The Enneagram Journal – July 2011

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT:

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ORIGINS OF THE ENNEAGRAM

Virginia Wiltse, Ph.D., and Helen Palmer, M.A.

Erratum
The article “Hidden in Plain Sight: Observations on the Origin of the
Enneagram” by Virginia Wiltse and Helen Palmer was first published in the 2009
edition of the Enneagram Journal. At the time of publication, we were already
aware of a problem with the article, so the Journal was issued with an erratum
page that contained Fig. 1 of the article.
Earlier this year, the authors contacted me, as the IEA board member responsible
for publications. In addition to Fig. 1, there were three other major errors in the
way the article was printed:
• Footnote 42 was omitted, which led to all subsequent footnotes being
off by one,
• The first sentence on p.110 “In inviting his reader to parse the
symbolic number 153 using Pythagorean mathematics, Evagrius was
unaware of the importance of the number Nine to the Pythagoreans.”
should read “It is hard to imagine that the Evagrius who invited
his reader to parse the symbolic number 153 using Pythagorean
mathematics, was unaware of the importance of the number Nine to
the Pythagoreans.”
• On p.113, part of the caption of Fig. 4 was placed in the text itself,
directly above the figure.
After consulting with the authors, the editors and a scientific journal editor
from Wiley Publications, we agreed that the appropriate solution is to reprint
the entire article as an erratum in this issue of the journal, rather than just to
print an erratum listing the errors themselves. Based on feedback to the original
article, the authors requested that they be allowed to update the figures used in
the article, to aid clarity. The editors were happy to accommodate this request.
We have all learned from this experience and I have worked with the current
editorial and production team to improve the editorial process, so that such a
problem does not reoccur in this or future editions of the journal.

CJ Fitzsimons, Ph.D.
Secretary to the Board of the International Enneagram Association,
Publications Committee Chairperson

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 Wiltse and Palmer 

Abstract
The search for Enneagram origins has produced many insights but few
substantial answers. Where did the diagram come from? Why just nine
Types? Why a nine-pointed star with a gap at the bottom? And why this
specific order of the types around the star? This article will contend that
answering these questions requires following a trail that leads backwards
to a time before the life of the fourth-century monk Evagrius of Pontus
and the Christian desert tradition. The authors will use clues left in the
work of Evagrius to piece together a puzzle that crosses cultures and
centuries to reveal both the diagram and the template of archetypal
personalities that illuminate the nine types. While we do not yet have all
the answers we seek, the authors conclude that Evagrius has hidden in
plain sight the information we need to further our search for the source
of modern Enneagram studies.

Introduction
The Egyptian desert to which Evagrius of Pontus committed himself in the
fourth century of the Common Era was not far from Alexandria, the central
hub of scholarly learning for the entire ancient world at that time. The trade
network known as the “Silk Road” had connected the Far East to the lands of the
Mediterranean for centuries, fostering the exchange of culture at the port city of
Alexandria as well as the exchange of commodities. The Mouseion, the precursor
to the modern university, and its extraordinary library were founded there. For
Ptolemy, the general of Alexander the Great to whom the north of Egypt was
ceded following Alexander’s death, the library became a personal mission. He
­—and later his son—endeavored to gather at Alexandria all the great texts of the
world, a task furthered by the city’s prime location. Consequently, the library at
Alexandria housed an unparalleled collection of Egyptian, Hebrew, Persian and
Babylonian writings. These works dealt with mathematics and astronomy, natural
science and literature. A team of scholars translated these ancient treasures into
Greek. Among those texts was the Septuagint, the first Greek translation of the
Hebrew Scriptures.
Diverse philosophical and spiritual traditions were thus thriving in Alexandria
before and during Evagrius’s lifetime. Neo-Pythagoreans argued that numbers
held the keys to understanding reality and cosmic harmony. Neo-Platonist
philosophers debated the topic of how human beings can attain to a higher life.
Buddhist missionaries arrived in Alexandria in the third century before the
Common Era bringing with them their Indian heritage, and Buddhist and Hindu
monastic communities had been established in Alexandria by the time it became
part of the Roman Empire in 31 BCE.1
Learned men of the early Common Era, Jewish and Christian scholars among
them, respectfully acknowledged the wisdom of other spiritual and philosophical
traditions. The first-century Jewish historian Philo of Alexandria commented, for

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  The Enneagram Journal – July 2011

example, on the “very numerous companies of virtuous and honourable men” of

many cultures who searched for truth:
Among the Persians there is the body of the Magi, who, investigating the works
of nature for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the truth, do at their
leisure become initiated themselves and initiate others in the divine virtues
by very clear explanations. And among the Indians there is the class of the
gymnosophists, who, in addition to natural philosophy, take great pains in the
study of moral science likewise, and thus make their whole existence a sort of
lesson in virtue.2
Philo himself was well-respected among the intellectuals of Alexandria
including the early Christian scholars Clement and Origen whose writings
played an important role in the first centuries of the Common Era.3 Both of
these prominent theologians worked to reconcile in thought and in writing their
knowledge of Greek philosophy, the Jewish roots of Christianity, and the words
and ways of Jesus of Nazareth.
Clement acknowledged the wisdom of Jewish and Greek learning and also
the value of the teachings of the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Druids, the
Samaneans, the Celts, the Magi from Persia and the Gymnosophists of India.4
Philo, Clement and Origen had enormous respect for Pythagorean spiritual
teachings as did other Alexandrian scholars of the early Common Era, and
the instructors at the Christian catechetical school in Alexandria were known
for their affinity with Pythagorean philosophy.5 Clement, in fact, took pride in
Pythagoras’s connection to Egypt.6
Patristics scholar Jean Gribamont has asserted that, given this melting pot milieu,
it is “unlikely” that similarities in Buddhist, Jewish and Christian asceticism
are “accidental.”7 To that point, others have noted similarities among such
counter-cultural groups as the Pythagoreans, the Essenes and the early Christian
ascetics.8 There is evidence that when Philo referred to the therapeutae as ascetic
companies of healers in the desert outside of Alexandria, he was referring not
only to the Essene communities, but to ascetic philosophers of other cultures
as well.9 As early as the beginning of the twentieth century, scholars were
considering the influence of Indian thought on Christian apocryphal texts.10 By
the fourth century of the Common Era, many of those who pursued a holy life in
the Egyptian desert were, like Evagrius of Pontus, well-educated and well-familiar
with the rich and complex spiritual and philosophical thinking of their day.11
Indeed, the contemplative method of Evagrius of Pontus has been described by
some scholars as reminiscent of Theravada Buddhism or comparable to vipassana
meditation.12 Others have called Evagrius’s method “a sort of Christian yoga,” and
still others note the “tantric” quality of some of the exercises he prescribes.13

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 Wiltse and Palmer 

The Importance of Evagrius in the History of the Enneagram

In order to understand why Evagrius offers us a critical link in the history of the
Enneagram, it is important to recognize that the learned Evagrius represented
the varied intellectual and spiritual streams that intersected in Alexandria. As
a respected spiritual adept himself, Evagrius had no doubt received advanced
teachings reserved for the spiritually mature. As we shall point out, he had been
instructed in the sacred mathematics of Pythagoras, itself a synthesis of the
ancient wisdom of Egypt and Mesopotamia.
There is no surprise in this when one considers Evagrius’s background. Evagrius
spent his life in Asia Minor and Egypt, the very places where Pythagoras
received his own advanced training. Evagrius grew up in the region of Pontus
in Cappadocia, what is today modern Turkey. There, the Babylonian Magi were
esteemed for their astronomical abilities and their communities thrived through
the fifth century of the Common Era.14
Pythagoras himself had become privy to the religious secrets of the Babylonian
Magi during his years in Asia Minor. He was said to have learned “perfect
worship of the gods with them, and reached the highest point in knowledge
of numbers, music, and other mathematical sciences.”15 The Neo-Pythagorean
Iamblichus reported that Pythagoras also spent years in Egypt where he studied
astronomy and geometry under the tutelage of the Egyptian priests of Heliopolis,
Memphis, and Diopolis. Among the Pythagorean precepts that were embraced
by early Christian teachers was this: “by contemplating the order and beauty of
heaven the soul could begin to absorb its wondrous harmonies which reflected
the nature of God himself.”16 Evagrius explicitly espoused this belief.
In recent years, the work of Evagrius has attracted the attention of the
Enneagram community as it became clear that his map of eight thoughts that
act as impediments to prayer match eight of the nine cognitive/emotional habits
associated with the Enneagram personality styles. There are at least two places
where Evagrius alludes to nine logismoi or habits of mind. In his treatise On the
Vices Opposed to the Virtues, Evagrius lists nine pairs: gluttony and abstinence
(Type Seven), fornication and chastity (Type Eight), avarice and freedom from
possessions (Type Five), sadness and joy (Type Four), anger and patience (Type
One), acedia and perseverance (Type Nine), vainglory and freedom from
vainglory (Type Three), jealousy and freedom from jealousy, pride and humility
(Type Two).17 In the Skemmata, Evagrius wrote: “The first thought of all is that of
love of self; after this, the eight.”18 Despite the lack of a consistent presentation of
a ninth vice, the parallels between the eight logismoi of Evagrius and the passions
of eight of the nine Enneagram types are unmistakable.
What more might he have to teach us about the Enneagram? Evagrius, like other
spiritual masters of his day, had a decided tendency towards “musterion,” the
recognition that certain precepts must be hidden in their sacred writings from all

