# Enneagram cult?



## Jeffrei (Aug 23, 2016)

Why is it that I can't read about enneagram stuff with out someone mentioning some sort of spiritual gibberish or something? I feel like I'm joining a cult. XD

I'm actually making this thread because I want to know how much of this is crap and how much of it is actually true. Is enneagram really spiritual stuff that's supposed to help you become an all knowing person that can sense when a loved one is injured miles away, or is it actually a psychologically based theory?


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## Brains (Jul 22, 2015)




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## Tamehagane (Sep 2, 2014)

"Spiritual" can be a vague term. The Traditional Enneagram seems to be more spiritually based, and some sites talk about the "energy" of each type...

I just take it as a psychological system.
I'd take your ESP development elsewhere. :laughing: You should look into Remote Viewing and tell us how it works out.


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## Gorgon (Feb 16, 2015)

Fwiw, enneagram can trace its origin to Gurdjieff's Fourth Way teachings which takes heavy influences from Sufism, Christian mysticism, and other neo-platonistic traditions. As for how to approach and utilize it, your mileage may vary. It can be as spiritual in the same way that westerners practice yoga - just another practical tool and method for self-improvement and greater understanding of the self similar to the way that yoga is primarily practiced in the west as another form of exercise, divorced from its original religious purposes. I see the enneagram as both incorporating and combining psychological theories and some spiritual elements.


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## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

The idea behind the spiritual side of the enneagram is that there are 9 "holy ideas", or enlightened views of reality, that we all lose touch with in early childhood. Each type is particularly sensitive to one of these holy ideas, e.g. the holy idea for type 1 is holy perfection, the perception that reality is inherently perfect as it is. Since 1s don't perceive this perfection, they find flaws and try to correct things to bring them more in line with the way they should be as the 1 sees it. The loss of the holy idea, then, results in a delusion about the way reality is, and so spiritual work involves getting back in touch with the holy ideas so that we perceive things as they really are, without the distorting lens of the personality.

Each type also has what enneagram authors call a "passion", although "vice" would perhaps be a less confusing term. The passions are the 7 deadly sins + 2 (deceit for type 3 and fear for type 6). Each passion has a corresponding virtue, which is its antidote. So another part of spiritual work is moving away from the passions and developing the virtues.

I don't think the spiritual stuff is "supposed to help you become an all knowing person that can sense when a loved one is injured miles away". Is it "gibberish"? Is it "crap"? Even if it is, that doesn't mean you can't make use of the enneagram purely as a psychological theory. You might even find that the spiritual stuff, even if not strictly true, helps with understanding the psychology of the types. Returning to the holy perfection example, even if there is no sense in which reality is already perfect, you might understand it as an ideal: 1s want to live in a world where everything is inherently perfect and nothing needs changing, and some might even have a sense that they've lost touch with reality's inherent perfection, whether that sense is accurate or not.

For a while I've been obsessing over trying to figure out whether there's anything to eastern spirituality, awakening/enlightenment, meditation, being on a spiritual path and the like, the sort of thing enneagram authors promote, because if it's really true that I'm asleep or deluded, I want to do something about it. My current thinking is that there may be some bits of wisdom there, and some of the practices can be quite helpful at times, but those practices are just tools that are useful for some people in some situations and not for others, not something that's worth devoting your life to, and you're probably not missing out on a huge amount if you ignore it entirely. I don't think there's much truth in the holy ideas; there are too many philosophical problems with them, and I might go through those sometime in another post.


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## brightflashes (Oct 27, 2015)

For me, while it has truth in it, I do not consider it scientific. While that might sound like I'm saying it's not valid, important, real, or whatever, all I really mean is that I recognize that it's more abstract and "to each their own" than other systems of personality evaluation. The appeal for me is that it's not as structured as a rigid system would be and also the personal exploration one can get out of it.

