Anyone familiar with Carl Jung‘s work? It can be wrapped up simply. He wasn’t swept up by the “age of reason” BS. Carl Jung was a student of Freud’s, but his work took a different track when he looked at a surprising similarity between all world practices and symbolism, and he focused on what these things might mean about the human mind.
He wasn’t a hard core rationalist, but neither was he a convert to any specific tradition or cultures beliefs. Besides his career in psychotherapy, he was a mystic in his personal life. He was perhaps the first notable figure in psychology to do this, but he wasn’t the last. There have been a sort of “underground” body of scientists and psychologists who see validity in the old practices, shamanism and such. Have you noticed in your reading a lot of your spiritual/metaphysical books were written by people with psyche degrees? Contrary to popular belief, the majority of big name metaphysicians are/were also scientists or even more often engineers. Thinking people, and seeking people, and not the naive person they paint them to be.
Let’s get to our own experiences now, and I will explain how they relate to the topic of enneagrams. Are there really an endless number of “types/archetypes” in peoples personalities?
Even if you don’t believe in the stories of a religion as a matter of faith, they can be analyzed clearly because there are a limited number of roles/symbols that are involved in any holy text. The holy warrior, the sacrificial king, the wise old hermit, etc. It even shows up in our systems of astrology.
I like the idea of endless variety in infinite number of combinations. Oh, I’m not saying types are restrictive, and like the system of symbols/story contained in the tarot called the “fool’s journey”, we don’t stay in one place necessarily. It’s just more an observation. It’s been made in every spiritual path, and even secular devotions, that history repeats itself.
Numerology, which has very old roots, possibly even predating the metaphysics of Pythagoras, says that all the types of everything in the world are nine (9). They observed that things start repeating at the 10th place. Perhaps being more mature, but still following the phases 1 through 9. We have 8 notes in the most common musical scale, but in fact there are 9 because rests are a part of the musical structure.
Physicists are narrowing in on nine or ten dimensions in their theory of the universe. It’s interesting that the base ten system is surfacing there. Yes, and there are strong teachings about unity. We are mutually arising entities.
Isn’t Pythagoras credited with discovering the octave? He is, and believed the universe itself worked like music, or could if people had the right understanding.
Well then, to get to what is perhaps the newest system of organized understanding, the enneagram, the word just means nine pointed figure and is a universal distillation of many of the world insights into human spiritual nature. Broken down, the structure is actually even more simple than nine. It operates on a root creative trinity, and even western astrology is only twelve signs because they use a four element structure.
Three groups of three? Yes, and the three groups are thinking, feeling, and acting. But there are three parts of each group, because in each group there are three different orientations to the other two facets.
Referencing basic polarity (male/female, etc)? Three facets. There is the androgyny also. Even conventional psychology actually recognizes only three basic personality types. Two held by each gender.
Three groups, think/feel/act, and each group or facet has a relation to the other two? Yes, all three groups are connected, but the three basic types in psychology are the phallic or male body identified, the hysteric, or female body identified, and the schizoid or mind identified.
Do they map to the think/feel/act groups? Oh yes, they do. The first group of three is the action set. They each orient primarily on action and understand life through it.
Think is schizoid? Act/male and feel/female? Think is schizoid, and present in both genders. But in the action set there is a passive or reactive number, and initiatory number, and a mutable aspect, or middle “schizoid” stance that still orients on action. The feeling triad has the same male, female, mental aspect, but orients primarily on feelings, and it’s in this order because first we have a physical event then we have the sense of it, and then we have the triad that focuses on ideas and understanding the world through them.
The more I learn the more I’m thinking the world speaks in numbers. And the hermetic philosophers, as well as some religionists, would agree with you.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~