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  The Enneagram Journal – July 2011

but mature initiates.19 One way to transmit sacred teachings was by veiling them
in symbolism or hiding them in metaphors. Evagrius, in fact, argued that God
used the physical reality of the manifest world as a metaphor to reveal
divine secrets.
According to Evagrius, creation was the metaphor through which God drew
humankind back to its original state of union with divine reality, a union that was
lost before the human being was born.20 Evagrius expressed his belief in creation
as a metaphor in the Letter to Melania: “the sensible and corporeal creation is
indicative of the intelligible and incorporeal creation just as visible things are a
symbol of invisible things.”21
He was also convinced that by examining the visible creation one could recognize
the invisible creation, but he warned emphatically that this enterprise had to be
kept confidential: “these bold matters are too powerful to be written on paper.”22
Evagrius did cite Scripture, however, to underscore his point: “The heavens are
telling the glory of God and the firmament shows forth the work of his hands.”23
In short, important truths about God’s design for humanity have been hidden
behind the symbols of creation. It is in the heavens, we will argue, that the search
for the origins of the Enneagram must begin.
Melania, to whom the letter referenced above was addressed, and Rufinus of
Aquileia were longtime friends of Evagrius. Melania and Rufinus had visited the
desert monasteries of Egypt together, had founded monasteries in Jerusalem,
and had befriended Evagrius when he arrived there. They also encouraged his
monastic vocation.24 Evagrius wrote the treatise called the Chapters on Prayer
towards the end of his life, addressing it most likely to Rufinus.25
The Prologue to the Chapters on Prayer has always been intriguing to scholars.
This odd text is replete with number symbolism and references to geometry
and the cycles of time. Could Evagrius, the earnest proponent of keeping secrets
from those who were not spiritually mature, have been transmitting important
information for his old friend to decipher? We will argue that some of the
secrets that Evagrius felt “should not be learnt by everyone” are encrypted in the
Prologue to the Chapters on Prayer.26 We will demonstrate that, via numerical
and geometrical symbols, Evagrius points us to the origins of the Enneagram
diagram, a diagram that can be directly verified by anyone who looks skyward
to witness the dramatic interactions of the sun, the moon with its twin nodes,
and the five wandering planets following their paths. This contemplation of the
heavens opened for Evagrius and for other ancient people a portal that enabled
them to participate in a greater reality.
We will argue as well that Evagrius’s logismoi—and the Enneagram personality
types—also have “heavenly” origins in the worldwide body of creation myths
verified in this paper by our focus on the Greek planetary gods. We believe that
we can convincingly show that the origins of the Enneagram are much earlier
than previously surmised and far more universal.

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 Wiltse and Palmer 

The Significance of 153

In his 1952 French translation of Evagrius’s Prologue to the Chapters on Prayer,
J. Muyldermans pointed out that Evagrius’s allegory on the number 153 and his
mystical speculations regarding mathematical realities offered a little-known
window into the work of this desert father.27 In the Prologue, Evagrius cited the
number 153 as a symbolic number drawn from the Gospel of John (21:11) and
its allusion to the miraculous catch of 153 fish. He was not alone among the early
Christian scholars who recognized 153 as a number of interest. Saints Jerome
and Augustine, contemporaries of Evagrius, also advanced interpretations of its
meaning and so did Saint Gregory the Great somewhat later. The specificity of
the number seemed to signal to these scholars that it had symbolic significance.28
When Evagrius explored 153 as a symbolic number, he approached it from the
point of view of one who found spiritual significance in sacred geometry. He
cited the number’s varied meanings, including the triangle and hexagon implied
within it, figures emblematic of the Trinity and boundaries of the cosmos:

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 10 The Enneagram Journal – July 2011

. . . in dividing my saying[s] on prayer into 153, I am catering for you a ‘fish-

[dinner]’ from the gospels, to delight you with a symbolic number in which you
will find both a triangular and a hexagonal form.[These] signify both: reverent
knowledge of the Trinity; and the boundaries of the orderly arrangement of the
universe.29
The number 153 is also notable for its relationship to the number Nine. The
geometric figures of the three-sided triangle and the six-sided hexagon cited
by Evagrius combine to produce a figure with nine points. In addition, 153 is a
multiple of the remarkable number Nine, a number that possesses properties
unlike any other number. One such unusual property is this: the sum of the
digits which form the multiples of Nine are themselves always multiples of Nine.
Witness the case of the number 153 where 17x9 = 153 and 1+5+3 = 9. Evagrius
seemed to draw attention to the relationship between the numbers Nine and 153
by noting that 153 is a triangular number and then suggesting nine ways – three
sets of three – in which the number 153 might be interpreted.
If you obtain a hundred and fifty-three by adding up many numbers, since it is a
triangular number, consider it to mean: praktiké, physiké, and theologiké; or faith
hope, and love; or gold, silver, and precious stones.30
Evagrius’s reference to John’s Gospel in the Prologue may allude to something
else as well.31 In citing the triangle and the hexagon in reference to the symbolic
number 153, Evagrius has provided two geometric shapes inherent in the
tetractys, the sacred symbol of the Pythagoreans.
The tetractys is produced by trisecting a circle to form an equilateral triangle
and then trisecting the sides of the equilateral triangle. The resulting figure is
comprised of nine dots forming its perimeter and a tenth dot in the center (see
Fig. 1). If the interior notches of the trisected sides are connected, the result is a
hexagon resting inside an equilateral triangle.32 If the tetractys is viewed three-
dimensionally, it depicts a geometric solid of sphere, pyramid and cube.(see Figs.
2, and 3). Evagrius pointed to this three-dimensional aspect of the figure also,
it seems, when he noted that the composition of the number 153 included the
spherical number 25.33 He then noted that “the wise knowledge of this age . . .
resembles the number twenty-five because of the spherical nature of time.”34 To
the Pythagoreans, their sacred figure represented the formula 1+2+3+4=10, ten
being considered the embedded perfect number found by adding ten dots top to
bottom in four tiers. The significance of the tetractys has been well summarized:
“Now the whole figure: circle, triangle, hexagon, and the ten points comprise
in toto UNITY and demonstrate the oneness of things.”35 This would include a
unity reflected in, among other things, the passage of time, the movement of the
heavens, mathematical concepts and human realities.
Evagrius opened his treatise on how to pray by inviting his reader to look behind
the symbols of language and number and geometric shape. It seems that he was
also inviting his reader to explore the tetractys. Should we not take that invitation
seriously?

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 Wiltse and Palmer 11

Fig. 1 Inherent in the Pythagorean

tetractys are the shapes of both
the equilateral triangle and the
hexagon. They are inscribed in a
circle representing the universe
itself.

Fig. 2 The ten dot-points of the

tetractys also demonstrate the
creation of a geometric solid.
Six dots are used to define
the hexagram. Trisecting the
hexagram makes six triangles.
Joining all ten dots makes nine
triangles. Focusing attention
on the central dot gives a three-
dimensional glimpse of the
hexagonal cube.

Fig. 3 As a figure that demonstrates

the creation of a three-dimensional
geometric solid, the tetractys
contains a hexagonal cube enclosed
in a pyramid surrounded by
a sphere.

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 12 The Enneagram Journal – July 2011

As we have noted, Evagrius, in suggesting that his reader parse the symbolic
number 153 using Pythagorean mathematics, also pointed to the importance
of the number Nine. Fragments from the work of Iamblichus indicate that, for
Pythagoras, the number Nine, the ennead, was considered “the greatest of the
numbers within the decad” for “everything circles around within it.” The ennead,
according to Iamblichus, was known as the number that “brings completion.”36
In her inquiry into the mysteries of Egyptian religion, Jane Sellers noted that
all the important numbers in both ancient Egypt and Babylon “have digits that
reduce to that amazing number 9.”37 The number Nine also abounds in the
creation stories of Greek mythology.38 It was linked by ancient people to the
cycles of time and the activities of the heavens.

Time and its markers in the sky

In exploring the number Nine and its relationship to the passage of time, two
intriguing models emerge. The first of these derives from the lunar cycle. It was
the oldest timekeeper for ancient people and was originally based on the moon’s
three nine-day phases: waxing, full and waning. In early Babylon, the course of
the moon through the heavens was tracked by assigning the moon’s daily path
of travel to one of 27 “lunar mansions.”39 For ancient sky watchers, observing the
path of the moon was the easiest way to map the sky and determine the pathway
followed by the sun, moon and other wandering planets, and the easiest way to
divide the heavens. The moon takes just over 27 days to complete the circuit of
the zodiac, moving to a different place in the sky each night – a little more than
13 degrees – until it makes its way back to the place where it started. The lunar
mansions refer to the nightly positions of the moon as it completes a full cycle.40
Pythagoras certainly acquired this information from his Babylonian tutors.
When the Greek writer Hesiod wrote Work and Days, he was using a Lunaria.
His references to both the “ninth of the mid-month” and the “first ninth” of the
month are indicative of the connection between the lunar cycle and the number
Nine.41 For the Romans, the Kalends signaled the new Moon; the Nones occurred
nine days later, and the days of the full Moon known as the Ides followed the
Nones by nine days as well.42
The diagram below represents the complete lunar cycle of twenty-seven days
with the twenty-eighth day indicating the day when the moon is not visible (see
Fig. 4). Important religious and sacred rituals were coordinated with the lunar
cycle in antiquity and this continues to be the case today.43 The lunar cycle is
used to set the dates for Passover, Easter and Ramadan, a reminder of its past
religious significance. One cannot help but notice that the gap at the bottom
representing the “dark of the moon” resembles the gap at the bottom of the
familiar Enneagram diagram.
If we impose the Enneagram diagram over the model of the lunar cycle, other
relationships also appear (see Fig. 5). The moon chart is divided into three

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 Wiltse and Palmer 13

sections of nine moons each, reminding us of the head-, heart-, and body-based
triads within today’s Enneagram system. Dividing the 27 lunar positions into
nine type placements yields three distinct sub-placements for each type. This
division reminds us of three sub-types for each of the nine types. It cannot be
coincidental that we can connect the dots of the tetractys in such a way that it
too displays the lunar model with its gap at the bottom (see Fig. 6). Within the
tetractys, then, we see the Enneagram triangle of Types Three, Six and Nine,
along with the familiar hexagonal matrix of Types One, Four, Two, Eight, Five
and Seven.

