Note: some material added to this page in April 2006, I know it is a bit srappy at the moment. Worth persisting with however. For a another similar interesting more sophisticated and more tendentious treatment of the lifestage enneagram see Rahul here.
The recent popularity of the enneagram has largely been brought on by its use in personality typing. Many Fourth Way people have regarded this as an abuse of the enneagram, and have been at pains to distinguish the personality enneagram from its "real" use. I take a rather different approach, and regard the recent personality work as extremely useful.
The big breakthrough of this site is that it solves the puzzle of how the "personality" enneagram relates to the "enneagram of process". Not that I'm claiming that it is the only solution, but it is a very useful one nevertheless. In brief, the personality types can be obtained by mapping a human lifespan onto the enneagram, each type being a fixation onto a particular lifestage. The fit is very good indeed, so much so that I imagine that this is how the personality types were first developed from the "enneagram of process".
So what might be called the the "true names" of the enneagram personality types might be listed as follows:
The Baby That is the Type 8 whose task is simply survival.
The Toddler That is the Type 7whose task is to test out and enjoy the world
Now we get to our first transitional type, I'll call it the Little Citizen maybe, the Type 6. This type is to do with the stage where social control is imposed, but also there is a greater awareness of the human group. Speech and toilet training are both associated with this stage. The type 6 in short is fixated on the task of negotiating ones relationship with the authority and demands of the wider society; which may offer a clue as to why it is sometimes said to be the most common human type.
The Child or Pupil is the Type 5 who is fixated on the task of learning and collecting knowledge. There is often a "false adulthood" at this stage before puberty kicks in.
The Adolescent is the Type 4 fixated on the adolescent's legitimate task of individuation.
The Suitor, another transitional type, is the Type 3 fixated on the image-making associated with finding a mate.
The Parent is the Type 2, which is fairly self explanatory, to do with nurturing.
The Elder is the Type 1 fixated on the task of criticism.
The Unborn or Type 9 ....Fixated on having no tasks....
Of course the body does not start growing at birth. What starts growing at birth, according to Gurdjieff, is the "essence". (Gurdjieff divided the human person into "body" "essence" and "personality" although sometimes "body" and "essence" were taken together by way of contrast with "personality".)The personality types then can be taken as fixations on essence stages of life. I have attemtped to construct the octaves of body growth, below. BODY is shown in capitals, Essence with a capital initial and personality in small letters:
DO CONCEPTION RE IMPLANTATION MI QUICKENING - SHOCK _____________Do Birth FA BABY _____________Re Baby SOL TODDLER _________Mi Toddler - __________________ Shock ________ do entry of society LA CHILD ____________Fa Child _____ re(personality grows) TI ADOLESCENT _______SolAdolesc.__ mi DO CONCEPTION Shock_______________ shock
So the "body" octave has done its stuff when conception of another body occurs. As the essence grows to the Parent and Elder stages (not shown with the BODY octave just above)the body involves back to LA CHILD, across the puberty line between LA and TI; hence loss of sexual function in old age can be regarded as "natural" for whatever comfort that may bring....... There are aspects of this group of three octaves which are still very unclear to me, anyone who works with them will soon run up against questions which I have not answered because I can't. (If you do work this stuff please let me know what you find!) Still, I find I have an overall intuition of rightness about it which I am inclined to trust. The personality octave as shown above truncated do-re-mi is interesting. It would suggest that celibacy prevents the growth of personality which might help explain its use in spiritual practice. The BODY octave DO-RE-MI would appear to be a 123 "growth" or "creation" octave,like the Ray of Creation itself; which would suggest that the growth of essence Do-Re-Mi might be a 231 "healing and invention" octave while personality might be a 312 "decay" octave.
As a note towards further understanding of this connection consider [again!] the mapping below of a human life onto an octave. The Deadly Sin attributions are taken from Riso (who adapted Jesuit sources); they must be derived directly or indirectly from the medieval magus/mystic/martyr Ramon Lull [or Llul or Lully] who lists not Seven but Nine Deadly Sins and whose "Great Art", involved a form of the enneagram. The Nine sins are the familiar seven plus Inconstancy and Deceit. In general it is worth remembering that the names given to the Deadly Sins are just nicknames; a gluttonous person is not necessarily gluttonous for food for example.
Anyway, the point is that each life stage has a "legitimate task". The personality type is based on an unhealthy and compulsive fixation on that task. (The types could also be looked at, equivalently, as disorders in the various chakras.)[The references to "Pooh Bear" etc below are to the original Milne characters rather than to their Disney derivatives.]
DO (point 9 at top) Unborn .....associated with the sin of Sloth and the "Pooh Bear" type.
RE (point 1) Baby; Task:survival;..... sin is Lechery, personality type "the Heffalump"
MI (point 2) Toddler; Task: testing the world, distinguishing the yuk from the yum;....... sin is Gluttony, personality type "Roo"
=>MI-FA (point 3) ACCEPTING SOCIAL CONTROL:..... sin is Inconstancy, type is "Piglet"
FA (point 4) Child/Pupil; Task: Learning;......sin is Avarice type is "Owl"
SO (point 5) Adolescent; Task: Defining individuality;.... sin is Envy, type is "Eeyore"
=>SO-LA (point 6) SEARCH FOR A MATE;..... sin is Deceit, type is "Tigger"
LA (point 7) Parent; Task: Nurturing;.... sin is Wrath (some say Pride),type is 'Kanga'
TI (point 8) Elder; Task: Judging; .....sin is Pride (some say Wrath)type is "Rabbit"
DO again. (point 9) Unborn
Please follow the Great Art link to Lull if you are interested in this!
Riso points out, correctly in my view, that Deceit and Inconstancy are both at bottom forms of Sloth.
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