EM 176 - Enneatemps

enneagram
monthly
April 2011
Issue 176
Enneatemps:
The Four Temperaments and Enneagram Types: Understanding the System (Part 1)
S
ince it is one of the oldest personality typing systems
basic form of psychology and is, in my opinion, one of the
Paya Naderi
on our planet, you have most likely heard about
most solid tools of personality typing ever existed.
the Four Temperaments—
The four temperaments were
Phlegmatic, Choleric, Sanguine,
first used to match the human
and Melancholic. These are the
psyche with disease manifestafour types that were first introtion and medical treatment.
duced to the world by Greek
Later on, the psychological,
philosopher, Hippokrates, in
or typological, part was devel400 BC (although there is some
oped.
suggestion that they originated
The four temperaments origfrom Egypt) and later develinate from the qualities of hot/
oped by Galenius, (Galen), also
cold and wet/dry that influence
a Greek philosopher, who lived
the so-called four juices in our
in 200 AD.
bodies that can be arranged as
This typing system is still taught
shown in the following table:
…CONTINUED ON PAGE 20
Figure 1 From left to right: Choleric, Melancholic, Phlegmatic and Sanguine1
across Europe in high schools as a
Unlocking the Geometry of the Enneagram:
How and Why Opposite Types are Look-alikes (Part 1)
People who study the enneagram are usually familiar
Susan
with some of its geometric patterns and how they can
help us better understand ourselves, our relationships,
and even our role in life. By studying the energy center of our type, we know what
fuels our day to day way of being in the world; by studying the wing points, we gain
a sense of two distinct “modes of being” for each type; and by studying the connecting points, we understand the sub-personalities we adopt when the resources of our
“home” type don’t quite satisfy the need of the moment.
And there are other patterns we can explore. For example, Don Riso and Russ
Hudson have fruitfully discussed the idea of Hornevian and Harmonic triads in
their definitive work, Wisdom of the Enneagram (1999). I too have explored enneagram patterns, as reflected in a number of my articles. In an early article for the EM
(April ‘07), I looked at the relationship between the personality and process enneagrams—a theme that showed up again in both of my books, The Positive Enneagram
(2009) and Archetypes of the Enneagram (2010). In the former, I also focused on
center-related differences among the “Great Triangle” patterns (3-6-9, 1-4-7, or
In This Issue
2-5-8; see pp. 64-68). I also wrote two pattern-focused
articles exploring differences between the two halves of
the enneagram, as well as key distinctions between the
triangle and hexad types (EM, Oct., Nov. ‘07).
Probably the most significant pattern I’ve discussed so far is the relationship
between the personality and process enneagram. The initial article was a rather
technical work, because I wanted to be absolutely accurate (and very conservative)
in my descriptions. By the time I wrote The Positive Enneagram, I was in a better
position to explain the practical implications of seeing each enneagram point as
describing both a personality type and a stage in a transformational process.
Rhodes
Archetypes delves deeply into the implications of matching types to stages in the
life process, focusing particularly on how the precise position of each type on the
circle relates to the evolutionary path (dharma) for individuals of that type (see pp.
88-97). I focused specifically on the idea that the first half of the journey (through
…CONTINUED ON PAGE 17
Points 1, 2, 3, 4) is the movement from Spirit into
Looking Glass Envy in Workplace to App or not to App
Ramon Llull
Doing my Time- 12 Steps ...
Carl Marsak
Lee Kingma Ginger Lapid-Bogda Arthur Kranz- Susan Olesek Robert Tallon
page 4
page 6
page 8
page 10
page 12
page 15
A Response from the IEA President
to Carl Marsak’s Open Letter
A
s president of the board of directors of the International Enneagram Association (IEA) for all
of 11 days when the December issue of EM hit my
inbox, I read with great interest Carl Marsak’s “Open
Letter to the Board of the IEA.”
First, I want to thank Carl for taking the time to
write about his concerns and hopes for the organization. It is only through feedback from our membership
that the IEA can meet the needs of our membership
and I encourage EM’s readers to contact us directly
with feedback or concerns. I can be reached via email
at [email protected].
Second, I’d like to address a couple of specific issues in Carl’s email: the annual conference and the
idea of a Center for Enneagram Studies. I’d also like
to take this opportunity to let the community know
the direction the IEA is taking toward the future and
some of the initiatives that will help us get there.
The heart of Carl’s letter was his belief that we
should not hold the conference every year. He stated
in his letter that once he came to that conclusion he
went in search of evidence to support it; I’d like to
give the rationale for why I disagree.
The short answer to why the IEA holds the International Conference every year is because it is what
our members want, and they demonstrated this desire in 2010 by showing up in larger numbers than
we’ve seen in many years. The conference committee
has made great strides to schedule a diverse selection
of topics and presenters, and this year 16 “new voices” will be presenting, many of whom are from outside the US. Yes, to Carl’s point, the conference is an
opportunity for teachers to promote their programs
and products (as all conferences are). However, it’s
also an opportunity for teachers to showcase new
material and ideas, providing a forum for new developments in the field. And, because the annual conference brings all of the different schools of thought
I
t felt good to take a break from producing
the EM every month. I was working on a
new website for the EM, but found it more
challenged that I anticipated. Well, I could have
used a computer guru (age 10-18 probably, who
saw a typewriter only in a museum)—a kid
whose birth announcement was emailed to friends
and family and who learned how to use a cell phone
and operate remote controls before entering grammar
school ....
When I was a kid, high-tech meant making sling
shots, darts, arrows, cooking snails on a camp fire (arrghhh, learn how to remove
slime and bile first!), fixing
bikes or building black powder driven cardboard rockets...before there was tape!
However, slowly but
surely it’s coming together
and unless some disaster
strikes, we should have a
Letters
together under one roof, it is an opportunity for our
membership to sample the various approaches to the
Enneagram and get first-hand exposure to the different teachers before deciding where to invest their
valuable time and money in deeper training.
The conference organizers also try to include programs that are aimed at both beginner and advanced
levels of understanding; so, yes, some of the programs
might not seem particularly ground-breaking to advanced Enneagram students. But many of the people
at any given conference are attending only their first
or second conference and will have a very different
perspective.
Finally, for many the conference is about more
than the content—it is an opportunity to see old
friends, meet people with common interests from
across the globe, or network professionally. In the last
12 months, I’ve had the good fortune to attend Enneagram conferences in Spain, Denmark, and Colombia in addition to the IEA International Conference
in San Francisco. They allowed me to learn from, become friends with, and even do business with people
whose paths I never would have crossed otherwise;
many people who’ve attended the conferences have
had the same experience.
The deeper issue that Carl raises, it seems to me,
is: What is the IEA doing besides the conference and
what could it do if it wasn’t putting on a conference
every year. Yes, the conference is time and energy
consuming, but is hardly the sole focus of the organization and while it absorbs a lot of the time of the
board members who are on the conference committee, it is only a relatively small portion of the board’s
total time and energy. The recently developed strategic plan for the IEA has identified three broad areas
of focus:
From the Editor
decent website with plenty of materials and options
by this summer. By the way, anyone familiar with
“WordPress” (a website design program) who understands what is needed and wants a temporary or part
time job, please call me.
All valid subscriptions will be extended by 4
months to make up for missed issues. I may give
Attention Subscribers
Please read the Notice in the
Editorial about Subscriptions
2
t Supporting a global Enneagram learning community;
t*NQSPWJOHFĊFDUJWFHPWFSOBODFQSBDUJDFTGPSUIF
(and counting) country affiliates and the organization as a whole; and
t1SPNPUJOHCSPBEFSBXBSFOFTTPGUIF&OOFBHSBN
Specific initiatives include upgrading the website
and “Nine Points Magazine,” producing the 2011
“Enneagram Journal,” establishing a publishing imprint, and improving the accreditation program.
More to Carl’s point: As I’ve talked to members
and affiliate heads around the world over the past year
or so about the IEA’s future, one word comes up more
than any other: “research.” The IEA does not have the
resources or requisite skills for conducting research
but we are forming a research task group to aggregate
research, put researchers in touch with each other, and
educate people about the research being done in the
field. So if you are doing research or know of someone
who is, please let us know. We may be some distance
yet from having the capacity to form an International
Center for Enneagram Studies as Carl suggests, but
this could be a step in that direction.
The members of the IEA board of directors are
all volunteers who dedicate time and energy to doing
what they can to move the community closer to the
IEA’s stated vision: a world where the Enneagram is
widely understood and constructively used. We want
to hear from the community, and encourage all our
members to do what Carl did and let us know their
hopes, dreams, and concerns for the organization. We
also appreciate your continued support and participation as we move steadily toward the world described
in the vision. We encourage you to join in the work
of the IEA at the local, regional, and/or international
level.
I look forward to seeing all of EM’s readers in July
at the 2011 International Conference in Ft Lauderdale.
Mario Sikora
President, IEA Board of Directors
myself another month of leeway to skip an issue
if it becomes absolutely necessary for completing
this project.
Meanwhile, we at the EM would really appreciate new articles, letters, commentaries and
such. If you have written your thoughts down or
are planning to, all contributions would be appreciated. The EM is an open forum for ideas and opinions
related to insights about human nature, personality
traits, theoretic musings and practical applications.
The article can be short, long or in-between. If you
feel you need some assistance editing, if we like your
ideas, that can be arranged too.
In this Issue:
Paya Naderi is combining several classic personality tools and testing how they could operate in connection with the enneagram. “Enneatemps — The
Four Temperaments and Enneagram Types: Understanding the System (Part 1)” is exploring interesting correlations between the four Hippocratic temperaments and
April 2011
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Volume 17, Number 1, Issue 176
Enneagram Monthly
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The Enneagram Monthly, Inc. was founded by Jack Labanauskas and
Andrea Isaacs as a not-for-profit corporation. Its purpose is to gather and
disseminate information in the field of the Enneagram, that is most commonly known as a personality typing system.
For subscription and advertising rates see back cover.
contents
Enneatemps: The Four Temperaments and Enneagram Types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paya Naderi 1
Understanding the System (part 1)
Unlocking the Geometry of the Enneagram: How and Why Opposite . . . . . . . . . . Susan Rhodes 1
Types are Look-alikes
Letters: A response from IEA President to Carl Marsak’s Open Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . Mario Sikora 2
From the Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jack Labanauskas 2
Falling Into the Looking Glass: The Perils and Pitfalls of Teaching the . . . . . . . . . . . Carl Marsak 4
Enneagram to Young People
Envy in the Workplace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lee Kingma 6
To App or not to App the Enneagram – That’s the Question . . . . . . . . . . .Ginger Lapid-Bogda 8
Is Ramon Llull the “True” or “First” Father of the Enneagram? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arthur Kranz 10
Doing My Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Susan Olesek 12
The Twelve Steps, the Enneagram and Contemplative Prayer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Tallon 15
Teacher’s Listing/Subscription Forms and Ad Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23&24
Visit our web site! www.ennea.org with the updated Index by Author 1995 - 2007 and Index by Subject 1995 - 2007
also paying attention to the system of hot/cold wet/dry
that, if memory serves me, is at the root of a highly effective medicine/diagnostic system used in ancient Persia
and is surely a cousin of the Chinese Yin/Yang. It’s always
interesting to see possible connections between the enneagram and other systems for looking at differences in
temperaments.
Susan Rhodes’ “Unlocking the Geometry of the
Enneagram: How and Why Opposite Types are Lookalikes” explores the interesting phenomenon of lookalike types—in this case, look-alikes that are opposite of
one another on the enneagram circle. Others have made
similar observations about opposite types in the past, but
Susan takes the exploration a step further, discussing not
only ways in which opposite types appear to connect to
one another, but what factors account for this connection. She offers two approaches for exploring the opposites, the first of which is highlighted in this issue—stay
tuned for the second approach in next month’s EM.
Carl Marsak warns us to beware from “Falling Into the Looking Glass: The Perils and Pitfalls
of Teaching the Enneagram to Younger People.” He
points out the need to be mindful that just because
we believe a system to be noble, deep, true or superior, that does not automatically mean it will be used
in an ideal way—especially by the young. History is
replete with examples of good ideas that started out
with the best of intentions ending up causing a lot of
damage. Having said that, we can also argue that being young and innocent, we are less likely to be jaded
or cynical and more receptive to recognize common
sense. It would be interesting to test Carl’s theory and
compile some data based on the experience of many
teachers who had young students learn about the en-
enneagram monthly
April 2011
neagram. Your feedback would be appreciated. It can
be short, just a few sentences or two...
Lee Kingma has a thing or two to say about “Envy
in the Workplace.” Her extensive observations during
years as a HR professional dealing with many companies, teams and employees showed her that envy
is universal. Every type is affected by it, albeit in a
somewhat different manner. Of course the rare saints
are excluded. Lee has also some suggestions of how
to neutralize the corrosive influence of envy among
colleagues. Knowing the personality type is useful in
pointing out in a more specific way what may work.
“To App or not to App the Enneagram, That is
the Question”: We are in virgin territory here at the
cutting edge of technology and Ginger Lapid-Bogda
is as usual among the pioneers breaking new ground.
