The Enneagram’s origins are murkier than most people realize.
Oscar Ichazo and Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing
Has someone told you the Enneagram is “ancient”? Or maybe you thought that yourself?
Spoiler: It’s not.
While the symbol has echoes that reach far back – some of which do overlap meaningfully on the work many Enneagram teachers do today – there is no historical proof that the Enneagam existed before a specific teacher, the mystic George Gurdjieff, shared it as part of his “Fourth Way” spiritual teaching at the turn of the 20th century. Gurdjieff said that the symbol had been hidden before he shared it, and called it the “the fundamental hieroglyph of a universal language.” He taught that it was a living, dynamic symbol, and brought it into practices of movement and dance that supported self-actualization.
But Gurdjieff didn’t map the Enneagram onto human personality.
Oscar Ichazo, a Bolivian philosopher and teacher who founded the Arica School, used it as a map for “ego-projections” and their associated fixations in the mid-20th century. He had studied Gurdjieff, but also claimed that his work with the Enneagram was from Metatron, one of the highest archangels in Jewish mysticism.
Ichazo’s student, Claudio Naranjo, took the Enneagram further into the realm of human personality. A Chilean psychiatrist, Naranjo connected specific Enneagram types to passions, or vices, and virtues – who we are at our highest. He also introduced the Instincts and subtypes.
So no, the Enneagram isn’t that old – especially not in the way that we use it to discern our “type.” But it is built on many older traditions and sources that have influenced its earliest teachers, and it comes out of a mystery school tradition that engages with the essential question: How do we wake up?
How do we step out of the comfortable routines that don’t serve us, the familiar routes that keep us asleep to our interconnectedness and our true selves?
In many ways, this is a question that all spiritual systems have at their heart. That’s why working with the Enneagram often becomes a spiritual pursuit. Because we are so much greater than our personalities.
But we start with type, because it’s an essential part of that something greater. To reach more awakened states, we must love and accept ourselves first.
Curious? This Saturday’s workshop will introduce you to the nine core types and other rich mysteries of the Enneagram.
Consider this your invitation to wake up more to your own life.