Furthermore, when the word for the principle is derived from an ancient language it can masquerade as a lost divine ancient principle, a level of knowledge that can simply be put into practice, as it was once used in the past. In other words, they are subverted in a psychological sense to think that the complicated word in itself gives the principle authority. Therefore the person who is seeking this knowledge is enchanted by the word itself. Like much of New Age/Occultic dogma, abstract gnostic principles try to obtain credibility from “divinely” contrived names meaning that the more complicated the name of the principle, the higher level of knowledge it imparts. Think about it, in order for knowledge to sound mystical, perhaps even given from the gods, shouldn’t it sound complex and bewildering? The word “Enneagram” in itself is intriguingly named. The very definitions of God, Self, Sin, and even Jesus are different than orthodox Christianity (we will dive into this in a different blog post). Yet they would state that we do not harness all aspects of this image, therefore we all have a “false self” but through the Enneagram, you have the ability to have a path back to the “true self,” that you can be reunited with this “Divine Love” and transform your consciousness.' (2)ĭo not be fooled, analyzing the Enneagram through the lens of the Christian worldview is a good tool to provide a critique to this practice, but it should not be used in a way to legitimize it. The popular proponents of the Enneagram in Christian circles would detail the nine numbers as all sections of the image of God given in humanity. The goal of the Enneagram is as Richard Rohr writes, “If you could look out at reality from nine pairs of eyes and honor all of them, you would be looking at reality through the eyes of God.” (1) Each number represents a trait of personality (as seen in the image) or a trait of the “self” as a whole. The Enneagram is a circle with nine points that are interconnected with lines.

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