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    <td><i>This is one of three articles on this site about the enneagram. The 
      others are: <a href="/properties/tree/">The Enneagram and the Tree of Life</a> 
      and <a href="/properties/">Tone Constellations of the Enneagram</a> </i> 
      <p>My encounter with the idea, or symbol, of the enneagram as of this date 
        spans thirty-one years, since I first met it in Ouspensky's<i> In <i>Search</i> 
        of the Miraculous</i> when I was 16 years old (1971); herewith some of 
        what has ripened it that time as a preliminary understanding of how this 
        symbol may in fact be applied to reality. I will have to apologize at 
        the beginning here by stating that in this form the presentation is still 
        rather fragmentary, and it assumes a basic familiarity with a number of 
        primary works, in particular with Ouspensky's <i>Search</i>, and glosses 
        over a number of ideas that are explained more fully elsewhere; familiarity 
        with <a href="http://www.awakeningss.com/astronomy/index.html">Rudolf 
        Steiner's</a> image of the human being is made use of, but is sketched 
        only hazily here. It is hoped that this material will at least be suggestive 
        for those sincerely trying to deepen their understanding of these ideas.</p>
      <p>Fairly extravagant claims are made by Gurdjieff for the enneagram in 
        <i>Search</i>. In my youthful naivete, I absorbed a profound desire to 
        someday master its secrets, and indeed, have felt plagued by a sense of 
        impenetrability for many years. It as only after I discovered threads 
        of connection in Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy - which must be sifted 
        for in the wealth of all of the material Rudolf Steiner has contributed 
        - and made connection with the broader stream of speculative music, largely 
        through the good offices of Joscelyn Godwin's great work in this area; 
        and had the benefit of Russell Smith's excellent work on the enneagram, 
        did I feel I finally had the enneagram in a rich enough soup of nutrients 
        to begin to see it unfold itself intelligibly to me. My sketchy, but I 
        am convinced, significant contribution to the understanding of the inner 
        hexagram is the first concrete product of this; these thoughts are further 
        notes and indications, intended primarily for the similarly perplexed 
        (or cursed) who have already devoted some study to it. </p>
      <p>In attempting this I want to state my conviction that all symbols, or 
        systems, ideas or representations attempting to encompass the full reality 
        of man and the world in body, soul, and spirit, can do nothing better 
        than present a cross-section, revealing some of the inner contours of 
        reality. Different symbols and systems may present pictures that can be 
        satisfying in their comprehensive scope; but it is all too easy to encounter 
        other systems, seeming related or unrelated as may be, that fail to dovetail 
        but yet lay claim to our attention by virtue of sense of &quot;rightness&quot; 
        or application. Where these can be made to dovetail, our sense of reality 
        can be greatly deepened and our appreciation for the respective symbols, 
        systems or ideas enhanced. But unfortunately, it is not a question as 
        simple as generating a three dimensional picture from various two dimensional 
        &quot;cross sections,&quot; because the underlying reality in question 
        is anything but three dimensional. This dovetailing or integration is 
        part of what will be attempted here, but any conclusive picture will only 
        be possible if it is remembered that each perspective is just that, a 
        perspective - including any 'final' perspective that may result from our 
        considerations. As Gurdjieff said &quot;&#133;systems can serve as a means 
        of transmitting the idea of unity&#133;a symbol can never be taken in 
        a final and definite meaning. In expressing the laws of the unity of endless 
        diversity a symbol itself possesses an endless number of aspects from 
        which it can be examined, and it demands from a man approaching it the 
        ability to see it simultaneously from different points of view.&quot;</p>
      <p>In piecing together various fragments from distinct bodies of doctrine, 
        I am working on the assumption that each of them possess their own fragmentary 
        reflection of truth, of reality. Such knowledge of reality is holographic: 
        just as a film holograph, when cut in two, reveals two smaller and less 
        distinct copies of the original image, my aim here is to reverse the process, 
        and join together different fragments - themselves holographic images 
        of reality - and form aspects of an image that is more distinct (yet nonetheless, 
        of course, still fragmentary). To do this requires that the edges of these 
        different pictures are assembled correctly; that the pieces fit like a 
        jigsaw to allow the knowledge embedded in them to align to create the 
        original image. The process is of course uncertain, and many joinings 
        are tentative fits. It is hoped that result is not merely a Franksteinish 
        <i>pastiche</i>.</p>
      <p> Times being what they were, thirty-plus years ago, I was soon exposed 
        to the enneagram again, from a different direction: in the publicity and 
        teachings of the Arica Institute, which I subsequently spent about two 
        years in close association with. I participated in the &quot;Boston 1&quot; 
        40 day training, the second teacher training in New York, and the &quot;Rainbow 
        Eye&quot; indications. This was 1973 - 74. One of things I hope to do 
        here is show how the Ichazo enneagram, popularized today, and the Gurdjieff 
        teaching, do and don't correspond. To do this will require a broad survey 
        of differing viewpoints and aspects of the enneagram. In my thinking I 
        am also including a third perspective, that of some of the ideas of Rudolf 
        Steiner's anthroposophy, particularly as they relate to how number, vibration, 
        and musical interval are part of a comprehensive view of spiritual man 
        in a spiritual cosmos. In the end I hope to have somewhat &quot;deepened 
        our sense of reality&quot; through the coordinated understanding of these 
        ideas.</p>
      <p>I had been exposed to Arica first via John Lilly's Psychology Today interview 
        with Sam Keene, and then, immediately upon publication in 1971, Lilly's 
        <i>The Center of the Cyclone</i>. As a footnote to this, I'll comment 
        that I had been experimenting with LSD since I was 15. Originally it was 
        simply a peer-influenced post-Woodstock thrill seeking behavior; but after 
        my initial dive into it, followed by a &quot;sabbatical&quot; of almost 
        a year, I was re-activating my interest in (and use of) it, wanting to 
        explore the deeper side of it -- what did it mean, how far could it take 
        you? (More on this <a href="../../inandaroundthelake/index.html">elsewhere</a>.) 
