February 17, 1997

Within the Archdiocese of Manila the Enneagram is being used more and more as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool, for both purely psychological and psychospiritual purposes, by and for lay persons, religious, and clergy. For more than a decade the Enneagram and the above described uses to which it has been put did not elicit much adverse opinion and comment, if any. In the last few months, however, some of the faithful have become suspicious of the Enneagram. Their suspicions have been aroused because of accusations, coming from Catholic Christians abroad, particularly the United States of America, that the Enneagram is a part of some currents contrary or even hostile to Christian faith and spirituality, such as New Age magic, and occultism, and that these currents are infiltrating and harming the belief and practice of Catholic Christian individuals and communities. These accusations have been brought to the attention of the authorities of the Archdiocese, who have inquired into the matter with the help of experts. The result of this inquiry is summarized in this Statement.

This statement concisely answers the following questions:

* What is Enneagram?

* What further teachings characterize the Enneagram system?

* What are the historical origins of the Enneagram?

* What are the main uses of the Enneagram?

* What points of caution should be observed in relation to the Enneagram?

* What overall assessment can we make of the Enneagram?

What is the Enneagram?

The Enneagram is a system of personality typology — the classification of personalities into distinct types — with applications for the diagnosis of psychological and psychospiritual problems related with these personality types, as well as for the theraphy of these problems. The system is called “Enneagram” from two Greek words: ennea, meaning “nine,” and gramma, meaning “picture.” The Enneagram holds that basically there are nine types of personalities, each corresponding to a picture representing a facet of the divine face or a demonic distortion thereof. Each individual is essentially one of these types, although he or she may have characteristics of all the other types. The sign of this typology of nine personality types is the Enneagram circle with nine points on its circumference.

What further teachings characterize

the Enneagram System?

To expand on the above, the Enneagram posits that each person is born with certain gifts or qualities that reflect the divine image. Each individual reflects, as it were, some facet of the face of God. It is both the individual’s privilege and destiny to be stamped with this particular image of God. These gifts or qualities are one’s contributions to the human community. Each person participates in all the elements of the divine, but he or she has a special likeness to one aspect of the divine face. Each aspect of the divine face is especially rooted in one of the nine realms of experiencing, and is particularly inclined to one of the nine avenues of perceiving reality and of responding to it.

But just as any good can be used or misappropriated, so can a person misuse his or her gift. Instead of using it for the common good, one could misuse it for one’s narrow interests and selfish desires.

Thus the divine image can be distorted into a devil image, a caricature of the divine face. One’s strength or gift (virtue, speaking in Christian terms) can become a weakness or liability (vice). Just as there are nine manifestations of the divine face, so are there nine distortions of the divine face, nine distortions or compulsions or fixations which masquerade as the real self. These correspond to nine realms of narrowed experiencing, nine exclusive or biased views of the divine, nine sets of wrong ideas about oneself, the world, and God, and nine types of compulsive life-styles.

For example, the divine quality of omnipotence, reflected in genuine human strength, can become distorted as aggression and domineering behavior. Divine peace is distorted into indolence, divine perfection into perfectionism, divine love into the compulsion to help and the neurotic need to love and be loved, divine authorship of the exquisite laws of the universe into cunning and calculation, divine uniqueness into the compulsive need to be special and original, divine wisdom into detached intellectualism, divine faithfulness into authoritarianism, divine joy into naive over optimism. Each divine quality is susceptible of being distorted into its caricature by and in human beings.

This distortion process begins early in life. Persons become set and rigid in their perceiving and responding. They lose sight of their respective true images of God, their true selves, and begin to identify with their caricature which masquerades as their real selves.

Energy and feelings become attached to these nine sets of false assumptions. In the Enneagram system as presently developed, these wrong ideas and the attached feelings are called “passions” or “vices” or “false emotions.” They represent nine manifestations of a disordered heart, in which the person’s basic strengths or virtues become distorted into weaknesses or vices.

The most important modern systematizers of the Enneagram claim that each person, in his or her divine image or inner reality or “essence, is perfect and in loving unity with the entire cosmos, including unity with God, with other human beings, and within himself or herself. In his or her “essence” the person would have available to him or her the entire repertory of responses represented in the Enneagram circle.

However, in effect, during the first four or six years of life, in the process of socialization, each person’s parents or guardians, and society as a whole, cause him or her to suffer distortion of the divine image. Each becomes confined to realms of narrowed experiencing, to exclusive or biased views of the divine, to overlooking the other aspects of the divine image and overuse of one aspect of the divine image, to wrong ideas about oneself, the world, and God. Contradictions arise between the person’s reality and the environment to which he or she must conform. A defensive layer is slowly formed that begins to cover the person’s essence. This defensive layer characterizes what theorists of the Enneagram call the “ego” or “personality” of the individual.

It is important to note that the latter is a negatively charged use of the term “personality,” differing from the usual neutral meaning — the totality of one’s qualities of mind and character — used at the beginning of this Statement, and in subsequent parts as well.

It is on the basis of the above described ninefold typology of personality that the Enneagram depicts the structure and dynamics of the human personality, indicates the ways of healthy growth and disordered functioning, and proposes the way for a person to regain his or her true self.