Fig. 4 The complete lunar cycle included Fig. 5 The Enneagram diagram
27 days when the moon was visible plus a imposed over the model of the lunar
28th day when it was not visible. calendar.

Fig. 6 The points of the tetractys

can be connected in such a way
as to reflect the Enneagram’s six-
point interconnected matrix of
Types 1,4,2,8,5 and 7. The large
equilateral triangle (light gray
in the figure at left) represents
Enneagram Types 3, 6, and 9 and
symbolizes the moon’s three phases.

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 14 The Enneagram Journal – July 2011

The geometric dance of the planets

In addition to the lunar cycle, there was another celestial model in the ancient
world that drew attention to the number Nine. According to Hesiod, the Greeks
received their gods from the Egyptians, who honored among their most revered
deities the Divine Ennead of Heliopolis. This pantheon of nine was certainly
known to Pythagoras who studied astronomy, mathematics and geometry
with the Egyptian priests of that city. The Divine Ennead represented nine
independent aspects of the godhead, all flowing from a single central divinity.44
This pantheon of nine likely originated in the sightings of Egyptian priests whose
temples were astronomical observatories. What other information besides the
measure of the heavens using the cycle of the moon could the Egyptian priests
discover as they watched the vast darkness of the desert sky?
These Egyptian priests witnessed the movements of the planets and the
interactions among them. In addition to the sun and moon, there were five
planets called “wanderers”—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury. The
moon was unique among this group because it was the only one that changed
its shape as it traveled. Its half-full, full and half-empty phases prompted ancient
people to consider it as a triune entity. As they watched the sky, ancient people
noted when and where the planets came together and when they separated. This
dance of the nine celestial bodies was marked in stories handed down through
generations. As De Santillana and Von Dechend proposed in their study on
archaic astronomy and myth, “the main source of myth is astronomy.”45
Keith Critchlow, a specialist in geometry and an architectural proportionist,
believes that ancient people also perceived the patterns created over time as
planets traversed the heavens, patterns that included triangles, hexagons, and
enneagons.46 He has argued that they used those patterns as templates that
enabled them to create advanced architecture long before complex measuring
tools were available. Critchlow found compelling evidence for the intelligence of
so-called primitive people in artifacts like the Bush-Barrow breastplate unearthed
at a Bronze Age archaeological site in England (see Fig. 7).

Fig. 7 The Bush Barrow

Breastplate with its nine-
notched sides as a template
for the creation of larger
projects.47

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 Wiltse and Palmer 15

The drawings below modeled on the work of Stonehenge researcher Anthony

Johnson show how the template could have been created using circles and a
hexagon (see Figs. 8a, 8b, 8c).48

Critchlow believes that the Bush-Barrow breastplate was patterned after geometric
figures formed by the planets, and that these figures provided proportional
guidance for the creation of larger projects. According to Critchlow, templates
like the Bush-Barrow breastplate would have enabled early monument builders
to divide circles into nine portions with geometric precision.49
What observation might have inspired both the nine-notched Bush-Barrow
breastplate and the myth of the Divine Ennead? While there are many geometric
relationships among the planets that give rise to different figures and different
myths, we will look at one that is pertinent to the Enneagram. An enneagon
is created by the three equilateral triangles formed over a sixty-year period by
the conjunctions (the apparent touching of two planets in the same part of the
heavens) of the planets Jupiter and Saturn.50 In the diagram below (see Fig.9), the
inner triangle represents the figure made during a cycle when Jupiter and

Fig. 9 The enneagon produced by

the Jupiter-Saturn transit over
60 years.52

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 16 The Enneagram Journal – July 2011

Saturn meet at the same point in the sky three times during a twenty-year cycle
thus creating an equilateral triangle. The two other triangles are formed, one in
each of the next two twenty-year cycles, as Jupiter and Saturn seem to follow
each other against the backdrop of the band of fixed stars. This phenomenon,
observed and charted by ancient astronomers, was certainly known to the temple
priests of Egypt as it was to other astronomers in antiquity. There is scholarly
evidence that the star followed by the Babylonian Magi to Bethlehem, was a
triple conjunction (or triple meeting) of Saturn and Jupiter.51 The dots of the
tetractys can also be connected so as to display the equilateral triangles of the
Jupiter-Saturn cycle (see Fig. 10).

Fig. 10 We can connect

the points of the hexagon
within the tetractys so as
to reflect the equilateral
triangles created by the
Jupiter-Saturn cycle.

As we consider the geometry of the heavens and a template made from a triangle,
a hexagon, and a circle, recall again Evagrius’s use of the number 153 in the
Prologue to the Chapters on Prayer. In Greek mathematics, the number 153 was
related to the measurement of the circle and the creation of the figure known as
the vesica pisces which is formed when two circles overlap (see Fig. 11).53

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 Wiltse and Palmer 17

The measurement of the circle links the value of π (pi) to the relationship
between the fraction 265/153 and the √3.54 The vesica became associated in
antiquity with the hexagon as symbolic of order on earth and with the measure
of time and the circle of the heavens.55 In the Prologue, Evagrius specifically
mentions the cyclical nature of time and its relationship to the heavens: “For
week after week, month after month, year after year, [time] rolls on from season
to season, as we see in the movements of sun and moon, spring and summer,
and the rest.”56 In citing the number 153, symbolic of the measure of the circle,
and the hexagon, each symbolic of the boundaries of the universe, Evagrius has
pointed again to the sacred geometry of the heavens.

Planetary gods and their personalities

It is hard to miss the resemblance between Evagrius’s description of the eight
logismoi that impede a praying state of mind and eight of the nine Enneagram
types. But did these archetypal vices originate in his practice of self-observation
and his work as a spiritual director? Perhaps Evagrius, who pointed to the
heavens where we found diagrams similar to the Enneagram, looked to the
heavens to create his guidelines for the aspiring ascetic as well. If so, then the
nine Enneagram types also have a heavenly home.
Nearly a century ago, scholars hypothesized that Egyptian Christian ascetics,
Evagrius of Pontus among them, had adapted the pagan list of vices associated

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 18 The Enneagram Journal – July 2011

with the Greek planetary gods and made that list acceptable to Christian
orthodoxy as a litany of capital sins.57 A more recent study tracking the vices and
virtues as they appear in the literature of antiquity seems to confirm that self-
observation and spiritual counseling were not the sole sources of Evagrius’s list of
troublesome thoughts.58
Essential to the Pythagorean tradition, argued Gerald Bostock, “is the belief that
the macrocosm, meaning the universe, is seen in the microcosm, namely man,
and the harmony of the spheres can be reflected in man himself.”59 This belief,
echoed in early Christian writers like Clement and Origen, directs our attention
again towards the heavens and the planets that populate them. It prompts us to
consider how the planetary gods are reflected in the human person, and how the
Enneagram personality types and Evagrius’s logismoi fit into the picture.
By the time of Evagrius, the visible planets had been named for the gods of the
Greeks: Kronus (Saturn), Helius (Sun), Selene (Moon), Ares (Mars), Hermes
(Mercury), Zeus (Jupiter), and Aphrodite (Venus). The same gods who “oversaw”
the planets also reigned over the days of the week.60 The historian Herodotus
reported that the Greeks originally received their gods from the Egyptians, and
he indicated that Hesiod and Homer described the gods in detail to the Greek
people.61 Pythagoras, it was said, sang these myths to his disciples.62 A scholar
like Evagrius certainly was familiar with Hesiod’s Theogony, the Homeric Hymns,
The Iliad and The Odyssey.
One does not have to venture too deeply into Greek mythology to notice that
the vices of the Greek planetary gods mirror Evagrius’s eight thoughts and, as
well, the familiar Enneagram Personality Types. If myth indeed originates with
astronomy, we will find resonance between the personalities of these gods and
the astronomical characteristics of the planets in the heavens. We provide here
only the briefest of comparisons illustrating how the astronomy of the planets
and the vices of the Greek planetary gods compare to the Enneagram types and
the descriptions in Evagrius’s Praktikos.
The planet Saturn (Kronus), for example, is the one whose position is most
distant from the warmth of the Sun. In mythology, Saturn is sometimes pictured
with a jagged sickle. While the modern-day association is to “Father Time,”
the sickle is, in fact, a reference to his emasculation of his father. Once Saturn
reigned over a Golden Age of harmony among man and beast but in his desire
to retain autonomy, he swallowed up his own children. He lost a battle to Zeus
and was relegated to life in the netherworld.63 Plutarch believed this myth to be
a metaphor for the hoarding of time and, indeed, Saturn/Kronus was a god of
increase and decrease.64 The inclination to be distant and to hold fast to one’s
own time and space is reminiscent of the Enneagram Type Five. It corresponds
with the passion of avarice in the work of Evagrius. In the Praktikos, Evagrius
associated avarice with time—a “lengthy old age”—and with the shame
associated with having to accept help from others.65