        Before entering the Arica training a year and a half later, I had likewise 
        read Sam Keene's subsequent interview with Oscar Ichazo, founder of Arica. 
        This includes one of the first reasonably complete synopses of the basic 
        Arica teaching. The enneagram itself is barely discussed, although several 
        of the enneagram figures, including the enneagram of fixations, were included 
        with the article. (This along with the Lilly interview and other Same 
        Keen interviews were reprinted in <i>Voices and Visions</i>, unfortunately 
        no longer in print). At any rate, the enneagram (aka, in Arica-speak, 
        the <i>enneagon</i>) was presented in a completely different manner than 
        Ouspensky's presentation of Gurdjieff's teaching. In fact, there was little 
        really said about the enneagram as such.</p>
      <p>Which was disappointing, as, more than anything else, my passion was 
        to understand &quot;the go of it,&quot; to quote James Clerk Maxwell, 
        formulator of the mathematics underlying our understanding of electromagnetic 
        field phenomenon. If this really is an underlying law of reality, then 
        it should be in some way conformable to other intelligible aspects of 
        reality.</p>
      <p>The immediate impression, in my naive understanding of these things, 
        produced on me when first encountering Ichazo's teaching, was that this 
        was <i>the</i> next step in the transmission of an esoteric teaching first 
        brought through Gurdjieff. At the time, I was very much convinced that, 
        along the lines Ouspenky particularly asserted, that there was a bona 
        fide, card carrying inner esoteric school - of which, from a 4th Way snobbery 
        point of view, organizations such as Freemasonry and Theosophy, for example, 
        were merely shadow caricatures.</p>
      <p>At the time (early seventies), the Sufis in particular were getting good 
        PR as perhaps lead contenders as the representatives of this school (cf. 
        Idries Shah, reputed author of <i>Teachers of Gurdjieff</i>). In response 
        to all this now, I will just say that there is an 'inner circle of humanity' 
        that exists and is represented by both all of us in our higher natures, 
        and the sangha of realized beings, the communion of saints, even the &quot;Great 
        White Brotherhood&quot; if you fancy that talk; when we greet each other 
        with Namaste, or &quot;when two or three are gathered in my name&quot;. 
        And there are many associations of dharma brothers and sisters who have 
        greater or lesser skill and purity and realization, and various missions, 
        just as each of us has a mission. Most if not all such enterprises seem 
        to have the inevitable shadow side as well; how they pull off their relation 
        to it is another thing.</p>
      <p>At this stage, I can't say I know to what extent the use of the enneagram, 
        Oscar's reputed Sufi connection, (which seems to have been hyped up in 
        particular by Claudio Naranjo) and so on, was simply, as it were, marketing 
        hype, and to what extent it was a reflection of his sincere synthesis 
        of his realization of the many teachings he had encountered. My gut feel 
        is, both. Oscar was surrounded by a cadre of powerful new age &quot;young 
        turks&quot; (and not so young) that had highly eclectic influences already 
        in their blood that were, quite impressively I will add, organized and 
        inspired by Oscar to create a powerful environment for people to encounter 
        their spiritual path. I'm pretty sure that the Arica teaching could have 
        come through without using the Gurdjieff enneagram as such.</p>
      <p>All of this is by way of background to the central question, can we meaningfully 
        interpret Ichazo's enneagram as relating to Gurdjieff's teaching? In order 
        to do this, I will have to make clear what I believe the scope of each 
        teaching is.</p>
      <p>Ichazo's use of the enneagram, in my opinion, is in reality a completely 
        straightforward scheme of a &quot;three by three&quot; analysis of the 
        psyche. In the Arica system, there are three primary &quot;instincts&quot; 
        (personally, I prefer &quot;tropisms&quot;, but then, that's my misreading). 
        These have been characterized variously as conservation (e. g., relating 
        to survival), relationship (i. e. interpersonal relationships), and &quot;syntony&quot; 
        (relating to harmony with environment, peers, being in tune). These correspond 
        to the psychic domains of being, living, and doing; they are also related 
        variously to different psychic centers -vital, emotional, mental (there 
        precise point of relationship can change depending on the perspective; 
        typically, syntony relates to the vital center, but in a higher sense, 
        relates to the mental). These &quot;instincts&quot; and centers can readily 
        been seen to correspond somewhat with the centers as provided by Gurdjieff 
        - moving, emotional, mental; or again, to the functions of thinking, feeling, 
        and willing, as for example found in Steiner. Each &quot;fixation&quot; 
        or &quot;ennea-type&quot; (Naranjo) is formed through a distortion of 
        one of the three basic instincts. The ninefold wheel of types simply reflects 
        a threefold subdivision within each type; each fixation expressing either 
        the primary form of the distortion, or else tending more or less towards 
        one of the other two.</p>
      <p>In this regard, the enneagram would be much more straightforward, easier 
        to understand, and perhaps quite a bit less mysterious and arresting, 
        if it were depicted simply as three equilateral triangles formed against 
        nine equidistant points on a circle:</p>
      <p align="center"><img src="/common/graphics/simple.nine.gif" width="317" height="317"></p>
      <p>And in fact, this is how the enneagram is often explained, explicitly 
        or otherwise, as for example in A. H. Almas <i>Facets of Unity</i>, a 
        very creditable survey of Ichazo's Holy Ideas as applied to the enneagram. 
