# Process Catastrophic Rebirth: Changing Your Basic Type



## redneck15 (Mar 21, 2011)

According to Enneagram theory, your type is determined partly on genetics, partly on environment. 

The basic logic of 'early childhood only' goes like this: we are more impressionable then, like green growing seedlings. Once our 'tree' is bent in a basic angle (type), it gains a woody stem and grows in that shape. "Becoming healthy" could be analogized to growing toward the light, but still always keeping the original bent we received.

I question that.

Cannot the tree be cut down, or subjected to flooding and wind until it is rocked to its very foundations, and falls to the ground? Cannot it be damaged, beaten, and pressured until it doesn't just grow unhealthy, but actually has its stem broken? 

In this eventuality, two things can happen to a tree. It can die, or if it is strong enough it can grow up again from the stem. This time, it will grow in a different shape. It may live, but it will never be the same.

I know that the process by which type is changed must exist. Let it be called Catastrophic Rebirth. This is possible for a tree; it is also possible for a person. I don't say that it is desirable for either party; only possible.


How do I know Catastrophic Rebirth is possible? Because what if we telescope the events I outlined above? Instead of being allowed to grow in just one bent, and gaining a woody stem in that shape, and then having it broken in maturity; what if a child grew up from the beginning being shuttled between two different scenarios? Whatever the 'half-way' point in the impressionable period is, the child was sent to an opposite scenario at this time. Would not the previous stem be easily broken and remade? If this is true given a bit of pressure early on, it must be true given a great deal of pressure later on.


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## Figure (Jun 22, 2011)

I don't believe that a catastrophic event would change the core coping mechanism, as you are not separated twice from being.

In terms of development, most sources are careful to say that your core fears are influenced, not determined, by your childhood. You could have two 4's, for example, one of which grew up in a family who catered well to their needs, the other who did not - and the latter may be more influenced to construct themselves later on, having always felt "different" from their family in a more immediate way. The two fours would share the same core fears, but have different subconscious groundings for the behavior the fears drive. 

In either case, you are separated from full being very early in life genetically or not, and form a way of coping that aligns with one of the 9 styles. It isn't a superficial separation - it is literally so central to your existence that it creates your entire subconscious worldview bias. A catastrophic event would certainly influence the person's life and likely their manifestation of type, but it would amplify that person's fear of separation from something as it was, in the way it was, rather than forming an entirely different fear.

You'd have a bent tree with a gash in it, not a tree bending a different way, to use your example.


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

Well, my experience as a parent is that all three of my kids had distinct and different personalities (and consistent with who they are now) when they were born, and two different children can react to the same event differently.... based on their already existing preferences.

So yes, you can change a child by subjecting them to certain experiences, but the way they change in response is still based on instinctive preferences.

Also, these things kind of backfire. As a minor example, my ESFP child was stuck in a family of introverts, and we put pressure on him to become more introverted; we tried to structure him and keep him in line with introverted behavior. He did not really become introverted in response; he became a miserable and sad extrovert. (He was around five at that point in time.) We basically had to give him more freedom and ease up on the structure, and he soon regained his happy, positive self. There is a "sweet spot" in there where you're just giving children some additional options and stretching them... and then there is a dangerous place where you're simply squelching them. Over time, he did develop the ability to do some "quiet" things by himself and 'find the zone', but he still knows many people, likes meeting and interacting with new people, and gets bored if he would have to be alone for long.


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## redneck15 (Mar 21, 2011)

Figure said:


> I don't believe that a catastrophic event would change the core coping mechanism, as you are not separated twice from being.
> 
> In terms of development, most sources are careful to say that your core fears are influenced, not determined, by your childhood. You could have two 4's, for example, one of which grew up in a family who catered well to their needs, the other who did not - and the latter may be more influenced to construct themselves later on, having always felt "different" from their family in a more immediate way. The two fours would share the same core fears, but have different subconscious groundings for the behavior the fears drive.
> 
> ...


