The Perils of Personal Growth

Recently a former subscriber remarked, in parting, that my use of the enneagram to answer questions about world events was misleading, that it had nothing to do with personal growth (which was this same subscriber's hope to learn more about, most likely) and that the enneagram was something that I must just be into (whatever that means) but that I ought not to confuse my subscribers by referring to it.

T H E   E N N E A G R A M

I can hardly imagine a better discussion topic. Nevertheless, I would have tried to phrase the same sentiment with a question, since questions lead to discovery more reliably than complaints do. I hope this response will at least clarify for others, if not prevent, some common misconceptions and even suggest other less common, though more fruitful, lines of investigation.

As always, I welcome follow-up questions.

Tradition has it that the enneagram was discovered long ago and preserved in secret. There were defensible, maybe even altruistic reasons. Topping the list was to prevent distortion and misuse. Now that the cat is out of the bag, the first is impossible and the second is a problem of management.

So far the greatest distortion is a prevailing assumption that the enneagram is a set of personality types.

It is proudly spread by partially informed, possibly well-meaning authors in the service of misinformed, possibly well-meaning publishers of all-too popular self-help literature. The Internet has done little to dispel the confusion. Thus, the strength of first impressions converges, in time, with the power of association.

It no longer surprises me that some of my readers and subscribers know almost nothing about the enneagram itself. Many can't seem to see beyond the personality types, which has been the principal obstacle in my various attempts to demonstrate creative approaches to ancient questions. This is a problem with two faces, because so few 'typologists' can say with certainty what personality is, at least not exactly.

N I N E   P E R S O N A L I T Y   T Y P E S

I intentionally assign unfamiliar names to these so-called types. I will defer for another discussion (several discussions, actually) my reasons in each case, along with a description of each. For now, I am more interested in a higher level flyby of personality itself, without fragmenting it any more than necessary.

Let me begin by taking -person literally, to see where it leads.

Metaphors are well and good, but they make distrustworthy points of embarkation. A proposition with no literal truth won't pack any higher cognitive punch, either. The word -person means nothing less than -mask, and nothing more, either.

A   P R E V A I L I N G   A S S U M P T I O N

Don't take my word for it; look it up if you don't believe me.

It follows that as one's person grows, it does so at the expense of its host. Beyond a certain point, it becomes a liability. So it is fair and just, even responsible, to ask: How big a mask does one need?

Pruning, sometimes outright weeding, might be more appropriate for many a person than yet more growth. Too big a mask, no matter how pretty it may be, does not inspire trust. Likewise, having the preconception either that the enneagram is a tool for personal growth or that personal growth is necessarily a virtue can lead to a nonrandom collection of predictable perils.

A   T H R E E - F O L D   L O G I C

I reasonably infer that a process may be at work. Process, more than any inventory of masks, is the enneagram's domain. Therefore, as you read of the following perils, consider them first as whole microprocesses and then as steps in a single macroprocess, or in the reverse order - what matters is that you do not rely on any one perspective, but that you zoom your level of focus up and down.

Far beyond enumerating the perils themselves, my aim is to demonstrate the laws of process in dissimilar but reproducible examples since many apply universally. If they may be discerned, the laws may be more essential to realizing human potential than the trial and error methods that we are already sick of, literally. More to the point, though, is the possibility that human potential is a more robust direction for self-help or inner-work than is personal growth, with more useful benefits.

There is a three-fold logic to personal growth that, when recognized, may be countermanded. The cycle, comprising a series of steps, is held together by the triad of DECEIVE, IDENTIFY and FORGET. These underlying terms bear brief explanation because they contain hidden substance beyond the disposable use more often made of them.

DECEIVE is a negation of -receive and derives from the Latin -capabilis, -capax, -capere, etc. - meaning receptive, able to contain and/or undertake, etc. - although the word has non-Latin relatives, too. The root is all about -capacity and/or -capability. By declaring DECEIVE to be the opposite idea of -capacity, I use it synonymously not only with TO LIE and/or TO BE UNTRUTHFUL but also, more emphatically, as meaning TO INCAPACITATE, according to its effect.

