energies · I / XX · Sphäre A · Werte & Stufen · All 20
What if what you take for your values is a developmental stage?
Mendeleev ordered atoms by weight and found a pattern. Clare Graves ordered values by complexity and found eight — not types, stages.
Do you know the moment when you first understood that the other is not simply wrong — but is seeing rightly from another stage? Exactly there the spiral begins.
I — Structure · Measurable
Spiral Dynamics began as a longitudinal study (Clare Graves, 1960s · 1,000+ adults over 20 years). Beck & Cowan systematised it in 1996. Longitudinal data show reproducible stages, not types.
II — Flow · Tradition
Precursors in Jean Gebser's Ever-Present Origin, in the Vedic Yugas, in Hegel's dialectic of stages. The idea that consciousness unfolds in stages is 5,000 years old.
III — Breadth · Synthesis
Ken Wilber's AQAL integrates Spiral Dynamics with Kohlberg's stages of moral development and Loevinger's ego development. Imaging correlates of stage transitions remain rare — the model is closer to lived experience and industry use than to laboratory validation.
Spiral · values-system spiral
What is a vMeme?
vMeme (short for Value Meme) is Clare Graves’ term for a values-system stage. Each vMeme is a coherent logic by which a person — or a culture — sorts the world: what matters, what is dangerous, what is true.
The eight classic stages carry colour codes (Beige · Purple · Red · Blue · Orange · Green · Yellow · Turquoise). They are not a character type but a preferred position — you shift situationally between 1–2 neighbouring stages.
Important: higher doesn’t mean better, but more complexly adapted to life conditions. Each vMeme stays active and is integrated into the stages above it (Wilber: transcend and include).
- 1 · Higher doesn't mean better. You'll still check where up is.