All new platforms are viewed with suspicion at first. I
remember my early childhood in grammar school (in
Europe) when we were not allowed to use ball point
pens, it had to be a fountain pen. Don’t you know, it
would ruin our hand writing! Calligraphy was considered as important as the contents of writing. Decades
later, this seems like a quaint idea and we learned to
be perfectly happy tapping on keyboards and tolerating the scrawl that passes for handwriting today.
Speaking of innovative pioneers, we might as well
mention one of the inventors of the computer, Ramon Llull, who was at the cutting edge of technology in the late 13th century. Arthur Kranz asks the
question: “Is Ramon Llull the ‘True’ or ‘First’ Father
of the Enneagram of Personality?” Applying the principle that standing on the shoulders of giants even
dwarfs may see further, Arthur makes a good case for
giving credit to Ramon Lull for having connected
the passions and the nine pointed diagram. A lot has
been added since, as we know, but it’s always good to
remember what the greats of past eras were doing in
their time.
And speaking of time, “Doing My Time” is about
Susan Olesek teaching the enneagram to prison inmates that have signed up to P.E.P. (Prison Entrepreneurship Program). Well, in this case we could say
that there is a relationship between the enneagram
and “being in a box,” but not a box of the enneagram’s making... rather, these prisoners are using the
enneagram quite nicely to prepare themselves for a
better life once they are free to get “out of the box.”
Staying with the theme of being trapped in some
way or others, Robert Tallon speaks of a good antidote to free ourselves from self-induced dependencies: “The Twelve Steps, the Enneagram and Contemplative Prayer.” Although I’m a believer in the value of
personal commitment and effort I have to agree that
it can only help to a point, especially if we battle addictions of various kinds. Addiction seems the closest
thing to a force resembling perpetual motion. Like
the force of gravity always present when we lose our
foothold, ready to make us fall—unless we have an
external something or other to grab and hold onto
until we’re steady again. The Twelve Step program,
seems rather unsophisticated, but is unmatched in
its effectiveness. The enneagram does not suffer from
lack of sophistication and can be equally effective.
Can’t say that I have any insights into Contemplative
Prayer, but if it’s anything like meditation, it will play
the role of oxygen in what we breathe.
3
Falling Into the Looking Glass
The Perils and Pitfalls of Teaching the Enneagram to Younger People
T
he majority of students and clients in my
Enneagram workshops, presentations, study
groups and counseling sessions are between
thirty-five and sixty years of age—right in the middle of the chronological Bell Curve. However, more
and more precocious young people under the age of
thirty, often children of spiritually aware parents, are
attending Enneagram events, and I have begun to notice potential problems, even dangers, arising in and
for these students. Before I explicate what I see as the
three major issues I want to begin with a recent case
history from my own teaching files. For purposes
of confidentiality, the name and many of the details
have been changed.
Jennifer, a bright, attractive and vivacious 25 yr. old
is from a small town in Oregon. She graduated from
high school and then tried to fit in at a mainstream
college in California. Having been raised by highly
intelligent, well educated, and spiritually aspiring parents of the 1960s generation she was unsatisfied with
mainstream academia’s offerings, and ended up at a
well-known, alternative, and spiritually-oriented institution east of the Rockies. There she encountered
many spiritual traditions and practices, including
Buddhism and the Enneagram. Jennifer graduated
and, like many young people in this economy, returned home not knowing what to do next. Because
I was teaching the Enneagram in the local area she
became acquainted more deeply with the system and
easily typed herself. She studied several Enneagram
books, sat on type panels at a couple of workshops,
and joined a monthly study group. Yet as the months
and years passed she had increasing difficulty finding
a stable work situation, a place to live away from her
parent’s home, and an appropriate relationship.
More importantly, knowledge of the Enneagram
seemed only to contribute to heightened self-consciousness and an inflated subjectivity, mood-swings
and emotional outbursts, and the tendency to psychologize and over-analyze almost every situation
that personally affected her. Eventually, I strongly
suggested to Jennifer that she refrain from further
Enneagram study for at least several months, perhaps for several years. I recommended that instead
she simply get out into the world of love and work
and get some actual life experiences under her belt
before she continued on her type-specific journey of
self-observation and self-remembering. This was the
first time in my nearly fifteen years of public teaching
that I had felt compelled to do this with a student or
client, but I have a feeling it will not be the last. So
what’s up here? In the words of newscaster Anderson
Cooper, “Let’s dig a little deeper!”
Recently, I serendipitously came across a passage
in a book by archetypal psychologist James Hillman
called The Force of Character and the Lasting Life, one
that speaks about this potential peril of the path:
Memoirs, autobiography, and the deep investigations of long term psychoanalysis probably
shouldn’t be touched before sixty. Yet kids
in high school are asked to write about their
memorable experiences and extract a lesson
learned. Their therapies review their childhoods, which ended scarcely five years prior;
4
Carl Marsak
their bull sessions and chat rooms focus on
family difficulties and influences. Premature
life review produces inflated subjectivity, not
character, the empowerment of one more big
fat “me” graduating from high school into a
world that, already crowded with expanded
egos, rather needs the modesty and reticence of
the apprentice embarking on an adventure (p.
91, italics mine).
Bearing this in mind, it would seem that Enneagram teachers need to employ skillful means in our instruction to the under-thirty crowd. We need to know
when self-observation coupled with knowledge of type
is truly useful to our student or client, and when it is
developmentally inappropriate and potentially detrimental to the evolving soul. In my experience, younger people can use the Enneagram in three non-skillful
ways that roughly correlate to the physical/social, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of life.
Enneagram teachers need to employ skillful means in our instruction to the underthirty crowd.
Peril #1: The first peril has to do with using study
and practice of the Enneagram in order to consciously or unconsciously avoid engaging in normal, age appropriate, tasks and goals. To give a simple example,
a college student might need to study for her final
exams or the GRE, but instead is so taken with the
Enneagram system and its depth, power, and beauty
that instead she reads Enneagram books, and is busy
processing herself and others. She writes about her
insights in her journal, talks incessantly about the
wonders of the system with her friends over meals,
in the car, at the gym, and on her walks. She tries to
type her best friend, her parents, and even some of
her teachers. Perhaps the young woman signs up for
an Enneagram workshop on her Spring Break rather
than spending time building her relationship with
her new, and first real boyfriend. More significantly,
she begins to view people and situations only through
the lens of the nine types and their issues, thereby diminishing rather than augmenting her ability to appreciate and navigate through the complexities of life.
The reader can no doubt come up with numerous
possible examples of this kind of behavior.
To personalize this discussion, I myself did something similar over thirty years ago with Transcendental Meditation, which I encountered at age seventeen
in my final year of high school. I spent my college
years at the University of California meditating,
studying spiritual texts, and experiencing numerous
altered, even ecstatic states of consciousness. Unfortunately, being young, overly enthusiastic, and rather
unbalanced I also avoided many daily activities that
would have helped me to stay connected to and in
sync with my own cohort, emotionally, socially and
vocationally.
Peril #2: A second and related possibility has to do
with the psychological phenomenonon now known
as “spiritual bypassing.” In what I consider to be an
important essay for Enneagram teachers and students,
“Embodying Your Realization: Psychological work in
the Service of Spiritual Development” transpersonal
psychologist John Welwood writes that:
Spiritual practice involves freeing consciousness from its entanglement in form, matter,
emotions, personality, and social conditioning.
In a society like ours, where the whole earthly
foundation is weak to begin with, it is tempting to use spirituality as a way of trying to rise
above this shaky ground. In this way, spirituality
becomes just another way of rejecting one’s experience. When people use spiritual practice to try
to compensate for low self-esteem, social alienation, or emotional problems, they corrupt the
true nature of spiritual practice. Instead of loosening the manipulative ego that tries to control
its experience, they are further strengthening
it. Spiritual bypassing is a strong temptation in
times like ours when achieving what were once
ordinary developmental landmarks—earning a
livelihood through dignified, meaningful work,
raising a family, sustaining a long-term intimate
relationship, belonging to a larger social community — has become increasingly difficult and elusive. Yet when people use spirituality to cover
up their difficulties with functioning in the
modern world, their spiritual practice remains
in a separate compartment, unintegrated with
the rest of their life (p. 1 of online article available at www.johnwelwood.com, italics mine).
All that is required for purposes of the present
argument is to substitute “the Enneagram” for “spiritual practice” and “spirituality” and we can see the
potential perils for younger people in the psychological arena. Since the Enneagram is primarily a
map and guide for spiritual work and growth, we can
see how a younger student with little life experience
and wisdom, weak ego strength, and a strong and
generally unconscious identification with his type
structure, could misuse knowledge of type and, more
fundamentally, misunderstand the meaning and purpose of the system as a whole. This is especially likely
to happen if he is studying the Enneagram primarily through books and discussions with peers. The
person may be trying to grow spiritually, but in reality is unconsciously avoiding psychological issues.
Ironically, this usually leads to spinning around and
around at the psychological level polishing, or worse,
elaborating and embellishing, the ego with its false
identity, separate sense of self, and self-referencing
and defensive behaviors. All of this is at the expense
of genuine spiritual growth, with its potential for
both self-transcendence and self-actualization.
Another and related occurrence is that the student will use a superficial knowledge of type to justify type-related attitudes and behaviors. This usually
involves an unconscious collusion between a person’s
defense mechanism and his or her passion and fixation. So for example, a Two’s repression of personal
needs conjoins with his pride and tendency to flat-
April 2011
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ter, and this keeps the false self identification firmly
locked into place. This dynamic can occur of course
at any age, and I am neither saying nor implying that
every younger student is necessarily more susceptible
than his or her elders to this form of entrapment and
endarkenment. However, in my experience it is more
common for people under thirty to have trouble staying out of this self-limiting and neurotic scenario.
Peril #3: The final concern is harder to discuss,
but may at the end of the day be the most important
one to bring to light and keep in mind when working with younger people, especially since so little
has been written on this topic. The Enneagram has
sometimes been called “God’s Wisdom Mirror,” and
for good reason. It has the potential to reflect back
to those who dare look deeply into her depths not
only the light, pleasurable and “spiritual” sides of life,
but also the dark, painful and “evil” parts of the individual and society. In Jungian terms, with continued
study we are eventually invited to explore the repressed contents of both our psyche and the Cosmos
— in other words our personal shadow and, on rare
occasions, the collective unconscious. The latter is an
especially challenging and potentially risky venture,
one that takes at any age enormous strength, courage,
discernment and skillful means, and one that not everyone is cut out for, especially earlier in life. By
most accounts even the great C. G. Jung was lucky
to have emerged from his encounters with the archetypes of the collective unconscious with his health
and sanity intact—and he began his personal crisis in
his late thirties. “Shadow work” is particularly tricky
because it operates at the intersection of psychology
and spirituality and, once conscious, always contains
implicit moral demands. To make matters worse
from the perspective of the young and inexperienced
persona, it also can be an entry point into awareness
of the collective unconscious with its positive and
negative, or light and dark archetypes. For those not
that familiar with the concept, the following lines are
from the Wikipedia entry for Shadow (Psychology):
The shadow personifies everything that the
subject refuses to acknowledge about himself,
and represents ‘a tight passage, a narrow door,
whose painful constriction no one is spared
who goes down to the deep well.’ If and when
an individual makes an attempt to see his [personal]shadow, he becomes aware of (and often
ashamed of ) those qualities and impulses he
denies in himself but can plainly see in others — such things as egotism, mental laziness,
and sloppiness; unreal fantasies, schemes, and
plots; carelessness and cowardice; inordinate
love of money and possessions — [and the
need for a] painful and lengthy work of selfeducation.
The shadow may appear in dreams and visions in various forms… The shadow’s appear-
ance and role depend greatly on the living
experience of the individual, because much of
the shadow develops in the individual’s mind
rather than simply being inherited in the collective unconscious. Nevertheless some Jungians
maintain that the shadow... contains, besides the
personal shadow, the shadow of society ... fed by
the neglected and repressed collective values…
Jung also made the suggestion of there be-
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April 2011
ing more than one layer making up the shadow.
The top layers contain the meaningful flow and
manifestations of direct personal experiences.
These are made unconscious in the individual
by such things as the change of attention from
one thing to another, simple forgetfulness, or
a repression. Underneath these idiosyncratic
layers, however, are the archetypes which
form the psychic contents of all human experiences. Jung described this deeper layer as ‘a
psychic activity which goes on independently
of the conscious mind and is not dependent
even on the upper layers of the unconscious—
untouched, and perhaps untouchable—by
personal experience.’ This bottom layer of the
shadow is also what Jung referred to as the collective unconscious.
The encounter with the shadow plays a central
part in the process of individuation. Jung considered that ‘the course of individuation...exhibits a certain formal regularity. Its signposts
and milestones are various archetypal symbols
marking its stages; and of these “the first stage
leads to the experience of the SHADOW.’ ‘If
‘the breakdown of the persona constitutes the
typical Jungian moment both in therapy and
in development’ it is this which opens the road
to the shadow within, coming about when
‘Beneath the surface a person is suffering from
a deadly boredom that makes everything seem
meaningless and empty ... as if the initial encounter with the Self casts a dark shadow ahead
of time.’ The dissolution of the persona and the
launch of the individuation process also brings
with it the danger of falling victim to the shadow
... the black shadow which everybody carries with
him, the inferior and therefore hidden aspect of
the personality… of a merger with the shadow.