Deception of self or others, in essence a reliance on masks, is like junk food to the cycle of personal growth and like solitary confinement in a small, dark room to self-help and inner-work.

IDENTIFY also has a hidden side, connected to its literal meaning and invisble to modern usage. Nowadays, the term is vaguely and incorrectly used as a synonym for sympathize, with an implied good intention that is never defined or specified. For example, if a colleague relates a story of some professional challenge, the listener might IDENTIFY with the speaker or with some element of the story.

As it pertains to personal growth, to IDENTIFY is to become a slave.

The literal meaning is -to regard as the same, indicating the power of association. Freedom, on the other hand, is in the realm of human potential, of self-knowledge and self-expression based on individuation. There is little or none of either to be had in slavery to a role, to a mask, or to one's own identity.

I imagine that slavery is unbearable, and that most folks (even those who benefit from the slavery of others) would choose more freedom for themselves than less - at least until the price of freedom was explained to them. A dose of freedom might change some folks' answer, but that is another story. In any case, the easiest way to endure the loss of freedom, although maybe not the best way, is to FORGET the truth of the situation.

D E C E I V E  -  I D E N T I F Y  -  F O R G E T

The truth is that you are not your personality.

FORGET is yet another idea with a hidden side. Beyond having memory loss, the word means -to give away, -to squander. In a weird twist, modern English speakers have forgotten their language and its riches, literally and ironically.

The effect of this three-fold logic upon the whole of what might be called an individual's Real I is to INCAPACITATE, ENSLAVE and ultimately SQUANDER it. The cycle progresses through a series of perils to the Real I, which may be recognized and enumerated, even dissected. As we will see, the enneagram is the perfect tool for such work.

Those who set out on a path of personal growth will see as many as six signs along the way, depending on how hard and how far they push it.

The first, IMPRECISION, is unsurprisingly one of definitions. Personal growth is so vague an intention, so abstract a notion, lacking as it does any solid vision of a goal, that it has negative value compared to intentional fruition. If self-help or inner-work is your aim, then by all means make your first steps count. 

They need not be large, but they should be in the correct direction.

I M P R E C I S I O N

Perhaps because I do not consider personal growth to be a virtue of any kind, rather something to be strictly monitored, this first barrier seems to me more like a graceful warning than an imposing hurdle. It is as though fate were asking - Are you sure that you want to get on board? - before the roller coaster actually gets underway. The problem of IMPRECISION vis-a-vis human potential is known to scientists and project managers as GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out.

The next peril in the series is INSUFFERABILITY. To describe it, I will pursue the roller coaster idea a step further, still likening the process as a whole to a fall of the Real I. That fall is preceded, in fact enabled, by a proportional rise.

During this phase, there is often a noticeable condescension toward others, a higher-than-thou attitude. The deception is at its most vigorous at this point in order to impart the energy needed to overcome later hurdles, just as in other processes. During INSUFFERABILITY there is almost no sensation of hurdles at all, which feel as though automatically overcome, like a roller coaster's initial climb.

You may have also noticed that we somehow see personal growth for what it is more easily in others than in ourselves. The face is the seat of the personality, an entity with its own agenda, one possibly quite different from the rest of its host. I should add that since these perils transpire in a sequence, this second one strikes hardest at society's least defended individuals - the young.

I N S U F F E R A B I L I T Y

Society, such as we know it, markets INSUFFERABILITY to the young as surely as it mistakes pride for a virtue. It does so in numerous ways, ranging from insufferable parents to peer pressure and beyond. While society does not cause anything, per se, it does tend to reward deception and identification.

The perils of personal growth build on one another, not unlike a pyramid whose base expands as its zenith rises. IMPRECISION does not end when INSUFFERABILITY begins, quite the reverse. Together, they foretell of another, less exciting phase in the cycle.

PARALYSIS is the dominant mood of the new melody. Both the growing personality and the Real I each go into a sort of cocoon, one waxing and the other waning. It is still uncertain which will emerge as the master and which the slave.

