The Enneagram

The Enneagram is a geometric figure used by Gurdjieff to model his theories of psychology, cosmology and biology. It may be original, as no full depiction appears prior to his life, but he did not state he invented it. If anyone is aware of an earlier provenance for this structure, please give details in the comments below. Analogous, but different and simpler, designs appear in Sufi tradition, and it is possible that Gurdjieff drew from these.

The Enneagram has often been discussed at the Meetings,

This website is about the Gurdjieff Work, but following Gurdjieff's introduction of the symbol, Oscar Ichazo created a method of analysing psychological types based on the enneagram.

An interesting article on the enneagram and its history is here.

1 comment:

  1. The Enneagram appears to have originated from a number of sources, including the
    reversed Kabbalistic Tree of Life as used in “Etude sur les origines de la nature du Zohar”, by S. Karppe, Paris, 1901, pp. 387, the same book that is mentioned in a footnote in Ouspensky’s “In Search of the Miraculous” regarding Abraham ibn Ezra’s nine point circle, the Great Magical Arcanum of Eliphas Levi which is also composed of a circle triangle and hexad, the varient form of this in Madame Blavatsky “Isis Unveiled”, Leonhard Euler’s 9 point circle, the regular Enneagram’s of Athanasius Kircher & Ramon Llull & the latters Diagram A (which could be seen as a representation of Gurdjieff’s Law of Reciprocal Maintenance). The Pythagorean Tetractys, which also combines the numbers 3 and 7, as does the major arcana of the Tarot (leaving out the Fool which isn’t considered as part of the major arcana but a wild card). And of course the decimal system of 1 divided by 7.

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