What are the historical origin

of the Enneagram?

The historical origin of the Enneagram lies in Sufism, the mystical tradition within Islam. Sufi masters used it as an aid in guiding the spiritual development of their disciples. The disciple would consult with his master in the same way that one seeking spiritual growth consults a spiritual director. Over the course of these meetings, the Sufi master would gradually delineate the various aspects of the disciple’s personality, indicating his strengths and weaknesses, using the Enneagram system as framework of reference. The disciple would learn only about his own personality. The master would not reveal the whole system.

Following the practice of the ancient Near East, the Enneagram was preserved through oral tradition and was passed on from master to master. There was a concerted effort not to reveal the Sufi personality typology in written form.

The Enneagram was introduced into Western circles through Oscar Ichazo. Born in Bolivia in 1931, Ichazo dedicated himself to study of the various spiritual paths to self-development and realization. One of these paths which Ichazo encountered was the Enneagram, which he systematized in his own way as a system of self-development. He began lecturing on this system at the Institute for Applied Psychology in Santiago, Chile. Subsequently, he transferred his training program to the small town of Africa, where he worked in an intensive program with a small group of followers.

In 1970 fifty-four North Americans traveled to Africa to begin ten months of intensive training under Ichazo. Among this group were Claudio Naranjo and John Lilly. Upon completing their training, the group unanimously decided to continue working together and to bring the system to the United States to give it a broader audience.

In 1971 the Africa Institute was incorporated and began giving three-month training programs in New York, in which the Enneagram is included as an integral part of the training. Since then the Africa Institute has founded other centers throughout the United States.

It was from the United States that the Enneagram was picked up by persons working in psychology, spirituality, and cognate fields, and introduced into the Philippines. Since then the Enneagram has become widely used in the Philippines.

What are the main uses of the Enneagram?

The Enneagram system is being used as a tool for diagnosis as well as for therapy. It provides a description of personality dynamics and distortions that has much diagnostic utility. Its indications of healthy personality functioning and integration provide a therapeutic dimension to the system.

The Enneagram has been used in a clinical setting for individual, marital, and family therapy. It has been employed in a growth-oriented setting for essentially healthy individuals who seek to realize their potentials more fully. It has been applied to the study of the structure and functioning of business corporations and the management of people. It has been utilized in spiritual direction and counseling.

Many of those who have used it say that it works well as diagnostic and therapeutic tool. Others, however, say that it is at best a rather rough gauge of personality type, and that other tests, such as Myers-Briggs test yield more accurate and precise diagnostic results and therefore predispose to more effective theraphy.

What points of caution should be observed in relation to the Enneagram?

Several points of caution should be observed in relation to the Enneagram. Not surprisingly, since it originally arose within the Islam, the Enneagram system does not of itself have a clear place for the Christian doctrines of original sin, of redemption, and of Christ as the agent of redemption, all of which Islam rejects. Consequently, the Enneagram, from a Christian viewpoint, would be over optimistic about the psychospiritual integrity (“essence,” in Enneagram terms) of young children, and would posit an original state of blessedness, rather than the involvement of all human beings in sin and its deleterious consequences. Redemption would be a matter of unmasking the distorted image of God, that persons have developed, and their recovery of authentic image of God without the need for Christ’s offering of himself as our example and savior.

Like any other system, the Enneagram is susceptible of being given too much importance by its practitioners and adherents. It should not be absolutized; it is only a tool, although a useful one. It has limitations, some of them are already mentioned above. Some of its premises and claims are questionable. For Christians, the worldview of Christian faith should be the framework of reference into which valid elements of the Enneagram system should be integrated.

Because it is susceptible of being misunderstood and misrepresented as a store of secret knowledge accessible only to the initiate or the adept, and as a way to psychological or spiritual wholeness through purely human insight and effort, the Enneagram system arouses some understandable suspicion of being Neo-Gnostic or New Age lore. The suspicion is deepened by its abundant use of meaning-laden numbers, a practice often found in some New Age teachings and groups.

What overall assessment can we make

of the Enneagram?

In sum, as Catholic Christians, what are we to think of the Enneagram? An accurate response to this question would include the following.

The Enneagram is a system of personality typology that can be used with much benefit both as a diagnostic tool and as a therapeutic instrument, whether for purely psychological or for psychospiritual purposes. It carries much intuitive wisdom and often produces certain beneficial practical effects, but it has certain premises which are questionable from both an empirical scientific and a Christian viewpoint, which if acted upon consistently could harm human beings and damage Christian faith and life.

Although some of its premises are questionable, the Enneagram system has some valid theoretical and practical elements capable of beneficial integration into the Christian worldview and practice.

The Enneagram is a diagnostic and therapeutic tool of more than considerable utility. Yet it is only one among many systems which can be used to develop the personalities and enrich the spiritual lives of people. What we should do is, in the light of our Christian faith, to use such elements of the Enneagram as a help for other people and for us as we become persons in harmony with our own selves, with other human beings, with nature, and with God.

(Sgd.) + JAIME L. CARDINAL SIN, D.D.

Archbishop of Manila

February 17, 1997