The name derives from the Greek -paraplessien, -to strike at the side and/or -paraplessesthai, -to be stricken on one side. Here the stricken side is conscience. With personal growth comes a corresponding loss of authenticity, per the logic above.

PARALYSIS is a quiet stage wherein any major changes will be deep and imperceptible to inexperienced ears. The effects of personal growth upon the Real I are not yet permanent - something still is missing. Meanwhile, the first three steps comprise the matrix of cause, in this or any process.

P A R A L Y S I S

It might seem from the foregoing that I regard the person as a disease, possibly a tumor. There is partial truth in that, or at least a healthy respect for potential hazard. The whole truth is that the person is only one part of any individual human being, more of an obvious appendage than an essential element.

Between the third step and the fourth lies a chasm of irreversibilty, after which return by the same path is impossible. An alternate path of return, if any even exist, will demand expert method and guidance to traverse. Also, in the real world, reliable guides are not always available, nor to everyone equally.

Although accident is enough to get you this far, further progress needs more will-power than is generated by PARALYSIS alone.

As the enneagram shows, the fourth peril, ATROPHY, requires a sufficient rise to overcome those hurdles encountered after PARALYSIS. The good news is that it is not so easy to destroy the Real I. For the record, ATROPHY, or malnourishment, derives from the antithesis another Greek verb, -trephein, meaning -to fatten.

ATROPHY constitutes some of the first solid evidence of self-harm. Conscience is not only stricken, but starved - its growth, stunted. Meanwhile, to avoid a similar fate, the person does what any opportunist predator would: feed on those more feeble than itself, which in this case is the Real I.

A T R O P H Y

From the point of view of authentic self-knowledge and self-expression, ATROPHY is a willful act of auto-vampirism. For its maturation, the underlying conscience needs a diet of impressions that is steady, varied and fresh - or a specific blend of light in order to grow, if you prefer. The person alternately absorbs or deflects said nourishment according to its own appetite or discomfort.

If discovering human potential first-hand is your aim, then an intentionally translucent person will be an asset and an unintentionally opaque one, a liability. When it comes to conscience, the familiar admonition applies: Use it or lose it. By now, of course, the choice has been made.

Thus, the next step in the process is DISTORTION, during which the person mutates into a new creature - it emerges from its cocoon, for better or for worse. This level of the pyramid and the next demand as complete an oblivion to the Real I as possible in favor of the new normal. Mutation is completely natural, predictable and not necessarily a maleficent force - everything depends upon intention.

D I S T O R T I O N

Whereas DISTORTION takes various forms, they may not be as random as we are sometimes tempted to suppose. Now, is the point when the study of types becomes appropriate and relevant, not before. In fact, premature study is itself a growing cause of DISTORTION.

An arresting, possibly even effective, comparison may be made between personal growth and cancer - surely neither will check its own growth. Personality is a DISTORTION of the Real I and, more importantly, a process that is all-too often mistaken for a product. In reality, it is more of an event than it is an object.

The final peril is even less surprising than the first - quite simply, it is SUCCESS - and it does not happen all by itself, for free. The main difference between DISTORTION and SUCCESS is sustainability. The emergent creature needs a supportive environment, one that would be insufferable, even hostile, to any Real I bold enough to unmask itself.

The relation between ATROPHY and SUCCESS is no less arresting. If the former is a vampire, the latter is a zombie. Sustained ATROPHY results in the death of the affected mass, which in this case must be one or more of the three psychic centers of gravity - gestation, emotion and/or mentation.

S U C C E S S

This is what partial death of the human spirit looks like. If you watch for them, you may begin to notice 
the undead walking among us, making friends, making laws, even making children. SUCCESS paints so shocking a picture that most folks prefer not to see it, which is wholly voluntary on their part.

The admonition to be careful what you wish for is well remembered when it comes to SUCCESS. If you work to bury yourself in lies, even though you may succeed, human potential will only elude you all the more. That I do not recommend such a course apparently makes me unpopular, at least superficially.