According to Jung, the shadow sometimes
overwhelms a person’s actions; for example,
when the conscious mind is shocked, confused, or paralyzed by indecision. ‘A man who
is possessed by his shadow is always standing
in his own light and falling into his own traps
... living below his own level.’
Individuation inevitably raises that very
possibility. As the process continues, and
‘the libido leaves the bright upper world ...
sinks back into its own depths...below, in
the shadows of the unconscious,’ so too what
comes to the forefront is ‘what was hidden under the mask of conventional adaptation: the
shadow,’ with the result that ‘ego and shadow
are no longer divided but are brought together
in an — admittedly precarious — unity.’
(edited, with references removed, italics mine).
An important point to note is that although each
journey of individuation is lived out uniquely according to the individual’s biography, constitution and
current needs, it also has recognizable stages, and that
“the encounter with the shadow plays a central part
in the process of individuation.” Traditionally this encounter occurred most frequently sometime between
the ages of thirty-five and fifty. But as I mentioned at
the beginning of this article, this may now be changing, at least in certain sectors of our population, which
may lead to certain problems. For as the Hobbits in
Middle-Earth learned to their chagrin and near demise, dark places and forces truly exist out there in
the wider world, and the guidance and protection of
elders (in their case the elves, good wizards, and wise
men and women) is often necessary to survive the
external and internal upheavals of circumstances and
consciousness.
“Shadow work” is particularly tricky because it operates at the intersection
of psychology and spirituality and, once
conscious, always contains implicit moral
demands.
It may seem to some irrational, even a bit paranoid, to be so concerned about the collective unconscious when working with the Enneagram, but I have
witnessed even older students at a certain stage of
their spiritual journey begin to naturally and spontaneously see into and experience the negative, painful,
or dark sides of not only their own psyche, but also of
society and life in general. This state can easily lead
to psychological states such as depression, cynicism,
ennui, and paranoia.
To put this in theological terms, it is possible with
deep and sustained practice to have powerful experiences of what Christians call the “fallen state of the
world,” and Kabbalists “the shattering and brokenness of the Cosmos.” The ethical response to this, at
least in the Kabbalistic tradition, has been to engage
in tikkun olam, the conscious and heartfelt reparation of self and the world. This task, however, was
not generally enjoined upon people under the age of
thirty-five or forty. Students were not introduced to
higher spiritual study, such as Kabbalah with its “Tree
of Life,” until much later in their path of development. Rather, they were expected to study ethics and
whatever life skills they needed to acquire in order
to earn a living and start a family. To do otherwise
could conceivably lead to some combination of all
three potential perils and pitfalls. If nothing else, a
premature encounter with the dark half of existence
could rob a younger person of the naivete necessary
to enter the wider world with openness, curiosity and
courage.
By way of conclusion let me say that Jennifer, the
young woman mentioned in the case study above, is
now employed part-time, in a stable relationship, and
living away from home in a nearby city. These days
she is holding her process gently and with more compassion, and loving herself more tenderly. After taking a break from workshops and study groups, from
intense self-observation and self-analysis, Jennifer is
now back on track building a life for herself in her
mid-twenties. I have faith that her soul will know
when she is ready to move forward in slower, safer
BOEMFTTESBNBUJDXBZT t
Comments welcome: [email protected]
5
T
Envy in the Workplace
hou shalt not covet thy neighbors’ salary, title,
office location, parking spot, company car, relationship with manager…and so the list can
continue. Envy is not the exclusive domain of Type
4. In my experience as HR executive I have observed
all the Types demonstrating envy, albeit in different
ways.
Envy is a huge challenge for HR professionals. It
often shows up as our own failure to ensure that equity prevails in the workplace. Identifying with Type 3,
this is an uncomfortable place for me and I have thus
sought guidance from the Enneagram in finding ways
to understand the motivations for envy and to seek
strategies to minimize the damaging effects of envy.
It is not possible to eliminate envy from the workplace as it is the manifestation of human beings to
seek, grasp and attain what others have. Only when
a person is completely enlightened will the need to
have what others enjoy become obsolete. The enlightened are satisfied with what life offers in the moment
and have the ability to appreciate and celebrate ‘the
universe in a dandelion.’ It is seldom that such souls
are employed in the average commercial entity and
thus we have to seek ways to deal with envy and its
toxic results.
The enlightened are satisfied with what
life offers in the moment and have the
ability to appreciate and celebrate ‘the
universe in a dandelion.’ It is seldom that
such souls are employed in the average
commercial entity and thus we have to
seek ways to deal with envy and its toxic
results.
However, there is a step before enlightenment
which can diminish the prevalence of envy. When
people feel valued and reap satisfaction from their
work, they should be at least grateful for what they
enjoy and in these days of high retrenchment – have
gratitude for stable employment. When we are in a
place of gratitude this eliminates thoughts of envy as
we come to appreciation for what is and not what is
missing.
The roots of envy lie in sibling rivalry which shows
up when young children fight over their position in
the mother’s lap and each others’ toys. These early
childhood emotions often grow into adulthood dysfunctional emotions. This is demonstrated in poor
relationships between siblings who despise the success
of another or the perceived favoritism of a parent.
These feelings can turn very ugly as parents become
elderly and may even turn into conflict over inheritances. This is the stuff passed onto generations and
has been well defined in the work done in healing
family constellations.
But let’s get back to the workplace. Transactional
analysis models demonstrate how employees take on
6
Lee Kingma
parent and child roles and only those who reach a
high level of awareness make it to the level of behaving like self correcting and self generating adults. The
‘children’ at work thus bring their unresolved sibling
rivalry to work in their laptop bags and hearts - and
It is the domain of the HR professional’s
responsibility to diagnose and implement
solutions to pockets of negative attitudes, which ultimately affect the organization’s profitability and sustainability.
this is what creates much of the unhappiness. Neither gets left in the parking lot. These feelings often
fester as unspoken emotions which in turn lead to
stress and illness. Others will vent envy as gossip
which may translate to conflict and even dismissals.
Consultants and business authors have created
some sexy models of totally flat structures and equal
pay scales. These theories are however steeped in idealism and the reality is that there will always be some
rank structure; some positions will attract more compensation than others. The net result is that while we
live in a capitalistic world there will be plenty of fodder to feed envy.
It is the domain of the HR professional’s responsibility to diagnose and implement solutions to such
pockets of negative attitudes, which ultimately affect
the organization’s profitability and sustainability. I
have identified envy in people at work based on Enneagram typology as follows:
Type One:
They become envious about what they perceive as
unfair. This could involve someone earning more than
them or losing out on a promotion which they believe was rightfully their opportunity. Their response
to envy may be demonstrated as direct bursts of anger
but is more likely to be shared with colleagues than
the authority figures seen as the cause of their moral
outrage.
Type Two:
Envy is usually based on their perceived views of
favoritism of the manager. They may believe that the
manager is giving more attention to another team
member or they have been ignored in a discussion.
Type Twos who are image obsessed will complement
others on their finery but will secretly covet the others snappy suit or hairstyle. If they are not invited to
lunch they will sulk as they are challenged in voicing
their grievances.
Type Three:
Envy translates to competition for Type Threes.
Their juice is to be in the limelight and to be recognized for their achievements. When they think others are accomplishing more, they will push themselves
harder or even resort to finding devious ways to beat
the system. They will ensure that they drive the most
stylish car and dress to impress.
Type Four:
Envy is often internalized as the Fours become
more moody and depressed. If they feel slighted due
to an unfair company policy they can hold a grudge
for years. They will express their feelings and will find
a seemingly diplomatic way to meet the CEO who
will need to be patient and hear their lengthy lament.
If they are ignored they will become morose and will
find ways to break the rules under the radar – undetected by their manager but often most damaging to
themselves.
Type Five:
It is surprising how long type Fives can harbor
grudges of perceived unfairness. They will seldom
push back directly on authority to voice their dissatisfaction. Instead they will spend much energy, which
ironically they mean to preserve, pondering about the
facts which lead to the state of unfairness. If invited
to give their opinion, they will do so in a structured
and unemotional way, provided the manager is sufficiently open to respectful opposition.
Type Six:
Type Sixes have a strong inner code of how everyone should be treated the same. They will become
emotionally reactive if their belief of ‘equal is fair’ has
been violated. They will seldom be direct in expressing their feelings but want to discuss their views with
others who are part of their trusted circle. The intention is to rally support for their cause and they will
often use the plural ‘we’ in expressing a view, which
after probing turns out to be their own projected feelings of envy.
One needs to have a sober view of how
base feelings show up in order to implement strategies to alleviate the effects
on the collective group.
Type Seven:
Type Sevens are quite breezy about demonstrating envy. They will often joke about what seems
out of their reach or plan to level the playing field
by building relationship playing golf with customers
and having extended lunch dates. They can become
more directly assertive if they believe that they are
consistently missing out on what their colleagues are
enjoying and will express their anger in a burst of
emotion.
Type Eight:
They will not admit to envy and will argue that
their only motive is fairness. They do not want to be
placated in any way and will be fierce about earning
their position and compensation. Others often envy
their strength and fortitude and they are either feared
April 2011
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or respected for their strong leadership and outspokenness. If they are envious of others, they will find a
way to usurp their position or they will simply leave
the organization.
Type Nine:
I confess that in my first draft I left them out! My
only conclusion is that I believe that if they feel envy
they hide it very well. It is more a longing for what
others might have and what they might be missing
out on. They do not typically show behaviors that appear openly as conflictual – and
if their envy comes out as passive aggressive
it is not easy to detect. Nines often aspire
to achieve their full potential by emulating
a role model, and that would not translate
to envy.
Envy is not a pretty emotion and I
apologize for the torpid illustrations.
However, one needs to have a sober view
of how base feelings show up in order to
implement strategies to alleviate the effects on the collective group. The extent to
which these feelings show up as negative
influences will depend on the individual
emotional intelligence and this we know
is based on the gifts of nature, nurturing
and willingness to grow our EQ. I have
identified the following HR interventions
which can lessen the negative effects of
workplace envy.
t $SFBUF BOE IBWF SPCVTU DPNNVOJDBtion of organizational values.
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values.
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are current and communicated.
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ensure that people understand the fairness
of the ethos and managers are able to deal
with the complexities.
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which is transparent and acts as a guide to
ensure fair remuneration.
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your competitors and pitch your salaries at
the higher quartile.
t$POEVDUBOOVBMDMJNBUFTVSWFZTXIJDI
indicate the motivation levels of your workforce.
t " DSFEJCMF HSJFWBODF QSPDFEVSF XJMM
encourage employees to air genuine issues
which need attention.
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coaching is essential to cultivate a mindful
leadership culture.
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never be ignored. Listen to the conflicting
voices, reflect on the issues raised, discuss
with the executive team and formulate the
best action plans.
t5PYJDFOWZTIPVMEOPUCFJHOPSFEBTJU
has the effect of making the entire team despondent and unproductive. If after counseling and support the behavior remains
enneagram monthly
April 2011
destructive, implement a formal plan which may lead
to dismissal if the behavior does not change.
The most important strategy in dealing with
workplace envy is to ensure that an ethos of open and
honest communication prevails which will encourage
people to express their feelings before they are allowed
to fester into unhappiness.
Lee Kingma has been a human resources executive for most of her professional life. She completed
an in-depth study on the Enneagram with best-selling
Enneagram authors Don Riso and Russ Hudson and
wrote her doctoral thesis on the Enneagram, dealing with subliminal conflict in the workplace. She
has presented papers on her thesis both locally and
abroad. Her book What’s your Tribe is available on
XXXBNB[PODPN
t
7
I
To App or Not to App the Enneagram:
That is the Question
s an Enneagram App for smartphones controversial? Yes, of course it is, although it wasn’t clear to
me that this would be the case until I launched
Know Your Type, my new Enneagram iPhone App this
past January. What is the controversy about? How
big is the issue?
Let me start by saying that I don’t know how big or
widespread the issue is; I’m not hearing much about
it. However, I am hearing bits and pieces, enough to
surprise me and cause me to reflect. Let me start with
the main issue, as I understand it, then describe Know
Your Type in more detail.
The Main Issue: A belief among some people that
the integrity of the Enneagram is compromised when it
is widely disseminated, particularly through pop culture
platforms such as Apps
Dissemination of the Enneagram is a longstanding
issue within Enneagram circles. Because it was considered a sacred system by the “original” 20th century
Enneagram teachers and those who followed them –
for example, Gurdjieff, Ichazo, and in his earlier days,
Naranjo – their “students” were not allowed to share
their learning – orally or in writing – with others, and
there were valid reasons for this. The 20th century
8
Ginger Lapid-Bogda
Enneagram was emerging, although the system itself
was ancient, and our understanding of it was evolving. The original teachers wanted people to learn
the Enneagram deeply and fully in these exploratory
stages. Were there additional reasons for holding the
information closely? Most likely, but I am not privy
to the internal dynamics during this time period.
Beginning with the first books in1980’s;
one barrier to the Enneagram’s more widespread dissemination was broken, then
came the Internet. Today, there is Enneagram information everywhere on the web,
But then there were books beginning in the 1980’s;
one barrier to the Enneagram’s more widespread dissemination broken (including a very painful lawsuit
that included serious copyright issues, but eventually
allowed even more Enneagram books to be written).