      </p>
      <p>The &quot;flow&quot; along the inner lines is briefly discussed by the 
        fixationists and is explained in terms of the natural psychological dynamism 
        that exists between the different points or fixations. However, there 
        seems to be no sense of how or why it is so that our psyches can be seen 
        to conform to this peculiar arrangement. For when described as an &quot;inner 
        flow&quot; it can simply be understood as a circulation - that is, traversal 
        of a circle - rather than as the complex meander that the inner hexagram 
        represents when depicted relative to outer circle. Ichazo also uses nine-sided 
        &quot;star&quot; forms in addition to the Gurdjieffian enneagram as part 
        of his protoanalysis teaching.</p>
      <p>What we do know from Gurdjieff is that these lines announce the significance 
        of the enneagram as a symbol representing the working together of the 
        law of three and the law of seven (or the law of the octave), as the inner 
        lines are formed by connecting the numbered points in the series formed 
        when calculating 1/7 as a decimal fraction: .142857&#133; -- that is, 
        it points to a significance beyond the 3 by 3 aspect. </p>
      <p>Ichazo's enneagrams are best understood as a three by three system. What 
        I believe a deeper study of the enneagram suggests, however, is that there 
        is always a correspondence between any intelligible ninefold, that is, 
        three by three, system, and the law of seven or the law of the octave, 
        even if this relationship is secondary or apparently non obvious. And 
        this is simply out of the nature of the threefold.</p>
      <p>I will also add here that, in my experience (which did include a week 
        of evening lectures with Ichazo during the teacher training) is that Ichazo 
        is actually &quot;pretty deep in&quot; with Kabbalah and Taoist yoga; 
        the Gurdjieff stuff in the Arica work is, in many respects, fairly superficial. 
        But Oscar's teaching is deserving of study because of the psychology of 
        the imbalanced instincts. To me it is fairly consonant with my understanding 
        of the psychology underlying Gurdjieff's work, while at the same time 
        provides an element of structure that, if properly used and understood, 
        can add something to the precision with which we talk about ourselves. 
        It can of course also be used clumsily.</p>
      <p>Before continuing further with the enneagram, let me provide an illustration 
        of how a ninefold (three by three) system can be related to the sevenfold. 
        This is found in Rudolf Steiner's characterization of the ninefold membering 
        of the human being. In essence, he expands the division of body, soul 
        and spirit into finer gradations: physical body, etheric body, astral 
        body; sentient soul, intellectual soul, consciousness soul; and sprit 
        self, life spirt, and spirit man (or, alternatively, manas, buddhi, and 
        atman). The definitions of each of these terms is left for a footnote; 
        the point under consideration is that, having defined them in threefold 
        terms, he proceeds to re-cast them as a sevenfold structure, by merging 
        the adjacent members of the body/soul and soul/spirt boundaries, yielding: 
        physical body, etheric body, sentient soul body, &quot;I&quot;, sprit-filled 
        consciousness soul, sprit self (buddhi) spirit man, (atman). Even more interestingly 
        from the point of view of understanding the dynamics of three, seven, 
        and nine, he describes how the higher members can be understood as transformations 
        of the lower, via the agency of the central member, the &quot;I&quot; 
        or ego. The &quot;I&quot; in one sense is the essential being of man, 
        but from another perspective, simply a proxy agent for the Self that is 
        necessary for the process of transformation, but outside of the process 
        of transformation, is just a phase of the soul-nature. (Manas is transformed 
        astral body; Buddhi transformed etheric; Atman, transformed physical body.)</p>
      <p>When the Gurdjieff enneagram is studied, it is noted at once that the 
        &quot;vibrational levels&quot; of the &quot;shock&quot; points, when analyzed 
        against the &quot;food diagram&quot; as found in In <i>Search of the Miraculous</i>, 
        correspond to the adjacent &quot;non-shock&quot; points - in other words, 
        the nine points of the enneagram, when viewed as an octave, collapse into 
        seven by merging adjacent values.</p>
   <p>Another image, also from an anthroposophical writer (Wilhem Pelikan) in <i>The Secrets of Metals</i>
, is of circle with seven equidistant points 
        on the circumference. Three isosceles triangles are inscribed within the 
        circle. The apex of each triangle is found at the three topmost points 
        (assume a point is found at the top center of the circle) with the base 
        of each triangle formed by the two points opposite. In this figure, the 
        two base points of the center triangle are shared with one base point 
        of each of the other two triangles. His use of the symbol is also intriguing 
        when one understands how the enneagram generates a series of seven-pointed 
        stars as the inner lines are 'progressed,' as described in my article 
        <a href="../index.html">Tone Constellations of the Enneagram</a>. The metals 
        reveal how different qualities in a sevenfold series can be inter-related 
        in different, ordered constellations.</p>
      <p align="center"><img src="/common/graphics/seven-and-three.gif" width="317" height="317"></p>
      <p> </p>
      <p>Suggestive as this figure (we'll refer to it as the heptagram) alone 
        is, it is further intriguing to observe that the outline of the inner 
        hexagram of the enneagram can be found within the intersecting lines of 
        the three triangles. This figure is used in the text to illustrate the 
        manifold relationships between the properties of the cardinal metals (corresponding 
        to the planets): lead, tin, iron, gold, copper, mercury, silver.</p>
      <p>A contemplation of these properties and relationships alongside Russell 
        Smith's <i>Cosmic Secrets</i>, where he generates the periodic table of 
        the elements from the octave, is again suggestive.</p>
      <p>Before exiting, for the present, this anthroposophical digression, it 
        is also interesting to note the scheme of seven soul types described by 
        Max Stibbe, (<i>Seven Soul Types</i>) another anthroposophical writer. 