The foregoing may be placed around the enneagram for ease of reference and further study.

P E R I L S   O F   P E R S O N A L   G R O W T H


The risk of ultimate SUCCESS is only one of the several reasons why my work with the enneagram does not pursue personal growth as its aim. A private distaste for insufferability is another - lack of mystery is another still. Rather than languish among the undead, though, I prefer to conclude these impressions on more hopeful, if no less critical, a note.

I will be brief.

Disclosing my lack of psychological credentials and admitting my distrust of Academia in the same sentence, let me also humbly offer my recommendations toward an antidote to excessive personal growth. Just as there is a three-fold logic to the perils, so too are there countermeasures to these urges - to DECEIVE, IDENTIFY and FORGET. Unsurprisingly, they are oppositely oriented and punctuated first by a personal discomfort and then by an authentic reawakenening of the Real I.

T O W A R D   A N   A N T I D O T E

This new triad comprises the terms REMEMBER, DISCRIMINATE and VERIFY. As before, the terms have familiar and unfamiliar meanings. As always, the order is nonrandom.

REMEMBER is necessarily the first. Beyond the opposite of FORGET, it must also be the opposite of SQUANDER. This I take loosely as -reassemble, a reconstitution of the members, so to speak.

It can be a long and tedious road with no shortcuts, lasting for a duration proportional to the degree of personal growth heretofore.

DISCRIMINATE is necessarily the second, and can neither be rushed nor begun early. The common acceptable use of the term is to mean distinguish, otherwise it is considered rude if not sociopathic. Why the language has been seeded with political correctness is a thrilling story for another day - for now, ask yourself if you ever hear or use the word discriminate followed by against, as in discriminate against someone on the basis of age or gender, ethnicity or culture, location or religious affiliation, political orientation or economic condition, etc.

R E M E M B E R - D I S C R I M I N A T E - V E R I F Y

The tendency to consider discrimination as an unjust act is merely evidence of personal growth within culture itself, since its true meaning is to do the opposite of incriminate.

Finally, VERIFY hints at something more than -ascertain. Beyond simply double-checking or making sure, VERIFY has the sense of -make true or -make real. There is more to verity than the absence of doubt.

Again, everything depends upon intention - what do you aim to realize?

.

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Trivium and The Law of Three

Whenever and wherever we survey the natural world, around us or within us, we see nonrandom patterns at work, not only in objects but also in events. There have always been individuals among us consumed by the wish to understand these patterns, to be able to gaze upon the world and read its laws plainly, in effect to know the future. Attempts to understand these patterns are the basis of education itself, with historically mixed results.

T H E   E N N E A G R A M

The enneagram is inarguably the most useful tool to any teacher or any student, no matter the discipline. One of my aims is to prove just that. Through the lens of the enneagram, the ‘what, how and why’ of anything you care to observe comes into surprising focus.

You may look on it and think of it as the fundamental hieroglyph of a universal, objective language.

At first, the symbol may be daunting or imposing - complicated, at least. It comprises three geometrical figures – a circle, a triangle and an irregular hexad – each signifying a universal law. When those laws are known and understood, what once looked random will look orderly, even trivial.

U N I O N   O F   T H R E E   A N D   S E V E N

Trivial?

I use the word in its medieval sense of ‘rudimentary’ since it fits the context so perfectly. Method and guidance are indispensable to correct education. In order to demonstrate this, I will apply the classical method of the three-way path, known by its Latin name, the Trivium.

GRAMMAR – LOGIC – RHETORIC

The laws informing the construction of the enneagram are the Law of One, the Law of Three and the Law of Seven. As a whole, it symbolizes the union of these three laws. I will defer for another time a detailed discussion of both the Law of One and the Law of Seven.

For now, the Law of One may be stated thus:

ALL IS ONE

Unity is not something that our sense organs are designed to perceive. We naturally distinguish one thing from another, although we seldom, if ever, ponder the laws on which this division is based. As a result, many of our perceptions and impressions are effectively random.