Okay, I see the idea of 'gash' vs. 'new bent'. So you would say that the point at which you don't have a 'woody stem' is extremely short and early, if it even exists. 

But you wouldn't say that the difference between 8 and 9 is that the pressures 8 had were not great enough to crush it, whereas 9 was crushed, leading to a desire to negotiate since resistance was pointless? Because if that was the case, type would not be genetic, whereas you are maintaining that core type is ultimately always genetic. This is correct?


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## redneck15 (Mar 21, 2011)

Jennywocky said:


> Well, my experience as a parent is that all three of my kids had distinct and different personalities (and consistent with who they are now) when they were born, and two different children can react to the same event differently.... based on their already existing preferences.
> 
> So yes, you can change a child by subjecting them to certain experiences, but the way they change in response is still based on instinctive preferences..


I can see children 'coming out' different, definitely. There is unquestionably a genetic predisposition. You would think, then, that the basic instinct is not itself subject to change? For example, you couldn't redirect a particularly placid child to become the aggressive one in a given scenario, or a particularly aggressive child to become the placid one? I think that doing that would be wrong interference for anyone, but I am speaking only of possibilities. If something is possible, then it has likely occurred somewhere before.




Jennywocky said:


> Also, these things kind of backfire. As a minor example, my ESFP child was stuck in a family of introverts, and we put pressure on him to become more introverted; we tried to structure him and keep him in line with introverted behavior. He did not really become introverted in response; he became a miserable and sad extrovert. (He was around five at that point in time.) We basically had to give him more freedom and ease up on the structure, and he soon regained his happy, positive self. There is a "sweet spot" in there where you're just giving children some additional options and stretching them... and then there is a dangerous place where you're simply squelching them. Over time, he did develop the ability to do some "quiet" things by himself and 'find the zone', but he still knows many people, likes meeting and interacting with new people, and gets bored if he would have to be alone for long.


Yes, it makes perfect sense that if there is a natural, instinctive desire to orient yourself toward the world in a certain way, then when that is suppressed it is not good or moral on the part of the suppressor.

What if we look to circumstances, however? The Robinson Crusoe experiment, for example, performed on an extrovert. Over very long periods of time (20+ years), starting while you are still young, in the absence of any and all human companionship, might it be possible that the extrovert will be converted into an introvert? Robinson Crusoe, in the story, seems like an extrovert before the Island. Afterwards, although he wants human companionship, he doesn't do a lot of talking (in my reading of it, anyway).

Again, might his enneatype change from having fun and adventure to being a 'survivor'?

I ask this because you indicate your efforts on your child did have some modifying effect. Perhaps if the length of time is extended indefinitely, the modifying effect will have no definite limit?


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## Figure (Jun 22, 2011)

Lion 4.5 said:


> But you wouldn't say that the difference between 8 and 9 is that the pressures 8 had were not great enough to crush it, whereas 9 was crushed, leading to a desire to negotiate since resistance was pointless? Because if that was the case, type would not be genetic, whereas you are maintaining that core type is ultimately always genetic. This is correct?


No. Type 8 doesn't mean "someone tried to crush them but they toughed it out" and Type 9 doesn't mean "was crushed." Type 8 means you have someone who for any reason is driven by a fear of being vulnerable (because they are), and Type 9 means you have someone who is driven by a fear of not being whole, or separated (because they are). Not every 8 has someone beat them to a pulp when they're a child - I know 8's whose lives have been cakewalks, and 7's whose lives have been sheer hell. *Had *they been beaten to a pulp it would have undoubtedly changed their worldview, but they weren't - still, they still express their separation from oneness as a fear of vulnerability, and still can become too forceful, aggressive, etc. They same can be said of all types. 

Generally speaking, any type could see themselves as a "survivor" or whichever moniker, through their own lens and personal experiences. 

I'm not saying that type is always genetic either. I am saying that it is determined very early and is unalterable, which is not the same thing as being passed down in genes or determined before birth.


