![]() Remarkably, Ichazo’s original Enneagram of Personality system included 108 separate Enneagrams with nine different personality characteristics associated with each. He is describing a separation from a person’s true spiritual nature, the type that can be more fully comprehended through the use and application of the Enneagram system. ![]() He also portrays a person’s fall from their essence in spiritual terms, speaking of karma (an Eastern religious concept) as a consequence of the development of ego and the transition from objectivity to subjectivity. He speaks of the latter as representing "a loving unity with the entire cosmos," which certainly gives essence a strong metaphysical grounding. In this passage, Ichazo first makes the distinction between ego, personality, and essence. Then something happens: the ego begins to develop, karma accumulates, there is a transition from objectivity to subjectivity man falls from essence into personality." In essence, every person is perfect, fearless, and in a loving unity with the entire cosmos there is no conflict within the person between head, heart, and stomach or between the person and others. "We have to distinguish between a man as he is in essence, and as he is in ego or personality. ![]() The language he used to do so is enlightening: In a book he published about his life and philosophy in 1982, Oscar Ichazo revealed the true nature of the Enneagram. One motivating principle would be dominant, but the others were present in latent form as well. Along the points he placed different motivating principles, in an order designed to capture the complexity of how they might interact within the individual psyche. Ichazo’s brainstorm was to convert it to a structure for understanding human psychology and its interface with personality. The nine-pointed, star-within-a-circle Enneagram shape, which is used to connect and contextualize the various personality types, dates far back into antiquity. Oscar Ichazo’s dense and multilayered system of thought was designed to lead followers toward self-realization and a more conscious and self-aware way of living. The Arica School philosophy for achieving wisdom and pursuing self-development featured a vast and carefully integrated body of observations harvested from various religions, psychological theories, cosmological principles, great teachers and hard-earned personal experience. In 1968 Ichazo returned to South America, where he founded the Arica School of Knowledge in Chile, in order to introduce others to the most profound spiritual truths as he understood them. A little later he traveled to Asia, in a search for knowledge about highly revered eastern spiritual traditions like Buddhism and Taoism. He moved to Buenos Aires as a young man to study at a mystical wisdom school, hoping to gain insights that would unveil the secrets of human existence. Ichazo was a spiritual seeker from an early age. It first emerged in the 1960s, under the guiding hand of a Bolivian spiritual teacher named Oscar Ichazo. The Enneagram of Personality Types is an amalgamation of insights collected from the world’s most influential spiritual and wisdom traditions. Oscar Ichazo and the Creation of the Enneagram System So the answer to the question, "is the Enneagram faith-based?" is a qualified "yes." Qualified, in the sense that the spiritual pedigree of the Enneagram is undeniable, but those who use it do not need to be aware of this aspect of the system to rely on it as a valuable source of psychological insight. ![]() To those in the know, the nine Enneagram types are recognizable as religious archetypes, even though the Enneagram system can be applied as an analytical tool regardless of a person’s spiritual background. It was constructed brick by brick through the blending of the major spiritual traditions that have been guiding human actions for millennia. The Enneagram in its current form emerged from the efforts of wisdom teachers to apply timeless spiritual and religious principles to the field of psychology. But those who know the story of the Enneagram know all about its eclectic metaphysical origins. It is easy to find descriptions of the Enneagram personality typing system that make no mention of its fascinating history.
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