This alone inspires a need for method, hence my choice of the Trivium. The relevant Wikipedia article includes Sister Miriam Joseph’s description, although I do not consider it to be a primary source, per se:

“Grammar is the art of inventing symbols and combining them to express thought; logic is the art of thinking; and rhetoric, the art of communicating thought from one mind to another, the adaptation of language to circumstance.”

I have my reservations and additions to these formulations, which are for most intents and purposes decent enough to begin with. Thus I will use this description as a point of departure, if not arrival. My application of these three Latin concepts to the Law of Three may seem modern and informal, yet I doubt they would inspire contemporary controversy.

GRAMMAR

The Grammar of the Law of Three is fairly straightforward. By convention, the Law of Three is depicted by a triangle, usually equilateral. One advantage of symbols over words is that by design they transmit the ideas of unity and the laws of its division across cultures and over time with minimal distortion. Some amount is virtually inevitable, though.

Another advantage is that by means of symbols, some of the inevitable distortion may be deciphered and decoded, so to speak.

Attempts to codify such impressions and ideas are nothing less than a striving to perceive a nonrandom world and exist there. This is where Intentional Fruition meets method. Indeed, if we knew and understood the laws of Creation, our best wishes, more often than our worst ones, might well become realities.

Grammar may be trivial, yet Creation is not. Any tool that enables accurate depiction of the ‘what, how and why’ of the unfolding of any process is a treasure. A Grammar of the Law of Three is only one among several.

LOGIC

The Logic of the Law of Three is also straightforward, if less apparent. Meanwhile, the proposed description of logic as the ‘art of thinking’ is made of entirely undefined terms.

It may not be wrong exactly, but in a world where trash may pass for art and daydreams pass for thought, it may not necessarily be right, either. With grammar comes the ability to symbolize ideas and combine them - with logic, the ability to analyze impressions and relate them.

And yet what is logic, the thing itself?

I would not presume to have the final word on the subject or to spoil the mystery even if I could, but even that much is a good start – the WORD. Experience tells me that logic is roughly the same as having ‘access to the LOGOS’, which translates as more than merely WORD. LOGOS is the law – the proposition, the statement of how things are – for a start.

The triangle is the symbol of the LOGOS within the enneagram, a sign denoting that some force of law is at work. Scholars have always struggled to formulate a concise statement of this otherwise simple Greek word, LOGOS. Whereas it is challenging enough to compare the merits of someone else’s attempts, the real pay-off results when you try to do so yourself.

Since it is relevant, tangential and trivial (an usual coincidence of adjectives in praise), I shall paraphrase Heraclitus:

1. “The LOGOS is eternal yet humanity proves unable to understand it, both before hearing of it and even after the first telling. All things agree with the LOGOS, yet men and women are like babes when they experience my words and deeds, though I distinguish each by its nature and tell exactly how it is. They fail to notice what they do when they are awake as fully as they forget themselves when asleep.” 
2. “Although the LOGOS is universal, most individuals live as if they had their own private understanding.” 
3. “Do not take my word for it. The LOGOS says that all things are one. It is wise to agree.”

I intend to build my telling of the Law of Three on a similar foundation. I, too, have three impressions to share. Mine are concerned with the ‘what, how and why’ of processes as they arise and unfold in the real world, on any and all scales.
  

Processes are a union of three distinct, though complementary forces, which are Affirming, Denying and Reconciling. Staying true to the method of the Trivium, I will employ a symbol to denote each, respectively.

The use of symbols is preferred over the use of names since the latter change with context and depth of focus, among other variables. The former may be applied universally and at any time. Also, the practice reminds the seeker to look for all three forces in any process, which may be more opaque to some than others – especially the third, or reconciling.

As the examples become more specific, the relativity of names becomes less confusing. Generally speaking, mankind is born ‘third-force blind’. So, too, is the rest of the animal kingdom, for that matter.

This cognitive hurdle may be surpassed with proper preparation and instruction. The same may not be said of the rest of the animal kingdom. No amount of method and guidance will impart rhetorical ability to an animal.

