# Susan Zanos: Ennegram Typing, Appearance & Astrology



## dfoster (Mar 8, 2010)

*Susan Zannos: Ennegram Typing, Appearance & Astrology*

Her book, _"Human Types: Essence and the Enneagram"_ is quite a departure from a typical Enneagram book. From my understanding of the Enneagram, Gurdjieff was the originator, then Ichazo first made the link to psychology then Naranjo made a real connection to modern psychology. Then his students took it in 2 different directions: Almaas & Maitri took it in the spirituality direction while Palmer, Riso and others took it in the contemporary psychology direction. But Zanos' typing system is directly from the Gurdjieff system itself and... *Astrology*. She went into lengths about how different planets affect different glands in the body resulting in different physical appearance and behavior. 

So her types have planetary names: Saturnine: Type 8, Jovial: 7, Marital: 5, Venusian:4, Mercurial: 2, Lunar:1 and Solar which has no Enneagram correspondence. What I found interesting is her mapping of these types to appearances. Like Lunar is frail and skinny, Mercurial is small and proportional, Saturnine is long and sturdy, Martial is short and stocky, Jovial is round and soft... 

Very interesting read, esp the part about different centers affecting different behavior. But I don't know anything about Astrology so I couldn't make any correlations on the material. Anyone care to comment on the book or the subject?


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## iMaven (Jan 14, 2011)

dfoster said:


> Her book, _"Human Types: Essence and the Enneagram"_ is quite a departure from a typical Enneagram book. From my understanding of the Enneagram, Gurdjieff was the originator, then Ichazo first made the link to psychology then Naranjo made a real connection to modern psychology. Then his students took it in 2 different directions: Almaas & Maitri took it in the spirituality direction while Palmer, Riso and others took it in the contemporary psychology direction. But Zanos' typing system is directly from the Gurdjieff system itself and... *Astrology*. She went into lengths about how different planets affect different glands in the body resulting in different physical appearance and behavior.
> 
> So her types have planetary names: Saturnine: Type 8, Jovial: 7, Marital: 5, Venusian:4, Mercurial: 2, Lunar:1 and Solar which has no Enneagram correspondence. What I found interesting is her mapping of these types to appearances. Like Lunar is frail and skinny, Mercurial is small and proportional, Saturnine is long and sturdy, Martial is short and stocky, Jovial is round and soft...
> 
> Very interesting read, esp the part about different centers affecting different behavior. But I don't know anything about Astrology so I couldn't make any correlations on the material. Anyone care to comment on the book or the subject?


the enneagram didn't originate from gurdjeff. it originated from the law of 3 and 7. just a point.

but he said himself "Maybe I stole it." unless that quote's fake.
here's another quote :"From where could Gurdjieff have stolen an esoteric understanding of Christianity? From the Fathers and Mothers of the Church, also called the Desert Elders, whose teachings have been followed in the monastic tradition of the Orthodox Church. The writings of the Desert Elders recently have been translated by scholars in a more accurate version than ever before. This new translation has revealed in the a hitherto lost complete inner Christian tradition, a path of mysticism that includes the seeds of the Enneagram. British scholar Robin Amis details these findings in A Different Christianity (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995)."


and damn, this is what i've been wanting to make a book about. connecting astrology to our enneagram. and tri-type if possible. i f you knew all about the sky on your date of birth and your parents. but then again, i'm not sure if it works.

and it's cool that 2 is lunar because my gf is a 2 and was born on the full moon.
so you have the book, right?

i would just see if it matches up to what you observe. i think i'ma buy that book ahha


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## dfoster (Mar 8, 2010)

iMaven said:


> the enneagram didn't originate from gurdjeff. it originated from the law of 3 and 7. just a point.
> 
> but he said himself "Maybe I stole it." unless that quote's fake.
> here's another quote :"From where could Gurdjieff have stolen an esoteric understanding of Christianity? From the Fathers and Mothers of the Church, also called the Desert Elders, whose teachings have been followed in the monastic tradition of the Orthodox Church. The writings of the Desert Elders recently have been translated by scholars in a more accurate version than ever before. This new translation has revealed in the a hitherto lost complete inner Christian tradition, a path of mysticism that includes the seeds of the Enneagram. British scholar Robin Amis details these findings in A Different Christianity (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995)."
> ...


well, Guardjieff is the closest real entity that you can credit it to anyway. I'm aware of the quotes you posted. He learned it from different sources from his years of wandering.. 

