Topic 6 - Extraversion vs Introversion and Jung

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RUSS --   People often ask about extraversion and introversion of the Enneagram types, although many people are unclear about the basic definitions of these terms. What we see is that there is a range of extraversion and introversion in any of the personality types. On the other hand, there is also a natural tendency of each of the types to be more or less extroverted or introverted.

For instance, Sevens tend to be more extraverted than Fives, Nines, and Fours. Type Seven - The Enthusiast - is a member of the Thinking Triad, and has a strong orientation to extraverted sensing, although, of course, they think and reflect as well. In a similar way, all types show a range of extraversion and introversion.

WALTER --   The Enneagram has the advantage of the Law of Three, while Jung used the Law of Two with great success for bipolar complementarities. He used the introverted attitude for placing attention on subjective objects in our mind and body, and the extraverted attitude for placing attention on real objects in the world outside our body. He omitted the intentional attitude of synthesis for conversations and actions between people.

Mortimer Adler shows there is a Law of Three in philosophy. There must be three attitudes to place attention on real, subjective, and intentional object types. Gurdjieff, and Adler account for the gift of human intentionality and free will. We can say, in Jungian terms, that external information received using the extraverted attitude is coupled with internal information received using the introverted attitude in such a way that a third synthesis of information arises. This synthesis arises in mind and is embodied with moving functions. This is the nature of feedback and control systems that are designed for adaptation by moving. The human body is regulated by many automatic feedback control systems. The human mind operates rather automatically without conscious attention.

RUSS --   People might think that their Enneagram personality type limits them and defines them in a way that is not true. This is because the Enneagram is dynamic, not static. There is movement over the full range of each type's Levels of Development as well as in the stress directions and in the integration directions. This is how people actually experience themselves in real life.

WALTER --   The dynamic, process perspective is supplied by the Levels of Development that are a unique to your Enneagram system.

Topic 7 - The Nine Core Enneagram Personality Types

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WALTER --   What are the names of the nine Enneagram types?

DON --   We have named the nine types (from one to nine, respectively) The Reformer, The Helper, The Achiever, The Individualist, The Investigator, The Loyalist, The Enthusiast, The Challenger, and The Peacemaker. Naturally, there are scores of interrelated traits associated with each of them.

WALTER --   As well as a great deal of dynamism to the system!

RUSS --   Yes, and even though there is a fluid dynamism in the Enneagram stem, there is a core that is clear, specific, and precise. The nine personality types are very distinctive. In fact, describing the traits that comprise the nine core personality types has always been central to our inquiry into the system - and into human nature. I find the Enneagram to be the most interesting, and powerful explanatory system because says something deep and illuminating about human nature.

WALTER --   What makes it that way?

DON --   The combination of the Law of Three and the Law of Seven which give rise to the nine personality types seen as nine archetypes which seem to be the most economical way to conceptualize general patterns we see in human nature.

Of course, it would be possible to come up with a four-fold, or a five-fold system - and these would be interesting in certain ways. But from our point of view, they would leave out, or collapse, certain aspects of human nature and would therefore not give us as full a picture as might be possible. It seems that "nine" happens to be the minimum possible number of discrete categories that we need to describe human nature with meaningful distinctions.

WALTER --   Nine is necessary and sufficient?

DON --   That's right. It is a necessary and sufficient number to describe meaningful distinctions of human nature.

Topic 8 - The Wings

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WALTER --   You have done more work than anyone else in a number of areas of Enneagram theory and applications - the wings, for instance. Besides there being nine basic personality types, each type has two wings or subtypes associated with it, making for 18 combinations.

RUSS --   Yes, the Enneagram typology offers 18 subtypes which of course gets us very close to the 16 types described by the MBTI system. We have given specific names to each of the wing subtypes - for example, The Aristocrat for the Four with a Three wing, and The Bohemian for the Four with a Five wing. For the subtypes of type Five, we have named the Five with a Four wing as The Iconoclast, and the Five with a Six wing as the Problem Solver. And so forth for all 18 subtypes.