How and why this is so is connected to the Law of Three and may be explained by it, but that is another story for another day.

Again, the forces themselves may be described by different names. Common synonyms for ‘Affirming’ include ‘Positive’ and ‘Active’, or, even, ‘Yang’ or ‘The Father’. For ‘Denying’, other common names include ‘Negative’ and ‘Passive’, or even, ‘Yin’ or ‘The Son’.

The experience of these two forces, ‘Affirming’ and ’Denying’, whether internally or externally, is known to anything that breathes, whether animal or vegetable. At a minimum, we, the living, tend to notice the difference between pleasant and unpleasant - sometimes even the polarizing effect this has on our attention and our efforts, too. In practice, though, the assumption that pleasure is positive and pain is negative, this presumptive confusion of terms, may be tragically misleading.

A F F I R M - D E N Y - R E C O N C I L E

A more complete perspective includes a third point of reference, without which the linear existence limited to positive and negative is literally flat, two-dimensional. In general, the elusive third force is manifest in the medium or in the result of a process or product under consideration.

This ‘third dimension’ introduces relativity, without which positive and negative forces may be difficult to distinguish correctly. No less important to the cause of Human Potential and Intentional Fruition is the experimentally verifiable fact that without some other force at work, positive and negative impulses tend to cancel one another out, producing nothing. Synonyms for the third, or ‘Reconciling’, force include ‘Neutralizing’, ‘Harmonizing’ and ‘The Holy Spirit’.

This idea of three forces may be described otherwise, based on a slightly different observation, on a slower, possibly atemporal frame of reference – as more of a snapshot.

Products and predicaments are triadic. They unfold from exactly three interdependent sources. With the right method, all three may be recognized.

By now, though, some simple and concrete examples are necessary.

Because we often try to ‘do’ things, to push our will, we notice that the world pushes back. This is obvious when we try to make, or break, any habit. Suppose that most nights you tell yourself to get right out of bed tomorrow when your alarm clock rings but then, instead, each morning you ‘snooze’ for 20-30 minutes.

H O W   T O   M A K E   A   N E W   H A B I T

How can you free yourself from the cycle and make a new habit? Or, suppose you wish that you could quit smoking or drinking alcohol. How can you free yourself from the cycle and break the old habit?

Can you see what is missing? The wish to change, no matter how powerful it may be, will not exceed the force of inertia. At most, it will be equal to the resistance (and even that is unlikely) and will yield only temporary and/or illusory gains.

The wish is spent overcoming the inertia.

W I S H   V E R S U S   I N E R T I A

Without introducing a third force, nothing new will result. In practice, that third force may be one of several things, depending on the circumstances. One possibility is to work with a partner to overcome the impasse.

Options vary, especially if you know of them.

An altogether different example might help to clarify the cooperation of the three forces. Consider a hammer and a nail - the hammer constitutes an active force in relation to the passive nail. Furthermore, they could easily be a rock and a wooden peg, or power drill and a lag screw, even a stapler and a staple; the principle is the same.

The objects in question are irrelevant to studying how the law operates - their relation to one another is what matters, which may be codified by the symbols (+) and (-).

Can you see what is missing?

In this case it is wood (or possibly paper, where staples are concerned). Without it, the other elements would have no medium (0) to join them and make them useful. The complete triad may be pictured as:

H A M M E R  (+),  N A I L  (-),  W O O D  (0)

Once more, an altogether different example might help. This time consider an ordinary game, from Mahjong to Monopoly or from billiards to baseball; which one makes no difference. Any game may be triadically pictured as:

P L A Y E R S  (+),  E Q U I P M E N T  (-),  R U L E S  (0)

From the partial (i.e. subjective) point of view of one of the players, it might seem that “I” am the active, or positive, force and that my opponent, “the other”, is the negative force. Heraclitus might call this perspective out as ‘having one’s own private understanding’. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Greek word for that predilection is idiot. 

