For those following the Big Hormone Enneagram podcast series on the Bhavachakra, here’s another evolving model I’m developing.
*** This is intended as a universal model of the human condition/human mind, a way in which we all have a relationship with all six stackings (‘Realms’) at a meta-structural level.
Rough draft/excerpt from the book I’m working on.
Looking again at the instincts (and the Four Elements I associate with them) at an archetypal level.
SP = Earth
SO = Air
SX = Fire & Water
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One angle on the three instincts is a conceptual division between SX versus SP and SO. The latter two organically combine at an elemental level to often generate stability, structure, sustenance for oneself and the collective – the figurative machinery of day-to-day life and culture, among other things.
Sunlight, air, wind (SO elements) applied to SP Earth renders dry firm frameworks, firm systems, routines, work habits, rituals. A sober grid placed across Time/Space, a calendar of pragmatism, shared reverence and celebrations honoring higher principles of invisible ‘sky laws’ that inspire human excellence and basic human decency.
Air and sunlight also kill bacteria. Hence, in the blend of SP and SO, the framing and mechanisms (literal and abstract) that make up and support the functional routines of life and cooperative human interaction which these two instincts build and create remain significantly dry and neutralized – largely devoid of SX’s Water and the temperature extremes and variance of SX Fire – thereby fostering collective sustenance and growth of various kinds (commercial growth, civilizational expansion, etc).
An underlying reason why we get sick with the common cold or flu (or worse) is the eruption of SX’s shadow in the form of personal inflammation (SX ‘flames’) originating in the messy, sticky wetness of SX Water in our bodies. Illness forces a break in the workaday world that SO and SP are attempting to hold in a state of healthy sterility and bright Apollonian light.
In so-called ‘less civilized’ cultures, the daily stuff of life is, let’s say, still somewhat necessarily governed by SP and SO. Mental attention into sexual attraction and attractiveness – the transfixing and self-involved mating dance that is SX – isn’t particularly sustainable or conducive to group cohesion or the pragmatic coordination of people and resources.
Some such cultures have SX built into their calendar and mythology. The shaman, for example, is clearly an embodiment of SX energy, with his inherent androgyny, use of ecstatic music, fortunetelling, spells, ‘fiery water’ potions and hallucinogens, mercurial magic and Trickster-ism, engaging in blood/fire rituals of destruction, chaos, and rebirth, pushing souls over the edge of the boundary line between the daily world and the spiritual realm.
Overall, a sizable factor in the health of a society is determined or can be gauged by its underlying relationship and degree of integration of SX into the culture. In the modern world, the role of shaman is often partly embodied in (or projected onto) musicians, rockstars, actors, painters, filmmakers. The degree to which this idol worship is a genuine replacement for established rituals that more directly revere and incorporate SX into the culture is a long topic and subject to debate. Quickly glancing at the state of the World, however, the current status quo appears imbalanced or distorted, bordering on dysfunctionality and societal breakdown.
This steers into another large topic – the religious urge that most people seem to have in varying degrees – also brings up the subject of religion as an underlying mytho-spiritual backdrop for cohesion of civilizations and groups of various sizes. Our current-day celebrities are our ‘stars’ – diamond-set in the dark velvet high of night where we admire their shine and magical winking. Our innate religiosity unconsciously holds pop stars in much the same abstract realm as planets and astro-constellations named after mythological deities – the same sky theater that we imagine governing our fate, as gods do.
The varying amounts of demonization-of-SX that arise in societies, religio-philosophies, and civilizations predominated by SO and SP, from one perspective, are a correct response to the destabilizing energy of SX.
Fires have to be watched closely, as they always hold the threat of going quickly out of control and becoming a major force of destruction. While the watery dissolution and liquidy loss-of-self symbolized in archetypal SX seek out the very lowest places, seep under the interactive frameworks that bond cities and systems of commerce and government, rusting the psychic iron grid, potentially toppling great structures by dissolving their stance and making them loose down below.
I’m focusing on my Enneagram book, and would appreciate your support and input.
I’m utilizing several new conceptual approaches to the Enneagram Types and Instincts. Having studied and worked with the Enneagram for 30 years, as well as authoring the Enneagram website EnneaSite.com, over the last few years my thinking has landed in a vivid symbolic overlap between the Instincts (or Instinctual Variants) and a central ancient Buddhist symbol known as the Bhavachakra (or Wheel of Life).
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At the center of this Wheel is a pig, a snake, and a rooster, chasing each other in a circle and biting each other’s tails. Traditionally, as a set of base archetypes that represent core aspects of our overall human psychological dilemma, these animals allude to ignorance/delusion (pig), aversion/hatred (snake), lust/desire/grasping (rooster). My proposition, however, is that there’s a second layer, hidden thus far — an intuitive relationship between the characteristics of these three creatures and the typological qualities of the Instincts (Self-Preservation, Sexual, Social).
Tying in the Buddhist philosophical worldview illuminated by this Symbol and the insights into the Three Instincts that these allegorical animals represent, the suggestion here is that, at the axle of this Great Wheel, in symbolic space, we’re essentially glimpsing into the psychic source matter that forms the rut that is our personal psychology. The snake, pig, and rooster represent the primordial raw materials as well as the electricity that animates the skeletal framework of our typology and personal psychology.
Another major component in the approach I’m taking is the use of metaphorical correlations between the three instincts and the Classical Four Elements (water, earth, air, fire).
The interest of this book is predominantly not in philosophy or the sciences, or even spirituality in any direct way, but in the archetypal forces and symbols that underlie the nine personality types and the three instincts, which are more deeply understood and accurately conceptualized through such things as the classical Elements.
Besides their traditional utility in various esoteric and scientific subjects, the Elements can be seen as animating forces that light up the human psyche – or as a bridge between the science of our biology and the abstract architecture of the psyche and personality.
Fire in the body rises in the psychological state of ‘the heat of passion,’ ‘flames of burning desire,’ etc. The existence of these figurative phrases is urging us to look at the Elements in a psychological context.
The Four Elements have been studied, symbolically utilized, considered in multiple classical contexts, including the philosophies, sciences, and esoterica of ancient Greece, Persia, Egypt, Babylon, Renaissance Europe, among others. But turning to our day-to-day connection with these energies: We speak of someone being warmhearted/coldhearted/incendiary (temperature/Fire), or entrenched/stuck/dogmatic (solidity/Earth), mercurial/flighty/footloose (mobility/Air), inconsistent/draining/juicy (fluidity/Water), etc.
I appreciate your participation in my writing process, and am looking forward to sharing previews and excerpts of the book, which are available now if you’re interested.
Many thanks,
David
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