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## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

In the physical: Your type is a deep part of the way you work. If your brain has grown itself around the central concept of a core for decades of your life, that is a ton of neurons and structures that would need to be repurposed or cut off to "change your type".

In the mental: Your type is a systemic basis for the way you consciously think and operate. You might be able to change the way you think with drugs or cognitive therapy, but you won't have changed where you came from. 

Your metaphor does not stand. Trees are physical things that you can plant and uproot, plant again in new soil and so forth. Minds are not on this level unless you want to go messing around with lobotomy, other brain surgery or massive drug use, which is a dangerous proposition - that can do much more than alter the expression of your core. 

Seek ego death all you like; if you find it, it will perhaps help you to deal with some of the blocks that your core presents. If you went through that and find yourself a "new core type", I think it would defeat the point.


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## July31 (Sep 13, 2013)

Lion 4.5 said:


> In this eventuality, two things can happen to a tree. It can die, or if it is strong enough it can grow up again from the stem. This time, it will grow in a different shape. It may live, but it will never be the same.



Yes, I think it will never be the same, but if it's a cherry tree, it will stay a cherry tree. 
Maybe there is not enough water for a time and it won't have cherries. 
Maybe you bye oranges and hang them on the cherry tree - so it looks at first sight like an orange tree. 
But it will never be an orange tree.


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## sarek (May 20, 2010)

As taught by religious and esoteric systems, deliberately causing one's catastrophic rebirth is extremely difficult but possible. This is what is referred to as awakening, dying and being reborn. All the fragments of false personality must be identified and made to yield to a new integrated "real I" which is based on strengthening a person's Essence.

This is straight from Gurdjieff, who is THE primary populariser of the enneagram, even if it was not him but Ichazo who first used it for personality typing.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

sarek said:


> As taught by religious and esoteric systems, deliberately causing one's catastrophic rebirth is extremely difficult but possible. This is what is referred to as awakening, dying and being reborn. All the fragments of false personality must be identified and made to yield to a new integrated "real I" which is based on strengthening a person's Essence.
> 
> This is straight from Gurdjieff, who is THE primary populariser of the enneagram, even if it was not him but Ichazo who first used it for personality typing.


I think what is important to understand here though is that Gurdjieff most likely referred to becoming whole, as in, not identifying with any core issue relating to the enneatypes, as opposed to simply changing type to something else. It's more a matter of becoming typeless.

In psychology this process is referred to as positive disintegration: 

Positive Disintegration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## mimesis (Apr 10, 2012)

Flatlander said:


> In the physical: Your type is a deep part of the way you work. If your brain has grown itself around the central concept of a core for decades of your life, that is a ton of neurons and structures that would need to be repurposed or cut off to "change your type".
> 
> In the mental: Your type is a systemic basis for the way you consciously think and operate. You might be able to change the way you think with drugs or cognitive therapy, but you won't have changed where you came from.
> 
> ...


You give a few arguments from different perspectives which in themselves seem to make sense, but one could question the extend to which they are relevant. 

Who says the brain has developed around a central concept? When it comes to 'a ton of neurons', I'd say that a person migrating from a small village in the mountains in Iran to go and live in New York City would have a lot more to elaborate on, most of which have little to do with any of these concepts. While the enneagram concepts transcend cultural background and knowledge, and makes up for bigger differences between types at a younger age, and low to average health level. 

So an e5's brain from the mountains in Iran would be comparable with an e5 from Brooklyn, with regard to this concept. Of course a neurosis has significant impact on someone's life, but experiencing one severe traumatic event can seriously fuck up a person's coping, and dramatically change one's life, almost literally from one day to the other, and this doesn't require any altering of a ton of neurons. 

Our mind may be compared with a system, with as you put it 'systemic failure', (which I like as a comparison) but it's not like a hardcoded legacy operating system with added software applications with backward compatibility issues. It's not like we're installing Theory of Mind service pack 1 when we are 4 years old. We don't need to flash our prefrontal cortex with a firmware upgrade to make us less egocentric. Egocentrism does make big differences in stereotype behavior (and somewhat significant for every type (or symptomatic if you will) ). But it also makes a big difference between the lower and higher health levels. 

