A tool of humility

Criticism of the enneagram was included in a recent Vatican document on New Age beliefs and practices. A Catholic teacher of the enneagram defends its use

The Vatican?s recent document on the New Age was timely and fascinating. New Age seekers must be listened to and engaged with, it said, because theirs is ?the search for new meaning in life, a new ecological sensitivity and the desire to go beyond a cold, rationalistic religiosity?. As the document acknowledges, these are spiritual searchers who have often rejected formal religion because it can appear to be concerned with institutions. The Vatican also points out that what New Agers too often end up with is a substitute for the real thing ? introspection rather than true prayer. And they too often follow crooked paths already ploughed by the Gnostics, Pelagians and other false friends of Christianity.

The enneagram, the personality-type indicator which has become a popular tool in Catholic retreat circles, merits only a passing mention in the document. But it is made to sound alarming. The authors quote Pope John Paul II?s observation that New Age ?is only a new way of practising Gnosticism? ? the belief that special knowledge available only to initiates brings salvation ? which, the Pope continued, has always existed side-by-side with Christianity as a philosophy or para-religion. The document?s authors then add: ?An example of this can be seen in the enneagram, the nine-type tool for character analysis, which when used as a means of spiritual growth introduces an ambiguity in the doctrine and life of the Christian faith.?

In the glossary of New Age terms in the index, the enneagram is described as a symbol used originally for divination which was later adapted for analysing character types. It became popular, says the document, after the publication of a book which drew on the writings of the Russian esoteric thinker G.I. Gurdjieff. ?The origin of the enneagram remains shrouded in mystery?, ends the entry in the glossary, ?but some maintain that it comes from Sufi mysticism?.

No mention is made of Catholic teachers and writers who have helped to develop the enneagram in a Christian context over many years (they include Suzanne Zuercher OSB, Richard Rohr OFM, Jerome Wagner, a former Jesuit, and Bernard Tickerholf TOR). Nor is mention made of research connecting the enneagram to the early sin typologies (most famously, the seven deadly sins) of the desert fathers.

Still, it is not the origins of the enneagram that are important but how it is used. Most symbols and patterns in Christian doctrine, after all, predate Christianity: what makes them Christian is the belief which underpins their application and whether ? as tools ? they help people grow according to the Christian understanding of our spirituality. I have taught the enneagram for 18 years without knowing much about New Age spirituality but with a Christian understanding of spiritual growth. I have found it an immensely powerful tool. After reading the Vatican?s document, I am also sure that the way I have seen it used in a Christian context is not heterodox.

The enneagram is an ancient nine-point logo in which the points are linked together within a circle. Its origins are disputed, but the modern enneagram can be traced to Oscar Ichazo, the founder of the Arica Institute in Chile, who in the 1960s took the logo and built a theory of personality around it. ?Our personality is the psychic manifestation of one of the three physiological systems of the body?, he believed. Because these systems ? nervous, digestive and circulatory ? are controlled respectively by the brain, gut and heart, these become the three centres of the enneagram. Each centre contains three distinct personality types or ?triads?.

The enneagram?s core insight is that as human beings we are born into the world with a mind (for knowledge and seeking truth), an instinct (for survival and life), and a yearning (for love and acceptance). But while we have been born with a need and a capacity for all three, early in life we select one of the centres as our preferred focus of being. We are lopsided, because we like to live out of one of these three centres: head types prefer to approach the world rationally, gut types through instinct, and heart types through relationships. Each of these basic types divides into three further subtypes, giving nine in all, each of which has particular traits, abilities, talents and limitations.

Each of these biases produces, in turn, a pursuit. Head people have a need to be ?right?, which is related to authority and law; gut people want to be ?first? or ?best?, which is related to power and achievement; heart people seek to be ?original and unique?, establishing them as distinct. These are all good energies and drives which, when we depend on them excessively, can nevertheless lead us to into blind and sinful kinds of behaviour.

?To know thyself? has always been recognised in Christian spirituality as an essential aspect of spiritual growth and conversion. If we are attuned to grace, we discover in the depth of our being a disunity which forces us, with St Paul, to confess that ?I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate? (Rom 7:15).

But Christianity diverges sharply from New Age Gnostic ideas in its view of the power of such self-knowledge. From reading the Vatican?s document, it is clear that a New Ager might look at the enneagram and see a special expertise available to initiates that brings some form of salvation, a ?key? to unlocking human destiny which allows us to set out on our chosen, self-directed ?path of perfection?. But a Christian could not possibly view it like this. For a Christian, self-knowledge is the means by which we become aware of our brokenness, of our need for Our Saviour. It is self-knowledge as humility, opening ourselves to divine grace, not as ?personal empowerment? which would only serve to inflate our ego and our distance from God.

The enneagram, in other words, is one of many means ? the most common of which is our experience of life itself ? of understanding ourselves better. It draws our attention to the manner in which all of us, without exception, go through life in denial of some integral aspect of our God-given existence. We have constructed our personality around the avoidance of a gift which we have rejected as interfering with our quest for survival. This has in turn blinded us.

The main purpose of the enneagram, in my experience, is to bring us to the awareness of this blindness. At the same time as we realise this, we discover that in our distorted desire lurks God?s dream for us, which only grace can make real. No one pursues what they already possess. People in the head centre are there not because they possess truth but because they value it. Although gut personalities admire strength and desire power, they are in fact cowardly in the face of those who appear to be stronger than they are. Heart people appreciate love as something they receive but are often negligent in showing love to others. In other words, head people can be ?witless?, gut types ?gutless? and heart types ?heartless?. The evidence soon becomes clear at any enneagram workshop when groups are divided into the three centres.

The enneagram?s insight cannot, however, bring about transformation or growth by itself. I agree with the Vatican that to see the enneagram as a ?means of spiritual growth? is to give a false idea, for only by grace can we grow towards God. But it would be good if a future edition of the text could point out that as a tool of self-awareness the enneagram can be a powerful aid to humility and self-knowledge, while insisting that for transformation we need to invite our Lord to heal us and make us whole again. Grace builds on nature. We whose human desire is for light (head), life (gut) and love (heart) can come to know these gifts in their fullness because we have been given the theological gifts of faith, hope and charity.

Sr Elizabeth McNulty is author of Planted in Love: the Enneagram, reason and conversion. The Vatican?s document on the New Age can be read on The Tablet?s website, thetablet.co.uk. Click on the icon ?New Age: A Christian reflection?.