Anyway, yes I have the book, I actually put it in the "Constitutional Psychology" category of my library because it relates personality to biology/appearance, along Kretschmer, Sheldon. 

Anyway, another the book you wanna check out is "Diagnosis of Man" by Kenneth Walker. He also went in depth about how the glands affect appearance and behavior, like how you can have "thyroid oriented" person vs a "pituitary oriented" person. He even typed Napolean as a pituitary person from his autopsy, saying because he had a paunch, small genital and hands, delicate skin, feminine body. Very interesting stuff. So this book and Zanos' books are related for sure but none quotes the other as reference.


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## iMaven (Jan 14, 2011)

dfoster said:


> well, Guardjieff is the closest real entity that you can credit it to anyway. I'm aware of the quotes you posted. He learned it from different sources from his years of wandering..
> 
> Anyway, yes I have the book, I actually put it in the "Constitutional Psychology" category of my library because it relates personality to biology/appearance, along Kretschmer, Sheldon.
> 
> Anyway, another the book you wanna check out is "Diagnosis of Man" by Kenneth Walker. He also went in depth about how the glands affect appearance and behavior, like how you can have "thyroid oriented" person vs a "pituitary oriented" person. He even typed Napolean as a pituitary person from his autopsy, saying because he had a paunch, small genital and hands, delicate skin, feminine body. Very interesting stuff. So this book and Zanos' books are related for sure but none quotes the other as reference.


i'd agree with that.

and i'm definitely going to look into susan's book. i'll be ordering a copy tonight! i'll come back to this thread later when i have more to offer on it.


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## dfoster (Mar 8, 2010)

oops, sorry, my punctuation in the first post is confusing. I meant Lunar is type 1


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## iMaven (Jan 14, 2011)

dfoster said:


> oops, sorry, my punctuation in the first post is confusing. I meant Lunar is type 1


aw well there goes that !! haahh. i should have read better though. 

i wish there was a place to look at alll these enneagram books before buying one.. because a lot are too new for any credible reviews..
i'm sure many of them contain a lot of neat insight.

how does her book relate to your astrological calculations and your self-diagnosed enneagram?


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## dfoster (Mar 8, 2010)

I found another book that also talks about body types, glands & astrology, using the exact terms: Mercurial, Jovial, ect:
Joel Friedlander's _"Body Types" _

This and Zannos' book get their material from the same source. From the sources I read, it's Rodney Collin's _"Theory of Celestial Influence"_ Rodney Collin is a pretty big author in the Fourth Way circle. It's out of print on Amazon and pretty expensive from the used book vendors. I figure it must be in high demand, like those from Kenneth Walker. 

About books and prices, I get a lot of my Enneagram books from the local library, you might want to check it out.

This link has a pretty good intro to it:
Body Types

About my own astrological stuff & the book, I don't know anything about astrology. But the book mostly brings up the types as in planetary influences but not much I can recognize from popular astrology references. It does describe the hybrid types like Saturnine-Martial which I correlate to. Basically it's the leader-warrior hybrid. I think it's worth checking out.


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## Absolute Foodie (Nov 10, 2012)

dfoster said:


> Her book, _"Human Types: Essence and the Enneagram"_ is quite a departure from a typical Enneagram book. From my understanding of the Enneagram, Gurdjieff was the originator, then Ichazo first made the link to psychology then Naranjo made a real connection to modern psychology. Then his students took it in 2 different directions: Almaas & Maitri took it in the spirituality direction while Palmer, Riso and others took it in the contemporary psychology direction. But Zanos' typing system is directly from the Gurdjieff system itself and... *Astrology*. She went into lengths about how different planets affect different glands in the body resulting in different physical appearance and behavior.
> 
> So her types have planetary names: Saturnine: Type 8, Jovial: 7, Marital: 5, Venusian:4, Mercurial: 2, Lunar:1 and Solar which has no Enneagram correspondence. What I found interesting is her mapping of these types to appearances. Like Lunar is frail and skinny, Mercurial is small and proportional, Saturnine is long and sturdy, Martial is short and stocky, Jovial is round and soft...
> 
> Very interesting read, esp the part about different centers affecting different behavior. But I don't know anything about Astrology so I couldn't make any correlations on the material. Anyone care to comment on the book or the subject?