And yes, we can change where we came from. Vipanassa meditation sort of does exactly that trick, through self-observation and insight in where we come from, the (fear-) conditoning process and chain of cause and effect, and making it impermanent. There is growing evidence that we can alter our brain. 

I don't know what you mean with Ego Death, but I don't think it will lead to a new core, as I believe that every core fear ultimately is an extension of fear of death, on a much deeper psychological level and perhaps at the root of the Ego, which as a faculty is only a part of a much vaster and comprehensive Self.


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## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

mimesis said:


> You give a few arguments from different perspectives which in themselves seem to make sense, but one could question the extend to which they are relevant.
> 
> Who says the brain has developed around a central concept?


In the technical sense, I would say that this idea is suggested via the principle of neuroplasticity, which is ostensibly supported through DNA. How else would there be a map of how to repurpose the brain, get it working again, if you injured it?



> When it comes to 'a ton of neurons', I'd say that a person migrating from a small village in the mountains in Iran to go and live in New York City would have a lot more to elaborate on, most of which have little to do with any of these concepts. While the enneagram concepts transcend cultural background and knowledge, and makes up for bigger differences between types at a younger age, and low to average health level.


Alright, let's go on, next paragraph.



> So an e5's brain from the mountains in Iran would be comparable with an e5 from Brooklyn, with regard to this concept.


If you find commonalities in the mind, they most likely are represented somehow in the brain. 



> Of course a neurosis has significant impact on someone's life, but experiencing one severe traumatic event can seriously fuck up a person's coping, and dramatically change one's life, almost literally from one day to the other, and this doesn't require any altering of a ton of neurons.


How about alteration of brain operations? Neurotransmitter levels and regulations being messed up or changed? Sure I was using a generalistic picture, but that doesn't invalidate my point - the concept of it wasn't wrong.



> Our mind may be compared with a system, with as you put it 'systemic failure', (which I like as a comparison) but it's not like a hardcoded legacy operating system with added software applications with backward compatibility issues. It's not like we're installing Theory of Mind service pack 1 when we are 4 years old. We don't need to flash our prefrontal cortex with a firmware upgrade to make us less egocentric. Egocentrism does make big differences in stereotype behavior (and somewhat significant for every type (or symptomatic if you will) ). But it also makes a big difference between the lower and higher health levels.
> 
> And yes, we can change where we came from. Vipanassa meditation sort of does exactly that trick, through self-observation and insight in where we come from, the (fear-) conditoning process and chain of cause and effect, and making it impermanent. There is growing evidence that we can alter our brain.


Okay then you ought to understand what I was referring to with ego death. It's the same idea behind the process that you're talking about with meditation.

But no, you don't 'get rid of' a core this way, because the cycle that goes into forming a core is recursive: mind impacts brain impacts mind impacts brain. The core is eventually made clear from this operation as a central idea that pictures what principles 'you' were built on and predicts your defense mechanisms and behaviors at different states of health. You can change your brain and your mind, but you can't change the fact of its operation to date - you can't change its abstract core. Why would you want to, either - all a new core implies is different/more defenses and traps. I would use the process to accept that I had built this core and dismantle the defenses to manifest myself differently through my central concepts.



> I don't know what you mean with Ego Death, but I don't think it will lead to a new core, as I believe that every core fear ultimately is an extension of fear of death, on a much deeper psychological level and perhaps at the root of the Ego, which as a faculty is only a part of a much vaster and comprehensive Self.


I wasn't saying that it would lead to a new core.


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## mimesis (Apr 10, 2012)

Flatlander said:


> I wasn't saying that it would lead to a new core.


No I agreed with you on that part, you used quote/unquote. OP mentioned death, rebirth and changing type.