        These are discerned by dividing two soul modes - active and passive - 
        into three subtypes, reflecting the balance between inner and outer. The 
        three active types are: the self-conscious type (inner world primary); 
        the dominant type (inner and outer worlds balance); and the aggressive 
        type (outer world primary). The three passive types are: the romantic 
        type (inner world primary); the mobile type (inner and outer worlds balance); 
        and aesthetic type (outer world primary). The seventh is the ideal, or 
        radiant type: activity and passivity are in harmony, as are inner and 
        outer world.</p>
      <p>For the moment, we will leave it as an 'exercise for the reader' to see 
        if a link can (or should) reasonably be attempted between these seven 
        types and the nine ennea types. I will comment that for my way of thinking, 
        these soul types are stand out more as of the nature of different &quot;notes&quot; 
        of the soul's expression, that is, more musical, than the ennea types. 
        This is in keeping with the sevenfoldness, I believe.</p>
      <p>Yet another way to think about the enneagram as integrating &quot;threefoldness&quot; 
        and &quot;sevenfoldness&quot; is to consider the musical scale. The simplest 
        way to understand the generation of the musical scale is to see that it 
        can be created by a series of &quot;fifths&quot; - the fifth being the 
        musical interval formed by ratio 2:3. (An example of a fifth in music 
        would be the interval between C and G.) The &quot;circle of fifths&quot; 
        is a concept familiar to musicians, and all of the notes of the scale 
        can be generated by stepping a fifth at a time, and then &quot;compressing&quot; 
        the notes back into the range of a single octave. A scale can also be 
        generated from a series of triads, however. In music, triads are composed 
        of a major third and a minor third (together creating the interval of 
        the fifth); by successively progressing by thirds, triad-wise, you again 
        generate the seven notes of the scale. But in this instance, the end of 
        one and the beginning of the next triad coincide, compressing the nine 
        notes into seven.  (Albeit now spanning two octaves.)</p>
      <p>What I am aiming at most in all this is development of fluidity in thinking 
        about the enneagram, or more importantly, in the laws that it symbolizes, 
        and hopefully inspiring contemplation of the nature of the relationships 
        of three, nine, and seven.</p>
      <p>Let us jump now to Gurdjieff's exposition of the &quot;law of the octave&quot; 
        as found in <i>Search</i>. In the initial exposition, Gurdjieff begins 
        by bringing attention to the way in which the musical scale is composed, 
        pointing out that, when the scale is considered as composed of seven whole 
        tones, there are also found the five half-tones of the chromatic scale; 
        in this scale, it appears that there are semi-tones &quot;missing&quot; 
        between mi and fa and si and do. And indeed, this is evident looking at 
        the five black keys of the piano.</p>
      <p>Gurdjieff here introduces a rather peculiar idea, which as far as I am 
        aware, has been little observed or commented upon. He has begun by saying 
        that &quot;the frequency of vibrations does not increase uniformly&quot;, 
        continuing to characterize the points of the &quot;missing&quot; semi-tones 
        as points where the acceleration, or rate of increase is &quot;retarded&quot;. 
        Gurdjieff then makes use of this idea to explain &quot;why there are no 
        straight lines in nature and also why we can neither think nor do, why 
        everything with us is thought, why everything happens with and happens 
        usually in a way opposed to what we want or expect&#133;What precisely 
        does happen at the moment of the retardation of vibrations? A deviation 
        from the original direction takes place.&quot;</p>
      <p>In the ensuing paragraphs, diagrams are drawn showing the direction of 
        an impulse starting in a straight line, but then deviating at an angle 
        when the mi-fa phase is reached; then again at si-do, and so on in successive 
        octaves until &quot;the line of octaves may turn completely round and 
        proceed in a direction opposite to the original direction.&quot; In this 
        sense, we speak of something becoming its own opposite.</p>
      <p>Gurdjieff proceeds to describe how this explains all of the deviations, 
        inversions and distortions of history and of our own lives. Moving on, 
        he says that &quot;right development&quot; of an octave can occur, that 
        is, deviations be avoided, if at the right time another octave &quot;going 
        parallel to the given octave, intersecting or meeting it, in some way 
        or another fill up its 'intervals' and make it possible for the vibrations 
        of the given octave to develop in freedom and without checks.</p>
      <p>Before going further with Gurdjieff description of the law of the octave 
        as recounted by Ouspensky, some fundamental questions need to be asked 
        and tentatively answered, or else it is possible to quickly go astray. 
