Posted by Brian C. on July 31, 2000 at 00:11:13:
In Reply to: Hmm, Jesuit influenced? nt posted by Tiggy - Catholic spotter. on July 30, 2000 at 16:39:47:
A Brief History of the Enneagram
Mark Douglas Sumner
Various opinions and claims have been made concerning the history of the Enneagram.
Whatever the precise origins of the Enneagram as it is now understood may actually be its fundamental aspects can already be
found in various ancient traditions of spiritual wisdom.
Until a few years ago it was frequently claimed that the essentials of the Enneagram as we now know it had come to us from the
Sufi mystical tradition that primarily originated within the Islamic religion.
This claim has been increasingly challenged and is not now often made so strongly. Some Sufi teachers have denied that the
Enneagram has ever been found in Sufi teaching. I have, however, heard prominent Sufi teachers acknowledge the Enneagram
as being part of their tradition. As there are various Sufi orders it may be possible that the Enneagram is found in the teaching
of some of these orders and not in others.
It is also possible (and, in my opinion, highly likely) that the Enneagram as it's now generally taught is different in many
important respects from the ways Sufis may have traditionally understood and used it.
Whatever its historical association with Sufism may be there can be little doubt that many of the ways the Enneagram is now
generally understood and taught owe much to traditional Sufi ideas on personality and spiritual development. Many of these
ideas are also found in other religious and spiritual traditions - especially some schools of Buddhism and Eastern Christianity.
One of the principal sources for our contemporary knowledge of the Enneagram was Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1870? -
1949) who came from the Armenian region of Russia.
In his well-known book 'Meetings With Remarkable Men' Gurdjieff recounted his meetings with the Sufi order known as the
Sarmouni Brotherhood.
The usual geometric figure of the Enneagram - which is one of many forms of a nine pointed figure - was published in the early
part of the Twentieth Century in Gurdjieff's writing and was also used as the 'logo' for his teaching centre near Paris.
The writings of Gurdjieff and his followers contain ideas on the three centres of consciousness, the ego-personality, and essense
that appear to largely derive from Gurdjieff's association with Sufis. There is no clear indication in his writings, however, that
Gurdjieff used the Enneagram figure in connection with a personality typology in ways too similar to how it is now.
The first definite knowledge of the Enneagram as a form of typology is found in the teachings of Oscar Ichazo. Ichazo has
claimed that he came to his understanding of the Enneagram through a process of direct revelation or intuition.
Ichazo's claim is a matter of dispute. Some have suggested that Ichazo originally learnt the basics of the Enneagram from a
Sufi source. Others have suggested that he might have learnt it from Gurdjieff though there seems to be no real evidence for
this.
Ichazo, originally from Bolivia, founded the Arica Institute which now has its headquarters in New York City. In the lates '60s
Ichazo taught an extensive program of psychological development in the town of Arica in Chile. This program included
teaching on aspects of the Enneagram (or the 'Enneagon' as Ichazo then called it).
One of the participants in the Arica program was Claudio Naranjo. Naranjo, originally from Chile, is a psychiatrist and
prominent Gestalt therapist. Early in his career his specialist areas of research were personality development and personality
typologies. He also had a significant background in Gurdjieff's teachings. At the time he studied with Ichazo he was a teacher
at the Esalen Institute in California and he began teaching the Enneagram there when he returned - as well as in Berkeley near
San Francisco.
Among Naranjo's students who have made their own significant contribution to the Enneagram were A.H. Almaas, Eli
Jaxon-Bear, Bob Ochs, Helen Palmer, and Kathleen Speeth.
Bob Ochs, a Jesuit priest, began teaching the Enneagram under Naranjo's supervision at Loyola University in Chicago. Among
Ochs's students were Patrick O'Leary and Jerome Wagner (Jesuit students at the time) who have also become prominent
Enneagram teachers.
Another of Ochs's Jesuit students, Tad Dunne, became one of the teachers of Don Richard Riso (also a Jesuit student at the
time).
Most more recent Enneagram teachers have trained with one or more of the above mentioned people.
Although some distinct 'schools' of Enneagram teaching have developed the essentials of how the Enneagram is understood
have remained reasonably constant for around thirty years now.
Our understanding of the Enneagram, however, continues to be in a dynamic process of development and refinement that
offers new and deeper insights into its potential for healing and transforming personality.