I read Susan Zannos book 
_"Human Types: Essence and the Enneagram" _ several years ago, definitely worth reading. Thanks for sharing, too bad very few people seem to know about this Enneagram approach. Fascinating really. Thanks for sharing:kitteh:


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## dfoster (Mar 8, 2010)

Absolute Foodie said:


> I read Susan Zannos book
> _"Human Types: Essence and the Enneagram" _ several years ago, definitely worth reading. Thanks for sharing, too bad very few people seem to know about this Enneagram approach. Fascinating really. Thanks for sharing:kitteh:


cool! good to know someone else has read the book. It seems to touch on a universal knowledge base in a domain that I don't have a name for. I'm not sure if that knowledge base and the Gurdjieff/Fourth Way were integrated together by some authors or actually had an organic connection with each other in the first place. 

I might as well use this thread as a repository for what I found in this area so people with any familiarity can contribute...

Zanos's book shows the connection between planets <--> glands <--> appearance/personality <--> Enneagram type

I think it traces back to this book by Louis Berman, MD: The Glands Regulating Personality_,_ 1922.
Basically, the over development of a gland results in a particular appearance and personality while the under development of it yields very different results (not necessarily to the opposite.)

So the adrenal gland has two related personalities, the anterior pituitary gland has two related personalities, same with the posterior pituitary gland and the thyroid gland. So those a the pure types then you have the hybrid types based on the pure types. So it's a system of typology based on glands  I find the descriptions of the appearances and their corresponding personalities to match my real life experience. Fascinating stuff.

Then someone went and connected the glands to the planets (astrology)  The theory is that the particular alignment of the planets at the time of your birth causes certain gland to be most dominant in your body. I find the science behind it dubious but as long as we are in Enneagram land, dubious is OK 

OK, this guy was a very big author in the Fourth Way community: Rodney Collins. He wrote what was supposed to be a landmark book called: The Theory of Celestial Influence, it has to be one of the most fascinating books I have ever laid eyes on. Coming from a scientific background, I had to take all of this in with a grain of salt but a technical person also knows that a system doesn't have to be true to be useful, so I pressed on...

The book is very comprehensive, it attempts to explain all the rules of the universe including Man and his historical behavior. This guy was a student of Oupensky so he also integrated Gurdjieff's stuff into his system. Anyway, it also talks about how planets influence glands, personalities and ultimately man's behavior individually and corporately. 

Fascinating assertions. For example "the process of corruption" that causes diseases in the body or crime/rebellion in society was because "the process of destruction" wasn't completed. Everything in the universe is like clockwork following exact rules. Saturn is related to the cycle of conquest every 30 years and this is related to the rise and fall of the British Empire, Alexander, Ghengis Khan ect. Mars is responsible for the cycle of war... lots and lots of details.


Now onto even weirder stuff  The link that I previously posted that quoted body types references similar to Zanos' book:

Body Types

is actually another typology system of the strangest order. It's just too wack for me to even recommend checking out. It's called the Michael Teachings. Basically you are either one of the 7 types: King, Warrior, Sage, Artisan, Priest, Server, Scholar (not to be confused with Robert Moore's King-Warrior-Magician-Lover which is an extension of Jung's archetypes) And your essense has chosen its role before coming on to the physical plane and you are to live out your role over a number of life times before learning enough to reunite with the Infinite. This, and I kid you not... was dictated to some people by this entity called Michael which is a collection of souls/fragments. As in we are all fragments of the Infinite and it splits itself up into many pieces and put them through life time experiences to learn about itself. It uses terms very similar to the Enneagram: essence, false personality, ect.. 

