Welcome to my Enneagram Overview Page
The Enneagram in the Gurdjieff Tradition

I have no affiliation with Gurdjieff's students or the Fourth Way School. This page is intended to highlight some key points of the Enneagram in the Gurdjieff tradition as it relates to the Enneagram of Personality Types. It is by no means complete.

Gurdjieff used the Enneagram symbol as part of his teachings during the first half of the twentieth century. He reportedly learned of the symbol from the Sarmouni Sufi Brotherhood during his travels. (The story of his early life and travels were made into a movie called "In Search of Remarkable Men").

Though the symbol that Gurdjieff introduced and the symbol used today in the popularized personality types are the same, the use of the symbol is quite different. In what I'm calling the "Gurdjieff Tradition," which includes his students and the Fourth Way School, the Enneagram is used to understand universal processes at work. (J. G. Bennett and A.G. E. Blake have written books about this use. You can visit Anthony Blake's DuVersity web site). I refer to this use of the symbol as the "Enneagram as Process."

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This page was last modified September 15, 1998.
Comments or suggestions? Email me at: dwl@fccj.cc.fl.us