DON --   As clear as they are in real life - once you see them! - we have to understand the wings as simply a subtle variation of each type along a continuum or spectrum of personality. The wings are thus like the color spectrum, or the colors of the rainbow. Within the range of "red" is a wide variety of hues - just as there is a wide range of variations within the type we call a One, or a Two, or a Three, and so forth.

So the wings achieve the color of the spectrum. If you think of colors of the rainbow, a wing is a simple variation or a point - a crystallization of the type that just shows a difference in intensity and variation of the type.

Topic 9 - The Enneagram and Spiritual Work

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RUSS --   Beyond technical questions about things like wings and the Levels within each type, the Enneagram is significant because it is a typology that looks at the relationship between one's self and the ground of our being that is our true nature. I am not aware of any other typology that does this in quite the same way. Of course, some other typologies have a spiritual component to them, but the spiritual dimension is central to the Enneagram. As we look deeply into the matter, we begin to see that the ego not as a thing but a process that occurs in consciousness. From this point of view, the nine personality types are Essence types. The nine types are emanations of archetypal qualities and Divine attributes.

WALTER --   So personality types at their best are embodiments of the Essence in the healthy Levels of Development?

DON & RUSS --   Yes, exactly!

DON --   At their best, the types come from the perception that they are nine archetypal aspects of Divine consciousness. The nine types are reflections and distortions of these nine Essential aspects of the Divine absolute consciousness.

WALTER --   It would be interesting to explore what this means in terms of the Fall.

DON --   From this point of view, The Fall is about forgetting of our Divine origin - and concomitant to that is the identification with the personality that we erect in its place. If we are able to stay in a contact with our spiritual nature, starting as children - then our personality would be very different, much lighter and perhaps not much formed at all. It would still be there because we are human beings. But we forget our spiritual nature because the whole of society, culture, and our family make it necessary to create a structure around ourselves to protect a very delicate consciousness. We defend our being in certain characteristic ways, forgetting who we really are. We take defenses and reactions be ourselves, and think that is who we are.

WALTER --   Ouspensky summarized that predicament by speaking of non-identification and self-remembering as being absolutely necessary. You cannot do one without the other.

DON --   That's right.

RUSS --   It is important to be clear about Essence and personality. We view the personality as an absolutely necessary developmental phase. Being must realize itself through a navigation system called our personality. An undifferentiated being cannot function as a person without the development of a personality, and even Self-realized beings have learned behaviors. The idea is not to get rid of personality but to simply see the truth. Then one may see what is forming and animating the personality, and one can look inward to our Being or Self which is enlivening, creating, and sustaining the ego self. Trying to get rid of the personality becomes a non-issue from this perspective.

DON --   The lighter personality is present at healthy Levels 1, 2, and 3 in the Levels of Development. The lighter personality is a non-issue, especially near Level 1, but there is still have a tincture of personality.

We speak of freedom, as well as Essence. We call Level 1 the Level of Liberation. Freedom is one of the qualities of Essence. Everyone wants to be free. They want to be free of the shocks of the past, free of pain, free of suffering, free of conflict. They want to be free of depression, and loss. People want to be free of many things, so they can have a direct sense of their true nature. The vast majority of human beings are born into social circumstances, such as our family, culture, and economic circumstances, which make remembering this truth almost impossible.

So we fall not only into our personality, but deeply, deeply asleep into the fixation of our personality type. As we have said, the personality is not a bad thing; it is defending us and trying to buy time so that we can work through and survive the problems of our childhood. Eventually, if all of the conditions for our growth are right, we may come out the other side and return to the awareness of our true nature. Unfortunately, a lot of people get sidetracked in the process partially because the world and much of modern culture are designed to keep us asleep. Much of culture makes us slaves to our passions, to consumerism, and many attachments. In simpler cultures, there seemed to be more opportunity to be in touch with Essence.

