Introduction to the TO8

What began as a 'thought experiment' has turned into a genuinely powerful method for interpreting the human personality, our social relationships, and the complexities of the mating partnership..

People in widespread cultures are finding that their traditional methods of thinking about themselves, using star signs and other astrological methods are not actually helping them make good relationships.

The TO8 is a fresh set of culture-independent tools for the understanding of how and why we make the relationships we do, and how to assess the ones we are in or want to make.

The TO8 was developed in the 1980s by a poet and scientist who, by using sociological observation and scientific reasoning about how our personalities may have evolved, has found a standpoint to examine the continuing story of human society.

click here to find your TO8 type

Even Iggy Pop Loves Gardening

'Let's take a look', I said. And I looked at the paper she slid on my desk. On it were listed the features of a man: such and such a height, weight, complexion, age, his sporting prowess, his loves and hates, his desires for a family, his job that could really take him places, his little bit of private income, his belief system and the rest.

It seemed to me that there were a few things missing. I saw nothing about his kindness or charitableness, his problem solving capabilities, creativity, what he had set out to see and do and how far he had got along this road, nor did I see much about how he viewed the passing of time or his private genuine take on the meaning of life. But I said what I was expected to say. 'He seems very nice.'

She laughed. 'Look, he loves dogs and walks in the country. He loves curling up with a good book and going to the theatre, but he wouldn't say no to a fast car or spending all night dancing. He cooks. He loves kids.'

I doubt and I question for a living but that still does not prepare me for the self-delusion I witness even among those I love dearly.

My friend, let us call her Sheila, had reluctantly signed up with a dating agency. She had had a very nice boyfriend for some years but he moved out on her one day, and when Sheila surrounded herself with her friends trying to overcome the shock - it had come out of the blue, or so she said, she realised that she had been falling behind in the date race. While Sheila had been cosying up to man she had professed to love not so long ago, dating had become a fashion accessory. She joined the craze. She speed-dated, she blind-dated, she cross-dated, she 'sexed-in-the-city' until finally she slapped a month's salary into the hands of an apparently exclusive agency and waited for Mr. Right to call.

'I didn't know you liked dogs.' I said.

She made an apologetic face. 'Yeah, some dogs.'

'I recall how you can never suspend your disbelief in a theatre enough to like it.'

'I had just been to lot of bad plays, then. I like theatre.'

'A piece of theatre or The Theatre? It's an important difference.'

'Why are you being so challenging? We are talking about him, Mr. Right, right, not about me.'

'Is that how it seems?'

She was defensive, because she saw what I was driving at. 'Why?'

'Could it be that you've set yourself up for just this Mr. Right? Think about it. How many people would say 'no' to walks in the country or to rollicking with a new puppy or to fine wines and good food or to the highest and best that culture has to offer, or to romantic candle-lit dinners for two, or to spontaneous weekend honeymoons in country farms? Tell me, out of all the individuals who have filled out the same form you filled out, and whatever else they also wanted from a partner, how many would say they hate all these things? Even if there were a few who did out of cynicism and even shame for what they were doing, would they also want someone who thought the same? You know, even Iggy Pop loves gardening.'

Sheila's eyes started to glisten but I was not ashamed that my rhetoric had got away from me. I know Sheila, and I know she expects precisely this. That is why she brought Mr. Right to me in the first place.

Sheila recovered herself. 'Well, this guy might be just like me then,' she said. 'He does what's expected to get the date, knowing he can prove himself afterwards.'

'So you did the same?'

'Yes, in a way. There's a ritual to dating. Everyone knows that.'

'Well why do you expect this guy to be like you? He's covering himself up with standard replies. Why do think that even his weight and height are true? You know there are spectators at Forest Lawns who wander about dressed in whites and tennis shoes carrying tennis rackets.'

Sheila's eyes started to glisten again. 'I have to start from somewhere.'

'Yes, but a self-appraisal isn't necessarily a fair appraisal of self. You need other tools to find out what people are like. Have you ever read my book?'

'No.'

Read the introduction,' I said and slid a copy over to her.

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Prince William and Kate Middleton

Astrology for Grown-ups

Essential Personalities, and why humans found Love, adapted to monogamy and became better parents

Gravity Publishing, 1 June 2009
ISBN-13 978-0-9544831-4-2 trade paper 400 pages with drawings

order it on Amazon

Andrew Kennedy's long-awaited new book demolishes popular beliefs about human mating strategies. We have to remember that we are all designed to be parents, and that parenting success over the last 50,000 years hinged on a new innate system of making relationships.

With intense conversations with two women his life this author tries to nail down a form of personality typing that marries human evolution with a new form of astrology. Ends with descriptions of all the personality types he believes can be identified, and how to find out what type a person is. More important than all the science, the author writes convincingly about the hows and whys of making relationships and how you can find your best partner (it's not what you think). For anyone wanting some kind of clue as to who is going to be good for them and why, then read this understandable but fairly high-brow on the philosophy book. You may find yourself looking at your dates in a different way, and thinking some strange thoughts about what human society is all about. Men are not from Mars, nor women from Venus, they both come from the same planet, Earth, and they are a lot more similar than the rumours have it.

With the systematic production of personalty types, humans are better enabled to seek and make successful relationships beyond the family and outside the group. Strangers become not only comprehensible but attractive, explaining at a stroke why tribes and societies always slowly change and evolve.

'They are,'  the author says, 'the proof of what I am talking about.  If they don't make sense, then my arguments fail.'

Gravity Publishing's editor says, ' Not only does the reader get entertaining and interesting science, but the readers are introduced to a full-blown method of understanding themselves and the people they know.  It's a tremendous piece of work and we are really happy to finally bring it to the bookshops.'

contact: editor@gravitypublishing.co.uk
tel: 07092119084
www.gravitypublishing.co.uk

Extras

Author bio:

Andrew Kennedy was born and educated in England, graduating from Edinburgh University with a B.Sc. He is married with a daughter and shares his time between a farm in the Pyrenees and Andalusia. He has worked in a variety of occupations and has travelled widely. He devised the personality theory he calls the TO8 in the 1980s. He holds a patent in a switching device, created the Taoism-inspired 3-D board game, The Game of Rat and Dragon and has published two books about Taoism, The Jade Suit, an epic poem about Chinese history, and Briefing Leaders, which contained new translations of two Chinese classics, I Ching and Tao Tê Ching in which he incorporates the philosophy into a fictional account of Lao Tze's last days. He studied Traditional Chinese Medicine and graduated from the European School of Shiatsu as a practitioner. He writes regularly about science, complementary medicine and the human psyche.

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