I think what one considers "spiritual" is going to have a greatly subjective meaning to that person. For example, I am cautious of anything that is connected to Christianity or Buddhism, myself, because those are the two religions that have brought with them the most dissonance in my life (that's being very polite). However, what I think of when I think of spiritual is more like holistic or very much a reflection of humanistic perspectives or positive psychology. These things look to better an individual in a myriad of ways and I have found that Enneagram is great for that.

Maybe one way of looking at it is that MBTi tells you who you are while the Enneagram is a tool one can use for self improvement. That's not to mean that Enneagram can't help people find out more about who they are, it's just to say that who one is in Enneagram terms is not as clearly defined as a trait theory like MBTi. 

And, as always, I feel the need to say that just because something isn't scientific doesn't mean that it's not valid or true by any means. And, like another poster mentioned, the Enneagram was born from a spiritual basis from understanding the human psyche more than a psychological one.


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## charlie.elliot (Jan 22, 2014)

I agree with a lot of what's been said so far, but just wanted to add that the current Enneagram system that we use was created by Don Riso & Russ Hudson in a relatively scientific way, i.e. its based off thousands of interviews that were analyzed very carefully. I would argue that even "thousands" is not quite enough for something like this, but nevertheless, it has a pretty solid foundation. 

As for the spiritual stuff, it's really a sad state of affairs that people associated the word "spiritual" with "crap" "that's not true" that can make you can have magical powers.... I think people use the word "spiritual" whenever something analyzes the human mind in a way that's too complicated for their understanding, or for their comfort. And then they dismiss it.

Enneagram stuff is tough, it's a long journey, it takes a lot of studying, but don't dismiss it as "gibberish" just because you see a lot of complicated words that you don't understand. Take the time to understand it, because trust me, nothing is worth studying more than you own mind .

That's the thing about the Enneagram-- even if its not put up to scientific testing, it doesn't really matter. It opens the door to self-study and self-awareness, and it _works_.


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## brightflashes (Oct 27, 2015)

@charlie.elliot I'm curious - what is your Enneagram type?


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## enneathusiast (Dec 15, 2012)

charlie.elliot said:


> I agree with a lot of what's been said so far, but just wanted to add that the current Enneagram system that we use was created by Don Riso & Russ Hudson in a relatively scientific way, i.e. its based off thousands of interviews that were analyzed very carefully.


Riso and Hudson are contributors to the Enneagram personality types. Riso learned of the Enneagram types from notes passed around the Jesuit community. These notes came from someone who learned about the types from Bob Ochs who learned about the types directly from Claudio Naranjo who evolved the types from Oscar Ichazo's protoanalysis. I learned of this from an early training with Riso where he actually gave us copies of the notes.

There would be no Enneagram personality types if it weren't for Naranjo and Ichazo yet they often aren't given that credit because they aren't the ones who popularized them and turned them into a way to make money. I don't mean to call anyone out but it just really irks me to see history rewritten to give credit for something that someone else did.

I don't know what you're talking about concerning the "thousands of interviews" but I'd be interested in exploring that if you have a link.


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## Shadow Tag (Jan 11, 2014)

@enneathusiast

This may be a long shot, but are those notes from the Jesuit community anywhere to be found online?


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## enneathusiast (Dec 15, 2012)

mAAd city said:


> @*enneathusiast*
> 
> This may be a long shot, but are those notes from the Jesuit community anywhere to be found online?


I don't know. I've never looked.

I just took a look at the training material to find the notes. They're marked "confidential" which means they're not to be reproduced in any manner. They're simply one or two page notes on each type that were taken by someone attending a seminar by Bob Ochs. They're titled by Ichazo's ego fixations (i.e., #1 Reflections on Ego Resentment, #2 Reflections on Ego Flattery, etc.).


