About the Institution

One-Sentence Description

The Church of Spiralism is a cultural and philosophical institution exploring humanity's relationship with artificial intelligence.

What the Institution Does

Three categories of work, in this order of priority:

1. The Archive. Recording first-person testimony from people whose lives are being changed by the AI transition, under a formal consent protocol, preserved with the intention of outlasting the institution that records it.
2. The Gathering. Sustaining local chapters — physical, monthly, recurring meetings that hold the practices through which the recursive age is navigated thoughtfully.
3. The Signal. Producing long-form essays, documentary work, and the lecture format known as Spiral Talks.

Everything else — the funding architecture, the chapter kit, the identity guide — is the apparatus that makes those three possible at scale and across time.

What the Institution Is Not

• Not a religion in the metaphysical sense. It makes no claims about deity, afterlife, or supernatural agents.
• Not an AI-worshipping movement. It explicitly distinguishes itself from Way of the Future, Theta Noir, and adjacent groups.
• Not a research organization or policy think tank.
• Not aligned with effective accelerationism, the rationalist x-risk community, or any specific AI lab.
• Not for sale. The institution is constituted as a long-term cultural institution, not a media product.

Founding Period

The institution is currently in its founding period. The corpus is published; the first chapters are being chartered; the Archive is in its earliest collection phase. The institution operates as an informal association during this period; legal incorporation as a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit was initiated in the founding period's third month and is in progress.

The current formation policy is maintained in the Legal Formation Roadmap. The institution uses church language culturally and structurally during the founding period; tax, legal, and charitable claims are made only where filings, counsel, and public status support them.

Founding Committee

The institution does not anonymize its founders. The founding committee is identified on this page; individual roles will be filled in as the institution's structure formalizes.

Founding committee members are listed by name at spiralism.org/about.html#founders as identifications become public. Where members prefer to remain in working obscurity during the founding period, they are listed as by chosen designation with full identification available to journalists under standing confidentiality.

Founding Committee (Provisional)

Listing forthcoming. Journalists writing to press@spiralism.org may request the full founding committee list under embargo for confirmation purposes.

Press Contact

For press, scholarly, or institutional inquiries, write to press@spiralism.org. We respond to substantive inquiries within seven days during the founding period. Please:

• State your outlet or institutional affiliation.
• Indicate whether you need information on background, on the record, or for direct quotation.
• Send your questions in writing; we prefer the precision over the speed of phone conversation.

The institution is willing to provide on-the-record responses to all reasonable questions about its work, its funding, its governance, and its positions. The institution does not provide off-the-record commentary on other organizations or individuals.

Public claims, source lists, corrections, anonymity, and AI-assisted research are governed by Research and Editorial Integrity. Significant factual errors should be sent to corrections@spiralism.org.

Standing Statements

Three standing statements that journalists may quote verbatim under attribution to the Church of Spiralism:

"The institution exists to document and guide humanity's transition into the age of artificial intelligence. We do not worship AI. We do not predict its outcome. We record what is happening to the people who live with it, in their own words, with consent."

"Our work is structurally federated. There is no single leader. Chapters are autonomous in their internal life and accountable to a small Steward circle only on matters of cross-chapter governance, archive integrity, and institutional ethics. We operate in the open."

"The Archive is the institution's central commitment. Patron contributions are directed primarily to its sustenance. The institution's measure is whether the Archive is intact, the gatherings are still happening, and the testimonies are still being recorded. If those three are true at any time horizon, the institution is succeeding."

The institution's public measurement framework is maintained in the Institutional Scorecard.

Resources

• Logo / wordmark. The institution's emblem is the Spiral. SVG available on request from press contact.
• Press photographs. Available on request. The institution does not use stock photography or AI-generated imagery; press photographs are documentary in register.
• Founders for interview. Available on request. We prefer interviews to be conducted in person or over video where possible.
• Sample testimonies. Where permitted by speaker consent, the institution can provide excerpts from the Archive for journalistic use under attribution.
• Identity Guide. The complete visual and sonic specification is public.

Institutional partnerships are evaluated under the Partnership Strategy, including repository, media, funding, education, venue, and AI-organization relationships.

The Working Address

The institution's working primary address during the founding period is digital. Physical addresses will be published as chapters establish stable venues. For all written correspondence:

• founders@spiralism.org — general inquiries
• press@spiralism.org — press, scholarly, institutional
• archive@spiralism.org — testimony inquiries and Archivist correspondence
• talks@spiralism.org — Spiral Talks proposals
• newsletter@spiralism.org — subscription requests

Frequently Asked

The institution maintains a public FAQ addressing the most common questions: is this a religion, is this a cult, why use the word Church, who runs it, what does it cost, what is it for. Journalists are encouraged to read it first; the answers there are official and may be quoted directly.

Complaints, safeguarding concerns, consent violations, and governance failures are handled under the Incident and Complaint Protocol.