The
Enneagram—
Does It Have A Place In Christianity?
"The
enneagram is a circle with nine points on it. Inside the circle two
figures connect the nine points, a triangle and an oddly shaped six-pointed
figure. Most people who refer to the enneagram, however, relate it
to a personality typology system based on this drawing" more
...
"Definition: a system of spiritual psychology
based on an ancient Sufi typology of nine personality types or primary
roles with the recognition of one's type tantamount to a spiritual
awakening" from
Alternative Health Dictionary
Enneagram and
Spirituality
A Catholic
monk speaks about the Enneagram and says any religion can use it.
Listen to
this. (for research only)
Enneagram
and the Occult
"Gurdjieff’s
work led to the formation of the New-Age cult, Arica, founded by
his disciple Oscar Ichazo. It was Ichazo and his colleague Claudio
Naranjo (an instructor at the Esalen Institute) who together developed
the Enneagram in the 1960’s as an indicator of personality in its
current form.(14) Naranjo merged the Enneagram with 9 of Freud’s
10 personality defense mechanisms....
Barbara
Metz, SND, and John Burchill, OP, recommend the Enneagram as a way
of engaging in "kything prayer". Kything Prayer can be done with
any other person, present or absent, dead or alive, whose Enneagramic
reading ‘moves against your numerical arrows’. The key is to "let
your center find itself within the person with whom you are kything"
and to "Picture yourself within the [other] person." An alternative
form of Enneagramic kything is to "invite the other person’s spirit
into themselves."(19) One may very well ask how appropriate it is
for Christians to be inviting the spirits of the dead into themselves.
Does this not slide into occultic channeling/mediumistic practices
that are clearly forbidden by Holy Scripture?(20) Is it enough for
Enneagram advocates like Jim Scully of Pecos Abbey to say "that
‘occult’ and ‘satanic’ are not synonyms? God told me back in 1979
that the greatest issue facing the Church in the 1990’s would be
the deception of inter-faith syncretism. Maybe it is time for us
as Anglicans and Christians to truly wake up and repent of our syncretistic
mixing of Christ and the occult, of good and evil, of truth and
deception, of light and darkness. "Gurdjieff
and the Enigmatic Enneagram" by Ed Hird, Anglican Renewal
Ministries of Canada
"If the
enneagram is unscientific, esoteric, taken from a contemporary
sycretsit version of Islamic mysticism and tainted with the occult,
how is it that many Christians have bought into the system so
wholeheartedly?"
Dorothy Ranaghan