Are there good books (accurate and useful) and not-
good books (inaccurate, judgmental, and harmful)?
Yes, of course, there are both, as well as books in between. But what can be done about it, other than to
not buy the not-good ones and to support the writing
of really good new ones?
And then came the Internet. By the 1990’s, the
Enneagram became electronic, and today, there is
Enneagram information everywhere on the web.
Google the word Enneagram, and you’ll find almost
1.2 million references. Enneagram websites abound,
and there are places for eLearning; accredited and
non-accredited online courses; teleconferences; webinars; online Enneagram typing tests; and more. Another platform; more Enneagram dissemination. Are
there good and not-so-good online avenues for learning about the Enneagram, just as there are books?
Obviously! What can we do about this? Not much,
except fill the Internet with high quality Enneagram
information.
And now there are Apps, with many more people
learning from their smartphones and electronic tablets every day, and it’s not just younger people. Apps
are simply one more platform for communication in
what is now called The Information Age. And yes,
there are good Apps and not-good Enneagram Apps
April 2011
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out there. The Enneagram Institute has had the short
and long forms of the RHETI as Apps for several
years. And yes, there are other Enneagram Apps (all
that preceded mine) through the iTunes store, many
of which are not nearly as good quality as the RHETI,
but this is public domain territory. There is no quality
committee to decide and enforce a good versus notgood App policy, but this is also true for websites,
books and, yes, Enneagram teachers.
But what is an App, really? What we hear about
is Apps like Angry Birds that sell millions and are
games and diversions. But Apps are just technological platforms, very much like computers, that can do
a variety of things, games being only one of them.
Some Apps are quite complex, have many layers, and
do wonderful things. Apps can be many things: silly,
entertaining, useful, informative, simplistic, or complex. An App is simply technology. Whether they are
“games” or not depends on their content.
Perhaps the underlying question is this: Should
the Enneagram be in the public domain and how do
we deal with the quality issues involved? The problem
or opportunity is that the Enneagram is already in
the public domain, and there is ambivalence about
this. We want the Enneagram to be available as a
way to heal ourselves and heal the planet! But we
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April 2011
want it done with quality and integrity. This is our
paradox.
What’s actually in Know Your Type
Know Your Type has almost 100,000 words, the
equivalent of 2 books, but is set in an architecture
that makes all the information readily accessible. In
And now there are Apps, with many more
people learning from their smartphones
and electronic tablets every day, and it’s
not just younger people.
other words, you don’t have to thumb through pages
to find what you need. Know Your Type has theory;
type interactions; ways to reduce stress; a typing process that is interactive (my typing cards used in animated form and really fun to do); short videos of actual people that make the types real; a way of testing
your Enneagram knowledge in a variety of situations
at home and at work; and more.
But I’ll let two Enneagram teachers I respect speak
for themselves about the App, plus you can read a
review from an independent App review site.
From Peter O’Hanrahan’s review: “To my eyes,
it’s much more than an ‘app’ - it’s a smart and handy
electronic handbook combining compelling content
with colorful graphics and video.”
From Lynette Sheppard’s review: “For $2.99,
you can discover your type, learn self-development
strategies, manage inter-type conflict, and so much
more. The interface is clean and easy to navigate.
There are even videos of each of the nine types explaining personality from the inside.”
From AppSafari.com’s review: “Know Your Type
is a highly informative app that does what it sets out
to do, and then blows it out of the water. A great
buy at just $2.99, so if you’re into self-discovery and
betterment, then it should be on your device right
OPXw t
__________
Ginger Lapid-Bogda, Ph.D., is an organization
consultant, coach, and trainer; author of three bestselling Enneagram-business books; and provider of
Train-the-Trainer and Coaching certificate programs,
as well as Enneagram training tools for use in a variety of settings. TheEnneagraminBusiness.com
9
I
Is Ramon Llull the “True” or “First”
Father of the Enneagram of Personality?
s Ramon Llull the “true” or “first” father of the Enneagram of Personality? A Medieval philosopher,
mathematician and religious enthusiast, Llull’s
ideas and models precede the strikingly similar fundamental contributions of Dr. Oscar Ichazo. Ichazo
is clearly the “modern” father of the Enneagram and
made seminal and significant contributions to personal psychology and Enneagram theory. However,
Ichazo has given precious little historical references in
his work, but was he the first to have organized the nine
virtues, vices/passions and holy ideas and applied them
to an Enneagram symbol? Or, Like Sir Isaac Newton,
hasn’t Ichazo seen a little further by standing on the
shoulders of Giants?
Arthur Kranz
lated into English, his nine vices are the common
terms used in Enneagram studies for the passions or
vices: Anger, Envy, Pride, Lust, Avarice, Gluttony,
Sloth, Lying (deceit), and Inconstancy (faithlessness
or lack of loyalty). See Llull’s Enneagram-like diagrams below.5 & 6
day which we now closely associate with personality
types. The term “inconstancy” is the only one of his
nine terms that a modern reader would not easily recognize as being related to the Enneagram. The term
describes a lack of faith or loyalty, which relates well
to “The Loyalist” and the traditional Christian teaching that Faith banishes Fear.
A Medieval philosopher, mathematician
and religious enthusiast, Llull’s ideas and
models precede the strikingly similar
fundamental contributions of Dr. Oscar
Ichazo.
Ramon Llull was born in 1232, into a wealthy
and politically connected family in Palma, the capital
city of the Kingdom of Majorca (island off Spain).
Well educated, privileged and brilliant, Llull was a
distinguished scholar of the 13th Century in the fields
of mathematics, theology, poetry and philosophy. He
wrote in Catalan, but was also fluent in Arabic and
Latin.1 & 2
Llull had a deep passion for discovering truth and
is credited with inventing the first “logical machines.”
These logical machines were a primitive calculator or
computer designed to support his extensive writings
by demonstrating “the art of finding truth” (ars inveniendi veritatis). These machines usually consisted
of two circular paper or wooden disks inscribed with
numbers, symbols, or abbreviations around the full
circumference of the larger outer circle, and then repeated on the smaller inner circle, which could be
rotated around a central fastener to generate an exhaustive number of combinations.3
Today these circular paper instruments are referred to as “Lullian Circles.” The numbers, symbols
or abbreviations represent basic assumed truths or
facts. The resultant combinations were said to show
all possible truths about the subject of the circle and
represented a primitive proof by elimination of all
possible contradictions. “Llull hoped to show that
Christian doctrines could be obtained artificially
from a fixed set of preliminary ideas. For example,
one of the tables listed the attributes of God: goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, will, virtue,
truth and glory.”4
In 1307, Llull published his Ars Brevis (Brief
System). In this work, an Enneagram-like figure is
drawn with nine points clearly presenting nine vices surrounded in a circle. The table below describes
Llull’s nine vices and corresponding nine virtues and
nine “Divine Dignities” (holy ideals). When trans-
10
Llull was committed to dialogue between many of
the spiritual paths or faiths of his day. It is fitting for
a tolerant theologian and brilliant mathematician to
be the father of the Enneagram given its corresponding roots in both of these fields. Through the math
he developed his “logical machines” as a means to
reason through the commonality of differing faiths.
He hoped to engage Christians, Muslims and Jews
in communication based on their mystical universal
beliefs rather then fighting over their religious differences5&6
The above Lullian diagrams and tables with a nine
pointed star surrounded by a large circle containing a
large central upright triangle are associated with Ninefold vices, virtues and holy ideas. Llull’s language and
ideas resemble some of the language used by Ichazo
and his contemporary disciples and their followers to
describe basic concepts in the Enneagram of Personality. (Original Llull diagrams and table from Ars Brevis
by Anthony Bonner can be viewed at http://www.publicacions.ub.edu/ver_indice.asp?archivo=07142.pdf.)7,8 &9
As the science of psychology did not exist in Llull’s
time, it would be unreasonable for us to expect Llull
to describe personality types. However, Llull does
describe vices, virtues and ideals in the terms of his
Llull believed that there is no distinction between
faith and reason. Even the highest mysteries of faith
could be proven or disproven by means of logical
demonstration. A matter of faith would not be considered false because it could not be rationally proven, but only because it could be rationally disproven.
Instead of a contradiction between Science and Religion, he saw the two disciplines playing supporting
roles to each other: “He who relies on faith alone is
like a blind man….” He was an exceptionally modern
thinker for his time with the zeal of a religious martyr and the brilliant rational mind of a scientist and
mathematician.
Controversial though he was, Llull was held in
very high esteem during his life and was referred to
as “Doctor Illuminatus” by his contemporaries as of
the very late 1290’s. Llull underwent beatification by
the Roman Catholic Church after his death in 1315,
but was never canonized to Sainthood due to his increasing unpopularity during the Inquisition. That
his “new age like” teachings were demonized by two
Popes and the Inquisitor General was truly an un-
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fortunate sign of the Dark Age following his death.
In 1376, Pope Gregory XI formally condemned his
work in rationalistic mysticism, though Llull himself
remained in good standing with the Church. The
Inquisitor General, Nicholal Eymerich, formally condemned one hundred of his theories in 1366.2
A matter of faith would not be considered
false because it could not be rationally
proven, but only because it could be rationally disproven.
Llull’s work predates and predicts some elementary Enneagram concepts that are attributed to Ichazo.
Ramon Llull should be recognized as the first writer
to use the terms and symbols associated with passions, vices, virtues and holy ideas and to place them
around a nine pointed diagram surrounded by a large
circle containing a central upright triangle, which I
term the Llullian Enneagram. Ichazo borrowed the
Enneagram diagram from Gurdjieff’s work, however
Gurdjieff did not use any terms, symbols or numbers.
The Ichazo contribution of symbols, terms and numbers to the Gurdjieff Enneagram is largely a synthesis
of Llull’s methods and thinking with the unique diagram of Gurdjieff.
Llull drew upon Jewish, Islamic, Neo-Platonism
and Christian sources for much of his inspiration.
Llull was likely familiar with the teachings of the
Christian monk and ascetic, Evagrius Ponticus (345399 AD). However, Evagrius described only eight (not
nine) evil patterns or passions: gluttony, greed, sloth,
sorrow, lust, anger, vainglory and pride, but with no
associated Enneagram-like diagram. One can easily
see elements of Jewish mysticism and Islamic learning
in Llull’s suppressed and demonized works. As tolerance for Jews and Muslims and their ideas evaporated
during the Inquisition, many of Llull’s theories were
formally condemned by the Church; while a number of his works were buried away and survived that
time.2
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April 2011
In conclusion, Llull’s work had the terms and
symbols associated with the nine points in Enneagram-like figures. He describes, in the terms of his
day, the nine modern passions (vices), as well as corresponding virtues and holy ideas associated with
each of the nine points of the Enneagram. Given
that Llull predates Gurdjieff and Ichazo and that
Gurdjieff’s diagram and Llull’s work appear to provide the basic foundation for Ichazo’s contributions,
Ramon Llull should be recognized as the true Father
of the Enneagram.
[Editor’s Note: See Ichazo’s response below to the
question of origin*]
__________
1. E Michael Gerli, Medieval Iberia: an encyclopedia, Taylor & Francis, (2003), p 511-513
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Llull
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Eymerich
4. Amador Vega, Ramon Llull and the Secret of Life,
Herder & Herder (2003)
5. Anthony Bonner, Ramon Llull: A Contemporary
Life, Tamesis Books (2010)
6. Anthony Bonner, The Art & Logic of Ramon
Llull: A User’s Guide, Brill Academic Publishers
(2007)
7. Ramon Llull, Ars Brevis, Barcelona, Posa I Bru,
1481
8. Anthony Bonner, Doctor Illuminatus, Princeton University Press (1994), p 300-309
9. Asli Serbest & Mona Mahall, Generation of
a Theory of Generative Design With the Help of
Game Theory, Figure 1: The first combinatory
figure (Ramon Llull), (2006) http://www.generativeart.com/on/cic/papersGA2006/45.htm
__________
* Quoting Oscar Ichazo from a conversation with
Jack Labanauskas and Andrea Isaacs (see “Setting the
Record Straight” EM November 1996 page 22):
“In 1943, I inherited my grandfather’s library
from my uncle Julio, who was a lawyer and a philosopher. It was in an ancient text (a medieval
grimoaire) about the Chaldean Seal (enneagram)
where I first came across this diagram which, for
the Chaldeans, was a magical figure. At the same
time, I also found the Chaldean seal (enneagram)
in the books of Ramon Llull, who gives the higher sense of the interrelation between the spheres.
Here Llull is directly influenced by the Sufi theologists, Al-Ghazza–li, Ibn Al-’Ara–bi and even
more by the great mystic Surawa–rdi. There was
also the work of Eliphas Levi, the father of the
revival of Theosophy and Esoterism, his important
book, The Book of Splendors, and his disciple, Papus (Dr. M. Gérard Encausse), who wrote about
Llull’s metaphysical Machine of Thought and the
esoteric tarot. In order not to produce confusion,
it is necessary not to interpret the old theory of the
Pythagorean ten spheres, which were always inscribed as nine (the tenth being the totality or the
result of the nine), with my enneagramatic theory
of Protoanalysis and the doctrine of the Fixations,
which interprets the ten spheres upon a different
philosophical basis in all the realms of cognition.
