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I wonder a lot about Jobs’ spiritual and metaphysical beliefs, I read both the Isaacson bio and Becoming Steve Jobs and neither dug too deep into this aspect. Y

I wonder a lot about Jobs’ spiritual and metaphysical beliefs, I read both the Isaacson bio and Becoming Steve Jobs and neither dug too deep into this aspect. Yet he was known for taking LSD, living with monks and yogis in India, visiting the Hari Krishna temples, visiting the Zen Buddhist temples, giving a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi to everyone who attended his funeral, and I’m just learning now that he wrote horoscope software. I suspect there was much more unexplored depth to his spiritual beliefs and that a lot of his thinking and principles could be traced back to what he learned from the monks and yogis, but for whatever reason he chose to never speak directly about it to anyone including his biographer and closest colleagues.

WoodenChair 10mo ago
If you want to learn more about those formative beliefs around the time that this horoscope program was written, I recommend the book The Bite in the Apple by his former girlfriend (and mother of his daughter) Chrisann Brennan: https://amzn.to/4aN2DQX https://amzn.to/4aN2DQX
gyomu 10mo ago
Also note the byline of his company stamp's on the invoice with the auctioned documents: "gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha" https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/350817407346012-steve-jobss-hand-annotated-atari-horoscope-program-report-and-memo-to-stephen-bristow-with-all-one-farm-design-invoice-blank/ https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/35081740734601...
coldtea 10mo ago
>Yet he was known for taking LSD, living with monks and yogis in India, visiting the Hari Krishna temples, visiting the Zen Buddhist temples, giving a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi to everyone who attended his funeral, and I’m just learning now that he wrote horoscope software. I suspect there was much more unexplored depth to his spiritual beliefs Does that sound like some real depth? This part "known for taking LSD, living with monks and yogis in India, visiting the Hari Krishna temples, visiting the Zen Buddhist temples" basically describes any self-respecting hipster hippie in the late 60s/early 70s. There were even bus services that catered to the market, and many celebs at the time (most famously The Beatles) did the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie_trail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie_trail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtPFdgZw1R0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtPFdgZw1R0
- anthk 10mo ago
  Mckenna, too. And Jacobo Grinberg. And I still think that if these people deeped into Math and Physics instead of humanities they would reach to crazy conclusions on Cosmology.
JKCalhoun 10mo ago
Also though, this was the 1970's. I was eleven years old in 1975 and can remember how much "the Age of Aquarius" had infused so much of culture. Horoscopes, biorhythms, transcendental meditation, "Chariots of the Gods?", etc.… (And this was from the vantage point of Kansas. Christ, California must have been out of this world in the 70's.)
- lakkal 10mo ago
  I'm 2 years younger than you and was in NJ. My aunts had given me a copy of "Chariots of the Gods" and a couple of others by the same author. I remember also having some books on pyramid power, reincarnation, Atlantis, and the Bermuda Triangle. Even then, it all seemed like fiction to me.
jacquesm 10mo ago
If you're looking for role models I would not recommend Steve Jobs. """ Even after Jobs started paying more attention to Brennan-Jobs, her mother, Chrisann Brennan, apparently felt uncomfortable leaving him with her alone after an incident in which he questioned and teased the then-9-year-old Brennan-Jobs about her sexual attractions and proclivities. When Brennan went to live with him as a teen, he forbade her from seeing her mother for 6 months. After moving in with them, Brennan told her stepmother, Laurene Powell-Jobs, that she felt lonely and asked that they tell her goodnight in the evenings... Powell-Jobs responded, "We're cold people." Once, as Jobs groped his wife and pretended to be having sex with her, he demanded that Brennan stay in the room, calling it a "family moment." He repeatedly withheld money from her, told her that she would get "nothing" from his wealth — and even refused to install heat in her bedroom. When she started to become active in her high school, Jobs got on Brennan for not spending more time with the family, telling her, "This isn't working out. You're not succeeding as a member of this family." At one point, neighbors of the family were so worried about Brennan that they helped her move into their house. They also helped her pay for college. """ https://finance.yahoo.com/news/memoir-steve-jobs-apos-daughter-133000491.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/memoir-steve-jobs-apos-daught...
- iberator 10mo ago
  Amazing. Nearly all rich business owners are the same: too much dopamine and leaks of sociopathy. That's why they win.
  - jacquesm 10mo ago
    What blows me away is how many people still put Jobs on a pedestal. There are countless anecdotes - well documented ones - of him shafting just about everybody around him, including his co-founder, who - graciously - decided to let it slide.
    - wat10000 10mo ago
      I don't think I've ever seen anyone put Jobs on a pedestal for being kind, generous, or morally upright. People admire him for his business acumen and technology vision. We can admire people in some areas while also acknowledging their tremendous faults in other areas.
speak_plainly 10mo ago
I was at Apple during the Jobs era and you could really see the Zen influence in how he ran things and his approach. I was slightly interested in Buddhism at the time but the Apple experience pushed me to dig a bit deeper. After I quit, I went and studied at a Zen monastery afterwards to try to and sort out and make sense of all that I had seen when I was there. Steve was deep into a specific lineage that went from Kodo Sawaki (the 'Homeless Kodo') to Kobun Chino Otogawa, who was Steve’s long-time mentor and even did his wedding. Sawaki was famous for being a total rebel; he had a column in the Asahi Shimbun in the late '60s filled with these blunt aphorisms that basically told people to stop being so full of themselves. You can definitely see that 'no-BS' attitude in Steve's approach. He also used meditation as a way to work through problems. I would recommend this book, 'The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo,' which features Kodo's aphorisms and various levels of commentary:https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Zen-Teaching-of-Homeless-Kodo/Kosho-Uchiyama-Roshi/9781614290476 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Zen-Teaching-of-Homel...
user3939382 10mo ago
He gets the same basic respect from me that any of our dead would. As a computing personality, IMHO every moment of attention that he got and gets belongs to Dennis Ritchie, second in his case Wozniak.
47282847 10mo ago
See the spiritual mentor in the series Silicon Valley. ;-)
anthk 10mo ago
You could be surprised when Science, IT and metaphysics meet: https://github.com/kl4yfd/timewave_z3r0 https://github.com/kl4yfd/timewave_z3r0 https://github.com/jasondrawdy/Omniwave https://github.com/jasondrawdy/Omniwave Now point that to 12th August, 2026 to see it's there's some relation. The lower the Y point = the more the 'novelty'. It's a bit of crackpot science but that would just mean most of the humanity behaviour from genomics it's highly predictable except for some cosmetics and newer knowledge. You can see these patterns in big human gatherings. And under bird flocks. The more people you connect, the less individuality you'll get, as some unique behaviour will emerge from few leaders, as if they were tied to virtual strings/chains. Also: this is entirely crazy: Title:Matter-wave interference with particles selected from a molecular library with masses exceeding 10000 amu https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8343 https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8343 TL;DR: Apparenting separate system behaving as a single one. Like birds without colliding into themselves while flying.