Topic 10 - Liberation and Jungian Consciousness

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WALTER --   You teach that the Level of Liberation at Level 1 is the gateway to real freedom that is represented symbolically at the center of the Enneagram circle. That is why I speak of process, and the center of the circle as symbolic of the Self. When Jung wrote of the Self in German, he used all capital letters, just as YHWH is the unpronounceable holy name in Hebrew.

You made Jungian Type correlations in Personality Types in 1987; I feel that Jung's language is very helpful for the Enneagram because Jung has a precise definition for the functions of consciousness that are NOT Consciousness itself. It is the function, and its objects of attention that the ego gets attached to and identified with. The identified ego never lets the information flow through to the center of consciousness - that is its SELF.

DON --   Exactly.

WALTER --   The pipeline is clogged - the inevitable mechanics of how our mind-brain-body is designed. This is the way things are, and only through practice and real conscious teachers can we learn to live in a new way. We can be centered. We can be free. The SELF, and opposed to the small ego-self can be more the center of our awareness and our life.

Topic 11 - The Harmonic Triads

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WALTER --   I was very interested to see your treatment on the Harmonic Triads in Wisdom. These are the 7-9-2 (The Positive Outlook Group), the 4-6-8 (The Reactive Group), and the 1-3-5 (The Competency Group). I take it that these are your own discovery, too.

In my own work, I have also found evidence for these Harmonic Groups from fractal analysis. I found that the Centers triads, the Hornevian triads, and these new Harmonic triadic Groups are members of one family tree. I was very surprised, but I could interpret them with Jung. The 4-8 and 7-9 are Jungian complementarities that can carry predictable inferior function effects.

I had seen 4-6-8 effects in surveys but had not seen the 7-9-2 except as theory until last year. Last year, I had people in a workshop who took the RHETI, and they themselves reported their highest scores were in the 7-9-2 triad. They wanted to know what was special about these triads. I had not told them about these triads - so it was confirmation for the theory. That was very exciting.

RUSS --   We find the Harmonic Groups are very important and very recognizable in people. They are particularly important in relationships because they tell how people deal with frustration, disappointment, and conflict. The patterns emerge when people meet an obstacle in their automatic pattern.

Topic 12 - Closing Remarks

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WALTER --   I'd like to give you an opportunity to make some closing remarks about Wisdom.

DON --   What is new about Wisdom and why it is different from our other books is that we address the question "Now that I know my type, what do I do, where do I go from here?" We say clearly in the beginning of the book that knowing your type is not the end point of the Enneagram. In fact, it is just the beginning. Of course, getting your type right is very important. Only by getting your type right do you have an accurate map that can be helpful on your own inner journey.

RUSS --   Wisdom is also explicit about the role of awareness and mindfulness in personal transformation. Awareness is the catalyst that enables us to be transformed. It is what allows the transformative process to unfold in us to go to the next phase.

WALTER --   The title of Chapter 17 - 'The Spiritual Journey - Always Now' - makes that very clear.

DON --   Wisdom weaves the theme of spirituality through the whole book from page one to the very end. Spirituality and psychology go hand in hand because they are two sides of the same coin. Another important new feature is that we specify a cluster of "issues" that are typical for each type. There are eight to ten issues that each type will see time and time again. People have trouble with these issues - they are each type's habitual stumbling blocks for our growth - so we specify what they are and help people to see them in the context of the entire type. People will find it convenient to see their issues laid out so clearly, because awareness of them alone could be life transforming.

RUSS --   We also show the many roots and traditions that have informed the Enneagram. The Enneagram is a synthesis that has come from the Kabbalah, Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam. Even an atheist and get much out of the Enneagram because it holds universal truths of human nature.

WALTER --   The Enneagram is a structure for holding holistic information in a unified gestalt.

DON --   Yes, very much so. The Enneagram is an organizing principle for holding wisdom from many sources. Many people in many traditions over thousands of years have come to the same truths - the same insights into human nature, although they have expressed them in different ways. We show the human commonality at a deep level in Wisdom.

WALTER --   Excellent!

DON & RUSS --   Thank you.