A book on this is by Jose Stevens: The Michael Handbook, very strange stuff but definitely uses Gurdjieff's system: Essesnce, Personality, Chief Features, Body types/Planetary influence, The Centers: exactly the same as the centers described by Gurdjieff's students as far as I can tell...

So somehow this stuff is related to the Enneagram or someone borrows the Enneagram to lend credit to their weird concoction. 

OK, enough for now. Remember, take this with a grain of salt but have fun regardless


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## Absolute Foodie (Nov 10, 2012)

Originally Posted by *dfoster*  @_dfoster_ 

I will, many thanks, I appreciate your note and I will definitely look for the books you are recommending. Looking forward to reading them:kitteh:. I do know a little bit about astrology and the correlation between the planetary influences and the glands (hence physical appearance) is undeniable. I read "Character and Neurosis" by Claudio Naranjo and I enjoyed it as well. 
Did I read you are a Saturnian type? My typology is Solar-Venusian; even when I have resisted developing Mercurial traits I am aware I would benefit from it being a double positive Venus-Solar roud: ..
 Yes, fascinating stuff_*-the Enneagram *__*of Essence*_-...
You seem to have done a lot of research -(I am not surprised you are a Saturnian:tongue- I appreciate you sharing whatever you know about it, it would be so helpful if more people knew about this system... Looking forward to reading more of your posts...
Patience for English is not my first language and being an ISFP does not make me particularly articulate either:laughing:, thanks again


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## n2freedom (Jun 2, 2011)

@dfoster...great stuff. I googled the information and looked at the preview pages on google books but it's not enough information to really get a good grasp of the system. So, I will need to order the book. I'm really curious and interested in the glandular personality type. I probably should purchase that book too. Just curious how do you determine which gland is dominate?


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## dfoster (Mar 8, 2010)

Absolute Foodie said:


> Originally Posted by *dfoster*  @_dfoster_
> 
> I will, many thanks, I appreciate your note and I will definitely look for the books you are recommending. Looking forward to reading them:kitteh:. I do know a little bit about astrology and the correlation between the planetary influences and the glands (hence physical appearance) is undeniable. I read "Character and Neurosis" by Claudio Naranjo and I enjoyed it as well.
> Did I read you are a Saturnian type? My typology is Solar-Venusian; even when I have resisted developing Mercurial traits I am aware I would benefit from it being a double positive Venus-Solar roud: ..
> ...


my pleasure  I found that astrology is a lot more than what most people think it is. Yes, Solar-Venusian is very intriguing. It's almost the opposite of my type. I have encountered may be 3 people online who have read Character and Neurosis, it's a shame most people aren't familiar with such seminal work. Some how all of this is related


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## dfoster (Mar 8, 2010)

n2freedom said:


> @_dfoster_...great stuff. I googled the information and looked at the preview pages on google books but it's not enough information to really get a good grasp of the system. So, I will need to order the book. I'm really curious and interested in the glandular personality type. I probably should purchase that book too. Just curious how do you determine which gland is dominate?


I downloaded Berman's book online, I believe it was from Google books because it's so old and the copyright expired. I highly recommend it too. I also got Collin's book in PDF format online too, forgot where, but it was definitely available. It was the hardest book to get too in print, it was either unavailable/too expensive on Amazon and not available at any other book seller. The only other way was from the central branch of a large library and I had to read it in a reserved area with angry looking librarians checking my every move  It was that rare.

I determined mine from the physical descriptions/traits of the pure types and also the description of the hybrid type.


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## n2freedom (Jun 2, 2011)

dfoster said:


> I downloaded Berman's book online, I believe it was from Google books because it's so old and the copyright expired. I highly recommend it too. I also got Collin's book in PDF format online too, forgot where, but it was definitely available. It was the hardest book to get too in print, it was either unavailable/too expensive on Amazon and not available at any other book seller. The only other way was from the central branch of a large library and I had to read it in a reserved area with angry looking librarians checking my every move  It was that rare.
> 
> I determined mine from the physical descriptions/traits of the pure types and also the description of the hybrid type.


Thanks...it sounds totally fascinating. I'll have see what I can discover. Thanks for sharing this info. 

