Own the Shadow of Your Enneagram Personality Type.
This post was originally written in November, 2020.
This week, my course with The Shift Network, Own the Shadow of Your Enneagram Personality Type comes to an end after seven weeks. We had a wonderful audience who brought thought-provoking questions and great discussions. Many students have requested my reading list on the Enneagram shadows. While not always the easiest reads, here is a curated list for those interested in continuing the work we started in class.
The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram by Sandra Maitri
The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues by Sandra Maitri
In my view, Claudio Naranjo is the most important Enneagram author in the modern era, but his books can be hard to read for the layperson as they can be a bit dense—especially Character and Neurosis. The second book (The Enneagram of Society) is an easier read.
Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View by Claudio Naranjo
The Enneagram of Society: Healing the Soul to Heal the World by Claudio Naranjo
Pyotr Ouspensky was the author of Tertium Organum—he was a student of G. I. Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff is our best and most interesting source for information about the Enneagram symbol and the esoteric meaning it conveys. Gurdjieff famously said that the Enneagram is a symbol of perpetual motion—and it’s the Philosopher Stone of the alchemists. And he said if you know how to read the Enneagram (which none of us do!), it makes books and libraries entirely unnecessary. He was a trickster and a mystic—and his own writings can be nearly indecipherable, but Ouspensky’s book, while also very dense, is a near-verbatim account of Gurdjieff’s teachings.
In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching by P.D. Ouspensky
If you joined me for the course, you know that part of what we draw on can be found in two great classics. Here are my recommendations for the best translations out there.
The Odyssey, by Homer, translated by Stephen Mitchell
The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri, edited and translated by Mark Musa
Happy reading!
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