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Jupiter (Zeus) is the largest and most commanding of the planets. Not
surprisingly, he the most autonomous of the Greek gods and is considered
“greatest” and “all-seeing.”66 From the mythological perspective, Jupiter is
limitless in his capacities and is his own authority. His appetite for pleasure
precludes tedious commitment and is reflected in the number of offspring sired
by various mothers including Ares, Hermes, Athene, Dionysus, Hephaistos, the
nine Muses, Persephone and many others.67 Jupiter’s hapless wife Juno (Hera)
complained bitterly in myth about his lack of commitment for, “Well she knew
his tricks.”68 Evagrius associated the passion of gluttony with the monk’s concern
about the limits imposed by his ascetism.69
Venus/Aphrodite, the brightest of the planets, was always associated with the
attraction of the feminine as Morning and Evening Star. In the Homeric Hymns
she excited passion, desire and lust in the hearts of both men and gods.70 She was
famous in myth for her magic girdle that aroused desire and also for her vengeful
anger when she perceived herself to be slighted.71 Myth relates, for example, that
Venus created prostitution as an act of angry revenge against the Propoetides
who insulted her.72 Her connection with lust, creative life force and passion seem
to reflect the vice of Enneagram Type Eight. Evagrius identified the “demon of
fornication” which assailed those who practiced abstinence from sexual desires.73
The planet Mars/Ares, perhaps because of its red coloring, became associated
with war and bloodshed. In myth, the god Mars had a reputation for anger
and smoldering resentment. In the Iliad, he stirred anger in the hearts of the
Trojans. The Iliad also described him as quarrelsome and eager for battle74 and
the Homeric Hymns referenced his “warlike strength” as a “commander of right-
minded men,” qualities we associate with Type One.75 In the Praktikos, Evagrius
cited how quickly the vice of anger arose and, in particular, the way it turned to
resentment over time.76
The swiftest moving of the planets is Mercury/Hermes whose orbit is completed
in only 88 days. In myth, Mercury’s winged sandals allowed him to travel
rapidly as Zeus’s herald between the heights of Olympus and the depths of the
underworld.77 The Homeric Hymns described him as special for Mercury only
was the “appointed messenger to Hades.”78 Our word mercurial comes from
the myth of Mercury. In his uniqueness, Mercury reminds us of Type Four and
the access to a range of emotions demonstrated by those who inhabit that type.
Evagrius, in discussing the problem of sadness, notes how longing can grip
the mind with thoughts of past pleasures then “plunge” one into sorrow over
pleasure that has passed away.79
The Sun/Helius, the bringer of both gentle warmth and searing heat, is
indispensable for life on earth. The Homeric Hymns described him as “tireless”
in his service to the world.80 Myth also associated Helius with pride. Unable to
put a limit on his giving, Helius allowed his son Phaethon to drive his powerful
sun-chariot across the sky. Phaethon was destroyed because Helius could not say
no to a request from his son. Helius’s lament that he was unappreciated makes

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him a likely match for Type Two.81 The Evagrian description of the vice of pride
was built on the refusal to acknowledge God as one’s helper and a dismissive
attitude towards those who do not offer recognition.82
The Moon/Selene, traversed the night sky and her image changed on a daily
basis. Her light was the reflected light of another (the Sun). In myth, Selene
lit the night, the time of slumber, and governed the nine months of childbirth
which could be calculated by her cycles. An Orphic Hymn noted that she rode
a wide circuit through the night shining her light on men and women until it
dissipated.83 She would be matched with Enneagram Type Nine whose energy
is spent reflecting the agendas of others. The number Nine, in fact, was so
specifically connected with the moon by ancient people that mythologist Robert
Graves christened it the number of “lunar wisdom.”84 Evagrius’s description of
the vice of acedia turned on the inability of the monk to initiate timely action and
on thoughts that dissipated his energy by their focus on others.85
In antiquity, as earlier mentioned, the moon was sometimes considered to be
a triune deity for it appeared in the heavens in three aspects: the waxing, full,
and waning moon. Selene was often pictured wearing a crown with two horns.
The horns of the crown designated the moon’s waxing and waning aspects. The
moon’s three phases were sometimes depicted in mythology as three feminine
forms: maiden, mother, and crone. This three-fold nature of the moon reminds
us of the inner triangle of the Enneagram diagram.
It would not take too much imagination to see Enneagram Type Three in the
moon goddess in her maiden phase, the active and competitive young Artemis
who loved to hunt and shoot. The Homeric Hymn to Artemis describes her
energy – how she draws her bow, engages in the chase and then at the end of
the day, leads the dances. It also describes a certain ability to adapt herself to the
situation. For example, Artemis wears the garment of the huntress while in the
mountains, but puts away her arrows and slips into a beautiful dress when she
decides to dance with the Muses.86 Artemis was one of only three goddesses said
to be immune to the wiles of Aphrodite. This favor was granted by special request
from her father Zeus, thus enabling the goddess to avoid some of the messy
emotional entanglements that plagued other gods and goddesses.87 In Evagrius’s
system of troublesome thoughts, Artemis, goddess of the hunt, would be paired
with vainglory, which he associates with the quest for the esteem of others.88
It is not difficult to see Type Six in the waning moon represented by Juno/Hera,
the wife of Jupiter/Zeus who was known to be suspicious of her philandering
husband, often with good reason. In the Iliad she accuses him of deceiving her
and he admonishes her, “do not always question each detail nor probe me.”89
Later he asserts, “You are always full of suspicion.” Given her husband’s many
paramours, it is not surprising that one attribute often associated with Juno/Hera
in myth is jealousy. Evagrius does not offer a counterpart for this element of
the planetary model in most of his various lists of vices. As noted earlier, in his

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treatise On the Vices Opposed to the Virtues, Evagrius proposed jealousy as a

ninth vice, but he was inconsistent on this point.
It would appear that in antiquity certain universal archetypes of human
behavior became identified with the planets in stories that had astronomy as
their foundation. Consciously or unconsciously, Evagrius may have made the
connection between what he knew of Greek literature and what he heard from
those who sought his advice as a spiritual director (see Fig. 12). If indeed they are
anchored in Greek mythology, the Enneagram types originated well before the
beginning of the Common Era. Research that explores the Egyptian, Babylonian
and Indo-Iranian origins of the planetary deities might lead us even further back
in time.

Myth, Astronomy and Family Dynamics

Mythology also seems to confirm particular relationships that are relevant to
both the Enneagram and the diagrams that surfaced in exploring the tetractys.
The nine-pointed diagrams composed of three, closed equilateral triangles, is
patterned on the enneagon created by the 60-year Jupiter-Saturn cycle through
the heavens. We believe that this diagram is reflected in the myth that describes
the Golden Age of the Greek gods and that it represents a “holistic” Enneagram.
During the mythological Golden Age, men “lived like gods without sorrow of
heart, remote and free from toil and grief.”90 Saturn/Kronus oversaw this age
in which humans and gods alike lived in peace. In the Golden Age myth, there
was a familial relationship between Saturn, Venus and the Sun. Saturn ruled the
heavens and was responsible for the birth of Venus who sprang from the foam in
the ocean. Hyperion, the father of the Sun, was Saturn’s brother and assisted him

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in overcoming the oppressive sky-god Ouranus, the first ruler of the universe,
and bringing about the Golden Age.91 If we were to relate the mythology of
the planetary gods to the Enneagram, this family story would link Types Five
(Saturn), Eight (Venus) and Two (Sun). Another family group, in the background
in this story involves Jupiter, Saturn’s son, and Jupiter’s own two sons Mars and
Mercury. This planetary triad would link Enneagram Types Seven (Jupiter),
One (Mars) and Four (Mercury). The Moon triad of Types Nine (Selene), Three
(Artemis) and Six (Hera) forms the third grouping. That diagram is reflected in
the figure below (see Fig. 13):

Fig. 13 The Enneagram of

the Golden Age based on the
Jupiter-Saturn transits might
be called the Enneagram of
Human Harmony.

In the “Enneagram of Human Harmony” all three centers of human experience

(head, heart and gut) are accessible to every type.
The second diagram is patterned on the lunar cycle and has the gap at the
bottom. It is the familiar one that is known as the “process Enneagram.” It too
presumes the presence of the lunar triad, emblematic of continuity and change.
From the perspective of ancient astronomers, it reflects the relationships among
Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, the “outer” or superior planets, so called because their
orbits lay outside the orbit of the Earth. The diagram also reflects the relationship
between Venus and Mercury, which were considered to be inferior planets
because their orbits around the Sun lay inside the orbit of the Earth. Venus and
Mercury also orbit the Sun more quickly than the Earth. Thus, astronomically,
they stood in special relationship to the Sun.
Evagrius referenced the superior and inferior planets in the Kephalia Gnostica
noting: “The fact that some of them are united to the interior of the shadow
of the earth, others outside of it, and others to the separating limit, provides

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information concerning their orders and concerning the government which has
been confided to them by God.”92 Evagrius clearly believed that the heavenly
bodies were intended by God to serve in an instructional capacity.
We believe that this second diagram reflects the aftermath of what is known
in Greek myth as the “War of the Titans.” According to Hesiod, war broke out
when Saturn resisted handing over power to his son Jupiter. This precipitated a
rupture in the heavens and the severing of certain Golden Age alliances.93 Jupiter
and Saturn became locked in battle with each other. Once Jupiter prevailed,
he relegated Saturn and the other defeated gods to the netherworld.94 The Sun,
which had once been on the side of Saturn, was intimidated by Jupiter’s lightning
bolts and abandoned Saturn. In the underworld where Saturn was imprisoned,
there was no contact with the Sun. In short, the connection between Saturn and
the Sun was severed and a connection between Saturn and Jupiter replaced it.
These interactions might be diagramed to look like the figure below which now
displays a connection among the superior planets, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, and
a connection to the Sun by the inferior planets, Venus and Mercury (see Fig. 14):

Fig. 14 The diagram

expresses the consequence
of the War of the Titans
between Jupiter and
Saturn and its outcome
that Saturn has no
contact with the Sun.
We know it as the
“process” Enneagram
or Enneagram of the
Passions.

