In part 1 of the conversation, we spoke of a range of levels at which individuals see their uniqueness and/or adherence to a type or group sharing similar qualities, behavior patterns or views. Explored concepts like the difference between self-identification and self-reflection. The likely causes of premature assessments motivated by wishful thinking un-tempered by objective self-reflection, and the origins of type, belief in type, and the traps of being trapped by type. We continue with questioning the fundamentals at the root of who we are — or think we are.
Jack Labanauskas: Do you use the Enneagram?
Hart de Fouw: I know very little about the Enneagram. I have several other methods of typology that meet my requirements. I use those methods. I constantly work to deepen my understanding of those methods. Does that mean I have an argument with the Enneagram people? Absolutely not; I simply became indoctrinated in different methods for which I seem to have a natural affinity. Enneagram users and users of my traditions, which includes Vedic astrology, simply have a different way of trying to accomplish the same thing.
JL: We could say one uses the metric system, and the other used inches.
HD: Right. The thing we are trying to measure is fundamentally the same. Not knowing much about the Enneagram, I have no idea how it is taught. Nevertheless, it seems to me that one of the most useful ways of going about teaching it as a typology would be to encourage people to truly do their best to operate for periods of their life from the position of one of the other types of the Enneagram, as opposed to deepening the position they start to realize they most fundamentally and naturally self-identify with.
JL: Yes, that’s an excellent suggestion.
HD: In my own case, when I started to exhibit a propensity to obsessively self identify with attributes of my own horoscope, a teacher of mine said to me: “Here’s a horoscope; live it for a week.” He would give me the chart of someone known to him. When at the end of the week I would report to him my efforts in attempting to live that other person’s horoscope, he would grade my success by matching my report with the known characteristics and circumstances of that other person’s life. Through the doing of that exercise both faithfully and as explicitly as was possible, I was able to pry myself loose from the grip of the viewpoint induced by the astrological configurations in my own horoscope. Did you ever see that movie, I never remember the name of it, where the protagonist decides to parade himself as a black man in the American South.
JL: The Invisible Man?
HD: In the process of adopting a radically different social position, somehow that person’s point of view got radically changed. Another example is the intellectual, who is so over self identified with the mind, that his or her body’s natural sense of rhythm atrophies. Suppose the intellectual wants to go into psychotherapy to restore bodily spontaneity. Talk-based therapy may be the most comfortable modality for the intellectual, but our intellectual might learn a great deal more about bodily movement and rhythm while gyrating wildly at a rock concert, despite the initial discomfort.
JL: What you’re saying is that by over-use, our automatic responses put us in a coma where inertia takes over and 90% of what we do is based on habit. Thus, every time we interrupt this flow through meditation, reflection, or whatever, we break the rut of inertia.
HD: Yes, yes.
JL: Without inertia, you have to make a new assessment of the moment.
So you have to open your eyes, wake up, and come back to the present moment.
HD: Yes, you start to exercise true choice through radical awareness. People often relate habitually to the world through a predominant sense. Some prefer sight, others sound, and so on. But if a person is trying to orient themselves about the distance from one point to another in an open landscape, the visual sense is probably better than the auditory sense. Similarly, by being able to step back and assess a situation, we’re more able to choose from our range of behaviors the type that suits us best in a particular situation. I’m not talking about being fully comfortable with all of the types, that indeed may involve a superhuman effort. If unnatural and unduly forced, it may send incongruent signals to others with whom we interact. Yet most of us are capable of at least a sufficient familiarity with the high points of the different personality types to be able to add them to our own type.
JL: At the very least, such an exercise would loosen our own type enhancing the understanding of others; speaking of which, you asked me earlier to remind you of linguistics and self-programming.
HD: That is one of my favorite subjects, and I think it has a bearing on our topic. Language is an important part of self-programming. Even if language is not a direct cause of self-programming, it is at the very least a means of sustaining individual, social, and cultural self-image, including type. As I learned the rudiments of Sanskrit from my teacher and from others over the years—and I only know the rudiments of Sanskrit, sufficient to serve my purpose—it became evident that the Sanskrit language places great value on the passive voice as opposed to the active voice construct.
JL: Can you explain?
