As I've been through all the various tests I have often wondered about how the categories are set. At Similar Minds for instance the subtypes in the eneagram numbers are set according to various degrees of passivity. I don't think this is what Ichazo intended. Ichazo is himself basing his theories supposedly on his affiliation with Gurdjieff groups but in at least one interview he claimed to have made the whole thing up while on some drug. Furthermore he discredited Naranjo, who is responsible for popularizing the enneagram and disseminating it to students. Naranjo has in turn stated that Don Riso and other afficionadoes of the enneagram have not truly understood the system. So the system appears out of nowhere and proliferates without any true point of origin. The MBTI is less suspect in terms of its origins insofar as two women who had no psychological training invented it out of nowhere based on a cursory reading of Carl Jung's work in this area, which in turn seems to have been tossed off and uses works by William James, among others, again not well understood. Then there are split-offs by Kiersey who argues that E/I is context-dependent, and there are slight differences in the various descriptions. Now the stackings which people find are the most true vary from source to source. Some say that the INFP has almost no access to introverted thinking, and some argue that it's third out of eight in the INFP stackings, giving INFP considerable access to the introverted thinking. Since none of this stuff seems very tied down, I wonder how it is that thousands of people including myself have identified themselves as INFJ. I finally did it via Lenore Thompsen's book, deciding to eschew all the others, mainly because she has a better writing style than most. Exactly how people establish their numbers and letters is quite funny to me. The Eclectic Energies site was put together by a Dutch jazz drummer who is a five. His site is quite amazing and that it's free is equally amazing. His test asks us to think about who we are compared to the AVERAGE person. Who is the average person? Would this be Beetle Bailey? Is it the Fonz? For women, would it be Roseann Barr? Or Jennifer Aniston? Do we know such a thing as an average person? If so, how would we know that we know? Can we agree upon an average person? I have realized I am more sensitive than most while on this board. And that this may explain why I like loose clothing. But who is the average person who would put up with more tight clothing in order to have an effect on others even of competence or of attractiveness? My wife wears tight clothing to show off her bod. Many women do. Men, too. Me, I prefer comfort. Who is the average on all things? Who do you compare yourself to in order to define a norm?