      </p>
      <p>One question that must soon be asked in the context of the study of 'vibrations' 
        in relation to the enneagram and the law of the octave as Gurdjieff applies 
        it further in his &quot;Ray of Creation&quot; and his &quot;Three octaves 
        of radiation&quot; which becomes the foundation for his view of both man 
        and the world. This question is: vibrations of <i>what</i> are being discussed? 
        In the view of materialistic science, of course, one can resolve the entire 
        universe of phenomenon to electromagnetic vibrations. Starting from here, 
        one can crudely extend all that Gurdjieff says about matter and vibrations 
        - &quot;We are more material than the materialists&quot; - to yield the 
        idea that all 'higher levels' aspired to in the Gurdjieffian cosmos are 
        simply more rarified analogs of the material universe that our na&iuml;ve 
        sense of reality still tends to resolve, despite our knowledge of quantum 
        physics, into a mere agglomeration of moving - but ultimately inert from 
        the point of view of possessing intrinsic life - particles. &quot;Vibration&quot; 
        is then merely the mechanical oscillation of matter in some media.</p>
      <p>Or one can start from a different perspective - for example, that of 
        the St. John's Gospel, which states &quot;In the beginning was the word.&quot; 
        Indeed, it is clear that it is in this sense that this is the sense in 
        which Gurdjieff understands it, but you really have to stretch for this 
        in Ouspensky's work; indeed, Ouspensky delights in combinations, calculations 
        and extrapolations about &quot;higher reality&quot; which are projections 
        of an earth-bound thinking onto &quot;higher reality.&quot; (I am referring 
        to his analysis of &quot;breath&quot; &quot;day and night&quot; and &quot;life&quot; 
        of cosmoses found in pages 329-340 of <i>Search</i>, which was the starting 
        off point for Rodney Collin's Theory of Celestial Influence, which eventually 
        brings us back to Ichazo's enneagram. But I get ahead of myself.)</p>
      <p>Gurdjieff clearly had in mind the doctrine of the Logos in <i>Beelzebub's 
        Tales to his Grandson</i>, where he describes the creation of the world by 
        the <i>"Theomertmalogos"</i> or word-God.</p>
      <p>In considering, then, the world as a whole, and - man as a microcosm, 
        or image of the world - as an expression of the divine creative logos, 
        we touch on the idea of the complete octave - for such is his &quot;Ray 
        of Creation&quot; as being a representation of the full expression of 
        the Logos. I mean this idea to be a very different starting place than 
        the idea of the octave being a series of steps proceeding in time. In 
        this sense, each of the various notes or intervals of an octave may or 
        may not be expressed in a series in time. They are better understood as 
        being different echoes or reverberations of a given logos. Gurdjieff describes 
        each whole or completed process as having an octave; in my sense, each 
        whole or completed process expresses a given logos.</p>
      <p>The power of sound, spiritually conceived, to create form is understood 
        through the experiment of the Chladni figures, in which particles of fine 
        powder are made to spontaneously arrange themselves into complex geometrical 
        shapes under the influence of standing waves of sound generated by vibrating 
        a metal plate strewn with powder. This idea underlies Rudolf Steiner's 
        idea of a tone ether, which is active in the fluid element and determines 
        chemical effects; it is also called the number ether, as it is also expressed 
        in laws of proportion and ratio.</p>
      <p>The linear description of 'deflections' of the octave at the mi-fa and 
        si-do intervals seems awkward and strained, although I believe I understand 
        the method in Gurdjieff's approach. My chief difficulty, I suppose, is 
        I cannot imagine in any way that I can make meaningful to me, an &quot;octave&quot; 
        going forth as an initial &quot;DO&quot; that has a vector, that is, that 
        is oriented towards a specific end. Pitches and tones, at least in the 
        physical world, are without movement of their own (they do, of course, 
        generate overtones as part of their vibrational 'field&quot;) towards 
        another pitch. Of course, in music the idea of &quot;motion&quot; from 
        one note to the next is what the whole idea of music is about, and we 
        anticipate, psychologically, the motion of a melody. In this sense a musical 
        interval is the perception of a motion from one tone to another; and indeed, 
        this motion towards the octave as tones ascend or descend through the 
        scale is in fact a mysterious motion as if in a circle, where from moving 
        away from the fundamental, a transition is experienced where tones are 
        experienced as moving toward the octave.</p>
      <p>This sense of motion could be projected onto discrete events or phases 
        as part of a &quot;complete octave&quot; only if there is some underlying 
        idea of the whole, of the logos of the octave in question. The stages 
        or phases of an octave then become, not causally linked &quot;accelerations&quot; 
        of pitch that can be &quot;deflected,&quot; but simply the natural points 
        of unfoldment of the total reality or process in question.</p>
      <p>The necessity for introducing &quot;shocks&quot; at the points of the 
        so-called &quot;missing intervals&quot; is not a question of, as may 
        be crudely imagined, a matter of calculating the right angle with which 
        to hit the cue ball so that the eight ball makes it into the corner pocket. 