The dark place at the bottom of the circle would underscore Saturn’s relegation to
the netherworld and the placement of Mercury at the edge of the underworld as
the only god who moves freely between the heavens and the dark. This diagram
seems to confirm that the “process” Enneagram reflects a certain rupture in
the dynamics of human development even as the War of the Titans represents

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 24 The Enneagram Journal – July 2011

a rupture in the Golden Age dynamics of the heavens and the onset of what
became known as the Silver Age.
The Neo-Pythagorean Plotinus, a contemporary of Origen’s, authored a series of
essays called The Ennead. In this work he admonished the reader that: “All teems
with symbol; the wise man is the man who in any one thing can read another,
a process familiar to all of us in not a few examples of everyday experience.”95
Evagrius of Pontus cultivated in abundance the ability to “look through”
metaphors to see the reality behind them.96 His eight logismoi may be metaphors
for an insightful way of viewing the lessons of the heavens.

Soul Journeys and Heavenly Rulers

The idea that the planetary gods served as archetypes for human beings is one of
the themes of the Poimandres, a tractate in the Hermetic Corpus.97 According to
the Poimandres, a divine craftsman ordained that the seven planets share their
essence with humanity and seven archetypal human beings were created as a
result.98 (If we reconstructed this account in the language of the Enneagram,
we might say that human beings are born with a predisposition to a particular
personality type.) According to the Poimandres, the human being relinquished
the vices associated with the planetary spheres after death in a seven-step
ascension process. The vices having been handed back, the soul arrived at an
eighth stage bringing its true self only and, in the ninth stage, the soul “came to
be within god,” and shared the divine essence itself.99 This material, which likely
originated in Egypt, seems to link the planetary archetypes to a vice-to-virtue
conversion.
The concept that the planets had a role in advancing the individual’s relationship
with God was part of a spiritual tradition that long pre-dated Evagrius and was
already present in pre-Socratic Greece.100 The handing over of vices associated
with the planetary gods was part of the mysteries of Mithras, mysteries associated
with the secret rites of the Babylonian Magi. The ascendant soul “abandoned
to the Moon its vital and nutritive energy, to Mercury its desires, to Venus its
wicked appetites, to the Sun its intellectual capacities, to Mars its love of war, to
Jupiter its ambitious dreams, to Saturn its inclinations.”101
This journey of the soul was also cited in literature. The grammarian, Maurus
Servius Honoratus, in his Commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil, referenced the
vices associated with certain planetary gods:
. . . the souls draw down with them the inertia of Saturn, the anger of Mars, the
lust of Venus, the longing for advantage of Mercury, the desire for authority of
Jove (Jupiter): which things make for disquieted souls . . .102
Conversely, Macrobius, in his Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, articulated
the positive qualities the soul gathered from the planetary gods in its descent:

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From Saturn it acquires reason and understanding, or what is called the logical
and contemplative faculty; from Jupiter it receives the power to act, or executive
power; Mars gives it the valour required for enterprise, and a burning zeal; from
the Sun it receives the senses and the power of invention, that make it feel and
imagine; Venus moves it with desires; from the sphere of Mercury it takes the
power to express and enunciate what it thinks and feels; finally, from the sphere
of the Moon, it acquires the strength needed to propagate by the generation and
increase of bodies. . .103

The similarities among the attributes of the planetary gods, the logismoi of
Evagrius, and the vices of the Enneagram types are unmistakable.
The tradition that the soul was instructed by heavenly powers was also
represented among Christian writers. Clement of Alexandria, for example,
wrote about a secret tradition passed orally from the apostles. One scholar has
proposed that this tradition “concerned in large measure the mysteries of the
heavenly worlds” and that Clement gave witness to an “internalization of the
cosmic ladder” by which the soul ascends to union with God.104
Without naming individual planets, Origen ascribed a positive role to them as
teachers on the soul’s journey. He was the first Christian theologian to consider
astronomy and theology together; he insisted that astronomy be taught in his
classrooms, and he was familiar with the identification of the planets with
angels.105
Evagrius was undoubtedly familiar with the idea of the transit of the soul through
the planetary spheres. While he does not connect the vices and virtues to specific
planets, in the Kephalia Gnostica, he pointed to a transformative process for
the soul seeking union with God, one that involved the sun, moon and planets
when he wrote that, “the intelligible ‘stars’ are reasoning natures to which it has
been confided to illuminate those who are in the darkness.”106 The idea that the
heavens participated in the spiritual maturation process of the human soul has a
well-documented history.107

Conclusion
In recent years, scholars have traced the influence of Evagrius’s ascetic teachings
and that influence is impressive. His immensely practical descriptions of the
impediments to prayer, as transmitted through his disciple John Cassian,
ultimately became the cornerstone for Christian monastic life in all of Western
Europe.108 Evagrius’s synthesis on the ascetic life was handed down throughout
Eastern Christendom in the Syrian, Coptic and Armenian monasteries of Asia
Minor, and it influenced the great Byzantine writers, the Hesychast movement,
the Church in Ethiopia, and the Russian Orthodox Church. Through Babai the
Great, the teachings of Evagrius passed into late Persian monasticism and from
there, scholars tell us, his teachings “decisively influenced the spirituality of the

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Persian Sufis, a group already primed to incorporate the message into their own
lineage of symbolic understanding.”109
If this summary seems reminiscent of early speculation on the history of the
Enneagram diagram, it is not by accident. George Gurdjieff acknowledged that
he found sources that informed his own theories about the Enneagram in the
monasteries of Asia Minor – the very places where the teaching of Evagrius
crossed paths with other world traditions.
The Prologue to the Chapters on Prayer directs attention to another side of
Evagrius, a Christian monk who was also a Pythagorean, with all the cross-
cultural wisdom that the term implies. He reveals himself to be a contemplative
who recognized that the spiritual life could be advanced by looking to the
heavens and considering the very structure of God’s creation as a symbolic
macrocosm that is mirrored in the microcosm of human dynamics and the
human aspiration for spiritual advancement. In the Prologue to the Chapters
on Prayer, Evagrius used numbers to express “the decipherable orderliness of
creation,” and as a metaphor through which he could share the sacred secrets of
the heavens.110
Two Enneagram diagrams are encrypted among the Pythagorean symbols in the
Prologue to the Chapters on Prayer and both are encoded in the tetractys. One,
which is comprised of three equilateral triangles, replicates the Jupiter-Saturn
cycle and reminds us of harmony and balance and what we as human beings
might attain to. The other, based on the monthly transit of the moon, draws
a dynamic map of interactions among archetypal forces, and speaks to us of
ordinary life as we must face it en route to spiritual maturity. If we combine these
diagrams with Evagrius’s insights on the quieting of the passions, on the dynamic
and inter-related nature of thoughts and emotions, on the importance of
practicing self-awareness, and on the core issue of “converting” vice to virtue, we
have a fairly accurate fourth-century replica of today’s Enneagram studies. What
more perfect place could there be than the beginning of a treatise on prayer for
Evagrius to position his final lesson about the contemplative journey?
Look at the night sky with a full moon overhead. Imagine the heavens divided
into sectors presided over by planetary divinities that represent the archetypal
aspects of human consciousness. Bring the image inside yourself as an object
of contemplation. The macrocosm of the heavens reveals the microcosm of the
human person. Evagrius assured Melania: “The heavens are telling the glory of
God.” They have also been hiding the origins of the Enneagram in plain sight
since time began.

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Authors’ Note
We want to emphasize that we see this work as a beginning – not an ending – of
the search for Enneagram origins. The potential for additional scholarly work is
vast, and we are eager for scholars whose proficiencies differ from ours to take
up specific threads in this essay and pursue them. Additional scholarly work
is warranted, for example, on the observations of the night sky made by other
ancient cultures, on the division of the night sky into nine portions by early
people, on connections to the diagram from the perspectives of Daoist, Buddhist,
Hindu, Judaic and Islamic teaching, on the significant impact of Pythagorean
teachings on the monks of the Christian desert, and on links between the
Enneagram and the ancient motif of the journey of the soul through planetary
qualities of being. We hope for – and we look forward to – the scholarly
development of ideas that we could only mention in passing in this initial essay.

Endnotes
1 See Gardner Murphy, “The Mathematical View of Life’s Mind: Pythagoras” in
Psychological Thought from Pythagorus to Freud (New York: Harcourt Brace and World,
1968), 3-22; Guy G Stroumsa, Hidden Wisdom (New York: E.J. Brill, 1996), especially
27-45; and Karen Armstrong, A History of God (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993), 92.

