Ichazo, Gurdjieff & the Greek Schools - The Enneagram Institute Discussion Board.
Oscar Ichazo, the inventor of the Enneagram of personality, completely misrepresented Stoicism.
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Originally posted by marie
"I don't see Plato as having quite reached beyond his type One fixation here. By that, I mean, that as I see him, Plato, while aware of the tripartite division, and
theoretically arguing for balance, was actually describing an individual in which
will was used to
impose order on the emotions and instincts in service of an abstract ideal. Gurdjieff, being an Eight, was immune to this sort of thinking.
"[snip]
"(Again, this is keeping with Plato's type One fixation as far as I am concerned. Much of this tendency clings to Stoicism.)
[
ptypes]
"It's a mistake to associate the idea of the tripartite soul with Stoicism.
""these ideas appear later in the stoic doctrine of the 3-centered man...[watcherr]"
"Posidonius was the only Stoic of note who adopted the Stoically unorthodox Platonic psychology with its tripartite soul. Monistic psychology was the innovation (among the Greeks) of the Stoics and was created in part as a reaction to Plato's ideas. This monistic psychology is a crucial part of the rationalistic Stoic system and really sets it apart from any psychology like Plato's "in which will [is] used to impose order on the emotions and instincts."
"It's a common (probably the most common) misunderstanding of Stoicism that Stoics suppress emotions and instincts by will power. This is neither the teaching nor practice of Stoicism. In fact, Stoics teach and practice a way completely opposite to this. Instead of suppressing or controlling passions with the will, the Stoic tries to rationally recognize the false value judgments which are, or result in, passions. Instead of suppressing or controlling intense emotions the Stoic chooses to not even have them.
"If you are interested in knowing more about the Stoic method for choosing not to have passions, Keith Seddon's short essay "
The Stoics on why we should strive to be free of the passions" is a good place to start."