        In reality, the &quot;motion&quot; across intervals is not a question 
        of progression from state to state, with the momentum of the previous 
        state creating the impetus for the next. It is rather the fact that every 
        complete idea or logos has naturally available to it the different phases 
        of being that the different intervals represent. These may or may not 
        be expressed 'sequentially' in time along the scale; much more interestingly, 
        they are presented melodically.</p>
      <p>So what is this all about? I believe the teaching of &quot;missing semi-tones&quot; 
        does point to a reality that I would like to try and indicate by other 
        means. Simply stated, it suggests that first, all reality is threefold 
        - that is, expressing body, soul, and spirit - and that neither the body, 
        nor soul, nor spirit can express itself completely - can express its true 
        logos - without the attunement of each to each. In other words, for example, 
        no embodied thing can express its true nature without relation to the 
        soul-spiritual element; and it is the enneagram that serves as an indicator 
        of how this attunement may be achieved. This is by the alignment of proper 
        aspects of, for example, an octave (or logos) of a body being brought 
        into proper &quot;alignment&quot; with an octave (or logos) of soul as 
        suggested by the placement of the &quot;start&quot; of the second octave 
        at whatever expresses the mi tone. (Please note that I am unavoidably 
        lapsing into a time series mode of expression myself even though the reality 
        of this process may not necessarily be sequential.)</p>
      <p>By characterizing three aspects of reality - body, soul, and spirit - 
        with corresponding octaves, the immediate question is: how are these discontinuous 
        natures yet made to resonate - for this is the nature of the 'attunement' 
        at the mi-fa and si-do intervals?</p>
      <p>For guidance here, let's contemplate the picture found in my article 
        <a href="../tree.html">The Enneagram and the Tree of Life</a>. Here, eleven 
        points of the &quot;fully-elaborated&quot; octave are depicted, in correspondence 
        with the traditional sefiroth of the Kabbalah. In this scheme, we have 
        the sequence: Kether - do, Hochma - re, Binah - mi, Daath - 'interval', 
        Chesed - fa, Gevura - sol, Tifereth - 'premature shock', Netzah - la, 
        Hod - si, Yesod - 'actual interval', Malkut - do.</p>
      <p>Here, in addition to the mi-fa interval, corresponding to &quot;Daath&quot;, 
        and the &quot;actual interval&quot; corresponding to the si-do interval, 
        we have at Tifereth what I describe as the &quot;premature shock&quot;. 
        This is described on page 291 of <i>Search</i> where Gurdjieff, discussing 
        the &quot;shock points&quot; of the enneagram, says: &quot;&#133; and 
        the other between sol and la, where it is not necessary. The apparent 
        placing of the interval in its wrong place itself shows to those who are 
        able to read the symbol what kind of &quot;shock&quot; is required for 
        the passage of si to do.&quot;</p>
      <p>When one aligns the Kabbalsitic tree of life, as is traditionally done, 
        placing a new &quot;Kether&quot; of a lower tree (logos, octave) at the 
        Tifereth of the higher tree, the Kabbalistic symbolism becomes suggestive. 
        (This kind of alignment corresponds to the way Ouspensky projects the 
        &quot;food diagram&quot; from <i>Search</i> onto the enneagram, (cf. page 
        377 of <i>Search</i>, further to Gurdjieff's earlier statement about the 
        enneagram that &quot;All that has been said about the octaves of radiation 
        and about the food octaves in the human organism has a direct connection 
        with the symbol consisting of a circle divided into nine parts.&quot;)</p>
      <p>It is the alignment of the mi-fa interval at the point of Daath that 
        is arresting. Daath corresponds, in the tradition of the Kabbalah, to 
        the cosmic abyss that separates the threefold higher divine essence (kether-hochma-binah) 
        from the lower seven creative sephiroth. (Note that here we have a different 
        ordering of the three and seven relationship.) An alternative characterization 
        of the abyss is the Void, suggesting the &quot;empty-fullness&quot; of 
        the pleroma (the all) or the emptiness of sunyata. </p>
      <p>In the context of the &quot;alignment&quot; of a lower octave to a higher, 
        I am here suggesting that there is indeed a threshold between the &quot;lower 
        aspects&quot; of, in this example, the 'body' octave, and its own higher 
        aspects, that is, those that align with the next higher octave (the &quot;soul&quot; 
        octave in this case). And by considering the alignment of octaves in the 
        Tree of Life, we find the suggestion that the transition across the mi-fa 
        interval is an encounter with the void; it is a boundary between the structuring, 
        creative and determining forces active at the current level and a surrender 
        to the determining triad of a higher level.</p>
      <p>Parallels from Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy are also useful and intriguing, 
        especially as they relate to the example par excellence of the functioning 
        of the enneagram in a series of three inter-related octaves is presented 
        in what is described as the &quot;food diagram&quot; introduced in <i>Search</i> 
        beginning on page 181.</p>
      <p>The &quot;food diagram&quot; represents a picture of the functioning 
        of the human organism as transformer of the energies of food, air, and 
        sense impressions. Each of these three &quot;foods&quot; enters the organism 
        as the &quot;do&quot; of a new &quot;octave of energy&quot; (again, we 
        must be very careful about what we understand by a phrase such as this); 
        as each octave is elaborated in the organism - that is, as the elements 
        encounter and blend with higher elements present within the organism, 
        successively transforming themselves into further &quot;higher elements&quot; 
        at 'notes' corresponding to the successive notes of the octave. At point 
        where an octave encounters its mi-fa interval, the &quot;do&quot; of the 
        next higher food octave is sounded; that is, a new, higher food enters 
        the organism, and the energy of its impulse helps the lower octave continue 
        in its further progression of ascent into higher, more refined energies. 
