07-18-2010, 08:14 PM
Thanks for the interest. Let's get started.
All of what I say here is my own interpretation based on what I've read and meditated on. I apologize in advance if I have some misunderstandings that would lead anyone else astray.
The Enneagram is a collection of ideas about human experience. It could be thought of as a spiritual approach to psychology and sociology. Several people have worked on developing these ideas in recent decades.
Depending who you believe, some of the ideas may go back centuries or even millenia. Or maybe that is just picturesque language or even deliberate manipulations for marketing gains.
My impression is that some of the modern Enneagram's beginnings, around 1970, may have been what we'd call channeled on this forum. Not necessarily spoken words received telepathically, but bundles of concepts received intuitively or with spiritual meditation. It's clear that much of the more recent work has involved ordinary human analytical and creative thought processes.
These ideas describe nine aspects of human behavior and experience. A circular diagram with arrows represents how these nine facets of life relate to each other. My own interpretation is that these nine points are not necessarily all aspects of human life. Instead, I think of them as like primary colors. Midway between colors are both named and unnamed combinations: teal, aqua, pastel light greenish blue, dark saturated bluish green. I feel that Enneagram descriptions of "two with a three wing" and "three with a two wing" may represent only two of an infinite number of blends between points two and three.
The points are numbered. The numbering does not indicate anything about value or chronological order, it simply designates the points in order to tell them apart. They may relate to numerological concepts.
Each of the points or numbers represents a distinct state of consciousness. Each of these states of consciousness is available to every person at any moment. In a healthy life, we experience and use each of these states in a naturally ongoing flow.
Each person has a greatest affinity for one of these states of being occuring very easily and spontaneously. We refer to that most innate state of being as the person's type.
Each point includes the opportunity to rise up to enlightenment at the best experience of that state of being; the opportunity to destructively and self-destructively make a road to hell out of that type of consciousness at its worst; and a range of everyday life experiences in the middle. Don Riso did extensive work to document these "levels of development" within each type.
People with each type have a common sense of feeling about their relationship with their parents. It's unclear to me if this is nature or nurture. It might be that no matter what the parents were like, the incarnate soul plus the genetic makeup of the person might have led to a particular range of interpretations about family life. It might also be that early life experience, in preverbal years, is a major source of interpretation about the nature of the world and a person's place within it.
At best, we are aware of our type; rise up through the levels of development towards our innate capacity for enlightenment; and can respect and draw on the states of consciousness throughout all the other types to live a balanced, harmonious, mature, well-developed life. At worst, we fall down through the levels of development towards our innate capacity for horror and abuse, and are oblivious, hateful and fearful towards any other way of experiencing a human life.
I'll have follow up posts outlining the individual types and how they relate to each other.
Even before I get into the specific types, I think you'll be able to see several ways that these concepts connect up with the Law of One teachings.
All of what I say here is my own interpretation based on what I've read and meditated on. I apologize in advance if I have some misunderstandings that would lead anyone else astray.
The Enneagram is a collection of ideas about human experience. It could be thought of as a spiritual approach to psychology and sociology. Several people have worked on developing these ideas in recent decades.
Depending who you believe, some of the ideas may go back centuries or even millenia. Or maybe that is just picturesque language or even deliberate manipulations for marketing gains.
My impression is that some of the modern Enneagram's beginnings, around 1970, may have been what we'd call channeled on this forum. Not necessarily spoken words received telepathically, but bundles of concepts received intuitively or with spiritual meditation. It's clear that much of the more recent work has involved ordinary human analytical and creative thought processes.
These ideas describe nine aspects of human behavior and experience. A circular diagram with arrows represents how these nine facets of life relate to each other. My own interpretation is that these nine points are not necessarily all aspects of human life. Instead, I think of them as like primary colors. Midway between colors are both named and unnamed combinations: teal, aqua, pastel light greenish blue, dark saturated bluish green. I feel that Enneagram descriptions of "two with a three wing" and "three with a two wing" may represent only two of an infinite number of blends between points two and three.
The points are numbered. The numbering does not indicate anything about value or chronological order, it simply designates the points in order to tell them apart. They may relate to numerological concepts.
Each of the points or numbers represents a distinct state of consciousness. Each of these states of consciousness is available to every person at any moment. In a healthy life, we experience and use each of these states in a naturally ongoing flow.
Each person has a greatest affinity for one of these states of being occuring very easily and spontaneously. We refer to that most innate state of being as the person's type.
Each point includes the opportunity to rise up to enlightenment at the best experience of that state of being; the opportunity to destructively and self-destructively make a road to hell out of that type of consciousness at its worst; and a range of everyday life experiences in the middle. Don Riso did extensive work to document these "levels of development" within each type.
People with each type have a common sense of feeling about their relationship with their parents. It's unclear to me if this is nature or nurture. It might be that no matter what the parents were like, the incarnate soul plus the genetic makeup of the person might have led to a particular range of interpretations about family life. It might also be that early life experience, in preverbal years, is a major source of interpretation about the nature of the world and a person's place within it.
At best, we are aware of our type; rise up through the levels of development towards our innate capacity for enlightenment; and can respect and draw on the states of consciousness throughout all the other types to live a balanced, harmonious, mature, well-developed life. At worst, we fall down through the levels of development towards our innate capacity for horror and abuse, and are oblivious, hateful and fearful towards any other way of experiencing a human life.
I'll have follow up posts outlining the individual types and how they relate to each other.
Even before I get into the specific types, I think you'll be able to see several ways that these concepts connect up with the Law of One teachings.