Architecture of Intention
* Book: The Architecture of Intention: A Manifesto For The World After Illusion. by James Coleman. Kindle ed., 2015
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Description
"What if the world we inherited isn’t the one we’re destined to live in?
The Architecture of Intention is a groundbreaking sequel to The Mirror of Profit, and a rallying cry for the world that works spiritually, ecologically, socially, and economically. It offers more than critique. It offers blueprint.
Where The Mirror of Profit exposed the fractures of late-stage capitalism, this manifesto ventures into uncharted territory: what comes after illusion.
In a time defined by collapse, polarization, and confusion, this book offers clarity, not just of system, but of self. It argues that true transformation begins with a shift in consciousness: in how we perceive time, value, identity, and our relationship to the living Earth.
Through powerful essays, visionary insight, and a roadmap of practical cultural redesign, this work explores:
• How past civilizations collapsed and why our current system is no exception.
• The myth of the purely rational human and the sacred return to wholeness.
• Commons-based economies, inner work as infrastructure, and symbiotic design.
• The future of technology, art, and global governance beyond domination.
• What it means to become the ancestors of a world worth inheriting.
With poetic force and intellectual precision, The Architecture of Intention invites readers to imagine and begin to build, a post-capitalist civilization rooted not in fear or scarcity, but in coherence, care, and planetary belonging.
This is not just a vision.
It is an act of remembering who we are and who we could still become."
Contents
"In essence, the book explores the civilisational rupture we are living through, not merely as a collapse, but as an evolutionary turning. It argues that no structural transformation (political, economic, ecological) can take root without a corresponding shift in human consciousness. Systems don’t just change when we design better policies, they change when we change the lens through which we see ourselves, others, and the world.
The book is structured around nine chapters, each articulating a foundational reframe for post-capitalist transition:
• The End of Empires identifies our moment as the late stage of civilisational exhaustion, not unlike Rome or the USSR, driven now by spectacle, acceleration, and institutional hollowing.
• The Myth of the Rational Human critiques Enlightenment-era disconnection, suggesting that reason without emotion, intuition, and spirit is an incomplete epistemology.
• The Time Illusion explores how capitalism colonised time, converting presence into productivity, and proposes a return to cyclical, embodied time as cultural resistance.
• The New Commons makes the case for re-establishing shared ownership models, not only for land and resources, but also for data, care, and governance, rooted in stewardship, not control.
• The Inner Economy posits that the psychological fragmentation created by consumer capitalism must be healed if we are to avoid replicating the same pathologies in new systems.
• From Scarcity to Synergy challenges the myth of lack and instead explores nature-inspired regenerative design and symbiotic economic logic.
• Cultural Rebirth emphasises myth, story, and beauty as non-negotiable components of societal architecture, proposing art not as decoration, but as structural intelligence.
• Sacred Technology asks whether AI and biotech will deepen care or extend control, and explores pathways for aligning tech with consciousness rather than commodification.
• The Rise of Earth Civilisation offers a systems blueprint for planetary governance rooted in bioregional wisdom, ecological coherence, and a redefined human identity, as not separate from Earth, but expressions of it."
Discussion
James Coleman provides more context:
"The throughline is this: the future must be built not just with new tools, but new values. Not just by engineers, but by artists, healers, stewards, and those willing to live as if a post-capitalist world were already possible.
As a next step, I am developing an evolving framework I have begun calling Synthesism, a synthesis-driven philosophy aimed at bridging ideological divides, utilising existing knowledge across domains and reorienting systems toward ecological coherence and human care without losing functionality. Alongside it, I am working on a decision-making model designed to be applied across disciplines, policy, economics, education, governance, anchored in principles of empathetic efficiency, systemic regeneration, and collective wellbeing. It’s still in development, but I see it as the next layer of architecture beyond the trilogy."
More information
Full links to the trilogy:
• The Mirror of Profit https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F8NRSRCP
• The Architecture of Intention https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F8T35856
• Divided https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F91ZMTR8