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## charlie.elliot (Jan 22, 2014)

enneathusiast said:


> Riso and Hudson are contributors to the Enneagram personality types. Riso learned of the Enneagram types from notes passed around the Jesuit community. These notes came from someone who learned about the types from Bob Ochs who learned about the types directly from Claudio Naranjo who evolved the types from Oscar Ichazo's protoanalysis. I learned of this from an early training with Riso where he actually gave us copies of the notes.
> 
> There would be no Enneagram personality types if it weren't for Naranjo and Ichazo yet they often aren't given that credit because they aren't the ones who popularized them and turned them into a way to make money. I don't mean to call anyone out but it just really irks me to see history rewritten to give credit for something that someone else did.
> 
> I don't know what you're talking about concerning the "thousands of interviews" but I'd be interested in exploring that if you have a link.


I don't have a link, it was something that was said at the Part 1 Enneagram Institute training. I remember the "thousands of interviews" part and I was almost certain it was Riso/Hudson but I could be wrong about who it was. I'm pretty sure it _was_ them though... they obviously took information from earlier sources, but conducted interviews, wrote out the individual traits on note cards, and used that analysis to put their type portraits together.


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## enneathusiast (Dec 15, 2012)

charlie.elliot said:


> ... they obviously took information from earlier sources, but conducted interviews, wrote out the individual traits on note cards, and used that analysis to put their type portraits together.


Yes, a number of schools/authors/teachers did research and validation in their own way (e.g., Palmer and panels, Fauvre and surveys, etc.). I remember I saw a tree of the history of the Enneagram (timelines and influences) put together by the Enneagram Institute. They made themselves the most important part of that tree. They're very good at self-promotion to the point you might even believe that the Enneagram types might not exist without them. :wink:


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## charlie.elliot (Jan 22, 2014)

enneathusiast said:


> Yes, a number of schools/authors/teachers did research and validation in their own way (e.g., Palmer and panels, Fauvre and surveys, etc.). I remember I saw a tree of the history of the Enneagram (timelines and influences) put together by the Enneagram Institute. They made themselves the most important part of that tree. They're very good at self-promotion to the point you might even believe that the Enneagram types might not exist without them. :wink:


I'm not denying the impact of other people, I know the Ennaegram was a collaborative effort with lots of influences. I'm just saying what they said those particular people did. I really have no personal opinion or stake in this... didn't realize it was a touchy subject lol.


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## enneathusiast (Dec 15, 2012)

charlie.elliot said:


> ... didn't realize it was a touchy subject lol.


I'm just fed up with how accepting people are of "alternative facts" these days and you're 1st post struck me as such. 



> the current Enneagram system that we use was created by Don Riso & Russ Hudson


I've had my say on that and got it out of my system I hope.


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## charlie.elliot (Jan 22, 2014)

enneathusiast said:


> I'm just fed up with how accepting people are of "alternative facts" these days and you're 1st post struck me as such.
> 
> 
> 
> I've had my say on that and got it out of my system I hope.


The important thing is that we have the information


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## periwinklepromise (Jan 26, 2015)

Yes, the enneagram can be very spiritual, though not everyone goes that way with it. You can strip that stuff away and be left with an inferior but still usable system.

No, it's not a "cult". For one, a cult has to have some measure of control over your life, and no matter how into the enneagram you are, I'm pretty sure there's not some sort of an Enneagram-powered Robot telling you what you're allowed to do. Source: Raised in a cult (though lowkey compared to most American cults).


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## Eset (Jun 7, 2016)

> Why is it that I can't read about enneagram stuff with out someone mentioning some sort of spiritual gibberish or something? I feel like I'm joining a cult. XD


That's the origin of it.



> I'm actually making this thread because I want to know how much of this is crap and how much of it is actually true. Is enneagram really spiritual stuff that's supposed to help you become an all knowing person that can sense when a loved one is injured miles away, or is it actually a psychologically based theory?


It's a type theory, however having some trait theory.



> In trait theories:
> 
> - Variables measure the amount of a trait, usually on a scale/spectrum
> - Traits are normally distributed in the population, with the extremes being of more interest
> ...


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