        These higher, more refined energies are the source of soul-life or vivification; 
        without them, we lack the inner substance with which to meet higher forms 
        of experience, to experience higher impressions, that is, higher cognitions 
        or higher states of consciousness and being.</p>
      <p>When the octave of impressions is discussed, it is made clear that while 
        the alignment of the octave of breath and the octave of food happens automatically, 
        unconsciously through our nature, the octave of impressions - one could 
        almost say, the octave of consciousness or self-awareness - does not develop 
        automatically; it requires intentional effort on the part of man. The 
        nature of these efforts is represented, in part, in the substance of Gurdjieff's 
        teaching and practice; it is primarily represented by the practice known 
        as &quot;self-remembering&quot;.</p>
      <p>Alongside of this picture, (very tersely summarized above), consider 
        how Steiner speaks also of sense-impressions as food: &quot;While the 
        function of the eye - and this can be said about each of the external 
        senses - is perception, it also has another more subtle function. This 
        other function must be brought to consciousness before we can know that 
        through the experience of brightness or darkness something takes place 
        in us which is not so obvious, or radical and pronounced, as the lungs' 
        intake of oxygen. Man is aware of what he owes to the lungs' intake of 
        oxygen because it is a robust and strongly vitalizing process, whereas 
        what he receives through the eye, in addition to actual sight, is a more 
        intimate, more subtle vitalizing process. So we can say: What is strongly 
        pronounced in an organ like the lung is only indicated in a subtle way 
        in the case of a sense organ like the eye.&quot; (From <i>The Human Soul 
        in Relation to Evolution</i>, page 13.)</p>
      <p>Or elsewhere: &quot;&#133;what comes from the air and the rest of our 
        surrounding is taken in through the head - our nerve-sense system - and 
        then streams downward to build up the organs of our digestive system or 
        our limbs.&quot; (From <i>Agriculture</i>, pages 11-12.)</p>
      <p>And: &quot;Indeed, a process similar to breathing .. goes on in all our 
        sense perceptions.&quot; (From <i>The Mission of the Archangel Michael</i>, page 
        181.) These and other indications are indications of what is described 
        as the cosmic nutrition stream.</p>
      <p>The correspondences between Gurdjieff and Steiner's idea of sense impressions 
        providing &quot;the chief inlet of soul in this age&quot; (William Blake) 
        are important and worthy of their own study. I bring them into the discussion 
        here in order to reinforce my idea of the transition across the mi-fa 
        interval being an encounter with the void, by further relating what Steiner 
        says about the process of digestion - he's discussing food, but it could 
        equally apply to air or impressions. He says that the food that we eat 
        must first be destroyed, that the life in it must be reduced to nothing, 
        and then re-enlivened by our own life forces before it can be further 
        transformed in the substance of a human being. If we can consider that 
        Steiner and Gurdjieff both had access to special knowledge of (or special insight into) the spiritual 
        side of the transformation of food and energies in the human being, and 
        can place these concepts side by side, I see that it again indicates something 
        of the nature of the discontinuity that occurs at the mi-fa (and si-do) 
        interval.</p>
      <p>But for me the insight here is that, at the interval, when it aligns 
        with the higher octave, the nature of the process changes completely. 
        And in reality, it is not a question of the original &quot;do&quot;, conceived 
        as a starting impulse, being &quot;corrected&quot; by a deflection back 
        to the original aim (cf. all of Bennett's ideas on hazard relative to 
        the enneagram.) Rather, it is simply that the lower now is aligned with 
        the aims, purposes, intentions of the higher. The food for the body becomes 
        transformed into something higher: the energy of a human being, of a human 
        soul. Without achieving resonance with the soul-breath octave, the substances 
        of the body are simply yet another form of dust. Yet in its structure, it is a very special form of dust, one capable of serving as the instrument both for the expression of the spirit and the cultivation of the individual human soul.

It is only when the total 
        logos of the &quot;do&quot; as both the beginning and the end of the vibratory 
        phenomenon are grasped as existing all at once, rather than in time series; 
        and where this lower octave is conceived as existing to serve the transformation 
        to something higher, does it start to make sense. The mi-fa &quot;shock&quot; 
        is really the boundary point of alignment of the higher and the lower. 
        The 1 - 1 - 1 - &frac12; higher steps of the lower must align with the 
        1 - 1- 1 - &frac12; lower steps of the higher; then there is congruence, 
        alignment, resonance. This boundary point is a membrane, a threshold, 
        a barrier; to pass through it is to pass &quot;through the eye of a needle&quot;.</p>
      <p>The membrane of the &quot;first conscious shock&quot; as described in 
        <i>Search</i> is not really a &quot;conscious shock&quot; - something 
        'administered' to the system - but simply a transition that must take 
        place &quot;in consciousness&quot;. When we are consciously present to 
        the I-spirit octave, our entire life becomes a process of alignment with 
        the higher energies of spirit. When we perceive the spiritual that is 
        both hidden and indicated by the sense appearances, we begin to 'grow' 
        in new organs of knowledge and perception, which are the conscious life 
        of the spirit. We begin to learn that the pulsation of the spirit is in 
        all things.</p>
      <p>The &quot;hydrogens&quot; of the food octave (Gurdjieff's term for the 
        substances formed at each note of the octaves of transformation) - the 
        various energies of the body-soul-spirit complex that exists while man 
        is in incarnation - are each complex, multidimensional fields of energy. 