HD: “Ravana was killed by Rama” as opposed to “Rama killed Ravana.” The latter sentence uses the active voice because the subject, Rama, directly performed the action of the verb on the object, Ravana. The first sentence explains the same thing but by a passive construct, wherein the subject, Rama, is placed in the position of least emphasis.
Jack Labanauskas: Do you use the Enneagram?
Hart de Fouw: I know very little about the Enneagram. I have several other methods of typology that meet my requirements. I use those methods. I constantly work to deepen my understanding of those methods. Does that mean I have an argument with the Enneagram people? Absolutely not; I simply became indoctrinated in different methods for which I seem to have a natural affinity. Enneagram users and users of my traditions, which includes Vedic astrology, simply have a different way of trying to accomplish the same thing.
JL: We could say one uses the metric system, and the other used inches.
HD: Right. The thing we are trying to measure is fundamentally the same. Not knowing much about the Enneagram, I have no idea how it is taught. Nevertheless, it seems to me that one of the most useful ways of going about teaching it as a typology would be to encourage people to truly do their best to operate for periods of their life from the position of one of the other types of the Enneagram, as opposed to deepening the position they start to realize they most fundamentally and naturally self-identify with.
JL: Yes, that’s an excellent suggestion.
HD: In my own case, when I started to exhibit a propensity to obsessively self identify with attributes of my own horoscope, a teacher of mine said to me: “Here’s a horoscope; live it for a week.” He would give me the chart of someone known to him. When at the end of the week I would report to him my efforts in attempting to live that other person’s horoscope, he would grade my success by matching my report with the known characteristics and circumstances of that other person’s life. Through the doing of that exercise both faithfully and as explicitly as was possible, I was able to pry myself loose from the grip of the viewpoint induced by the astrological configurations in my own horoscope. Did you ever see that movie, I never remember the name of it, where the protagonist decides to parade himself as a black man in the American South.
JL: The Invisible Man?
HD: In the process of adopting a radically different social position, somehow that person’s point of view got radically changed. Another example is the intellectual, who is so over self identified with the mind, that his or her body’s natural sense of rhythm atrophies. Suppose the intellectual wants to go into psychotherapy to restore bodily spontaneity. Talk-based therapy may be the most comfortable modality for the intellectual, but our intellectual might learn a great deal more about bodily movement and rhythm while gyrating wildly at a rock concert, despite the initial discomfort.
JL: What you’re saying is that by over-use, our automatic responses put us in a coma where inertia takes over and 90% of what we do is based on habit. Thus, every time we interrupt this flow through meditation, reflection, or whatever, we break the rut of inertia.
HD: Yes, yes.
JL: Without inertia, you have to make a new assessment of the moment.
So you have to open your eyes, wake up, and come back to the present moment.
HD: Yes, you start to exercise true choice through radical awareness. People often relate habitually to the world through a predominant sense. Some prefer sight, others sound, and so on. But if a person is trying to orient themselves about the distance from one point to another in an open landscape, the visual sense is probably better than the auditory sense. Similarly, by being able to step back and assess a situation, we’re more able to choose from our range of behaviors the type that suits us best in a particular situation. I’m not talking about being fully comfortable with all of the types, that indeed may involve a superhuman effort. If unnatural and unduly forced, it may send incongruent signals to others with whom we interact. Yet most of us are capable of at least a sufficient familiarity with the high points of the different personality types to be able to add them to our own type.
JL: At the very least, such an exercise would loosen our own type enhancing the understanding of others; speaking of which, you asked me earlier to remind you of linguistics and self-programming.
HD: That is one of my favorite subjects, and I think it has a bearing on our topic. Language is an important part of self-programming. Even if language is not a direct cause of self-programming, it is at the very least a means of sustaining individual, social, and cultural self-image, including type. As I learned the rudiments of Sanskrit from my teacher and from others over the years—and I only know the rudiments of Sanskrit, sufficient to serve my purpose—it became evident that the Sanskrit language places great value on the passive voice as opposed to the active voice construct.
JL: Can you explain?
HD: “Ravana was killed by Rama” as opposed to “Rama killed Ravana.” The latter sentence uses the active voice because the subject, Rama, directly performed the action of the verb on the object, Ravana. The first sentence explains the same thing but by a passive construct, wherein the subject, Rama, is placed in the position of least emphasis.