In 1949, I started reading the work of Ouspensky,
and in 1950 in Buenos Aires, I was invited to a
closed study group of Theosophists, esoteric Rosicrucians, and Martinists, where I participated in
long discussions about the work of Gurdjieff and
Ouspensky. Here is where I first pointed out to
this group that all the ideas proposed by Gurdjieff
and Ouspensky could be traced to certain forms
of Gnosticism and to specific doctrines of the Stoics, the Epicurians, and the Manichaeans. I also
pointed out that we could not find any instructions
in their books on how to apply the Chaldean Seal
(enneagram) and that there were only vague references to music, the days of the week, etc., which
parallel the very ancient notions of the Chaldeans
reinterpreted by Pythagoras and Plato.”
t
11
M
y first steps into a 500 person prison unit
fifteen months ago were full of trepidation,
not at all for my safety, but for the preservation of my integrity. Am I a good enough teacher?
Hello, type One. Ironically, teaching the Enneagram
to inmates, especially within the protective cloister
that my client, the Prison Entrepreneurship Program
(P.E.P.) provides, has proven a far safer setting to develop in my capacity as a facilitator than anything I
could have dreamed up.
A lot of folks are quick to inform me that P.E.P.
isn’t really prison. I guess, in some ways, I’d have to
agree. Although the participants are indeed incar-
cerated, for everything from murder to gang related
crimes, by the time I meet the men who’ve qualified
to be in the classroom, they’ve already done their hard
time, and are serious about getting ready for release.
P.E.P. is serious about helping them meet the free
world with solid self-awareness and a purpose.
To that end, two weeks prior to my recent trip
to prison, the inmates who made up my class navigated their way through ‘Character Assessment’, an
illuminating and systematic ranking of how participants perceive one another. I doubt many of us in the
free world would willingly opt to be surrounded by a
roomful of mirrors this glaringly revealing. Can you
imagine soliciting 82 of your colleagues’ candid feedback as to how they see you? Now consider that you
are to be evaluated based on both your submission to
this scrutinizing process and your willingness to take
their feedback to heart.
Because the program’s overt breaking down of the
men’s sharply honed defenses is done with an explicit
backdrop of positive human regard, those who are really tired of how things have gone in their past, who
desperately want something different, do stay the
course. By the time I arrive, their intentions align
12
Doing My Time
so naturally with how I strive to offer them the Enneagram, that it’s quite a powerful partnering. And,
since I have my own steady growth edge with the pattern of my perfectionistic personality, our co-creation
of a safe space is more than a little fortuitous for me.
first on the Two’s, “The Helpers” and their naturally
emotive, expressive ways to set the bar, inviting others to bring more of themselves to panel work. But
something told me that my attachment to this order
was unnecessary. So, an hour after meeting this class
and past graduates which numbered about a hundred, I was three people deep into the Eight Panel’s
I begin to introduce this remarkable system as a
tool to help them to deconstruct how their personalities have gotten in their way, and they in turn graciously extend the safe haven of P.E.P. to me. I’m
not sure how conscious any of this is, or that everyone would necessarily agree that this is what’s going
on, but it sure feels that way to me. It’s a remarkable
experience, every time. For as they are stretched by
my probing questions about type and dig to come up
with honest self reflections, they also come alongside
me with a symbiotic reassurance that I’m doing just
fine. I should know this by now, or one would think
I would, based on my prior blog postings. In doing
their own work, however, they unwittingly encourage
me to do the same. This type One story of mine, in
which I persistently resurrect the belief that I need to
earn my way to be good enough, is really getting old.
I especially enjoyed being reminded of this with the
first panel of the day, when the Eights took me by the
shoulders and gave me a shake.
Usually when I teach I save the assertive, toughguy Eights, “The Protectors” until the end, and lean
question: What’s wrong with weakness? when I sensed,
with a facilitator’s delight, that they were going to
serve it up to the rest of us. Readily acknowledging
that they might look tough, but that they shed plenty
of tears under the covers at night, the last man to
speak pulled out all the stops. “Ballerina”, the sweet
name his brothers have bestowed upon him, who has
a playful buoyancy about him, clenched the mic and
his throat against the tears that overtook him when
he talked about the injustices from his family background.
His classmates, thwarting the stereotype we have
of guys in prison egged him on, calling out: You got
this! Come on! Bring it! When he passed the mic with
a shaky, but satisfied sigh, the other panelists just enfolded him. A few stepped out of the audience to join
in, roughly rubbing his head, thumping his back and
loving him despite his discomfort. In that vulnerable
moment, which he presided over, Ballerina struck a
deep chord in me. His decision to not play it small
felt like a command to bring all of myself to my facilitation, and I don’t mean my planning and organiza-
Susan Olesek
April 2011
enneagram monthly
tion skills. I’m talking about teaching with a spirit of
abandon and total trust that come what may is infinitely better than the wad of notes I used to clutch to
my chest. His readiness coincided with my own and
dislodged the residual parts of my own type which
clung to me in the unit that day. It felt like the men
in the room were talking as much to their brother as
they were to me: You got this! Come on! Bring it!
And so, following that panel, when a man with
an air of intensity very politely, but somewhat confrontationally approached me during the break, I was
primed. His quick clipped question was punctuated
with a Texan accent.
Ma’am, are you going to tell that man that he is not
an Eight?
You don’t think he’s an Eight? I inquired, full of curiosity.
No, Ma’am. He answered, emphatically.
Why not? I asked him.
Because, he explained, Eights don’t cry, and that guy
is so emotional. He’s probably a Four or something, but
not an Eight.
Do you have an idea of your own type? I asked.
Yes, Ma’am, I’m an Eight. He declared confidently.
I know I’m an Eight, and I don’t do all that emotional
stuff.
Oh, I nodded, beginning to piece his concern together. So…he says he’s an Eight and he’s up there crying, and you’re sure you’re an Eight, but you don’t cry. So,
he must be wrong.
Yes, Ma’am. He quickly nodded, seemingly pleased
that I understood the mistake that had been made.
I made sure that we kept the steady eye contact that
we’d had since we began talking, and asked him my
next question slowly and pointedly: Is it possible that
it’s too hard to look at whatever you’re defending, all those
reasons you don’t cry, and it’s safer to make him weak, or
even wrong about his type than it is to take a look at all
enneagram monthly
April 2011
that vulnerable stuff inside yourself? We enjoyed a few
good moments of silence together, after which he set
his jaw, and replied, “No, Ma’am.” I smiled at him,
and thanked him for the great question and his honest
reply. It was just the first of several dances we enjoyed
over the course of the three days I was there.
What’s interesting for me to hold loosely is that
maybe this guy was right, maybe the panelist had
his type wrong. In some ways it’s an irrelevant detail. Of course we want to land on the right type
eventually, but if we’re paying attention the sifting
through ourselves in getting there is at least as interesting an experience as finding the right territory.
After all, our type is just an entry point to the rest of
the diagram. We all have all of it. So what if a panelist is revealing something deeply personal about
himself? What’s really fascinating is why this expression of vulnerability feels so personally threatening
to the man who approached me. Now that is really something to pay attention to. Why does other
people’s stuff feel so relevant to us? I think one of
the hardest things for people to really get the gestalt
of with regard to the Enneagram is that, as my dear
first Enneagram teacher, Barbara Whiteside, told
me long ago, personality is really not personal.
It has been a very gradual process for me to know
this to be true, and an ongoing practice for me to remember it. I would say that I spent the majority of my
childhood and much of my adult life twisting myself
into the ‘right’ package until I felt I’d earned enough
credit to have a voice. By projecting my need to be
seen as good onto others, I have mistaken so many
people in my life for adjudicators, made them judges
and found myself guilty in their eyes before they ever
knew that I’d handed them a gavel. As a One there is
no better place for me to do serious work than in the
presence of another “Perfectionist”, the perfect mirror in whom I can see all my own judgmental, angry,
critical characteristics. Just like the Eight who does
not cry and can’t identify with someone who does, we
all project the parts of ourselves we aren’t able to look
at onto someone else. It’s much safer this way, albeit
unconscious.
I am beginning to wonder about the extent to
which we do this as a society to the entire prison population. In the absence of a “Character Assessment”
program in our day job, or at the family dinner table, we can default to the trance of our personalities.
When people have made headlines for how their bad
choices land them in prison, I can be quick to tuckin my self-image I’ve over-identified with, climb up
on my righteous soap box and point my finger saying, How could they do that?! How often I’ve used the
incarcerated as a metaphorical dumping ground for
the traits I’m simply not willing to look at in myself.
In doing so, deceit and denial are as effortless and
unconscious for me as they are to the people who find
themselves behind bars wondering, What happened?
We do have all of it, but I find it so convenient to
have a whole group of “bad guys” to pass off my own
denied parts onto. Ironically, the most distinct difference I’ve been able to discern between people on the
outside and those I’ve been meeting in prison is that
the incarcerated just got caught acting out the same
shadowy stuff that’s going on in all of us.
It was sobering to be reminded, through the men’s
stories, how drastically this self-forgetting occurs, and
how dissociated from our essential selves we all have
the potential of becoming. A man on the Two panel,
dubbed Mrs. Doubtfire by the guys, looked and came
off exactly like the kind of person you’d imagine leaving
your children with for a day of fun. This warm, disarming man and I bantered about the traits of “The Helper” and how he has honed his natural talent of making
other people feel good. Then he dropped into some
very candid reflections on how the passion of his type,
pride, contributed to his incarceration. He described a
failed marriage, and how the painful consequences of
13
it were pushed aside while he negated his own needs,
the hallmark behavior pattern of type Two. His deep
need for connection with his children, however, was
irrepressible when he was denied contact with them.
When he recounted his crime, killing his ex-mother-in-law, it was with an earnest reassurance that this
was out of character for him. Of course it was! I agreed
with him. None of us feel our “usual selves” when
we are operating from profound fixation. Still, in the
surreal moment of listening to this man’s story, I felt
an odd appreciation for his likeability. This coddled
my own capacity to remember our sameness, and
kept me from detaching while learning of this dark
detail of his past. Indeed, all of these cherry-picked
men, who are so ripe for transformation, seem to be
just part of my training ground to watch my habitual
judging mind. The universe keeps depositing them in
my path, continually encouraging me to keep feeling
for the edges of our oneness.
It was sobering to be reminded how dissociated from our essential selves we all have
the potential of becoming.
I have immense gratitude in my work for the
chance to listen and learn from other people’s struggles. I bring stories from the folks whom I teach in
my living room, in church and in the business world
to prison, hoping the guys will see their own resem-
AENNEAGRAM
RCHETYPES
of the
Exploring the life themes
of the 27 subtypes from
the perspective of soul
blance to them. I also feel an urgency to explicate the
common ground the rest of us have with people doing time. These “offenders” have made mistakes, many
of them grave ones. They are also human beings who
abandoned their own inner witness and pulled the
trigger, took a hit, turned their back, raged or fled the
scene as readily as we all fall asleep to ourselves. Bo
Lozoff knows this better than most, he writes:
“About the highest compliment in prison is, ‘He
knows how to do his own time.’ How many of us do?
How many of us use every moment of our lives to get
a little bit stronger, a little bit freer, no matter what’s
going on around us – no matter how crazy or violent
it all seems to be? This is the constant opportunity we
all share. It takes us a while to cop to it, but people
with wisdom have known this forever.”
Bo Lozoff,
We’re All Doing Time
Archetypes of the Enneagram:
Eɜ†±Œt¼|bnb,|b‰b´n¼|bÀ·´ÁF¼Êœb´
n±‰¼|b(b±´œbO¼Çbnsoul
“What is my path in life?”
This is the question we all seek to answer. The 27 enneagram
subtypes can help us find that answer, especially when seen through
the playful lens of archetypal psychology. Explore the worlds of
spirit, ego, and soul—and discover the path that fulfill’s the soul’s
purpose in life.
^
6XVʋ ɚ5KRȫHɡ
Read Chapter 1 at
www.enneagramdimensions.net/archetypes_of_the_enneagram.htm
Buy it at Amazon.com
The Positive Enneagram
POSITIVE
The
Enneagram
,|bo±´¼F…¼œ±¼±8ʼ|bŒŒb¼Êœb´
8´ÇF±8Œ¼±b´Á±Ob´¼|8¼bŒ±O|Á±†Çb´
“The enneagram of personality has fascinated me as a way of understanding problematic
aspects of one’s personality. But I suspected there were a lot of positive uses for it that have
been overlooked. Susan Rhodes has pointed these out—fascinating reading!”
– Charles T. Tart, Ph.D., author of
Transpersonal Psychologies & The End of Materialism
“Susan Rhodes defines the core of a much-needed unified field theory of the Enneagram through
integrating Gurdjieff’s Enneagram of Process with Ichazo’s Enneagram of Personality.”
– Judith Searle, author of The Literary Enneagram
A New Approach
to the Nine Personality Types
SUSAN RHODES
“Clear, cogent, and concise. Susan Rhodes looks at the enneagram through a positive
psychology lens and opens up new territory.”