WoodenChair 10mo ago

If you want to learn more about those formative beliefs around the time that this horoscope program was written, I recommend the book The Bite in the Apple by his former girlfriend (and mother of his daughter) Chrisann Brennan: https://amzn.to/4aN2DQX https://amzn.to/4aN2DQX

gyomu 10mo ago

Also note the byline of his company stamp's on the invoice with the auctioned documents: "gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha" https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/350817407346012-steve-jobss-hand-annotated-atari-horoscope-program-report-and-memo-to-stephen-bristow-with-all-one-farm-design-invoice-blank/ https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/35081740734601...

coldtea 10mo ago

>Yet he was known for taking LSD, living with monks and yogis in India, visiting the Hari Krishna temples, visiting the Zen Buddhist temples, giving a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi to everyone who attended his funeral, and I’m just learning now that he wrote horoscope software. I suspect there was much more unexplored depth to his spiritual beliefs Does that sound like some real depth? This part "known for taking LSD, living with monks and yogis in India, visiting the Hari Krishna temples, visiting the Zen Buddhist temples" basically describes any self-respecting hipster hippie in the late 60s/early 70s. There were even bus services that catered to the market, and many celebs at the time (most famously The Beatles) did the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie_trail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie_trail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtPFdgZw1R0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtPFdgZw1R0

anthk 10mo ago
Mckenna, too. And Jacobo Grinberg. And I still think that if these people deeped into Math and Physics instead of humanities they would reach to crazy conclusions on Cosmology.