Edit...found both I think. Going to read them now. Can hardly wait! *rubs hands together enthusiastically* roud:


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## Absolute Foodie (Nov 10, 2012)

dfoster said:


> my pleasure  I found that astrology is a lot more than what most people think it is. Yes, Solar-Venusian is very intriguing. It's almost the opposite of my type. I have encountered may be 3 people online who have read Character and Neurosis, it's a shame most people aren't familiar with such seminal work. Some how all of this is related


That's right, there is a lot more than meets the eye with this typology system and its worth exploring in more depth. When I found Susan Zannos book I simply couldn't put it down. The very exciting part to me was the obvious influence that our 'dominant gland' has on our body type, giving us specific physical and behavioral traits so you can start with the work right away!! ...and the chances of mistyping ourselves with this system are so very slim roud:
I guess some people consider Claudio Naranjo's book 'Character and Neurosis' heavy because it goes into such depth and most of us fear having to confront our demons :laughing:... Great thing @dfoster ! Thanks again 4 the info.
Oh I read @n2freedom found material online, I shall look into it:kitteh:


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## n2freedom (Jun 2, 2011)

Absolute Foodie said:


> That's right, there is a lot more than meets the eye with this typology system and its worth exploring in more depth. When I found Susan Zannos book I simply couldn't put it down. The very exciting part to me was the obvious influence that our 'dominant gland' has on our body type, giving us specific physical and behavioral traits so you can start with the work right away!! ...and the chances of mistyping ourselves with this system are so very slim roud:
> I guess some people consider Claudio Naranjo's book 'Character and Neurosis' heavy because it goes into such depth and most of us fear having to confront our demons :laughing:... Great thing @_dfoster_ ! Thanks again 4 the info.
> Oh I read @_n2freedom_ found material online, I shall look into it:kitteh:


I started reading it last night. It is quite the heavy read. I must admit...I skipped past to the personality types towards the bottom. I could see a lot of myself in the dominant thyroid and woes associated with an overtax/deficient one. Likewise, I could see a lot of myself in the adrenal dominant one as well. Typically my adrenals get taxed and then my thyroid tries to compensate for the difference and gets taxed in the process. At least according to my wholistic doctor's feedback.

I didn't read the other ones...will probably read more of it tonight. I found it rather interesting. I tend to enjoy reading books written around that time period in general though. You and foster have peaked my interest in the other book....I will add it to my reading list and order it soon.

Let me know what you think after you have dived into it a bit.


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## Absolute Foodie (Nov 10, 2012)

n2freedom said:


> I started reading it last night. It is quite the heavy read. I must admit...I skipped past to the personality types towards the bottom. I could see a lot of myself in the dominant thyroid and woes associated with an overtax/deficient one. Likewise, I could see a lot of myself in the adrenal dominant one as well. Typically my adrenals get taxed and then my thyroid tries to compensate for the difference and gets taxed in the process. At least according to my wholistic doctor's feedback.
> 
> I didn't read the other ones...will probably read more of it tonight. I found it rather interesting. I tend to enjoy reading books written around that time period in general though. You and foster have peaked my interest in the other book....I will add it to my reading list and order it soon.
> 
> Let me know what you think after you have dived into it a bit.


I will let you know once I have gotten into it, it's great your interest has been aroused:laughing: @dfoster seems to know quite a lot about it, I was pleasantly surprised at that! ...(wish there were more like him in PerC though, we need them)- 
You shall not regret the read, it gets more and more fascinating- you will see for yourself:kitteh: ...the fact that is focuses on both Endocrinology and Pshychology makes it fantastic! Enjoy..!:wink:


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## n2freedom (Jun 2, 2011)

Absolute Foodie said:


> (wish there were more like him in PerC though, we need them)-


Couldn't agree with you more!


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## dfoster (Mar 8, 2010)

geez, thanks guys. I'm a curious person  I like to turn things upside down to get to the bottom of them without regards for current trends or conventions. Like a kid taking apart a clock to see what's inside knowing he'll be yelled at by mommy. Here's to more digging


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## Coburn (Sep 3, 2010)

Frail and skinny...


*looks down at body*


Yeah, no.


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