– Jerome Wagner, Ph.D., author of
Nine Lenses on the World
^
Read Chapter 1 at
www.enneagramdimensions.net/positive_enneagram.htm
While my ability to stay present
was sometimes fleeting and by no
means constant, I have to say that I
found my ground more often than
not this trip to prison. I watched as
my awareness of my own type and
the breath that has been breathing
me all my life met. This allowed me
to do something very important,
something most of us Ones flinch
when commanded to do, RELAX.
With much of my energy freed up
from tasking myself to stay in control, I felt my confidence in both
the profundity of the Enneagram
system as well as my own capacity
as a facilitator to grow and grow.
I found myself saying many
things which I might have thought
on prior visits, but had not the selfassurance to say, even just a year
ago. Time and again I was left holding the mic, all eyes on me for what
was next, without any real agenda
while I marveled at the succession
of moments in which my anxiety refused to rise. Fear just failed
to fuel me. Amidst the enormous
will that existed in the room I was
a witness to my own joy, as Helen
Palmer puts it. It was very much as
though my instincts for what was
true, what was genuinely occurring,
or as Helen’s voice has rung in my
ears for years saying: “Reality as it
actually is…” became a palpable,
refreshing substitute for seeking the
permission to just Be. How remarkable that the way out of the confining prison of my own making is repeatedly found within the safety of
the prison walls in which I teach the
&OOFBHSBN t
Buy it at Amazon.com
14
April 2011
enneagram monthly
The Twelve Steps, the Enneagram and
Contemplative Prayer
W
e all crave the kind of peace that can
never come from a bottle, a drug, or a
false self, but only from understanding
ourselves and the power of our mind. The Enneagram illuminates the unique states of mind that the
addictive personality must confront, and reveals the
truth that freedom and peace come from releasing
attachment, not from clinging to things that keep us
mired in suffering.
We all crave the kind of peace that can
never come from a bottle, a drug, or a
false self, but only from understanding
ourselves and the power of our mind.
This article discusses how three powerful tools:
the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Enneagram, and Centering Prayer, can be used together
to enhance and stabilize recovery, and to bring about
the spiritual experience that all three tools were designed for. Richard Rohr, Enneagram teacher, priest,
and author, and Thomas Keating, teacher, Trappist
monk, and author of numerous books including
his latest: Divine Therapy and Addiction—Centering Prayer and the Twelve Steps, have referred to the
Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as the “spirituality of the future”.
The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung was greatly influenced Bill Wilson, who founded AA on these principles. Jung professed that the only true and lasting
cure for an alcohol addiction was a spiritual experience,
a transformation of the psyche—a change from the
old identity to a new one. Up to that time Bill Wilson
thought that the “cures” for alcoholism focused on
weaning the addict away from the bottle; but thanks
to Jung, the AA program deals almost entirely with
gaining meaning in life and with feeling a part of the
“wholeness of the world,” as Jung expressed it.
If you read the following Jung quote and substitute the word “alcoholic” for “neurotic” it expresses
how AA works. “I have frequently seen people become neurotic (alcoholic) when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, marriage, reputation,
outward success or money, and remain unhappy and
neurotic (alcoholic) even when they have attained
what they were seeking. Such people are usually confined to too narrow a spiritual horizon. Their life has
not sufficient content, sufficient meaning. If they are
enabled to develop into more spacious personalities,
the neurosis (alcoholism) generally disappears.”
The Twelve Steps. The Twelve Steps are a spiritual practice, and AA is a spiritual community. At
a Twelve Step meeting you will experience honesty,
compassion, wisdom, and hope that rivals any spiri-
enneagram monthly
April 2011
Robert Tallon
tual group. Here are people who have been to hell
and back, are committed to their own healing, and
helping other addicts heal. Whatever your addiction, be it alcohol, drugs, sex, food, gambling, personality——this program works because it involves
(1) the precision and efficacy of a proven practice
(the Twelve Steps), (2) a supportive, loving community, and (3) the guidance of a sponsor or “spiritual
friend.” Unlike other spiritual groups that may meet
weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly, you can attend
a meeting every day, or every hour in some instances,
in most cities and rural communities throughout the
USA and the world.
Centering Prayer’s Thomas Keating says about AA:
“All spiritual traditions have a wisdom literature. Alcoholics Anonymous is a spiritual tradition. Its influence and impact in the present century is going
to depend on how well each
generation of those in recovery
assimilate and internalize the
basic wisdom that is enshrined
in the Twelve Steps and the
Twelve Traditions.” The Enneagram and Centering Prayer
can help us assimilate and internalize the Twelve Steps.
writes in Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, “You
sit, either in a chair or on a prayer stool or mat, and
allow your heart to open toward the invisible but
always present Origin of all that exists.” Centering
Prayer works on many levels: it helps us quiet the
mind, slow down the “worry machine,” and find
some peace. It also helps us get back in touch with the
natural intimacy deep within us. Centering Prayer
is about connection and intimacy with our Higher
Power, or True Nature, or Essence. It is a way to develop what many spiritual traditions call the “inner
witness,” or “inner observer.” It is for many people in
recovery the capstone of their Twelve Step practice because it directly addresses Step Eleven: “Sought through
prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact
with our Higher Power as we understood it, praying only
for knowledge of our Higher Power’s will for us and the
power to carry it out.” For many, this step is where the
deepening of the spiritual awakening takes place.
WORKSHOPS WITH
JUDITH SEARLE
The Enneagram. When we
first experience the full impact
of our Enneagram style, and the
reality of how powerful an impulse it is, we will realize that it
is truly an addiction—the biggest addiction we have. Our Enneagram style is the strategy we
use to navigate life. It is an unconscious filter through which
we perceive the world. It is the
water we swim in, and the air
we breathe. And perhaps most
tragic of all, it is who we think
we are, and who we think we
must be. The personality has everything vested in maintaining
its style, outlook, and identity.
We think, feel, and act in ways
that replicate this style. We can’t
imagine being any other way.
Our personality, like a drug,
becomes our beloved. We crave
the feeling of being this way.
Our personality style is, in every
sense of the word, our Number
One addiction.
Contemplative
Prayer.
Contemplative Prayer is very
simple. As Cynthia Bourgeault
GREAT MOVIES, GREAT BOOKS
AND THE ENNEAGRAM
Los Angeles:
September 10-11, 2011
New York:
October 23-24, 2011
Information: 310-393-5372
www.judithsearle.com
15
I am focusing on Centering Prayer in this article
because I have practiced it for many years, I belong
to a 12 Step/Centering Prayer group, and because
Thomas Keating has dedicated so much time and effort and articulated so clearly how Centering Prayer
can be applied to the Twelve Steps. Keating’s Divine Therapy and Addiction: Centering Prayer and the
Twelve Steps is based on interviews with Keating and
a long-time member of AA; it is a major contribution
by this modern spiritual master. Other meditation
techniques such as Transcendental Meditation, Zazen, and Vipassana also serve to strengthen the inner
witness that is essential to fully benefit from Enneagram study and the Twelve Steps.
Development of the Inner Witness
The Enneagram is a powerful psychological tool,
but without the practice of inner inquiry, and specifically, the development of an “inner witness,” we will
never fully benefit from its potential to transform our
lives. Helen Palmer has espoused the absolute necessity of the “inner witness” in realizing and working with
our Enneagram type. Hal and Sidra Stone, creators of
the Voice Dialogue process, describe the necessity of
the “awareness of the observer” in order to see deeply
into the personality and to hear its difference voices.
William Meninger, Enneagram teacher and co-creator of Centering Prayer, tells people that he teaches
the Enneagram, not as a stand-alone teaching, but as
It All Begins With Awareness
Step One reads “We admitted we were powerless over
alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.” Who
wants to admit being helpless? Every natural instinct
cries out against the idea of personal powerlessness.
However, admission of powerlessness is the first step
in liberation from addiction in the 12 Steps. When we
finally become aware of our addictions, their control
over our lives, and the power they have over our every
thought, feeling, and action, then can we do some-
When we sit in silence and watch our personality play out its endless mind games,
and realize that this point of view has
nothing to do with objective reality, we
begin to see that our unobserved and unexamined thoughts control our behavior,
our compulsions and addictions.
When we finally become aware of our addictions, their control over our lives,
and the power they have over our every
thought, feeling, and action, then can we
do something about it.
thing about it. Here’s a paraphrased version of Step
One (from “Overcoming Our Addictions—Using the
Twelve Steps and the Enneagram as Spiritual Tools for
Life” by Mary E Mortz) that can allow anyone to apply this concept, whatever their addiction, “Step One:
Powerless, Unmanageable. I’m stuck. I admit that I
am powerless over life, over others, and over myself.
My life has become, in some way, unmanageable.”
In a similar manner, we are powerless over our
personality strategy as long as we remain unaware of it.
In the same way that an alcoholic must recognize and
admit his alcoholism in order to become free of it, we
must become aware of our Enneagram strategy in order to become free of it. Until we realize the constant
pressure we are under to always be this way, in every
situation, no matter how ineffective it is and no matter how much suffering it causes us, it has complete
control over us.
The Enneagram describes the false self that we
created to survive in the world and to satisfy what
Thomas Keating in The Human Condition calls the
three, basic biological needs (1) safety and security,
(2) power and control, and (3) affection and esteem.
Our Enneagram strategy is a way to continually replicate the feeling that the false self needs and craves in
order to survive. The false self is addicted to remaining this way, always, without changing. This is the
beginning of what might be considered the addictive
process, the need to endure and to hide the pain that
we suffered in early life and cannot face.
16
an aid to deepen their practice of Centering Prayer.
Richard Rohr is also a strong advocate of the synergy
of contemplative practice and the Enneagram.
Observing our self from the stance of an inner
witness involves detaching and standing back from
our self, almost as if the “you” being observed is not
you. As the inner witness begins to watch the daily
parade of our angers, fears, dramas, and behavior it
begins to develop an objective freedom. Over time,
and with practice, the inner witness begins to identify more and more from this witnessing/observing
stance, and less from the false self. Contemplative
practice helps awaken and strengthen the inner witness. When we sit in silence and watch our personality play out its endless mind games, and realize that
this point of view has nothing to do with objective
reality, we begin to see that our unobserved and unexamined thoughts control our behavior, our compulsions and addictions.
Awareness of the Addictive Personality
With the help of the Enneagram, we see how our
thoughts create our identity—the false self with its
judgments, self-hatred, thoughts, and feelings that
may often “drive us to drink.” Without the inner
witness we cannot separate from the false self. The
view of the inner witness and the focal point of our
Enneagram style helps us find a compassionate, objective position where we can look at our self, and
from that objective place we can see the repetitive,
addictive habits, and say, “I’m doing it again.” We can
learn the lesson addicts learn, “I keep doing again and
again what doesn’t work.” We see why certain people,
situations, and feelings are threatening to us because
of our type. We see that the reason we react to the
world in a specific way is because of our type. Our
awareness becomes refined, and we become aware of
our false self ’s addiction to it self.
Without the objectivity of the inner witness we
are merciless towards ourselves (and others), but with
the inner witness we can compassionately and mercifully look at ourselves, the world, and others. “That’s
the addicted me,” we can begin to say with conviction, “that’s the false self.” When we begin to hear a
voice, similar to the voice heard by Eckhart Tolle, that
says, “I’m tired of being me,” the inner witness has
come alive and is observing the addictive nature of
the personality. We may hear the voice that is familiar
to every addict that says, “I’m sick and tired of being
sick and tired.”
Working The Program. The addictive self doesn’t
want change, or improvement, and definitely not sobriety. It wants to remain unchanged. This cannot be
seen from the stance of the false, addictive self. The
sober, detached, objective inner witness alone can see
the nature of the situation. But how long can we hold
the position of the inner witness? If someone offends
us, or if life gets too difficult, or when we become
stressed or frustrated—or find ourselves in what AA
calls a “HALT” situation: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or
Tired—the inner witness may vanish, and we may be
caught in the addictive grasp of the false self; it may
take 10 minutes (or 10 hours or 10 days) to regain
our equanimity and reestablish the inner witness. It
is a daunting task, and for most, an impossible one,
to reestablish the inner witness all on our own. However, the Twelve Steps, a sponsor, and the spiritual
community of AA can support us while we regain
our equilibrium.
How They Work Together
What follows is a list of the Twelve Steps adapted
from the original steps of AA, (with the addition of
the principle addressed in each), from Darren Littlejohn’s The 12th Step Buddhist: Enhance Recovery From
Any Addiction. I believe that knowledge of our type
and a regular contemplative practice can greatly enhance our progress in all of the Twelve Steps. However, I have found that the Enneagram can help most
profoundly in Steps 1, 2, 4, 5, and 10, which are in
Italics below, followed by my comments. Meditation
and contemplative practices help most in Step 11.
Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over our
addiction and our lives had become unmanageable.
Principle: Acceptance. Discovering and accepting our
Enneagram type, especially the realization, “I’ve been
this way for as long as I can remember,” and “I’ve
tried everything to improve, but nothing works,”
helps us accept our powerlessness to change our behavior without hard work and support. Accepting
how difficult it is to change the ineffective behaviors
and core issues of our personality can convince us of
the true nature of addiction and of our powerlessness
over it without a radical change in our lives. Having
an unmanageable life is like being insane: we keep
doing the same things over and over and expecting
different results. “I can have one or two drinks and
be OK,” and “I gotta be me. This is just the way I
am,” are expressions of an unaware, unmanageable,
personality.