JKCalhoun 10mo ago

Also though, this was the 1970's. I was eleven years old in 1975 and can remember how much "the Age of Aquarius" had infused so much of culture. Horoscopes, biorhythms, transcendental meditation, "Chariots of the Gods?", etc.… (And this was from the vantage point of Kansas. Christ, California must have been out of this world in the 70's.)

lakkal 10mo ago
I'm 2 years younger than you and was in NJ. My aunts had given me a copy of "Chariots of the Gods" and a couple of others by the same author. I remember also having some books on pyramid power, reincarnation, Atlantis, and the Bermuda Triangle. Even then, it all seemed like fiction to me.

jacquesm 10mo ago

If you're looking for role models I would not recommend Steve Jobs. """ Even after Jobs started paying more attention to Brennan-Jobs, her mother, Chrisann Brennan, apparently felt uncomfortable leaving him with her alone after an incident in which he questioned and teased the then-9-year-old Brennan-Jobs about her sexual attractions and proclivities. When Brennan went to live with him as a teen, he forbade her from seeing her mother for 6 months. After moving in with them, Brennan told her stepmother, Laurene Powell-Jobs, that she felt lonely and asked that they tell her goodnight in the evenings... Powell-Jobs responded, "We're cold people." Once, as Jobs groped his wife and pretended to be having sex with her, he demanded that Brennan stay in the room, calling it a "family moment." He repeatedly withheld money from her, told her that she would get "nothing" from his wealth — and even refused to install heat in her bedroom. When she started to become active in her high school, Jobs got on Brennan for not spending more time with the family, telling her, "This isn't working out. You're not succeeding as a member of this family." At one point, neighbors of the family were so worried about Brennan that they helped her move into their house. They also helped her pay for college. """ https://finance.yahoo.com/news/memoir-steve-jobs-apos-daughter-133000491.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/memoir-steve-jobs-apos-daught...

iberator 10mo ago
Amazing. Nearly all rich business owners are the same: too much dopamine and leaks of sociopathy. That's why they win.
- jacquesm 10mo ago
  What blows me away is how many people still put Jobs on a pedestal. There are countless anecdotes - well documented ones - of him shafting just about everybody around him, including his co-founder, who - graciously - decided to let it slide.
  - wat10000 10mo ago
    I don't think I've ever seen anyone put Jobs on a pedestal for being kind, generous, or morally upright. People admire him for his business acumen and technology vision. We can admire people in some areas while also acknowledging their tremendous faults in other areas.

speak_plainly 10mo ago

I was at Apple during the Jobs era and you could really see the Zen influence in how he ran things and his approach. I was slightly interested in Buddhism at the time but the Apple experience pushed me to dig a bit deeper. After I quit, I went and studied at a Zen monastery afterwards to try to and sort out and make sense of all that I had seen when I was there. Steve was deep into a specific lineage that went from Kodo Sawaki (the 'Homeless Kodo') to Kobun Chino Otogawa, who was Steve’s long-time mentor and even did his wedding. Sawaki was famous for being a total rebel; he had a column in the Asahi Shimbun in the late '60s filled with these blunt aphorisms that basically told people to stop being so full of themselves. You can definitely see that 'no-BS' attitude in Steve's approach. He also used meditation as a way to work through problems. I would recommend this book, 'The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo,' which features Kodo's aphorisms and various levels of commentary:https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Zen-Teaching-of-Homeless-Kodo/Kosho-Uchiyama-Roshi/9781614290476 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Zen-Teaching-of-Homel...

user3939382 10mo ago

He gets the same basic respect from me that any of our dead would. As a computing personality, IMHO every moment of attention that he got and gets belongs to Dennis Ritchie, second in his case Wozniak.

47282847 10mo ago

See the spiritual mentor in the series Silicon Valley. ;-)

anthk 10mo ago

You could be surprised when Science, IT and metaphysics meet: https://github.com/kl4yfd/timewave_z3r0 https://github.com/kl4yfd/timewave_z3r0 https://github.com/jasondrawdy/Omniwave https://github.com/jasondrawdy/Omniwave Now point that to 12th August, 2026 to see it's there's some relation. The lower the Y point = the more the 'novelty'. It's a bit of crackpot science but that would just mean most of the humanity behaviour from genomics it's highly predictable except for some cosmetics and newer knowledge. You can see these patterns in big human gatherings. And under bird flocks. The more people you connect, the less individuality you'll get, as some unique behaviour will emerge from few leaders, as if they were tied to virtual strings/chains. Also: this is entirely crazy: Title:Matter-wave interference with particles selected from a molecular library with masses exceeding 10000 amu https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8343 https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8343 TL;DR: Apparenting separate system behaving as a single one. Like birds without colliding into themselves while flying.