About this Issue

This issue, our second, focuses almost exclusively on the issues that you, our visitors, raised. Indeed, the response to our first issue was so overwhelming, that we have had time for little else in the interim!

In preparing this issue, we thus found ourselves riding the waves that rippled outward as so many of you emailed to us your messages of encouragement, survey responses, guesses about the art work that was displayed in the previous issues, requests for assistance in clarifying your type, or comments on particular points made in specific articles.

Nothing appears in this issue that was not directly initiated by you, our site visitors.

In the first issue of the Journal, accessible now in our archive, we offered papers on theory and empirical studies. A few of the articles discussed the work of Pat Wyman, a therapist who uses both the Enneagram and the MBTI in her work in a rather remarkable and fruitful way. Pat mailed us a very thoughtful and interesting reply which we hope to be able to share with you upon receiving permission from her to do so. As the correspondence with her is taking place via relatively slow ground-mail, we are not sure when that might be.

We also put up some art work and invited you to guess the Enneagram and MBTI types of the artists. You did, and we received a number of interesting responses to the art poll. In this issue Pat reports on what happened. Quoting from some of you who guessed 'correctly', she makes a number of interesting observations about the process, and offers some intriguing speculations about the relationship between type and the artist.

As a result of the 'Art and Personality' page, we came into contact with a a number fascinating persons, including a woman who impressed us as being rather perceptive about art. She also had very insightful things to say about type. She suggested to us that we might consider expanding the 'art and personality' page to include writers, in addition to visual artists. In the course of the conversation that ensued it occured to us that this project would warrant its own separate page, and that she, a writer herself, might very well be the perfect candidate to be that page's feature editor. We found her own understated style of writing charming, honest, and not without a humorous and sometimes biting edge that kind of sneaks up on you. She agreed to give it a try, and we are proud to announce the arrival of 'Type Writer', a page by Roslyn Kopel Gross on type and the written word.

In this issue of the Journal, by the way, two new art pieces are displayed, and we again invite your comments and guesses about type. Ann Monroe graces this issue's 'Art and Personality' page with a marvelous painting, and Steve Standeford, offers one of his subtle and intriguing photos for our consideration.

The first issue of the Journal provoked much discussion, and led to a number of rather involved email conversations addressing a wide variety of issues.

Of special interest is a dialogue that is currently taking place with Lenore Thomson, formerly the managing editor of "Quadrant: The Journal of Contemporary Jungian Thought". Lenore's new book on type, entitled Personality Type: An Owner's Manual, will be released in the very near future by Shambala Publications. The copy on the cover of her new book reads, "For Jung, knowing your type was essential to understanding yourself: a way to measure personal growth and change. But his ideas have been applied largely in the areas of career and marital counseling, so type has come to seem predictive: a way to determine your job skills and social abilities. This book reclaims type as a way to talk about people's inner potential and the choices they make in order to honor it." Lenore was interested in the manner in which we were using type to perform cultural and organizational analyses, as she had utilized it in a similar way in her upcoming book. The email dialogue that is taking place between Lenore and John, reflects this shared interest, and pursues these matters in depth. It is reproduced here unedited, in its entirety. We consider it unfinished, however, and hope that it will be continued at the 'Community Forum', a new easy-access message board that we have opened with precisely this type of thing in mind. We invite you to actively participate in the discussion that Lenore started by posting a message in the thread that has been created there for this purpose.

With the opening of the Journal, the number of visits that our site was receiving nearly quadrupled as compared to previous months. It rapidly became apparent to us that the old 'letters to the editor' column was going to be an inefficient way to share communications, as it would continue to require that most messages go through us for processing and posting at a later date. The 'message board' that we had previously set up, although state of the art, required a registration process that our visitors apparently found prohibitive. What we needed was a new board with easier access. The new board that we have just installed promises to provide exactly what is needed - a Community Forum in which visitors with all kinds of special professional interests can post requests, comment on articles, and participate directly in discussions that are relevant to them. Walter Geldart, a good and patient listener who loves to participate in the kind of dialogues that occur in public assemblies of this kind, has agreed to act as 'host' at the Community Forum.

Special thanks to -

All of you who sent in letters, comments, survey returns, and art guesses. We are so happy to see that what we are trying to present here is actually of interest to you. You input is of inestimable benefit!
Ann Monroe and Steve Standeford. Thanks not only for making your art work available to us, but also for the time you both took to write statements about your work and the process you use, which will provide readers with much food for thought as they consider your work in the context of personality type.
All of the writers who likewise provided us with samples of their work, and statements about them. Your names will be revealed in the next issue, where we will able to thank each of you personally.
Lenore Thomson, who graciously conceded to take part in an off-the-cuff email conversation about complex matters that are both broad and deep. You were always able to remain both considerate and yet authentic and incisive in your thinking. It is a pleasure.
Ros - you not only came up with the idea for the 'Type Writer' page, but also deftly coordinated the tremendous effort that went into putting it up, all within a matter of weeks!
And, last but not least, Walter. You are a tireless internetworker and pioneer in the world of ideas. Assisting in countless practical ways, your excitement for this type of work is contagious, and you always seems to be there when needed!

About the 'Art and Personality Gallery' and the 'Type Writer' Pages

As previously mentioned, we hope to be able to show pieces by individuals of all types, and all combinations. We believe that there may be fundamentally different approaches to art, intimately related to personality type, and so we have embarked upon a path that entails looking and listening to what real people do with art and writing, and other activities, in order to see if we can begin to appreciate how their processes and products are related to personality type.

We hope to be able to remember that the purpose here is not to stand in judgment over the art that individuals display - or, for that matter, to evaluate the individuals themselves, their methods, or what they say about what they do. And we are hesitant, as many of you probably also are, to attribute the product of an individual's creative efforts exclusively to 'type'. What we DO hope to hear about, however, is what you subjectively experienced in viewing the pieces, and what that experience tells you, if anything, about the personality type of the individual who created it. We hope that in registering your comments and guesses, you choose to state your own personality type, which will give other people some idea of where you may be coming from.

If you are inspired to submit a piece of your own work here, please do! If you know somebody else who might be interested in doing so, please encourage them to email us. We are looking for pieces that can be adequately displayed using this medium (the web), and we prefer to show pieces that were not deliberately created by persons who were trying to demonstrate their personality type.