The Importance of Principles in Practicing the Enneagram

The word Principle is derived from Principia, which is Latin for "First". A principle is a law, idea, or that comes first. The Enneagram as a whole has become very complex, with different angles and aspects of theory covered over many years. Unfortunately, it doesn't always coincide kindly with itself, and people end up disagreeing. Why is this the case? It's the same system, so why are people not speaking the same language? Are we all not people, are we not all equal? Is it that it's too complicated on a basic level, or have people simply made it complicated?

In analyzing all of these different views and threads of opinion, some of them are principles or more heavily based on principles, whereas some are not. How do we know what is a principle in this case? For pragmatic reasons, a principle would need to refer to commonalities to all of the Enneagram descriptions. This makes clear-cut sense if you study the lineage of the Enneagram. Thankfully, it all works nicely in line with itself by tracing the arrow of time. Every Enneagram author obeys some conventions, and even if they break form those elsewhere, it stays intact. These are conventions that everyone who practices the enneagram must learn and understand, and prioritize in their understanding of the types.

Review of Principles:

1. The Enneagram is split into three triads: head, heart, and gut (sourced back to Gurdjieff, who studied mysticism, and those of us who study history should know that this trilogy shows up in many places throughout time). Gurdjieff defined The Enneagram as "The Fourth Way", which involves moving beyond a "blockage to awakening" we have in each center (each of the "three ways"). This later turned into Trifix and Tritype theory.

2. The Enneagram as a figure is connected by lines split into two forms. One is a triangle, and the other is a hexad. The law of three governs the triangle, which describes three forces in the universe (active, opposing, and reconciling). The law of seven governs the hexad and describes an oscillation pattern that shows up in music.

3. Each Enneagram point seeks to define a "Chief Feature", which is a historical idea you can trace back throughout history. Gurdjieff endeavored to describe the Chief Features of the types. Over time, the terminology changed, but every author was trying to describe what each fixation represented. Luckily, their position on The Enneagram informs what they were describing.

4. You can track this step-by-step progression by looking at how Ichazo came up with certain terms that were referenced later on. He built his Arica school and the first working Enneagram system. Naranjo built on these ideas and took the Enneagram in his own direction. More authors added on and on. But you can look at the seeds of these principles in all their work.

5. Some later authors' ideas don't reference the principles in such obvious ways. We've already branched out so far that the principles have been lost. And they're now being treated by some as principles, when they don't fit the definition.

Here's a review of Gurdjieff's Chief Features that started the modern Enneagram: