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The Enneagram has become very popular in recent years as a tool pressed into the service of supposed Christian spiritual development. It has the advantage of providing an apparent simplicity in categorising people into different types and of having a format which seems ideal for weekend, or longer, retreats because interaction and a sense of personal involvement are easily developed. Basis Of The Enneagram The Enneagram is based on an assertion that there are nine key types of personality, each identified in a negative way according to a specific compulsion or driving force which defines that type. Each type is identified according to a number which it is given. This forms the basis for the analysis. Proponents of the Enneagram often refer to its claimed antiquity. Unfortunately, they can only say that it is reputed to have originated in Afghanistan some 2000 years ago; there is then a possibility that it infiltrated into Moslem circles after the latter’s invasion of India. The Islamic mystical strain, the Sufi, then used it in an oral tradition. Obvious questions which arise at this point are: who actually developed the Enneagram ? Was it developed for spiritual purposes? If so, exactly what were they? These are crucial questions. Development of The Enneagram Apparently, a certain Oscar Ichazo brought the Enneagram to modern attention, first in Chile, and then, through Claudio Naranjo, to Fr. Bob Och SJ in the United States who subsequently began using it at Loyola University, Chicago. Interestingly, Ichazo claimed to have been taught the Sufi tradition of the Enneagram in Bolivia — but refused to say who had taught him the system. One of the priests taught the Enneagram by Fr. Och is the Jesuit scholar and authority on the New Age, Fr. Mitch Pacwa. In the February 1991 edition of New Covenant, Fr. Pacwa, while recognising that Och tried to use only those ideas of the Enneagram which were consistent with Catholic faith, expresses the belief that the Enneagram has occultic origins and that these cannot be ignored. Fr. Pacwa identifies Oscar Ichazo as a man who travelled extensively in search of occultic (= secret) knowledge. In the development of his ideas he was associated with George Gurdjieff, a Russian who died in 1949. Ichazo considered that his out-of-body experiences had taken him to both heaven and hell, and which thereby gave him more knowledge than the Church. Ichazo is a Chilean guru who looked to achieve altered states of consciousness, an important New Age preoccupation. Changed perceptions are brought about which are linked to conversion to monistic (everything in reality is part of a single unchanging whole) and pantheistic concepts of reality (God is identical with the material universe) which, of course, are totally incompatible with Christian beliefs. Gurdjieff claimed the Enneagram as a key symbolic device of the Sarmaun Brotherhood, a mystic order that existed in Central Asia for thousands of years. In his younger days, Gurdjieff established the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, and introduced a system which killed several of his pupils. His teachings rested on the assertion that people live their lives in a state analogous to sleep: we may feel awake but we are like robots responding to stimuli. For people to awake, Gurdjieff taught that self-remembering was necessary and developed exercises to achieve that objective. Fr. Pacwa attributes the actual development of the Enneagram to Ichazo. However, Ichazo was strongly influenced by the ideas of Gurdjieff, who acquired the Enneagram from the Sufi. The Sufi used it for numerological divination e.g. investigating the meaning of such decimals as .333, .6666, .9999 etc. (compare Deuteronomy 18. 10-13). There was no personality theory attached to it at this time. But Ichazo used it for building his own theory. The numerological system was used in relation to personality types. Thus if a type one person gravitates to type four, he gets worse; type four gets worse by becoming like type two, etc.; to improve, type one should become like type seven, and so forth. This numerological system is, therefore, at the core of the Enneagrams analysis of personality types and the prescriptions which emerge from it. As Fr. Pacwa emphasises, this inner dynamic is rooted in the occult. The Iniquity of the Enneagram The occultic orientation of Ichazo should throw-up fears and dangers for Christian invited to use it for purposes of spiritual growth. Ichazo made use of psychedelic drugs, shamanism, yoga, hypnotism, martial arts, Zen Buddhism in addition to psychology, in order to gain control over his own consciousness. Instructions were claimed to come from a spirit entity (a process and practice well established in the New Age Movement and known as channelling) called Metatron, the prince of archangels (compare 1 Timothy 4.1). Members of Ichazo’s group are brought to contact lower spirit entities through meditation using mantras, but are also guided by an interior master, the Green Qu’Tub. The analysis of personality types is, at most, less than fifty years old. Ichazo gave nine brief definitions of the types and located them within a Enneagram diagram. Claudio Naranjo, a follower of Ichazo, made further developments using concepts drawn from psychological theory. Many other questions arise about the Enneagram and its claimed ability to analyse and prescribe correctly. What is the validity for the assertion that there are only nine key personality types? Would not the introduction of others significantly alter the outcomes when applying the system to individuals and to their apparent problems ? If, as proponents of the Enneagram system claim, it has real value in promoting spiritual growth, where does that value originate if the personality types did not come from antiquity (or even if they did!) and are the product of people steeped in the occult? In the best of possible interpretations we should beware of trying to bend developments of eastern mysticism to Christian use. Moreover, the Vatican has published a lengthy internet document warning against the use of the Enneagram. But despite such warnings Christians continue to be put in danger by its propagation and use.
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Christians, psychological, theory, mysticism, Vatican, New Age Movement, occultic, Claudio Naranjo, Ichazo, Fr. Mitch Pacwa, dangers,
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