Two Thousand Years in a Nutshell

I'm here recording in front of the lilies. They're particularly fragrant. I think they're near the end of their time. And smelling them and seeing them helps me commit to connection.

So I want to talk about 3,000 years of Enneagram history in about three minutes.

Early History

From my own research, I think I can safely say that the history of the Enneagram is murky. But we do know that a desert father named Evagrius Ponticus—this is about 300, 400 years after Christ—went to Egypt. He's a mystic, and he interacts with Egyptians, other tribes, other cultures, and ends up writing up the eight evil thoughts, which later get condensed to the seven deadly sins. I don't know if he used the actual diagram or not, but he's often considered a kind of forefather of the Enneagram.

And then it seems to have disappeared for a while. Maybe it was secretly passed down orally. It wasn't until the 20th century that it reappeared.

Working in the Margins

Here, Gurdjieff is a major figure who used the Enneagram not just as a framework for personality, but as a kind of general dynamic map.

I'm not familiar with the Fourth Way, as Gurdjieff's teaching is often called, but I do know there's a lot about musicality and dance. So the kind of dynamic quality of the Enneagram came through there.

Gurdjieff claimed that he was taught by Sufis, but that hasn't been confirmed, as far as I know.

So the Enneagram of personality emerges within the larger context of the Fourth Way teachings. You have Ichazo, who was a student of Gurdjieff. Then you have Claudio Naranjo, who was a student of Ichazo's. And then, you know, Richard Rohr—I don't quite know where he comes from—but there's also the Franciscan teaching that emerges around this time. Whereas Gurdjieff, Ichazo, and Claudio Naranjo were working kind of on the margins of psycho-spiritual philosophy and psychology.

The Enneagram is Mystical

I think what's important about the history here is understanding that the Enneagram is mystical. Its roots are in mysticism. Ponticus wasn't just a Christian—he was fasting in the Egyptian desert, in the very far outreaches of the missionary work happening at the time. All the way down to Ichazo and Naranjo — these guys were, I think, doing ayahuasca, LSD. Gurdjieff was also kind of a shadowy figure in his own way.

These are not mainstream voices.

The Enneagram is Relational

So the Enneagram has a mystical quality. I would say it also has a syncretic or connecting quality. Starting from Ponticus, who seems to have developed the Enneagram in part as a kind of lingua franca — a way of communicating with non-Christians — down to Naranjo, who combined the Enneagram with contemporary psychology to great effect. That's kind of the birth of the modern Enneagram—the corporate Enneagram.

So its job is to connect, you could say.

That really is, I think, the heart of the framework: connecting. With yourself, sure, but really with other types, and really connecting your energy to their energy and appreciating the dynamic.

If you've done couples work before, your counselor has probably talked about dynamic. And it's one thing to intellectually and cognitively appreciate the dynamic, that's hard to do, and it's to be celebrated when you can say, "Well, we have this dynamic. When she does this, and I do that..."

It's quite another thing to experience, in kind of raw energetic terms, the dynamic. Like to feel the dynamism, and to the weather of yourself — as energy, as dynamic in relationship.

So it's relational, I guess, is really the word here.

The Enneagram is Diagnostic

The Enneagram is spiritual. The Enneagram is relational.

And finally, I want to say the Enneagram is diagnostic.

It's a prescription.

The Enneagram is more prescription than medicine, I think.

In the Christian tradition, the Enneagram is about sin. How have you lost your connection to God? Well, you've done it by sinning. And through work, you can discover the way that you are a sinner—your particular sin. We all sin in all sorts of different ways, but we have kind of a home-base sin: gluttony, pride, fear.

That's one way to do it that worked in a particular time and place.

Nowadays, we're in a diagnosis era, where many of us say, "I have this disorder. I have autism. I have bipolar disorder. I have ADHD. I have a technology addiction. I have an anxious avoidant attachment style."

So we live in this era of diagnosis. But the diagnostic here is so much more human. As humans, we're all branded, so we're all brothers.

This is like—I think this is from the Sufis:

"What kind of idiot are you?"
"I'm a square idiot."
"She's a circle idiot."
"Oh, you're a triangle idiot."

There's got to be a humor. I mean, I don't know how the Christians did it 2,000 years ago, but this humor—and I think the best teachers of the Enneagram have this— I'm looking for another word, but humor really feels like it.

A gentleness, playfulness.

Because the whole thing is kind of absurd.

It's the blind leading the blind, or however you want to put it.

It's humans talking about the human condition.

So diagnosis from this place— this is absolutely a diagnostic framework.

But I think that some teachers will treat this as:

"As a Four, you've got some strengths and weaknesses."
"As a Four, you might want to know your communication style."

That's actually most of the resources out there.

And so they're strengthening the association:

"I am a Four. These are my traits."

The better attitude is:

"You've gotten a diagnosis.
And I'm sorry to tell you, but it's a Four.
I know this hurts—because I'm a Six.
So I know it can be really scary.
But don't worry, we're going to get through this together—all of us here.
Welcome to the club.
Welcome to the universe."

So that's the diagnostic energy.

That's what I want to communicate about the history — these core qualities of the Enneagram: that it's a spiritual practice, it's a relational practice, and it's a diagnostic.