I asked, because I don't use the term Ego Death myself. I think I can relate to it, as an experience, or notion. I have heard it more often, lately, but I'm not very fond of the term, which I think is prone to cause confusion, and I don't think I can relate very well to some of the descriptions like 'annihilate Ego' or 'refutation of I' (wiki)
Ego Death - Glossary - A.H. Almaas

Gotta go now, I'll respond to the rest of your post later.


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## redneck15 (Mar 21, 2011)

mimesis said:


> No I agreed with you on that part, you used quote/unquote. OP mentioned death, rebirth and changing type.
> 
> I asked, because I don't use the term Ego Death myself. I think I can relate to it, as an experience, or notion. I have heard it more often, lately, but I'm not very fond of the term, which I think is prone to cause confusion, and I don't think I can relate very well to some of the descriptions like 'annihilate Ego' or 'refutation of I' (wiki)
> Ego Death - Glossary - A.H. Almaas
> ...


I didn't mean actual death or rebirth, but possibly a short-term near-death experience, or a long-term experience involving lower amounts of sustained pressures in a certain direction. 

The consensus appears opposed to Catastrophic Rebirth, but I still think it should be possible. We aren't trees, but if we can imagine and relate to a certain 'total' mindset change, then it should be possible. Think of 'multiple-personalities' disorder; isn't that a kind of validation that the pressures of certain sicknesses of the mind can have a lasting effect sufficient to change Enneagram core, for all intents and purposes, at least for some of the time?


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## mimesis (Apr 10, 2012)

Flatlander said:


> But no, you don't 'get rid of' a core this way, because the cycle that goes into forming a core is recursive: mind impacts brain impacts mind impacts brain. The core is eventually made clear from this operation as a central idea that pictures what principles 'you' were built on and predicts your defense mechanisms and behaviors at different states of health. You can change your brain and your mind, but you can't change the fact of its operation to date - you can't change its abstract core. Why would you want to, either - all a new core implies is different/more defenses and traps. I would use the process to accept that I had built this core and dismantle the defenses to manifest myself differently through my central concepts.



Well for starters, and this is moving away from enneagram theory, but I see the brain more as a distributed system. If there was even anything such as a 'core' we haven't found it yet, at least not in the physical brain. We can see how through neurons attached to our eyes visual information enters our brain in the visual cortex. So far is was easy to just follow the neuron. Yet, how after that this data gets distributed over all parts of the brain that simultaneous processes this information as distributed objects, we don't really know. I mean, we know what parts of the brain are used for, but we don't know what distributes, and reintegrates all this data. This is an issue (missing link), in general with regard to studying self-organizing systems in biology. An interesting link perhaps: 
Emergent Consciousness and Freewill | Realizing Resonance - Futurist Philosophy Blog


Going from the brain to the mind, we could argue whether our 'core', or even our 'ego' is really what it revolves around. However we choose to see it, it is a projection, or mental representation, and illusion to begin with. (If it is our core, how come we are not 'centered'?) I don't mind communicating using a sort of visuo-spatial comprehension, if we keep in mind not to fall into the trap of forgetting this is just a model and our imagination and a metaphor as a way to convey something complex in a simple way, and not to narrow our perception. 

I see the 'core' as the part of a mental structure (our ego), at the beginning of that recursive, self-referential feedback loop, from which the I emerged, and the notion of 'self' or consciousness. I don't think we are born as a Tabula Rasa but I am not ready to just assume each person is given these abstract ideas at birth. 

Besides, even if you refer to holy idea, and virtue, from what I understand it is rather *loss* of virtue that makes up for the core vice and fear, and maladaptive coping styles (strategies) that becomes a fixation ( preoccupational attitude and expectation, predispositional beliefs and tunnel vision, dissociative defense mechanisms, personal narrative and self-concept/ image ) intensifying to establish itself as a neurosis. I just don't find it convincing that we are born with all virtues but our core virtue. I can see however, how fear can lead to desire, and fear and desire can lead to fixation, and fixation can lead to cognitive distortion and dissociation, perpetuating self fulfilling prophecies. And also how adaptive strategies may become maladaptive, counter productive or self-defeating. 