        Each such a hydrogen as found in the three octaves of the food diagram 
        is, as it were, an entire world or body unto itself, pulsating, living 
        and dying, and always transforming. To &quot;possess&quot; higher hydrogens 
        is to learn to allow the impulses of the lower to align with the impulses 
        of the higher.</p>
      <p>Returning to Ichazo and Arica: we have in John Lilly's <i>The Center of 
        the Cyclone</i> another Ichazo-inspired borrowing from Gurdjieff; one that 
        seems to have been left by the wayside in the wave of the enneagram fashion 
        that Ichazo spawned. This is the use of the &quot;Gurdjieff vibrational 
        numbers&quot; to denote states of consciousness. Quickly summarized, Lilly 
        described states of consciousness which he denoted as &quot;48&quot; &quot;+24&quot; 
        &quot;+12&quot; &quot;+6&quot; and &quot;+3&quot;. He described his experiences, 
        primarily achieved through the effects of LSD, of these various states 
        and develops a rough characterization of the hallmarks of each state. 
        48 is the &quot;neutral biocomputer state&quot; - facts are weighed and 
        reasoned dispassionately; the body is neutral as a source of energetic 
        input into thoughts and behavior. This is the state of being grounded 
        in earthly reality. Note that in the Gurdjieff teaching &quot;48&quot; 
        corresponds to the &quot;vibrational level&quot; of the planet earth, 
        and it is with &quot;hydrogen 48&quot; that the formative part of the 
        intellectual center functions. Dry, unexciting impressions. &quot;24&quot; 
        &quot;12&quot; &quot;6&quot; and three would correspond, in the Gurdjieff 
        parlance, to I suppose &quot;balanced functioning centered in the moving/instinctive 
        center&quot; &quot;higher emotional center&quot; and &quot;higher intellectual 
        center&quot; respectively.</p>
      <p>This map can be made to fit very well for someone who has had any sort 
        of &quot;far out&quot; psychedelic experiences along the lines of Lilly. 
        In my two years of training, there was some reference made to this 'scale 
        of realization' but in general the aim of the training was to allow people 
        to achieve &quot;permanent 24&quot; - balanced instincts, no &quot;ego&quot;, 
        no negative states. It is towards this end, I believe, that Ichazo and 
        Arica made use of the enneagram of protoanalysis and fixations.</p>
      <p>A truly fluid understanding of the laws of three and seven represented 
        by the enneagram make it possible to see that a &quot;horizontal&quot; 
        enneagram - that is neither ascending nor descending, like the ennea-types 
        - makes just as much sense as thinking of ascending and descending octaves. 
        In music we speak of &quot;higher&quot; or &quot;lower&quot; notes of 
        a scale, and of motion up or down. But when we consider, for example, 
        chord progressions, it is no longer strictly accurate to speak of &quot;higher&quot; 
        and &quot;lower&quot;. The meaning of a chord is its position relative 
        to the root chord; but chords may be inverted, for example, and the still 
        retain their meaning in the chord structure.</p>
      <p>The enneagram pictures the alignment of the three with seven. Seven is 
        only aligned with three, not when it is divided evenly - 1/7 - but when 
        it becomes a diatonic scale. It forms this scale, with its peculiar ratio, 
        when the series of fifths - the most perfect consonance besides the unity, 
        or its analog, the octave - is stepped through until the octave is again 
        experienced. This produces the 12 notes of the chromatic scale (I am leaving 
        all of the minutiae of tuning - Pythagorean, just, even, mean, etc. - 
        out of the discussion for the minute) - the seven white and five black 
        notes of the piano, reflecting the 'missing semitones&quot; at mi-fa and 
        si-do.</p>
      <p>In my opinion, the Gurdjieff purists would do well to embrace the thinking 
        and realization behind Ichazo's exposition; recognize the points of contact 
        of the enneagram symbol with other thinking, while at the same time deepening 
        their understanding of the teaching as Gurdjieff presented it. He clearly 
        intended it be fragmentary, and more than anything, a goad to our ponderings. 
        Gurdjieff talked about the study of the enneagram as the prelude to &quot;great 
        doing&quot;. Ichazo, conversely, stressed the Taoist concept of wu-wei, 
        effortless effort. Contemplating the whole, we can see that if it is possible 
        to find the way of alignment of the higher with the lower, it is not so 
        much a question of &quot;shocks&quot; and &quot;super efforts&quot; than 
        of surrender. And indeed, the needle that Gurdjieff tried to push his 
        pupils through was just the very realization of their nullity; that outside 
        the sphere of harmony with what is higher, all is mechanical and meaningless. 
        Rudolf Steiner, in my view, provides us with pictures of what the being 
        of spiritual world is like, allowing us to align our thinking and perception, 
        step by step, in this direction. The more baggage we can throw away, Gurdjieff-style, 
        the better; the more balance we can achive in the vital/instinctive side 
        of our personality, the better as well.</p>
      <p>In the interests of transformation through understanding.</p>
      <p><a href="/properties/">Tone Constellations of the Enneagram</a></p>
      <p><a href="/properties/tree/">The Enneagram and the Tree of Life</a></p>
      <p><a href="javascript: mymail();">Comments and questions</a> absolutely 
        welcomed.</p>
      <p><br>
        July 2002</p>
      <p></p>
      <p></p>
      <p></p>
      <p align="left">Copyright &copy; 2002 David Eyes</p>
      <p align="center">&nbsp;</p>
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