Any player (+) is active, whether in a game of solitaire or king-of-the-hill. The equipment (-) may be a tile or a table, a ball or a stick – that which is ‘acted upon’ – it might be a basement or a stadium. The result is determined by the rules (0), which impart form and meaning to the players’ (+) actions.

RHETORIC

Information and language may be served by logic and grammar, however something more is needed for the expression of will. Here, too, “the art of communicating thought from one mind to another, the adaptation of language to circumstance”, has merit but still fails to satisfy.

The key and the measure of rhetoric is the ability to convince anyone with “their own private understanding” of the truth by way of elementary principles, to change others’ minds, to persuade.

A N   A L M O S T   M A G I C A L   E N D O W M E N T

Rhetoric is a volatile art. This is especially evident whenever its techniques and practice are reserved for specially designated classes. Persuasiveness is an almost magical endowment, but without virtue it leads to untruth, slavery and ruin, eventually but predictably.

T H E   T R I V I U M

The Law of Three clarifies the situation.

Triads are of finite variety and may be qualified by the order of the application of forces. The variety of triads, or of processes, is independent of their magnitude. You can find instances of growth or decay on any scale, from the smallest to the largest, and they will unfold nonrandomly.

Growth and decay are not the only types of process that occur, of course. This may come as a surprise to readers who assume that the enneagram is a set of personality types and think no more about it. Processes, too, are typical, in accord with the LOGOS.

There are exactly six permutations of three forces. The implications of this idea to the study of Human Potential and Intentional Fruition are as subtle as they are enormous. I can only reparaphrase Heraclitus: “Do not take my word for it”.

Ultimately, whether large or small, partial or impartial, only six types of events ever really happen.

If you are wondering what those six types may be, then you might have a taste for mystery and enjoy this blog. I promise not to disappoint, and actively encourage and solicit questions. Your questions are an ideal framework for any description of the six processes that I can offer.

Meanwhile I wish to relate the Law of Three to the Law of One, which was stated above, even if only by analogy. What joins these domains to our own and others is the idea of scale.

Unity is too vast to encompass from a lowly frame of reference such as ours. Similarly, the Law of Three is almost imperceptible and only slightly denser. Our frame is even denser and grittier still, as are the even lower layers.

M O R E   L A W   M E A N S   L E S S   F R E E D O M

Unity is so opaque to our senses that we do not notice how we constantly carve it up or even where we come from. At the top, so to speak, there is one law, and it applies from top to bottom. Below, there are more laws, but they ramify only downward.

Take a moment to digest this, because it bears directly on Human Potential: Where there are more laws there is less freedom, and there are fewer laws ‘above’. I will add that true creation is rare and, unlike evolution, it is not a bottom-up process. Rather, it is the ultimate (or perhaps primordial) and purest form of freedom.

The foregoing are impressions, echoes of the Law of Three, but not an explicit statement. Nevertheless they bear repetition. This much has been established for ‘worlds’ of different sizes:

1. Processes are a union of three distinct, though complementary, forces, equal in magnitude and opposite in direction, which are Affirming (+), Denying (-) and Reconciling (0); mankind is born ‘third-force blind’. 
2. Products and predicaments unfold from exactly three interdependent sources; with the right method all three may be recognized. 
3. Triads are of finite variety and may be qualified by the order of the application of forces; there are exactly six permutations of three forces.

The statement of the Law of One indicates how the laws in one ‘world’, so to speak, might ramify and operate in another, might cross pollinate, ultimately creating ‘worlds within worlds’. Triads are a vector, though, and a consequence of cognitive fragmentation, not a law unto themselves. The statement of the Law of Three that connects it to the foregoing and to the Law of Seven (forthcoming) may be made thus:

THE HIGHER AND THE LOWER BLEND

IN ORDER TO ACTUALIZE THE MIDDLE

The reason I endeavor to set all this down is threefold. First, it will clarify, if not ‘trivialize’ my other soliloquies and designs in this blog. Second, it establishes a method. Third, these data are absent from nearly all instruction of the enneagram, to my curious consternation.

. .   . .   . .