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The Enneagram in Five Lectures
191 pages, Hardcover
Published November 30, 2024
3 people want to read
About the author
Oscar Ichazo
74 books21 followersÓscar Ichazo was an early developer of the Enneagon or Enneagram of personality, and founded the Arica School in 1968.
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October 18, 2024
In these lectures Ichazo covers a lot of material, including an emphasis on the new logic that he developed, called Trialectics. In his book Enneagram Knowledge, Ichazo discusses Trialectics as the basis of his development of his system of 108 enneagrams. In this review I will just fociu on Trialectics, but there is a lot more in it. Because this book contains different lectures for different audiences, there is a certain amount of repetition of material which is very helpful in gaining a deeper understanding of Trialectics. The book discusses a wide range of Western thinkers, and for many has their pictures and years alive. A sampling: Husserl, Sartre, Bergson, Cassirer, Heidegger, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Trotsky, Koyre, Proudhan, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Bacon, Bruno, Pascal, Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, Lobachevsky, Minkowski, Gauss, Kepler, Planck, Bohr, Einstein, Darwin, Eccles, Freud, Jung, Horney, Perls, Laing. While much of the book is about the West, Ichazo also draws parallels with Eastern thinkers: Lao Tzu, Chiang Tzu, Gautama Buddha, Tilopa.
Ichazo begins by explaining that metaphysics is a fundamental concern for everyone, because it is about identity and can change our lives. He describes how our sense of identity is tied to the kind of logic that our culture uses, and how the logic used by Western culture is in a process of maturation as our sense of identity changes. He makes a parallel to the transitions in how an individual grows from infant to child to adolescent to mature adult. He describes how the transition to Trialectics represents the transition in logic from adolescence to mature adulthood. He describes how Trialectics provides a sense of personal identity that transcends subjectivity, with a different sense of individuality full of understanding, love, and ability to take real action in the world. This is needed in order to respond effectively to the existential crisis that humanity faces.
Ichazo discusses how, in order to think, humans need to address space, time, and cycles. He traces how the formal analyses of these as types of logic appeared in the history of the West in three stages: Formal Logic (space) with Aristotle, Dialectics (time) with Hegel and now Trialectics (cycles). He describes how Formal Logic, with its sense of solid personal identity, led Alexander the Great to found the immense Hellenic culture that went all the way to India and lasted for centuries. In his book Parallels between Platonism and Mahayana Buddhism, Ichazo describes how this transformed Buddhism. Next Ichazo describes how the Renaissance led to a transition to Dialectics where the more fluid sense of personal identity led to competition and conquest with humans as predators to other humans. This occurred because the Renaissance led to inductive science which produced machines like the steam engine that were not dependent on natural forces of sun and wind. He describes how the third revolution in logic began with the science of Planck, Einstein and Bohr, and how he incorporated their findings into the development of Trialectics.
Ichazo discusses three forms of reason: analytical, analogical and empathetical. He shows how these correspond to three “laws” in each form of logic. For Aristotle these are the laws of Identity, Contradiction and Excluded Middle. For Dialectics these are: quantity becomes quality, opposition, negation of the negation. For Trialectics these are: Mutation, Circulation, Attraction. Using Trialectics, he developed a psychology in which the three types of reason become three ego-entities related to 9 biological systems that mediate 9 Psychic Structures. He extends Kant’s synthetic a priori of space and time to 9 Perceptions, from which arise the 9 Domains of Consciousness -- a child becomes fixated in one of these Domains to produce what is commonly called “The Enneagram” of personality types (these are described in detail in his book The Enneagrams of the Fixations: The Original Teachings). He also describes how these are related to the Higher States of Mind that can be attained by the 9 Ways of Realization.
Ichazo describes how today capitalism, socialism and autocracy all operate with the logic of Dialectics, and how the sense of endless conquest has led to the current existential crisis of climate change (he describes this in detail in his book The Climate Catastrophe: The Four Killers of Humanity, Beyond Eco-Anxiety into Unity and Action). In Dialectics there is an endless struggle between opposing forces, while in contrast Trialectics recognizes that both forces are part of an integral whole. In terms of an ecosystem, the Law of Circulation means that the wolf and the deer are not in conflict but need each other for balance: without the balancing predation of the wolf, the population of deer increases until it damages the ecosystem.
