In this week’s episode of Changemaker Q&A, we venture into the mind of polymath and “human development engineer” Jim Marshall — a man who believes he has mapped the hidden architecture of human behavior. His system, Septemics: Hierarchies of Human Phenomena, proposes that nearly every aspect of human life can be understood through natural laws that unfold across seven distinct levels.
Marshall describes Septemics as a “revolutionary, practical philosophic system” rooted in decades of observation, mathematics, and what he calls “engineering principles applied to the human psyche.” Over forty years and thousands of one-on-one client sessions, he claims to have identified 35 universal scales that describe human and social phenomena — from motivation and control to government, civilization, and communication — each expressed in seven tiers of progression.
“This gives you a reliable system based entirely on natural law for understanding people,” Marshall explains in the episode. “Every time you correctly spot a level, you have a realization.”
At the heart of Septemics lies an intriguing numerical choice: seven. The number appears across nature and culture — seven notes in a musical scale, seven colors in the visible spectrum, seven days in a week — a pattern that has fascinated philosophers and scientists alike. Cognitive psychologist George A. Miller famously argued that the human mind can hold roughly seven items in working memory (Miller, 1956), while ancient traditions from the chakras to Pythagorean theory have long linked seven to harmony and balance.
Marshall insists his use of seven is not mystical but mathematical. “When I inserted the seventh level into a six-level scale, it suddenly manifested mathematically,” he recalls. “That’s when I realized I’d found something governed by natural law.”
His 35 scales are divided into individual and group hierarchies — from The Scale of Motivation and The Scale of Identity to The Scale of Government and The Scale of Civilization. Each, he says, offers a roadmap for diagnosing where a person or collective stands — and how they might move upward toward greater clarity, ethics, and capability.
From Engineering Machines to Engineering Minds
Marshall’s academic roots are in engineering, a field he entered at age 16 before pivoting from machines to minds. “I realized I wanted to engineer the human psyche,” he says. “It’s the area where we as a race are failing miserably. Ninety-five percent of our problems come from people not understanding people.”
His sessions, aided by biofeedback technology, sought measurable improvement. Over time, Marshall noticed predictable patterns — clients consistently moved from one distinct level to the next. The recurrence of these transitions led him to formalize the scales now codified in Septemics.
While Marshall’s framework sits outside conventional psychology, it resonates with a growing interdisciplinary interest in systems thinking and human development models. Psychologists like Clare W. Graves and theorists behind Spiral Dynamics have likewise described tiered models of consciousness and social evolution (Beck & Cowan, 1996). Marshall’s difference lies in his insistence that his system is not interpretive or cultural but a natural law, akin to the Fibonacci sequence.
The Challenge of Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries
As an outsider to academia, Marshall is candid about institutional resistance. He recounts being rejected by a professional psychology association after proposing to present his findings. “People who are in a niche want to stay in that niche,” he says. “Dr. Schwartz, who holds a PhD in psychology, doesn’t want to hear that someone has made a discovery that undercuts his entire subject.”
That tension reflects a broader challenge within academia: its siloed structure often makes it difficult for interdisciplinary or paradigm-challenging frameworks to gain traction. Yet, as Marshall and I discuss in the episode, his ideas hold potential for scholars seeking new ways to integrate psychology, sociology, systems theory, and even ethics under a single developmental lens.
For those working in social change and impact, the implications are profound. “In order to change the world,” I note during our conversation, “you have to understand people — because ultimately it’s people who change the world.”
Marshall agrees. “This can help anyone who wants to improve themselves or others,” he says. “It’s for the half of humanity that’s ready to move upward.”
Why It Matters for Changemakers
At a time when polarization and complexity seem to overwhelm institutions and individuals alike, frameworks like Septemics attempt to restore coherence — offering not answers, but structure. Whether one views Marshall’s discovery as hard science, innovative philosophy, or an audacious experiment in human systems mapping, its underlying premise — that human phenomena follow patterns that can be understood and elevated — invites deeper reflection.
For changemakers, that’s a challenge worth engaging.
You can learn more about Jim Marshall’s work and explore excerpts of Septemics: Hierarchies of Human Phenomena on his official website: septemics.com.