If we look at one of the earliest coping styles we know, of half of the population, called insecure attachment style, you will see some of the babies chose the strategy not to seek connection/ intimacy/ resources and behave _seemingly '_unaffected', or 'detached' when the mother (re-)enters the room. This style or strategy (avoidant, hiding emotion) is developed in relation with the (expected) response of the caregiver (ignoring the baby or telling him to stop crying). 

What initially can be considered an 'adaptive' strategy coping with an unhealthy parenting style, can eventually become an unhealthy 'maladaptive' strategy of learned (conditioned) helplessness, when it is also being applied to future relations with other children or as (dismissive avoidant) adults, as we know these strategies tend to fixate and become engrained in someone's 'core' personality. This doesn't mean it is impossible to change this into a secure attachment style as an adult. 

Of course this is different from changing core enneatype, but I use this as an example of changing 'core', as in 'deeply embedded', which can be changed without needing to rewrite history, or practice lobotomy, but only need to rewrite one's dispositional attitude and anticipation and actively engage. (and this could be applied to e4, e5, and e9).


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## toma (Sep 18, 2013)

sarek said:


> As taught by religious and esoteric systems, deliberately causing one's catastrophic rebirth is extremely difficult but possible. This is what is referred to as awakening, dying and being reborn. All the fragments of false personality must be identified and made to yield to a new integrated "real I" which is based on strengthening a person's Essence.
> 
> This is straight from Gurdjieff, who is THE primary populariser of the enneagram, even if it was not him but Ichazo who first used it for personality typing.


Not difficult once you know how. Only a small percentage will experience this. I was full of fear for one reason or another. All fear disappears. All your skin is removed is one way I could put it. After I had an awakening I walked into a room full of people and the human sorrow and heartbreak was overwhelming. All ones senses are magnified for the rest of ones life. Everything around you becomes alive and vibrant where ever you go. My biggest fear was how will I die and what happens next. I have the answer and for me that is enough. I am forever humbled and grateful for the gift of maturity and unconditional love. I am INFJ and this has not changed. My core has changed though, now it is peaceful and serene, my core is God as I understand her, it is the spirit within along with my vision that is the core.

I was just as afraid of living as I was of death sometimes, but not today.One thing we do not forget is the date, time, and place of the awakening, we do not forget what we saw. It is of no importance what your religion is.


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## July31 (Sep 13, 2013)

Lion 4.5 said:


> Think of 'multiple-personalities' disorder; isn't that a kind of validation that the pressures of certain sicknesses of the mind can have a lasting effect sufficient to change Enneagram core, for all intents and purposes, at least for some of the time?


I know a coach who works with eneagram. She even worked with people with a multiple personality disorder and she told me, that all the ego-states of this persons have the same eneagram structure - some are more at the desintegration-point.

Incidentally Psychologists who work with ego states don't see multiple personality disorder as a single phenomen, they see this as an extreme end of an continuum. At the other end are very integrated persons. It's one of the newer theories in psychologie.


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## RobynC (Jun 10, 2011)

Honestly CP6 and 8 seem so similar... many 6's are ruled by a fear of 
vulnerability, fear of being dominated by others.


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## Flatlander (Feb 25, 2012)

RobynC said:


> Honestly CP6 and 8 seem so similar... many 6's are ruled by a fear of
> vulnerability, fear of being dominated by others.


8 is driven by lust, which is more of a pointed, focused goal want, and its anger is focused toward this. 6 is driven by doubt or uncertainty, and CP6 is warding against that core. Both still have trouble with vulnerability and the idea of being dominated by others for their various reasons - if you are vulnerable or dominated by another, you might not get what you want, _or_ you might fall prey to your uncertainty.


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## RobynC (Jun 10, 2011)

I thought a worry of 6's was being without support?


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