SPIRITDAO is the name of a 501(c)(3) non-profit, religious institution (pending) based in the USA, that will operate a set of blockchain-based governance and economic mechanisms to ultimately enable and facilitate a wider range of spiritual alternatives.

Of the set of all possible spiritual alternatives, SpiritDAO selectively welcomes those which enact the following three principles:

1. Acknowledge that change is a foundational truth
2. Recognize the divinity in the Self; individually and collectively.
3. Bind spiritual practices with systemic reform

The Template and First Alternative

One such spiritual alternative has already begun construction on SpiritDAO’s infrastructure, and it goes by the same name, “SpiritDAO.” This alternative was articulated, developed, built, and ultimately donated to SpiritDAO by the original founder, Ron Rivers.

Rivers articulated the original philosophy for both the infrastructure and first alternative in a best-selling book titled “Self Actualization in the Age of Crisis,” and then donated all assets, trademarks, copyrights, software and technology to the organization itself. Since then, SpiritDAO members collectively generated a graphic novel, a lecture series, a mobile application, a permaculture farm, and an AI assistant. All revenue funding these activities came from book sales, NFT sales, grants, donations and memberships.

The graphic novel condenses the original philosophy into a short-form mythology and template. It was funded by a Gitcoin grant.

The lecture series was given by Rivers at the University of Florida; including side events at ETH Denver, ETH Chicago, ETH Miami and NFT NYC.

The mobile app simplifies and abstracts the blockchain layer from the economic and governance mechanisms. It accelerates onboarding and enables core functionalities.

The permaculture farm addresses systemic reform, acknowledging SpiritDAOs “Food and Water” initiative, which focuses on critical systems for resilient communities and healthy ecologies.

The AI assistant embraces technological change and leverages the tech for greater education, convenient access to documentation, and accelerates onboarding for members to SpiritDAO.

There is more to say on each of these fronts, please check out SpiritDAO documentation for more information.

The Goal

The point of enabling and facilitating spiritual alternatives on top of an equitable, flexible and adaptable infrastructure such as SpiritDAO’s is to:

1. enable additional pathways to secular, spiritual sense-making
2. enable greater rates of institutional change
3. enable greater sovereignty for individuals and collectives
4. enable greater nuance, fidelity and participation in governance systems
5. enable greater capacity and usage of local economic incentives
6. and to generally accelerate the capability of action-oriented change

SpiritDAO provides an ideal tax, legal, governance, economic, and technological structure for any spiritual alternative to organize and act according to their mission and core values. SpiritDAO infrastructure removes the heavy frictions and barriers to entry for spiritual alternatives building from scratch. SpiritDAO is an enabling platform for future (re)-evolutions of spirituality.\

Although SpiritDAO does not seek to constrain the mission of any spiritual alternatives, SpiritDAO does not consider itself “values neutral.”

SpiritDAO retains the rights to fork away from particular alternatives that do not align with core principles. Additionally, SpiritDAO enables the rights of each spiritual alternative to independently pivot from the original SpiritDAO architecture while maintaining sovereignty. SpiritDAO enables this possibility especially to protect it’s wide range of peaceful and aligned spiritual alternatives in the cases of adjacent violent, delinquent, criminal, insincere, superficial, or unaligned visions that are being constructed on the open infrastructure SpiritDAO provides.

Because the architecture is open and is built to have maximum flexibility, adaptation and change, it can support a wide range of core values, mission statements, and systemic reforms with all of the necessary administrative, logistic, operational and technological tools required to do the work of a nuanced spiritual mission.

If you’re an individual or team building a startup, organization, or spiritual alternative that want to begin with core values and enable open flexibility, you may want to consult with SpiritDAO for guidance. Additionally, SpiritDAO is seeking six additional founding members before moving to its next stage of development. If this mission speaks to you, please reach out to community@spiritdao.org and we’ll connect there.


* BONUS *

Check out some of Stephen's other writings here.