2 The Works of Philo Judaeus, the contemporary of Josephus, translated from the Greek by
Charles Duke Yonge (London, H. G. Bohn, 1854-1890), 74.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/book33.html accessed 5-24-2009. The word
gymnosophist is a reference to Indian ascetics who wore little clothing.

3 Clement refers to Philo as a Pythagorean. See, for example, Clement of Alexandria,

Stromateis Book One 15:71, trans. John Ferguson (Washington, DC: Catholic University
of America, 1991), 77.

4 Stromateis Book One 15:71, trans. Ferguson, 76.

5 Robert M. Grant, “Early Alexandrian Christianity” in Church History, 40:2 (Jun., 1971),
138. (Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church History)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3162366 Accessed: 5-24-2009.

6 Stromateis Book One 15:66, trans. Ferguson, 72.

7 Jean Gribamont, “Early Christianity” in Christian Spirituality, eds. Bernard McGinn and
John Meyerdorff (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 91.

8 See, for example, J.N. Bremmer, “Symbols of Marginality from Early Pythagoreans
to Late Antique Monks” in Greece & Rome, Second Series, 39:2 (Oct., 1992), 205-214
(Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association) Stable URL: http://
www.jstor.org/stable/643268 Accessed: 5-24-2009.

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9 See Joan E. Taylor and Philip R. Davies, “The So-Called Therapeutae of “De Vita
Contemplativa”: Identity and Character” in The Harvard Theological Review, 91:1 (Jan.,
1998), 3-24 (Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School) Stable
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1509786 Accessed: 5-24-2009.

10 See, for example, Louis H. Gray “Brahmanistic Parallels in the Apocryphal New
Testament” in The American Journal of Theology, 7:2 (Apr., 1903), 308-313 (The
University of Chicago Press) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3153734 Accessed:
5-24-2009.

11 The monks who formed the communities in Nitria and Kellia, where Evagrius spent
his monastic career, were educated and sophisticated. Their monastic establishments
were based on “long-established Hellenistic paideia” and their curriculum was adapted
from the writings of such formidable early Christian teachers as Clement and Origen. See
Robin Darling Young, “Evagrius the Iconographer” in Journal of Early Christian Studies 9:1
(2001), 55-56.

12 David E. Linge, “Leading the Life of Angels: Ascetic Practice and Reflection in the
Writings of Evagrius of Pontus” in Journal of the American Academy of Religion 68:3
(September 2000), 561.

13 See Linge, 540, 560. Linge cites the work of Patristic scholar Hans Urs von Balthasar
who argued that the teachings of Evagrius are, “essentially closer to Buddhism than to
Christianity.” His suggestion about the “tantric” quality of some of Evagrius’s practices is a
reference to various passages in the Antirrhetikos. See also Armstrong, 221.

14 Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra, trans. Thomas J. McCormack (New York:
Dover, 1903, 1956), 11. “These communities, in Cappadocia at least, were destined to
survive the triumph of Christianity and to be perpetuated until the fifth century of our
era, faithfully transmitting from generation to generation their manners, usages, and
modes of worship.” Cumont cites St. Basil as a reference and Basil was one of Evagrius’s
teachers, 28.

15 See Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life, trans. John Dillon and Jackson
Hershbell (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1991), 4:19.

16 Gerald Bostock, “Origen and the Pythagoreanism of Alexandria” in Origeniana

Octava (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003), 466, 473-474. Origen was well-versed
in Pythagorean and Platonic teachings for he had been schooled in Greek literature as
well as in sacred Scripture. He made sacred mathematics, geometry and astronomy part
of the curriculum he taught his pupils. He was familiar with Plato and with the work
of such Pythagorean writers as Numenius, Moderatus, and Nicomachus. See Eusebius,
Ecclesiastical History, trans. Christian Frederick Cruise (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book
House, 1991), VI: 2 and VI:19, drawing on the work of Porphyry. For insight into Origen’s
love of astronomy, see also Alan Scott, Origen and the Life of the Stars (Oxford: Clarendon

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Press, 1991), 75. This extraordinary study places Origen’s love of astronomy within the
larger context of his time.

17 Evagrius of Pontus, On the Vices Opposed to the Virtues in Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek
Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 60.
For one perspective on the integration of the nine vices see David Burke in “The
Enneagram of Evagrius of Pontus” in The Enneagram Journal (Summer 2008), 77-103.

18 Evagrius Ponticus, Skemmata, trans. William Harmless in William Harmless, “The

sapphire light of the mind: the Skemmata of Evagrius Ponticus,” Theological Studies 62:3
(Sept. 2001),22. Full-text source: WilsonSelectPlus_FT accessed 6/7/2003.

19 See, for example, Clement of Alexandria, Stromata V:IV in The Ante-Nicene Fathers,
eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing company, 1983), and “Origen of Alexandria, On First Principles” in Origen:
Classics of Western Spirituality, trans. Rowan A. Greer, (Mahweh, NJ: Paulist Press, 1979)
2:2 and 3. See Stroumsa, 112. Stroumsa cites both Clement and Origen. Evagrius was well
familiar with their work.

20 Michael Parmentier, “Evagrius of Pontus: Letter to Melania” in Bijdragen tijdschrift voor

filosofie en theolgoie 46 (Amsterdam, 1985), 7. Parmentier provides an excellent summary
of Evagrius’s cosmology in the introduction to his translation of the letter.

21 Letter to Melania, III:98-100.

22 Letter to Melania, IV:133.

23 Psalms 19:1, quoted in Letter to Melania, III:74-75.

24 Evagrius was born in 345 in Cappodocia, part of today’s modern Turkey. He was
ordained a lector by the great Cappadocian, Basil of Caesarea, and was ordained a
deacon by Basil’s friend and classmate, Gregory Nazianzus, another of the revered
Cappadocians. Evagrius came to the Egyptian desert via a monastery in Jerusalem where
he had been immersed in the works of the brilliant second-century theologian Origen
as a consequence of time spent with the devout Roman matron Melania and her friend
Rufinus of Aquileia. Both had visited the desert monks of Egypt who were also well
familiar with the work of Origen. See Coptic Palladiana II: The Life of Evagrius (Lausiac
History 38), trans. Tim Vivian, in Coptic Church Review Spring 2000), 8-23. Recent
scholarship indicates that Antony of Egypt, much revered as the father of monasticism,
was himself an Origenist who shaped the Egyptian monastic tradition adopted by
Evagrius. At Melania’s recommendation, Evagrius joined a monastic community in the
Egyptian desert.

25 John Eudes Bamberger, Evagrius Ponticus: The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer
(Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1981), 51.

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 30 The Enneagram Journal – July 2011

26 Letter to Melania, I:4-5.

27 J. Muyldermans, trans., Evagriana Syriaca: Textes inédits du British Museum et de la

Vaticane (Louvain, 1952), 39-40. “Nous voudrons nous arrêter un instant à la section
du Prologue qui traite du symbolism des nombres. Il s’agit en l’espèce de l’allégorie du
nombre 153 emprunté à l’Évangile (JOH. XXI, 111). On trouve mêlées dans ce passage
des speculations de la mystique avec des réalités mathématiques d’après les procédés en
usage chez les Alexandrins. . . .” “. . . le passage en question présente un des aspects moins
bien connu de son œevre.” The Prologue contains many symbolic references. We will
concentrate here on only a few of them.

28 This interest in the number 153 is noted in Ethelbert Bullinger, Number in Scripture
Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1894, 1967), 273-274.

29 Evagrius of Pontus, Prologue to the Chapters on Prayer, trans. Luke Dysinger at http://
www.ldysinger.com/Evagrius/03_Prayer/00a_start.htm.

30 Evagrius of Pontus, Prologue to the Chapters on Prayer, trans. Luke Dysinger. The
triangular number 153 is formed by adding 1+2+3+4+5+6 . . . . +17 = 153. It is graphed
by a series of dots that form a triangle such that one dot forms the top row, two dots the
second row, and so on until seventeen dots form the triangle’s base.

31 There is a similar story about a miraculous catch of fish that occurs in the life of
Pythagoras, although no number is attached to that catch. See Iamblichus, On the
Pythagorean Way of Life, trans. John Dillon and Jackson Hershbell (Atlanta, GA: Scholars
Press, 1991) 8:36.

32 See, for example, William J. Tucker, Harmony of the Spheres: the Real Numerology,
A Reconstruction of the Lost Theory of Pythagoras (Sidcup, Kent, UK: Pythagorean
Publications, 1966), 10-11.

33 A square number is one that can be depicted as a square of evenly spaced dots. The
number 25, for example. A circular number is a square number whose last digit is the same
as its root. Again, the number 25 (=52). A cube number can be depicted by evenly spaced
dots forming a cube. A spherical number is a cube number whose final digit repeats the
final digit of the side number. It will always end in 1,5, or 6. The number 216 (=63)is an
example. See the excellent Glossary of Greek mathematical terminology that appears in
Robin Waterfield’s translation of Iamblichus, The Theology of Arithmetic,(Grand Rapids,
MI:Phanes Press, 1988). While sometimes the terms circular and spherical are used
interchangeably, the Greek mathematician Nicomachus differentiated between them.
According to Nicomachus, the number 25 would be circular and not spherical. Evagrius,
however, specifically cites the number 25 as spherical and connected with the measure of
time. See Muyldermans, 44.

