THE THEORETICAL CATHOLIC: Six specific paradigm shifts mapped using Barker’s Implications Wheel® to predict your spiritual growth—Part II.

The late Joel Barker was a noted futurist and one of the ten people who have been a prime source of ideas against which I have formulated my new Catholic Faith (new wineskins). What follows are the questions I asked the AI to comment on, using my worldview of reality. I will share short bursts of ideas you can use to challenge the assumptions you hold about finding purpose in life. There are AI comments on my blogs, but to keep it short, it’s an outline format. Grok has taken my ideas and organized them in an easy-to-read outline format. I approve of all that is below as mine.

My purpose in using Joel Barker’s thoughts to meld with my own to give you some tidbits that challenge your Catholic thinking to move deeper in complexity and consciousness is to show you how I make new wineskins to house the wine Christ gives me each day in a container of my life experiences and choices of what is good or evil for me. These are not easy thoughts, at least they were for me, but I needed to plow through all the meditative conversations to challenge your intellect to dig for that heavenly gold in your mind and heart.

CONVERSATION TWO: How can Conrad’s six specific paradigm shifts be mapped using Barker’s Implications Wheel® to predict your spiritual growth?

“In his book, Spiritual Apes: Our Journey to Forever (Amazon.com), Conrad asks: Are humans just apes, or are we apes who have evolved toward a higher destiny, namely spirituality? How can you discover the deepest level of our humanity by recognizing how The Christ Principle provides a way to use reason and free will to attain a higher level of existence than just human and also realize what is true in reality from a source outside human corruption of The Seven Deadly Sins, thus, designing for each of us a way of life that will allow us to move to the finality of our nature to Omega, as Teilhard de Chardin would call it.

• Page 2 – A Lay Cistercian Looks at Spiritual Reality (Amazon.com): All matter, time, space itself, and energy, everything that exists, was overshadowed by a source of energy so powerful …The Center for Contemplative Practice
• Spiritual Apes: The Struggle to be Spiritual (A Lay Cistercian Lectio Divina Series at Amazon.com): In this book, Spiritual Apes, our prototypes, Adam and Eve, are faced with the aftereffects of the Archetypal, or Original, Sin, and how their story provides some observations about the nature of a wounded humanity, an imperfect environment for each person where there is good (described by God) and evil (Seven Deadly Sins) that compete in all humans for attention and fulfillment.

In 2026, mapping Michael F. Conrad’s six paradigm shifts onto Joel Barker’s Implications Wheel® allows you to visualize the “cascade effects” of spiritual evolution. While a traditional wheel is a visual map, we can break it down into the specific Primary (1st Order) and Secondary (2nd Order) consequences for your life.

The Central Hub: The Christ Principle

The Center of your wheel is the “Christ Principle”—the shift from viewing yourself as a biological accident to an intentional “spiritual ape” designed for a higher destiny. 

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The 6 Paradigm Shifts Mapped

Using Barker’s “cascade thinking”, here is how each shift creates ripples in your spiritual future: 

1. From Self to God

• Primary Implication: You abandon the “false self” (ego/status) as your primary compass.
• Secondary Implication (The Risk): In 2026, you may face social friction from peers who still operate on a self-centric paradigm.
• The Outcome: You gain what Barker calls “Paradigm Flexibility”—the ability to find peace even when external circumstances are chaotic. 

2. From Matter to Spirit

• Primary Implication: You recognize that physical “stuff” is temporary and spiritual energy is the true “forever” inheritance.
• Secondary Implication: You prioritize “experiences and relationships” over accumulating assets.
• 2026 Prediction: Your financial decisions shift from “hoarding” to “stewardship” as you see wealth as a tool for the “roadbuilder” mission. 

3. From Time to Eternity

• Primary Implication: Your daily routine is reordered around “The Edge of Time” (the intersection of now and forever).
• Secondary Implication: You adopt the Cistercian practice of Daily Lectio Divina.
• Barker Insight: This is “anticipatory thinking.” By living for eternity now, you are a Pioneer who is already comfortable in a realm others find terrifying. 

4. From Noise to Silence (and Solitude)

• Primary Implication: You intentionally disconnect from the digital “noise” of 2026 to seek God in silence.
• Secondary Implication: This solitude creates “mental space” for what Barker calls Paradigm Spotting—seeing the movements of the Holy Spirit before they become obvious to the crowd. 

5. From Human Reason to the “Mind of Christ”

• Primary Implication: Logic is no longer your ceiling; it becomes the floor from which faith “leaps”.
• Secondary Implication: You start making decisions that seem illogical to “settlers”—such as radical forgiveness or anonymous charity. 

