Identifying the Enneagram in the Book of Revelation
February 2019
F. Oliver Nicklin draws a clear diagram of “Identifying the Enneagram in the Book of Revelation” as it was revealed by George I. Gurdjieff and based on the outline of his student Pyotr D. Ouspensky in his In Search of the Miraculous.
Enneagrammers have encountered mentions of the laws of 3 and of 7 quite frequently. But such mentions are not often well explained by the authors – as if the reader was expected to instinctively know what exactly is meant and need no further explanation. Maybe, it’s likely that an author was unsure of how best to describe these laws and chose to gloss over it leaving the reader to fend for themselves. Like that story of two men meeting in the desert and one draws the enneagram symbol in the sand and the other immediately “gets it.” Speaking only for myself, I’ve been staring at the enneagram for decades and still envy the guy who “got it.”
Oliver has gotten it and puts precision and image in a laconic no-nonsense portrayal that will serve as a reminder and illustration of the meaning of the Laws of Three and Seven. Moreover, this short essay demonstrates the connection that existed since time immemorial between the fundamental concepts of the enneagram as already described in the Book of Revelation and surely in other ancient scriptures of humanity.
Introduction
Based on P.D. Ouspensky’s outline of the ancient secret Enneagram as discovered and revealed by George I. Gurdjieff in the early 20th century (all page references taken from In Search of the Miraculous, Harcourt, 1949, Paperback).
Gurdjieff viewed the Enneagram as a universal symbol useful to interpret all knowledge as it relates to humanity and the universe (see pp. 75 and 294 ISOM).
Throughout In Search of the Miraculous the basic framework for change is expressed in terms of disruptively transitioning away from random complexity towards simplified order or succumbing to the reversal thereof. Simplified order is more supportive of differentiation; whereas, random complexity is not.
Law of Three
The Enneagram is fundamentally based on the Law of Three Forces where all phenomena represented by the Enneagram simultaneously involve two opposing forces and a third neutralizing force (see pp. 77-78, 89 and 122 ISOM).
According to the Law of Three, any possible pair of digits on the Enneagram circle in Figure 1 represent opposing forces and their average always equates to their spatially bisecting digit on the circle which in turn represents the third neutralizing force.
While the Law of Three applies to every point or center on the Enneagram, its ultimate representation is the stand alone 3, 6 and 9 triangle shown below. Gurdjieff even referred to the 3, 6 and 9 triangle as the “free trinity”, which means the standalone trinitarian triangle of the Enneagram (see p. 289 ISOM).
Figure 1.
Gurdjieff’s free trinity based on the Law of Three
One way Gurdjieff illustrates and applies the Law of Three to humanity is:
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The way of the fakir (i.e., physical/moving center)
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The way of the monk (i.e., feeling/emotion center)
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The way of the yogi (i.e., intellectual/thinking center) (see pp. 44-47, 56 and 109 ISOM).
Gurdjieff extended the Law of Three to the deity as a Trinitarian God from the Christian tradition as well as the Hindu tradition (see p. 79 ISOM).
Law of Seven
According to the Law of Seven all phenomena represented by the Enneagram are comprised of seven parts (see p. 289 ISOM) and progress in seven transitional stages (see pp. 71-75 and 205-211 ISOM). Both parts and stages can repeat.
According to the Laws of Unity, the seven repeating parts are represented in the Enneagram by dividing the seven parts into unity (i.e., 1/7) to form the infinitely repeating 1/7th series 0.142857142 which is illustrated below in Figure 2 as the repeating configuration or simply the 1/7th configuration (see p. 288-289 ISOM).
Figure 2. The 1/7th configuration in the Enneagram based on the Laws of Seven and Unity
Likewise, the seven transitional stages are represented in the Enneagram by repeating the 1/7th configuration, as illustrated below in Figure 3.
Figure 3. The seven transitional stages in the Enneagram based on the Law of Seven
Identifying the Apocalyptic Enneagram
In the 1920’s after Ouspensky was no longer working with him, Gurdjieff explored identifying the Enneagram in the Apocalypse (see p. 295 ISOM). Because of their reliance on age independent symbols and metaphors, both the Enneagram and the Apocalypse were much less susceptible to being corrupted through translations and thus can be applied thousands of years after they were created (see p. 229 ISOM). The entire Apocalypse is made up of six sequential series where each series represent seven transitional stages, which can be directly transferred to the Enneagram from Figure 3, as illustrated in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Identifying the Enneagram in the Apocalypse
NOTEWORTHY, THE ORGANIZATION OF THE APOCALYPSE IS HIGHLY UNIQUE IN ITS DIRECT TRANSFERABILITY TO THE ENNEAGRAM WITHOUT ANY INTERPRETATIVE MODIFICATIONS.
Each pair of series bracketing the 3, 6 and 9 of the Free Trinity in Figure 4 are complementary, as shown below in Figure 5.
Figure 5. Complementarity of the series bracketing the 3, 6 and 9 of the Free Trinity