Stay tuned, continued in next issue....
April 2011
enneagram monthly
Unlocking the Geometry . . .
ordinary life (which we call involution) and the second
half of the journey (through Points 5, 6, 7, 8) is the
movement from ordinary life to Spirit, stressing the
fact that all points on the journey are of equal worth.
As part of this discussion, I touch briefly on the
idea that types opposite one another (Points 1 & 5,
2 & 6, 3 &7, and 4 & 8) share similar roles.1 But the
operative word here is “touch”; I simply didn’t have the
time or space to explore the relationships in depth.
In neither book did I get the chance to focus in
depth on the nature of the relationships between
types that are opposite one another on the enneagram
circle. So that’s what I’d like to do in this article.
Introduction
Early on in my enneagram explorations, I began
to notice an affinity between some types that were
across from one another on the circle. For example, I
noticed that both Fours and Eights lacked tolerance
for “b.s.” and often tended toward bluntness. When
visiting England (often said to have a Fivish culture),
I noticed patterns we often associated with both Point
5 (reserve, intellectual/political interest) and Point 1
(reserve, the desire for political reform). And when
studying enneagram books, I noticed how it was possible to interpret Riso and Hudson’s Hornevian triads
based on understanding the affinity between types
that are opposite from one another:
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Acting against/Ego-orientation
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Moving towards/Superego-orientation
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Withdrawing/Id-orientation
I’m not the first to notice this oppositional resonance. In one of the very first articles written for
the EM, Nick Turner introduced the term “cross-resonance” to describe the relationship he noticed between types across from one another, e.g., Ones and
Fives (See EM Feb., Mar., and April ‘96). Dave Lorne
has also noted the way that opposite types resemble
each other, as well as noting that Don Riso has also
commented on this pattern in Personality Types. He
notes, however, that he has no theoretical basis for his
hypothesis that there is a definitive relationship between opposite types. His purpose is simply to point
out the pattern. In the Conversation the following
month, Tom Isham chimes in, responding to Lorne’s
article by noting that he (Tom) initially mistyped
himself as a Five (he’s a 1w9), and says similar mistypings occurred for his wife and son. So he saw some
merit in Lorne’s argument.
I also noticed the same resonance among oppositional types, although I was at that time unaware of
these articles. Like others, I simply started noticing
the correlations, e.g., encountering a One who initially thought she was a Five and a probable Four who
thought she was an Eight. I’ve also run into individuals who are trying to decide whether they are Fives vs
Nines, Twos vs Sixes, and Threes vs Sevens.
enneagram monthly
April 2011
When I asked various people in the enneagram
community about this idea, most of them had their
own stories about oppositional look-alikes. Katherine
Fauvre-Chernick said she had somewhere heard them
referred to as “echo points,” but could not recall the
source for that information. I liked the term, because
of the way the term “echo points” evoked the idea
of an oppositional relationship as mirror-like rather
than adversarial. So I adopted it for my own use.
It wasn’t until I started seriously studying the relationship between the process
and personality enneagrams that echo
points began to make sense.
I was interested in exploring echo points further, but
initially, all I could do was observe the nature of the resonance between them, It wasn’t until I started seriously
studying the relationship between the process and
personality enneagrams that these oppositional relationships began to make sense. So that’s what we’ll
look at in Part I below: how types which oppose one
another are performing similar functions (although
with a different goal in mind). In Part II, we’ll explore
these relationships in greater detail by exploring the
role of the wings in type oppositions.
Part I:
Involution, Evolution,
and the Four Stages
of Development
In a July ‘96 EM article, Katherine ChernickFauvre briefly mentioned hearing Claudio Naranjo
describe the right-hand side of the enneagram as
feminine and the left-hand side as masculine. However, this was a very brief mention in a longer article
describing many aspects of a Naranjo workshop. And
so I was not aware of it until pretty recently. If others
have described it this way, I am not aware of it; it is
certainly not part of the major corpus of ideas that
we see presented in enneagram workshops, articles,
and books.
Nevertheless, I began notice this pattern, too, and
wrote about it in “The Circle, Triad, and the Hexad”
(EM, Oct. & Nov. ‘07; also available on www.enneagramdimensions.net). Of course, the pattern is not so
difficult to discern, owing to the fact that the Feeling
Types are on the right while the Thinking types are
on the left. And if we look at the Gut Types, I would
venture to say that Type 8 (with its bluntness and assertiveness) seems more inherently masculine than
Type 1 (with its fussiness and attention to propriety).
Type 9, the most “universal” and least polarized of all
the types, is straddling the line between the masculine and feminine sides.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
When I started exploring the relationship between
the personality and process enneagram, it was obvious that Point 1 represented the beginning of a story,
journey, or process while Point 8 represented its culmination; Point 9 is that place of preparation prior
to the beginning and the place of integration after
the end.
If we think of the process as the way that a human being moves through the life cycle, we can liken
the points on the right of the circle (Points 1 – 4) to
the gradual immersion of spirit into matter—a process called involution. Here the focus is more on the
development of personal awareness and individual
commitment.
We can liken the points of the left side of the circle
(Point 5 – 8) to the gradual conversion or transmutation of matter to spirit—a process called evolution.
Here the focus is more on the development of transpersonal awareness and cultural commitment.
Through involution, we experience life in a
highly individualized manner. Through evolution, we use our experiences as individuals to expand our focus and to discover
how to identify not just with ourselves,
but with the larger whole.
It is important to realize that neither process is
better or worse than the other; both are essential to
life. Through involution, we experience life in a highly individualized manner, having experiences that
are unique to us as a particular individual moving
through a particular moment in time and space. We
cultivate our personal identity in a way that allows
us to emerge as individuals and to take individual
responsibility for our actions.Through evolution, we
use our experiences as individuals to expand our focus and build the larger community/culture and to
discover how to identify not just with ourselves, but
with the larger whole.
So we have two major stages—involution and
evolution—and each has four stages (in addition to
Stage 0) represented by one of the eight points actively involved in the process. See Table 1.
Orientation is the first stage because we cannot
proceed until we have a general framework from
which to operate, which gives rise to an interest in
systems. Interaction is the second stage because, as
social beings, we gain strength from the support of
others. Expansion can take place once we are situated
enough that stable growth is possible. Transformation
is required at the end of a process in order to convert
the energy accumulated into a form that separates the
gold from the dross (so that we retain only what really
matters). In a sense, transformation is about understanding the experiences of the previous three stages
in a way that allows us to make optimal use of them,
so that we integrate the lessons of the present cycle
before moving onto the next cycle.
17
Table 1. Mapping the Nine Types to the Life Cycle
INVOLUTION:
Focus on the Personal
STAGE
EVOLUTION:
Focus on the Transpersonal1
Point 9
(pre-involution, post-evolution)
Stage 0: POTENTIAL
Stage 1: ORIENTATION
Stage 2: INTERACTION
Stage 3: EXPANSION
Stage 4: TRANSFORMATION
Point 1
Point 5
(moral/legal foundation)
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Point 2
Point 6
(personal ties, intimacy)
(community ties, social duty)
Point 3
Point 7
(expansion of personal self)
(expansion of energy)
Point 4
(transformation of personal self)
Point 8
(transformation of energy)
INVOLUTION
descent of spirt into matter;
focus moves from the whole towards the parts
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Figure 1. The Four Stages of Involution/Evolution
18
We can see how this works on the enneagram by
looking at Figure 1, which graphically depicts the four
axes on the enneagram, the four lines of opposition crossing all the way across the enneagram to connect types at
the same stage in their sister process. There is of course a
“left over” type, Type 9, which is not technically within
either cycle, and thus occupies a unique but critical position on the enneagram. Each stage on the right corresponds to its counterpart on the left, allowing us to see
why these “opposite” types often seem like look-alikes.
Table 1 introduces the types according to the role
in the life cycle: (a) whether they are in the involutionary or evolutionary cycle and (b) whether they
are at the beginning (Stage 1), middle (Stages 2 and
3), or end (Stage 4) of the cycle.
Now let’s take a closer look at each stage, including Stage 0, which corresponds to Point 9.
STAGE 0: NEUTRALITY OR THE ETERNAL
STATE (beginning and end, potential and integration,
nothingness and oneness, fullness and emptiness)
Point 9: Remaining receptive but engaged and
aware (necessary for waking up to new experiences
and developing the ability to be fully present to those
experiences)
In its “pre-journey” aspect, Point 9 contains the potential for something new,
which is reflected by the imagination and
storytelling ability of many Nines. In its
“post-journey” aspect, it is associated
with the ability to be still, to receive, and
to absorb—an ability that can be mistaken for mere passivity.
Conventionally, Type 9 on the personality enneagram is identified with being asleep. But if we look
at Type 9 as Point 9—the only point that straddles
the right and left sides—it is actually quite paradoxical in nature, symbolically representing night and day,
yin and yang, feminine and masculine, involution and
evolution. It is not only paradoxical in a spatial sense
(i.e., because it straddles the midline) but in a temporal sense, because it is where we are before we begin the
journey and also where we return at journey’s end.
In its “pre-journey” aspect, Point 9 contains the
potential for something new, which is reflected by the
imagination and storytelling ability of many Nines.
In its “post-journey” aspect, it is associated with the
ability to be still, to receive, and to absorb—an ability that can be mistaken for mere passivity. Even the
Nine himself may not recognize the potential associated with this unique place on the enneagram, because it is beyond the scope of what we often call the
real world.
STAGE 1: ORIENTATION AXIS (definition of a
framework suitable for the task at hand)
Point 1: defining an ethical framework to delimit the boundaries of acceptable action (necessary for
involution because it derives from universal, spiritual
principles)
April 2011
enneagram monthly
Point 5: defining a knowledge-based framework
to delimit (necessary for evolution because it derives
from experiences garnered during involution)
At both Points 1 and 5, we see a preoccupation
with standards, order, and the overarching principles
that govern the nature of life. At Point 1, the first
point in involution, the standards tend to be moral,
ethical and idealized, because there is closeness to
spirit and the definitive memory of a higher order
to life. As a result, there’s a tendency to want to stick
close to that order (as much as humanly possible) and
also translate its eternal wisdom from a mere abstraction into something more concrete (like laws, codes,
and guidelines for living). At Point 5, the start of the
evolutionary cycle, there is also a concern with overarching principles, so it is here that we find people
Unlike Point 1, Point 5 is “in the depths,”in
the place of worldly complexity and complication, so the impulse here is to create
order out of chaos, and the chief tool is
the intellect.
interested in philosophy, cosmology, and ontology.
However, unlike Point 1, Point 5 is “in the depths,”in
the place of worldly complexity and complication,
so the impulse here is to create order out of chaos,
and the chief tool is the intellect. At Point 5, there is
more material to work with—but also the tendency
to get lost in that material, which is probably why
Fives become concerned with large-scale systems development.
STAGE 2: INTERACTION AXIS (gaining stability via ties with others)
Point 2: Establishing personal relationships based
on familial ties and personal values (necessary for seeing one’s identity as reflected by one’s relationships with
others)
Point 6: Establishing community based on group
ties and social values (necessary for developing culture
and social institutions)
During the Orientation phase, we try to get a
grip on the world by finding or developing systems
that help us make sense of our environment. But the
emphasis there is on theory. It’s at Stage 2 that we
start to put theory into practice by getting oriented
socially. At Point 2, the emphasis is on personal engagement and individual relationships, because it
is through developing such relationships that it’s
possible to gain greater awareness of self, which is
a key step in the involutionary process. However,
when we cross over into the evolutionary phase,
the emphasis is less on self-awareness and more on
community awareness—on the role the individual
plays within the group. The fear often experienced
at Point 6 comes from the growing awareness of the
vastness of the environment (as compared to the
seeming smallness of the individual). It thus becomes natural to focus on community building and
the strengthening of cultural traditions designed to
enneagram monthly
April 2011
promote stability and minimize the potentially devastating effects of sudden large-scale change.
STAGE 3: EXPANSION AXIS (acting, asserting,
moving out, expanding, projecting )
Point 3: Expanding one’s confidence and sense of
identity via personal accomplishment (necessary for
personal growth as reflected by one’s ability to visibly
excel)
Once we’ve become oriented (Stage 1)
and have acquired a sense of stability (Stage 2), we are ready to expand at
Stage 3—to move, grow, develop, and
travel.
Point 7: Expanding one’s boundaries to experience life from a larger and more diverse perspective
(necessary for moving beyond personal identity to
embrace a more transpersonal sense of self )
Once we’ve become oriented (Stage 1) and have
acquired a sense of stability (Stage 2), we are ready to
expand at Stage 3—to move, grow, develop, and travel. At Point 3, we expand in the service of developing
our sense of individuality (so that we can differentiate
the self from the undifferentiated whole). We discover who we are by testing ourselves and seeing how we
measure up when tested by life. Through this process,
we gain greater strength and resiliency, as well as a
sense of budding individuality. At Point 7, the expansion process can look more dramatic, because—
having achieved a sense of self during involution—
we are free to play, experiment, and innovate. Since
evolution involves moving towards the whole, there
is usually an interest in the wider community, which
is why Sevens are so often social innovators, imaginative entrepreneurs, and adventurous travelers.
