Naranjo Dismisses the Enneagram

[problemz]

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=127760520596863

In this relatively recent video Claudio Naranjo claims that he invented the enneagram out of thin air using automatic writing to fill in some words used by Ichazo.

He is surprised at how the system took off, and says that it has little or no merit.

The MBTI is weird enough in its origins. The enneagram is just plain weird. People now speak with great authority about it, and there are probably fifty books, some of which are best sellers. I find it intriguing that Naranjo himself wrote a book entitled Character and Neurosis in which he says the INFJ and the INFP are fours (he makes many links between the enneagram and the MBTI system).

But he seems to have just been playing around. It's fun to look at the video and reflect on the validity of the enneagram.

Personally I think the MBTI is more sound. It has better and sounder descriptions and has better research.

 

[muir]

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=127760520596863

In this relatively recent video Claudio Naranjo claims that he invented the enneagram out of thin air using automatic writing to fill in some words used by Ichazo.

He is surprised at how the system took off, and says that it has little or no merit.

The MBTI is weird enough in its origins. The enneagram is just plain weird. People now speak with great authority about it, and there are probably fifty books, some of which are best sellers. I find it intriguing that Naranjo himself wrote a book entitled Character and Neurosis in which he says the INFJ and the INFP are fours (he makes many links between the enneagram and the MBTI system).

But he seems to have just been playing around. It's fun to look at the video and reflect on the validity of the enneagram.

Personally I think the MBTI is more sound. It has better and sounder descriptions and has better research.

I thought the enneagram came from Gurdjieff?

 

[Skarekrow]

From wikipedia:
The origins and historical development of the Enneagram of Personality are matters of dispute. Wiltse and Palmer have suggested that similar ideas to the Enneagram of Personality are found in the work of Evagrius Ponticus, a Christian mystic who lived in 4th century Alexandria. Evagrius identified eight logismoi ("deadly thoughts") plus an overarching thought he called "love of self". Evagrius wrote, "The first thought of all is that of love of self (philautia); after this, [come] the eight." In addition to identifying eight deadly thoughts, Evagrius also identified eight "remedies" to these thoughts.
G. I. Gurdjieff is credited with making the enneagram figure commonly known (see Fourth Way enneagram). He did not, however, develop the nine personality types associated with the Enneagram. Oscar Ichazo is generally recognized as the principal source of the contemporary Enneagram of Personality. Ichazo's "Enneagon of Ego Fixations", together with a number of other dimensions of personality mapped on the enneagram figure, forms the basis of the Enneagram of Personality. The Bolivian-born Ichazo began teaching programs of self-development in the 1950s. His teaching, which he calls "Protoanalysis", uses the enneagram figure among many other symbols and ideas. Ichazo founded the Arica Institute which was originally based in Chile before moving to the United States and coined the term "Enneagram of Personality".
Claudio Naranjo is a Chilean-born psychiatrist who first learned about the Enneagram of Personality from Ichazo at a course in Arica, Chile. He then began developing and teaching his own understanding of the Enneagram in the United States in the early 1970s, influencing others, including some Jesuit priests who adapted the Enneagram for use in Christian spirituality. Numerous other authors, including Helen Palmer, Don Richard Riso, Richard Rohr and Elizabeth Wagele, also began publishing widely-read books on the Enneagram of Personality in the 1980s and 1990s. Ichazo disowned Naranjo and the other teachers on what he felt were misinterpretations and uses of the Enneagram. Among Naranjo's early students there are also differing understandings of Enneagram theory.

 

[muir]

Gurdjieff's claim is that he got it from the sufis

Maybe he did....he certainly seemed to be tapping into something potent

However every guru has a claim to give their lineage a legitimacy.

Blavatsky said she learned from ascended masters, gurdjieff says he learned from the sarmoung Brotherhood, the illuminati claim lineage from extraterrestrials, Muhammed, Ezekiel, Moses, etc all claim to have had their undertanding revealed to them from a higher power, Crowley claimed to hear the book of the law from an entity called Aiwass etc etc

Always a story to give credibility...a higher power

I like Jung and i trust Jung

He interviewed thousands of people in a career spanning decades which gives his assessments of humanity a large sample base. he found patterns within humanity and attempted to define them in the cognitive functions. I have only spoken to a fraction of the people he has online and i'm already spotting patterns so i can well believe that he found some pretty clear patterns

I'm not familiar enough with the enneagram to come down strong on either side, but its always the case that when a visionary brings forth a system it gets corrupted after they die.

Further to any sort of chinese whispers effect or reworkings there is also the fact that a certain current within humanity has an agenda of hijacking and subverting any potent forms of spirituality that offer people an opportunity to see beyond the illusion created by their conditioning

I once visited a temple in India where a guru had taught his followers to look into a mirror and learn to love what they saw inside it. he put a mirror up on the alter of his temple. After he died, his followers took the mirror down and instead put up a picture of him and they began praying to him. In effect he was deified and deification is a sure way to fuck up a system and to fuck with peoples heads

The psychic energy is then drawn towards veneration of the outer figure of the guru and away from the individuals inner exploration and observations of their own mind; once that happens the system is becoming an empty round of outer ritual and loses its transformative power

 

[Deep purple]

I saw this on Facebook as well.

Very interesting