One of the remarkable things about this book is that these lectures were given in 1981 and 1982, and they described the coming crisis that we are now facing. His analysis of the source of the crisis caused by the excesses of Dialectics is much more clear now, four decades later. Reading what Ichazo says about changes over the centuries gives a sense of perspective. The logic of Aristotle was introduced to Europe in the 12th century through Avveroes, and established a basis for the society of the High Middle Ages. In the 16th century Francis Bacon formulated the beginning of modern science that resulted in the Industrial Revolution and Dialectics. At the beginning of the 20th century particle physics and the theory of relativity showed the need for a new logic, resulting in Trialectics. At the beginning of the 21st century, the need for Ichazo’s new logic is becoming inescapable.
Ichazo begins by explaining that metaphysics is a fundamental concern for everyone, because it is about identity and can change our lives. He describes how our sense of identity is tied to the kind of logic that our culture uses, and how the logic used by Western culture is in a process of maturation as our sense of identity changes. He makes a parallel to the transitions in how an individual grows from infant to child to adolescent to mature adult. He describes how the transition to Trialectics represents the transition in logic from adolescence to mature adulthood. He describes how Trialectics provides a sense of personal identity that transcends subjectivity, with a different sense of individuality full of understanding, love, and ability to take real action in the world. This is needed in order to respond effectively to the existential crisis that humanity faces.
Ichazo discusses how, in order to think, humans need to address space, time, and cycles. He traces how the formal analyses of these as types of logic appeared in the history of the West in three stages: Formal Logic (space) with Aristotle, Dialectics (time) with Hegel and now Trialectics (cycles). He describes how Formal Logic, with its sense of solid personal identity, led Alexander the Great to found the immense Hellenic culture that went all the way to India and lasted for centuries. In his book Parallels between Platonism and Mahayana Buddhism, Ichazo describes how this transformed Buddhism. Next Ichazo describes how the Renaissance led to a transition to Dialectics where the more fluid sense of personal identity led to competition and conquest with humans as predators to other humans. This occurred because the Renaissance led to inductive science which produced machines like the steam engine that were not dependent on natural forces of sun and wind. He describes how the third revolution in logic began with the science of Planck, Einstein and Bohr, and how he incorporated their findings into the development of Trialectics.
Ichazo discusses three forms of reason: analytical, analogical and empathetical. He shows how these correspond to three “laws” in each form of logic. For Aristotle these are the laws of Identity, Contradiction and Excluded Middle. For Dialectics these are: quantity becomes quality, opposition, negation of the negation. For Trialectics these are: Mutation, Circulation, Attraction. Using Trialectics, he developed a psychology in which the three types of reason become three ego-entities related to 9 biological systems that mediate 9 Psychic Structures. He extends Kant’s synthetic a priori of space and time to 9 Perceptions, from which arise the 9 Domains of Consciousness -- a child becomes fixated in one of these Domains to produce what is commonly called “The Enneagram” of personality types (these are described in detail in his book The Enneagrams of the Fixations: The Original Teachings). He also describes how these are related to the Higher States of Mind that can be attained by the 9 Ways of Realization.
Ichazo describes how today capitalism, socialism and autocracy all operate with the logic of Dialectics, and how the sense of endless conquest has led to the current existential crisis of climate change (he describes this in detail in his book The Climate Catastrophe: The Four Killers of Humanity, Beyond Eco-Anxiety into Unity and Action). In Dialectics there is an endless struggle between opposing forces, while in contrast Trialectics recognizes that both forces are part of an integral whole. In terms of an ecosystem, the Law of Circulation means that the wolf and the deer are not in conflict but need each other for balance: without the balancing predation of the wolf, the population of deer increases until it damages the ecosystem.
One of the remarkable things about this book is that these lectures were given in 1981 and 1982, and they described the coming crisis that we are now facing. His analysis of the source of the crisis caused by the excesses of Dialectics is much more clear now, four decades later. Reading what Ichazo says about changes over the centuries gives a sense of perspective. The logic of Aristotle was introduced to Europe in the 12th century through Avveroes, and established a basis for the society of the High Middle Ages. In the 16th century Francis Bacon formulated the beginning of modern science that resulted in the Industrial Revolution and Dialectics. At the beginning of the 20th century particle physics and the theory of relativity showed the need for a new logic, resulting in Trialectics. At the beginning of the 21st century, the need for Ichazo’s new logic is becoming inescapable.
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