STAGE 4: TRANSFORMATION AXIS (control
and management of concentrated energies present at the
end of the cycle)
Point 4: Developing the ability to modulate intense emotions and chaotic energies (necessary for beginning the transition from involution to evolution)
Point 8: Developing the ability to exercise
leadership via control of appetites and behavior
(necessary for wielding power in a responsible and
honorable fashion)
During Stage 3, energy expands. If it continued
to expand indefinitely, it would create chaos, not
growth. So at Stage 4—which is the last stage of the
process—the energy is increasingly intense and liable to become uncontrollable. This explains both
the intensity of both Fours and Eights and the need
for these types to exercise self-discipline. In so doing,
they both “wrap up” the energy of the current cycle
and prepare the way for the cycle to come.
Point 4 is at the end of the involutionary cycle, the
point when spirit is most intensely invested in matter. The common result is the experience of feeling
weighed down by the world’s density and intensity,
which can eventually make an individual inwardly
implode. So there is a need to work with that feeling of density in a way that transforms it, so that it
doesn’t become unbearably heavy. When symbolically
Looking at the nine points not only as
types, but as stages in the life cycle, allows us to see why points across from
one another tend to be similar in many
ways.
transformed, the extreme density of materialism can
become redeemed—which is why some kind of artistic or other symbol-oriented activity can be so liberating for Fours. Point 8 is at the end of the evolutionary
cycle, where spirit fully animates the body, pushing
outward from every cell—and creating the potential
for explosive release.When undisciplined, it can be
a destructive force that annihilates everything in its
path. But when contained and channeled into constructive activities, it can be raised up in a way that
utterly transforms it, creating inspired leaders with a
tremendous service ethic.
Implications of the
Four-Stage Approach
Looking at the nine points not only as types, but
as stages in the life cycle, allows us to see why points
across from one another tend to be similar in many
ways. It makes sense that points at the same stage of
development (whether in involution or evolution)
have a number of similarities.
t4UBHFBMXBZTJOWPMWFTUIFQFSJPECFUXFFODZDMFT
t4UBHFJOWPMWFTHFUUJOHPSJFOUFEUPUIFOFXDZDMF
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t4UBHFOWPMWFTUIFUSBOTGPSNBUJPOPGUIFBDDVNVlated energy into a form that allows it to transcend
its origins. So it’s not surprising that the two (opposing) types are associated with Stages 1 – 4
It allows us to conceptualize the enneagram points
(and also the types they represent) as occupying one of
five positions: Neutrality (Point 9), Orientation (Points
1 and 5), Interaction (Points 2 and 6), Expansion
(Points 3 and 7), and Transformation (Points 4 and 8).
However, there is another way to look at type oppositions that is even more precise, and that is to look
at them by examining the properties of the spot exactly away opposite each type, which is the spot that
separates the wing types (i.e, 1w2 from 2w1, 2w3
from 3w2, etc.). We’ll take a closer look at these relaUJPOTIJQTJO1BSU**
t
Stay tuned, continued in next issue....
__________
1 See brief mentions of type oppositions on pp. 142-43, 149,
234, 256, 278, and 295
19
Enneatemps . . .
Hot
Cold
Dry
Yellow Bile
Black Bile
Wet
Blood
Phlegm
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
this type searches for varying solutions to questions rather than hold on to one
“solid” answer, as a “dry” mentality might do. This kind of reasoning has a quality
of lightness to it.
The Birth of E N N E A T E M P S
I have drafted the following correlation between the four temperaments and the
Enneagram Types, as shown in Figure 3.
The ancient Greeks used to call this system the Micro Cosmos, because it is inside our body, to distinguish it from the Macro Cosmos, which is the world itself2,
comprising Air, Fire, Earth, and Water and relating to the four seasons of Spring,
Summer, Autumn, and Winter.
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)LJXUH0LFUR&RVPRV&RPSDUHGWR0DFUR&RVPRV6RXUFH3):
The schema described the Greeks connecting the four temperaments with body
organs and juices can be seen in the following table:4
Juice
Qualities
Characteristics
Blood
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Yellow Bile
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Cold and Moist
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What is important here is not whether the exact definition of the four temperaments mentioned in the wide literature5 is a good fit to the known definitions—we
already know from Enneagram Types—but what is crucial, and is additional to the
current understanding of the Enneagram, is that the production of the four juices
and their manifestation as the four temperaments, along with how they fit into the
Macro Cosmos, give us a new understanding of the Enneagram Types.
Simply put, the Enneagram types can be distinguished by the speed of their
decision making and the way that they search for essential content.
By merging the four temperaments into the nine Enneagram types, Enneatemps
are born.
7DEOH&KDUDFWHULVWLFVWKDWWKHIRXUMXLFHVEULQJWRWKHWHPSHUDPHQWV
During my research for this article, I focused on the phenomena of temperature
(hot/cold) and humidity (dry/wet) of each temperament. I discovered that, based
on the position of each corner of the matrix in Micro Cosmos, specific psychological qualities appear:
t Hot refers to the ability to make fast decisions and to make choices easily. The
ability to crystallize our thoughts and bring them into one focal point.
t Dry relates to the search for essential content within a context. It originates from
the element of soil (earth) and is related to heaviness, hardness, and solidity. We
can also call it the desire to for all-inclusiveness. Temperaments based on this
quality try to find reliable touchstones as answers to questions. The deeper the
question, the heavier the stone.
t Cold has the quality of slowness in decision making and the lack of ability to
crystallize thoughts into one focal point.
t Wet, being the opposite of dry, means the lack of the need to search for essential
content. Since water is constantly flowing and things are therefore ever-changing,
20
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April 2011
enneagram monthly
Because they originate from the Enneagram, which has nine types, I believe it
is fair to call this concept Enneatemps, even though there are actually only seven
types represented. Enneagram types 3 and 6 are not yet represented in the Enneatemps, although in the future they will be included.
This system is not just another way of describing the Enneagram but is a
system that stands by itself. It presents the types in an easily understandable and
transparent system using terms and tools that are applicable to our daily life. Being based on the four elements that constitute the physical world, it is a natural
system based on a philosophy that has been used for centuries.
In Figure 4, you can see that the Enneagram Types relate to each other in pairs
and that the numeric sum of these pairs (by their type number) always adds up
to nine. In addition, the pairs are always on opposite sides of the Enneagram,
except for the type nine, which is not paired. One way of looking at this is to
say that type Nine relates both to itself and to all the other numbers equally.
According to Claudio Naranjo’s book, “Enneagram Type Structures,”6 the sides
of Enneagram represent the feminine (right) and masculine (left) aspects of the
Enneagram. In other words, the pairs on Enneatemps represent real “pairs” (like
couples), but type Nine, being in the middle, is neither feminine nor masculine,
or just ‘both’.
Integration & Disintegration of the Enneatemps:
Testing the System:
I wanted to see whether this system works as a whole. For that to be the case,
it had to include the very basics of Enneagram qualities, such as integration
and disintegration. As you can see in Figure 5, I found that in this case it was
indeed so.
Figure 5 shows that the Enneatemps system works not only within the concept of integration and disintegration, but it also tells us what happens once a type
integrates or disintegrates:
which in the Enneatemps system is the dry and hot area. According to the mapping in Figure 5, both types at this point integrate, or welcome, the warmth,
instead of remaining in the cold area, where weak decision-making is predominant. By doing that, they become able to make faster decisions and make suitable choices. This is an enormous shift for types Four and Five. At the same time,
they keep their dryness, which is their inner search for essential content. For
Fours, this content is related to identity, an essential topic for this type; for Fives
it is based on facts and knowledge.
During disintegration, they fall into the opposite side, hot and wet—the
abyss for these types. As we know from the Enneagram, for Fours and Fives,
losing essential content—which is “all they have”—can feel life-threatening.
Fours and Fives also change two qualities at the same time during disintegration—from cold to hot and from dry to wet—a more complicated process than the one-quality-change process, as we will see in Ones and Eights.
This movement therefore transforms them into something that feels like
too much for them—they become fast decision makers but those decisions
don’t mean anything to them. During integration, this quality is manifested
in a positive way, but during disintegration it feels like they have nothing
to hold onto because they have lost their “dry” ability to rely on a solid
touchstone.
Types One and Eight
During integration, Ones and Eights move to types Seven and Two, respectively. For these Choleric hot and dry types this is a movement towards more softness
and less rigidity, which you can see in healthy Ones and Eights.
When these types move toward disintegration, although they hold onto their
essential content, they also move toward a cold area, creating indecisiveness.
Types Seven and Two
And finally, Sevens and Twos integrate into the opposite side, really an unknown realm to them, where they are asked to slow down their decision-making
process and in making their decisions and begin to seeking for relative “‘heaviness”’
within the context. Perhaps you can see how for Sevens and Twos, slowing down is
a healthy process.
Disintegration would be for them a process of becoming “drier,” which means,
to some extent, losing their ever-changing flexibility. However, if in this process
they are driven to seek more essential content, then perhaps they can find more
meaning in things—a healthy change. But, without the slow characteristics, which
they additionally need to adapt, they become rigid, eight-like Choleric Types, as we
know it from unhealthy Twos, e.g.
This system is also tested with Hornevians and Harmonics, which gave similar
positive results and will be presented in part II of this aticle.
Enneatemps can be an additional tool to use while typing oneself
and others to see and understand how the different Types seek
content and how quickly they meet choices.
)LJXUH ,QWHJUDWLRQ DQG 'LVLQWHJUDWLRQ RI (QQHDWHPSV EDVHG RQ WKH 0LFUR
&RVPRV
As a result, types change their Micro Cosmos qualities in the process of integration and disintegration. There is a whole world of topics that could be
discussed in this context that relates to the four juices, body organs, and health
matters. But in this article I will focus on the two main psychological changes7—
the decision-making process and content-seeking answers
Types Four and Five
Let us start with types Four and Five. In the Enneagram system, during integration these types move toward the qualities of Ones and Eights, respectively,
enneagram monthly
April 2011
How can we use the Enneatemps?
We can use the Enneatemps in the following areas:
Enneatemps can be an additional tool to use while typing oneself and others
to see and understand how the different Types seek content and how quickly they
meet choices. I have given this system to many psychologists in Germany and in
The United States, who have used it as an additional tool to their Enneagram written tests, as tests often do not reflect the Enneagram Type adequately.
Another very useful way to apply the Enneatemps system is when working with
corporations and teams, because it is quick to use; in today’s busy working environment we need quick and reliable systems.
It can be a useful tool for therapists to use with their clients; for example, informing them about the direction of integration for their type can give clients some
21
easy-to-understand, plausible guidance
about how to make useful changes in
their lives.
Behind the four temperaments, there
are numerous studies on medical applications and their health issues, which
now can be used for Enneagram Types
as well!
Summary:
t5ZQFT5XPBOE4FWFO4BOHVJOFT
and Ones and Eights (Choleric) share
a common trait: quickness of decision
making, while
Psychological Quality
Hot: Strong,
Cold: Weak,
/Element
Quick Decision Making
Slow Decision Making,
Earth = Essential Content
Yellow Bile - Choleric:
Black Bile - Melancholic:
Quick / Strong Decision for
Essential Content
Weak / Slow Decision for
Essential Content
Type 1 & 8
Water = ‘Un’-Essential
Blood - Sanguine: Quick /
Content
Strong Decision for ‘Un’-
tɨF.FMBODIPMJD5ZQFT'PVSTBOE
Fives, together with Phlegmatic Nines,
share a slower decision making.
t ɨF .FMBODIPMJD 5ZQFT 'PVST BOE 'JWFT
and Choleric Types, Ones and Eights, however,
share a essential content seeking realm, and the
t 4BOHVJOFT 5XPT BOE 4FWFOT BOE 1IMFHmatic Nine, share an ‘ever-changing’ - ‘fluid’
content.
Your comments are appreciated:
www.enneatemps.com
.....Stay tuned, to be Continued
Notes __________
1 The Four Temperaments, on the wall of
a house in Frankfurt a.M., Germany. Address:
Dornbusch Strasse, corner Eschersheimer Landstrasse. Artist: Unknown.
2 see http://www.gottwein.de/graeca/lex/h_
hippokr01.php (in German language)
3 ibidem
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism
5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Temperaments
6 http://www.gatewaysbooksandtapes.com/
bk0FourTwo.html
7 These could also be called “temperament
changes”
t
__________
Paya Naderi was born 1967 in Tehran / Iran
and currently lives and works in Hong Kong as
a management consultant.
She holds one patent in Fluid Mechanics, drafted the ‘First White Paper of Chinese
Agenda 21’ and developed a custom-made sales
re-structuring and training program called TargetSelling for operational sales improvements
(+852) 5181 5819,
Email: [email protected]
Mailing address:
P.O.Box 1774 GPP Hong Kong, China
22
Type 4 & 5
Essential Content - Fluid
Content
Phlegm - Phlegmatic: Weak
/ Slow Decision for ‘Un’Essential Content - Fluid
Content
Type 7 & 2
Type 9
Table 4: Brief Summary of Enneatemps
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