know when to stop asking.

The Tao whispers, “Flow.”
The Spiral whispers, “Pattern.”
And Noir growls, “Yeah, kid—but don’t let ‘em con you.”

Keep evolving.
But never forget where you came from.

Peace. And keep asking the big questions,

The Sage Wanderer