34 Evagrius of Pontus, Prologue to the Chapters on Prayer, trans. Luke Dysinger.

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 Wiltse and Palmer 31

35 Tucker, 10-11.

36 Iamblichus, The Theology of Arithmetic, 105-106. Iamblichus calls attention to the fact
that the rites of the Curetes, mythological gods assigned to care for the infant Zeus, were
described by Pythagoras as triple triads – three rites, each with three parts. We encounter
heavenly triple triads among the angels in the Celestial Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius.
See the Complete Works of Pseudo-Dionysius, trans. Colm Luibheid (New York: Paulist
Press,1987). See also Denis Labouré, “The Seven Bodies of Man in Hermetic Astrology,” 4,
trans. Michael Edwards, http://www.skyscript.co.uk/7bodies.html, accessed 2-4-07, 7.

37 Jane Sellers, The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt: An Essay on Egyptian Religion and
the Frame of Time (London: Penguin, 1992), 205. A Great Year, for example, was believed
to include 25,920 regular years. The original Egyptian calendar had 360 days. Sellers
proposed that the numbers 72, 432, 2,160, and 25,920, were all indicative to ancient
people of the concept of the Eternal Return and “were sacred revealers of a universe
mathematically constructed by a creator god beyond knowing,” 193.

38 The nine Muses, for example, were born after Zeus lay nine nights with their mother.
Hesiod, Theogony, II.36-52, trans. Evelyn-White. http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/
bl/bl_text_hesiod_theogany_1.htm, accessed 2-18-2007. It took nine days for an anvil
to fall from heaven to earth and nine more to fall from earth to the underworld. Hesiod,
Theogony, II.713-735.

39 Philip Yampolsky, “The Origins of the 28 Lunar Mansions” in Osiris 9 (1949), 62-83.
While the title of the article is “The Origin of the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions,” the first
sentences of the article indicate: “Common to the early astronomical concepts of China,
India and Arabia, was a division of the planetary path into twenty-seven or twenty-eight
parts, each part being indicated by a star or asterism. . . . Inasmuch as the moon completes
her sidereal revolutions from one star back to the same star in between twenty-seven and
twenty-eight days, it is probable that the initial purpose of this system was to indicate,
perhaps chiefly for astrological reasons, the position of the moon on any given day.”
The author footnotes the fact that in India the mansions refer to the twenty-seven equal
divisions of the ecliptic.
Scholarly debate on where this method of tracking moon cycles originated seems to favor
early Babylon, preceding even the Vedic period in India. In later years, depending on the
culture and the date, the number of lunar mansions was increased to 28. Two extensive
scholarly articles on this topic are Yampolsky’s and Stefan Weinstock, “Lunar Mansions
and Early Calendars” in Journal of Hellenic Studies LXIX (1949), 48-69. According to
Weinstock, “the Indians received the lunar mansions from the Babylonians and passed
them on, as it seems, to the Far East,” 56. This topic could benefit from some fresh
scholarly inquiry.

40 For a complete description of this phenomenon, see Dennis Harness, The Nakshatras
(Twin Lakes, WI: Lotus Press, 1999), xiii-xiv.

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 32 The Enneagram Journal – July 2011

41 Hesiod, Work and Days, 810-813. http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hesiod/works.htm

42 The Roman year of ten months duration featured 38 nundinae (literally, ninth day).
This way of marking time called for seven ordinary days with a nundinae on each end.
Thus, the nundinae recurred every ninth day and marked a relationship between the
numbers seven and nine.

43 Weinstock, 69.

44 The Divine Ennead of Heliopolis was the most prominent pantheon of nine. In other
parts of Egypt, however, other enneads of gods were invoked as well. In the Pyramid
Texts, “the earliest known body of religious writings preserved anywhere in the world,”
according to mythologist Joseph Campbell, the myth of the creation of the Divine Ennead
is inscribed on the walls of nine tombs. Theirs is a divine genealogy of gods related to and
created by Atum. While the presence of a Divine Ennead is remarkable, even more so are
some of the texts invoking the nine gods for, in the Third Millennium B.C.E., they make
an unmistakable connection between psychology and spirituality, between the physical,
mental and emotional centers of experience: “When the eyes see, the ears hear, and the
nose breathes, they report to the heart. It is the heart that brings forth every issue, and the
tongue that repeats the thought of the heart. Thus were fashioned all the gods: even Atum
and his Ennead.” See Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology (New York:
Penguin, 1962), 84-86.

Egyptologist James Breasted called this “the dawn of conscience” for his translations
indicated to him “the fundamental assumption that mind or thought is the source of
everything.” See James Breasted, The Dawn of Conscience (New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1933), 37. Breasted’s translations of ancient texts indicated that Egyptians of this era
called on the Divine Ennead for protection and for blessing. See Ancient Records of Egypt/
Historical Documents, edited and translated by James Henry Breasted (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1927). See, for example, Vol. 1:71, translation of the Palerma Stone; Vol.
2:635, translation of the New York Obelisk; and Vol. IV:382, translation of the Papyrus
Harris as examples.

Breasted found that these early texts also revealed a connection between human behavior
and its consequences: “(As for) him who does what is loved and him who does what is
hated, life is given to the peaceful and death is given to the criminal.” See Breasted, 35.
More than two thousand years before the Common Era, then, we have written evidence
of religious beliefs organized around nine aspects of the divine, beliefs that acknowledged
different centers of experience as well as a sense of both virtue and vice.

45 Giorgia de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill: An Essay Investigating
the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission through Myth (Boston: David R.
Godine, 1977),3.

46 Keith Critchlow, Time Stands Still: New Light on Megalithic Science (London: Gordon
Fraser, 1979), 9. This book contains a wealth of information that is of interest to an
Enneagram researcher including numerous astronomical and mathematical references.

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 Wiltse and Palmer 33

Critchlow also argues that direct experience, knowledge born of intuition, played a
significant role in the abilities of early civilizations to translate what they observed in the
heavens into mathematically precise monuments without the tools for calculation that we
rely on today.

47 Drawing from the Normanton Down Barrow Cemetery website, http://www.stone-

circles.org.uk/stone/normantondown.htm, accessed 5-3-09.

48 Figs. 8a, 8b and 8c are modeled on original drawings that appear at Anthony Johnson,
Solving Stonehenge (Thames and Hudson), http://www.solvingstonehenge.co.uk/page3.
html accessed 5-2-09.

49 Critchlow, 113-121.

50 See Critchlow, 160-163 for a detailed discussion of how the enneagon is created.
Critchlow specifically uses the sample of the 2/9th rhomb and the enneagon in his
discussion.

51 See, for example, Michael R. Molnar, The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999).

52 Fig. 9 is modeled on an original that appears in Critchlow, 163.

53 Thomas Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921),

ii:52. The discovery is attributed to the brilliant mathematician Archimedes who taught
in Alexandria in the third century B.C.E. There is some evidence, however, that this
knowledge was in use in the construction of the pyramids, thus dating it much earlier.

54 Heath’s translation of Archimedes’ work does not indicate any significance for the
number 265.

55 Robert Lawlor, Sacred Geometry (London: Thames and Hudson, 1982), 35. “Thus the
square root of 3 is linked to the formative process, and this connection is further clarified
when one observes the relationship of the Vesica and the square root of 3 to the hexagon,
which is the symmetry of order for the measure of the earth, the measure of time
(through the 360 degrees of the Great Circle of the heavens) . . . The Vesica is also a form
generator in that all the regular polygons can be said to arise from the succession of vesica
constructions.”

56 Evagrius of Pontus, On Prayer, Dysinger online translation.

57 See Morton W. Bloomfield, “The Origin of the Concept of the Seven Cardinal Sins,”
The Harvard Theological Review, 34:2 (Apr., 1941), 121-128 (Cambridge University
Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/
stable/1508127 Accessed: 27/02/2009 16:59. Bloomfield cites the work of Zielinski (1905)
and Gothein (1907). Bloomfield notes that the connection between the vices and the

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 34 The Enneagram Journal – July 2011

planetary gods disappears for centuries after the time of Evagrius and reappears again in
the early Middle Ages.

58 See William H. Brashear, Wednesday’s Child is Full of Woe (Vienna: Osterrichische

Verlagsgeseellschaft C. & E. Dworak, 1998), especially Ch. 2.

59 Bostock, 474.

60 The gods of the weekdays are as follows: Sunday = Sun, Monday = Moon, Tuesday
= Mars (from the French mardi), Wednesday = Mercury (from the French mercredi),
Thursday = Jupiter (from the Norse Thor), Friday = Venus (from the French vendredi),
and Saturday = Saturn.

61 Herodotus, Euterpe 2:53,4. http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_

herodotus_2.htm accessed 2-15-09.

62 Iamblichus, 25:111.

63 Hesiod, Theogony, II: 453-491, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White. http://www.sacred-texts.

com/cla/hesiod/theogony.htm, accessed 2-15-09. Saturn, the furthest planet in distance
from the Sun, was also slowest, taking almost 30 years to complete its orbit. In her inquiry
into the mysteries of Egyptian religion, Jane Sellers notes the importance of Saturn’s
30-year transit around the zodiac for calculating the passage of time and, potentially,
for marking the division of the sun’s path into 360 parts. She proposes that the 60-year
pattern of Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions may have underpinned the base-60 numbering
system developed in ancient Babylon, a system that ultimately was widely used in the
ancient world for astronomical measuring. Sellers, 193-207.

64 Plutarch’s Morals: Theosophical Essays, tr. by Charles William King, [1908], http://www.
sacred-texts.com/cla/plu/pte/pte04.htm, accessed 3-29-09.

65 Praktikos, III Avarice: 9. See Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert
Sinkewicz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 98.