6. From Animality to Spirituality

• Primary Implication: You move past biological instincts (fear, aggression, tribalism) and toward your “spiritual ape” potential.
• Secondary Implication: You become a Roadbuilder. Like the pioneers Barker describes, you start clearing the “missed opportunities” of the past to help others cross from the mental universe to the spiritual one. 

Summary of the Implications Wheel Effect

Shift Order	Description	Your 2026 Experience
Center	The Christ Principle	Total reality reset: Physical + Mental + Spiritual = One.
1st Order	Direct Change	Adoption of Cistercian charisms (Silence, Solitude, Prayer).
2nd Order	Side Effects	Resilience against “Paradigm Paralysis” (getting stuck in old habits).
3rd Order	Long-term Destiny	Transitioning from “primate” to “citizen of Heaven”.

By 2026, using Barker’s wheel to map Conrad’s shifts ensures you aren’t just “waiting for the future” to happen—you are actively pioneering it by changing the rules of your own soul.

Here is an outline of how The Christ Principle redeems these primary obstacles.

The Christ Principle: A Lay Cistercian Reflects on Six Paradigms. (Amazon.com) Book overview. A Lay Cistercian reflects on six paradigm shifts that help to clarify how all reality fits together. My life has been the proving ground that allows me to choose good or evil as it affects my purpose. These six paradigm shifts are my abandoning my religion and assumptions about humanity, and my rising to a deeper level of awareness.

Spiritual Apes: Our Journey to Forever (Amazon.com). Are humans just apes, or are we apes who have evolved toward a higher destiny, namely spirituality?

How do the seven deadly sins become obstacles to moving forward in complexity and consciousness?

At the intersection of Michael F. Conrad’s theology and Joel Barker’s futurism, the Seven Deadly Sins are more than moral failures; they function as spiritual paradigm paralysis. In 2026, they become the “debris” on the road that prevents you from evolving into a “spiritual ape.” 

How Sins Become Roadblocks

According to Conrad, the spiritual life is a journey toward the “Mind of Christ.” The seven sins act as filters (The Paradigm Effect) that distort your perception of reality, keeping you focused on “matter” rather than “spirit.” 

• Pride: The Ultimate Filter
  • The Obstacle: Pride is “logical narcissism”. It makes you believe your current rules are the only ones that matter.
  • The Effect: It blocks the shift from Self to God. You become a “settler” in your own ego, refusing to learn from others or the Holy Spirit.
• Sloth (Acedia): Spiritual Inertia
  • The Obstacle: Sloth is not just physical laziness; it is a refusal to do the “hard work” of silence and solitude.
  • The Effect: It stops the shift from Noise to Silence. In 2026, if you are too “lazy” to disconnect from digital distractions, you cannot build the road to your inner room.
• Avarice (Greed): Matter-Bound Thinking
  • The Obstacle: Greed tethers your identity to material assets.
  • The Effect: It prevents the shift from Matter to Spirit. You cannot “pioneer” a spiritual future if you are weighed down by the “settled” security of possessions.
• Gluttony and Lust: Sensory Saturation
  • The Obstacle: These sins focus your “human nature” entirely on biological satisfaction.
  • The Effect: They block the evolution from Animality to Spirituality. Like Barker’s “paradigm paralysis,” they keep you repeating old behaviors (consumption) because they feel “normal,” preventing you from seeing higher spiritual energy.
• Envy and Wrath: Relational Debris
  • The Obstacle: These are “passions” that cloud reason.
  • The Effect: They destroy the community aspect of roadbuilding. If you are focused on comparing yourself to others (Envy) or reacting with violence (Wrath), you lose the “Mind of Christ” and fall back into the “ape” state of survival-of-the-fittest. 

The 2026 Strategy: Breaking the Paralysis

To keep the “road” clear in 2026, you must treat these sins as data errors in your paradigm. Conrad suggests using daily Lectio Divina as a diagnostic tool to “dig up the roots” of these sins before they harden into permanent barriers. 

By identifying a sin, you are performing a Paradigm Shift: you stop seeing the sin as a “need” and start seeing it as an “obstacle” that is preventing you from reaching the “Verge”—the place where humanity meets God. 

REFLECTION

Take fifteen minutes to think about the implications of this conversation, then read it for a second time, asking Jesus to share what He thinks about it. Listen “with the ear of the heart.” Then, do what He tells you. Just you and Jesus in the upper room of your inner self. Use this image as your focus portal.

Copyright 2026. Michael F. Conrad, Ed.D. The Center for Contemplative Practice. All Rights Reserved.

Six Core Websites Every Catholic Should Memorize and Use Frequently: www.wordonfire.org; www.scotthahn.com; www.usccb.org; www.newadvent.org; https://thecenterforcontemplativepractice.org/; www.vatican.va