Seeking Four Others: An Invitation to Build

What This Is

It’s a network of peers engaged in sense-making, synthesis, and generative dialogue at the intersection of developmental psychology, meta-crisis thinking, and embodied wisdom.

This is not a support group, not therapy, not another space for processing deconstruction trauma. This is a working group for people who have already done that work and are now building something.

The Structure (As I’ve Seen It)

Five people. Five nodes. Connected virtually across geography, meeting regularly in deep dialogue. Each person embedded in their own context but part of a larger sense-making network.

Think: distributed monastery. Wisdom hub. Indra’s Net made flesh.

The work involves:

Deep reading and synthesis across disciplines
Generative dialogue that produces new thinking
Creating artifacts (writing, frameworks, tools) that circulate into the world
Occasionally hosting others who come to learn before returning to their contexts

Who I’m Looking For

You probably:

Have developmental capacity in the Yellow/Turquoise range (Spiral Dynamics) or Dabrowski Level IV-V
Are neurodivergent or highly gifted (or both)
Have paid real costs for your development – exile, loss, deconstruction that hurt
Are past the disintegration phase and reintegrating with autonomous purpose
Engage seriously with meta-crisis thinkers: McGilchrist, Vervaeke, Schmachtenberger, Hall, and others
Are creating something, not just consuming or processing
Can hold paradox without needing to resolve it
Value growth but have learned the cost of forcing it on others

You’re probably not:

Looking for community as belonging (we’re building a working group, not a family)
Seeking validation or therapy
Trying to recruit others to your system/framework
Content with intellectual tourism
Unable to show up consistently over time

What I Bring

40+ years of developmental work, much of it painful
Former pastor, now coach working with highly gifted individuals and developmental transition
Author of three books on exile, biblical reinterpretation, and neurodivergent giftedness
Deep familiarity with Spiral Dynamics, Dabrowski’s TPD, developmental stage theory
Swiss-based but globally connected
Scars from trying to force development, and wisdom from learning not to
Comfortable working virtually with structured commitment

Practical Details

Time commitment: Regular meetings (likely biweekly, 2-3 hours)
Format: Virtual initially, with possibility of occasional in-person gatherings
Language: English or German
Duration: Open-ended, but expecting multi-year commitment
Cost: Free. This is collaborative creation, not a service I’m selling

Why This Matters Now

We’re in a meaning crisis. The culture wars are intensifying. Most people capable of meta-perspective are either isolated, exhausted from downward-meeting work, or trapped in groups that never move past processing.

Meanwhile, the complexity is increasing and the need for distributed sense-making has never been greater.

This is an attempt to create infrastructure for the work that matters – not mass education, not saving the church or the culture, but high-fidelity thinking among peers who can then influence their own contexts.

If This Resonates

Reach out with:

Brief description of your developmental journey (especially what you’ve lost/paid)
What you’re currently building or creating
Why this particular structure calls to you
Your relationship to the thinkers/frameworks mentioned

I’m looking for signal, not credentials. A few paragraphs that show me how you think is worth more than a CV.

What This Isn’t

This is not:

A course or coaching program
A business venture (though individuals may have their own practices)
A community for general belonging
Open to everyone
Trying to grow beyond five core members

Final Note

I’ve spent decades trying to guide people up developmental spirals, often at great personal cost. I’ve learned that’s not my work anymore.

This is different. This is finding the four others who are already there, already doing their own work, and weaving those efforts into something larger than any of us could create alone.

If you’re one of them, you’ll know.

Ralph Rickenbach
Steckborn, Switzerland