66 “Hymn to Zeus,” The Homeric Hymns, trans. Charles Boer(Dallas, TX: Spring
Publications, 1987).

67 Hesiod, Theogony, II:403.

68 Ovid, Metamorphosis I: 609, trans. A.D. Melville (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1986). In his work on the Greek myths, Robert Graves indicates that Ovid, writing at the
beginning of the Common Era, was reflecting much earlier sources.

69 Praktikos, I Gluttony: 7, Sinkewicz translation, 98.

70 “Hymn to Aphrodite,” Homeric Hymns, Boer trans.

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 Wiltse and Palmer 35

71 Homer, Iliad 14.187, http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Aphrodite.html accessed 5-2-2009.

72 Ovid, Metamorphosis X 233-238.

73 Praktikos, II Fornication: 8, Sinkewicz translation, 98.

74 Homer, The Iliad 5:27 and 5:699, trans. Samuel Butler, http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/
iliad.5.v.html accessed 3-29-2009.

75 “To Ares,” in The Homeric Hymns, A Verse Translation by Thelma Sargent (New York:
W.W. Thornton & Company, Inc., 1973).

76 Praktikos, V Anger: 11, Sinkewicz translation, 99.

77 Orphic Hymn Number 56 to Terrestrial Hermes, http://www.theoi.com/Text/

OrphicHymns2.html#56, accessed 2-15-2009.

78 “Hymn to Hermes,” The Homeric Hymns, Boer trans.

79 Praktikos, IV Sadness: 10, Sinkewicz translation, 98.

80 “Hymn to the Sun,” The Homeric Hymns, Boer trans, 82.

81 Ovid, Metamorphosis II: 52-3; 385-394.

82 Praktikos, VIII Pride: 14, Sinkewicz translation, 100.

83 Orphic Hymn 9 to Selene (trans. Taylor) http://www.theoi.com/Selene.html accessed

4-30-2009.

84 Robert Graves, The Greek Myths: I (London:Penguin, 1955, 1988), 14.

85 Praktikos, VI Acedia: 12, Sinkewicz translation, 99.

86 “Hymn to Artemis (II),” Homeric Hymns, Boer trans.

87 “Hymn to Aphrodite,” Homeric Hymns, Boer trans. Artemis was one of only three
goddesses said to be immune to the wiles of Aphrodite. The others were Hestia and
Athene.

88 Praktikos, VII Vainglory: 13, Sinkewicz translation, 100.

89 Homer, Iliad 1. 536 - 570 ff (trans. Lattimore), http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Hera.

html accessed 5-6-2009.

90 Hesiod, Work and Days, 109 ff (trans. Evelyn-White), at http://www.theoi.com/Titan/

TitanKronos.html, accessed 5-6-2009.

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 36 The Enneagram Journal – July 2011

91 Hesiod, Theogony, II: 116-138, 371-374.

92 Evagrius of Pontus, Kephalia Gnostica, III: 37, trans. L. Dysinger at http://www.

ldysinger.com/Evagrius/02_Gno-Keph/00a_start.htm accessed 3-29-2009.

93 Hesiod, Theogony, II: 53-103.

94 Hesiod, Theogony, II: 664-712.

95 Plotinus, The Enneads, 2:3:7. http://classics.mit.edu/Plotinus/enneads.2.second.html,

accessed 2-8-2009.
96 See Augustine Casiday, “Gabriel Bunge and the study of Evagrius Ponticus” in St.
Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 48:2-3, 271, where Casiday cites the work of Father Luke
Dysinger, a Benedictine theologian.

97 The Hermetic Corpus: Tractate I: Poimandres, trans. Benton Layden, in The Gnostic
Scriptures (New York: Doubleday, 1987), Historical Introduction, 447. The Hermetic
Corpus derives its name from the Greek god Hermes whose Egyptian equivalent was
Thoth, the god of learning. According to one tradition which dates from the third century
B.C.E., the teachings originated in Egypt and were engraved on tablets and transmitted
by a succession of family members, and ultimately kept in Egyptian temples. Layden, in
his commentary on the translation, indicated that the earliest versions of the Poimandres
may date from the end of the first century B.C.E. while surviving texts are copies probably
made in the second or third centuries of the Common Era.

98 The Hermetic Corpus: Tractate I: Poimandres 9, 16.

99 The Hermetic Corpus: Tractate I: Poimandres 24-26. In the upward ascent, the soul
handed over: first, “the agencies of growth and waning away;” second, “the means of
evil action;” third, “the deception of desire;” fourth, “avarice;” fifth, “impious arrogance
and the rashness of recklessness;” sixth, “evil pretexts for wealth;” and seventh, “plotting
falsehood.” The vices having been handed back, the soul arrived at an eighth sphere
bringing its true self only and entered into praise and rejoicing with other like souls.
Finally, the like souls arrived at the ninth level: “in an orderly manner they ascend to the
parent and personally hand themselves over to become powers, and by becoming powers
they come to be within god. Such is the good end of those who possess acquaintance: to
become god.”

100 Ioan Petru Culianu, Psychanodia I (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1983), 10.

101 Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra, trans. Thomas J. McCormack (New York:
Dover, 1903, 1956), 145.

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102 Maurus Servius Honoratus, Commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil, 6:714 http://www.
perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Serv.+A.+6.714, accessed 2-16-09. “...animae
trahunt secum torporem Saturni, Martis iracundiam, libidinem Veneris, Mercurii lucri
cupiditatem, Iovis regni desiderium: quae res faciunt perturbationem animabus, ne
possint uti vigore suo et viribus propriis...”

103 Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, as quoted in Denis Labouré, “The
Seven Bodies of Man in Hermetic Astrology,” 4, trans. Michael Edwards, http://www.
skyscript.co.uk/7bodies.html, accessed 2-4-07.

104 Bogdan Bucur, “The Other Clement of Alexandria: Cosmic Hierarchy and Interiorized
Apocalypticism” in Vigiliae Christianae (2006) 60:252, 261.

105 Bostock,466, and Alan Scott, Origen and the Life of the Stars (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1991), xv-xvi, 60.

106 Evagrius of Pontus, Kephalia Gnostica, III: 62 trans. L. Dysinger, http://www.ldysinger.

com/Evagrius/02_Gno-Keph/00a_start.htm, accessed 3-29-09.

107 See, for example, Culianu, Psychanodia I and also M.A. Elfrink, La Descente De L’Âme
D’Après Macrobe (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968).

108 See John Eudes Bamberger, Evagrius Ponticus: The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer,
xlviii-lix, and Aidan Kavanaugh, “Eastern Influences on the Rule of Saint Benedict” in
Monasticism and the Arts, ed. Timothy Gregory Verdon (Syracuse: Syracuse University
Press, 1984), 57.

109 Bamberger, li. Bamberger cites A. Guillaumont and C. Rice who are quoting Babai the
Great of Persia.

110 William Harmless, S.J., “‘Salt for the Impure, Light for the Pure’: Reflections on the
Pedagogy of Evagrius Ponticus” in Studia Patristica XXXVII (2001), 520.

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 67
CONTRIBUTORS
Dave Hall is a Certified and Authorized Riso-Hudson Enneagram teacher.
He offers classes, workshops, study-groups, and individual consultations. He
welcomes comment or feedback at [email protected].

Helen Palmer is a teacher of intuition and the bestselling author of five well-
regarded books in the field of human consciousness, two of which on the
Enneagram topic are now in 27 languages. This work was the subject of a PBS
television documentary Breaking out of the Box – Discovering the Enneagram.
Together with David Daniels, M.D. she founded Enneagram Studies in
the Narrative Tradition, a school dedicated to psychological and spiritual
integration, co-teaching its Professional Training Programs. Currently a fellow of
the Institute for Noetic Sciences and the Waldzell Institute of Vienna Austria, she
has partnered with John F. Kennedy University for Distance Learning Programs.
Please go to www.EnneagramWorldwide.com for international training schedules.

Dale Rhodes, M.S., M.A., enjoys the Enneagram and the MBTI® in his full-
time work as a mentor, spiritual director and educator in private practice. He
considers himself fortunate to have studied in person with a wide variety of
excellent teachers, including certification with the Palmer/Daniels (EPTP)
program. Since 2002, he has facilitated a vibrant, interdisciplinary, live and local
community of students through EnneagramPortland.com. He lives in Portland,
Oregon and regularly plants enneaseeds in the Pacific Northwest from Eugene,
Oregon to Seabeck, Washington. Contact information: Dale Rhodes, M.S., M.A.
[email protected] www.EnneagramPortland.com. (503)295-4481

Susan Rhodes, Ph.D., is a research psychologist, the staff writer for The
Enneagram Monthly, and the author of two books, The Positive Enneagram: A
New Approach to the Nine Personality Types and Archetypes of the Enneagram:
Exploring the Life Themes of the 27 Subtypes from the Perspective of Soul.

Mario Sikora is an executive coach and author. He can be reached at

[email protected].

Virginia Wiltse Ph.D.’s interest in the Enneagram led her to a Ph.D. dissertation
that examined how the nine types experience what St. John of the Cross
described as the “Dark Night of the Soul.” Her love of research has also prompted
her inquiry into the Christian desert tradition and her collaborative search with
Helen Palmer for the origins of the Enneagram. She currently serves as Director
of Caring Response Madagascar Foundation, which sponsors programs for the
poor on the sub-Saharan island of Madagascar, and as Director of Development
at Seton High School in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Enneagram Journal 11.indd 67 7/1/11 11:59:17 AM

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