Keys to the ENNEAGRAM

Keys to the Enneagram is one of the most significant contributions to the body of enneagram wisdom since the publication of Facets of Unity by Almaas in 2000.

Almaas’s focus is not on typology nor character structure but how to understand and work with your fixation to open the doorways offered by the enneagram into the deeper dimensions of your true nature. Keys to the Enneagram is, in a sense, part of an owner’s manual with precise information on how to get “under the hood” of your specific model.

Keys to the Enneagram looks at a different dimension of the Enneagram of personality. Each Enneatype takes on certain strategies and behaviors based on its distorted view of reality. Through the lens presented in Keys, we see that these manifestations are shaped by a belief that there is an ideal way to function and appear. This is referred to as the ego ideal. The holy idea is the deeper perspective of truth that is lost when the Enneatype becomes disconnected from its deeper ground. The ego ideal is a vision of optimal functioning that the Enneatype orients toward to compensate for this disconnection. What Keys does is elucidate the spiritual qualities that the nine ego ideals are unconsciously mimicking. These qualities are actual states of being that shape and color our individual consciousness from the inside. If recognized and embodied, they will relax the fixated orientation of the Enneatype and open the way for recovering the perspective of the spiritual ground of reality.  –  Byron Brown, Editor

Contents

1—THE KEY TO THE ENNEATYPE
2—Point Eight: TRUE STRENGTH
3—Point Six: PERSONAL WILL
4—Point Two: MERGING LOVE
5—Point One: BRILLIANCY
6—Point Three: PERSONAL ESSENCE
7—Point Four: ESSENTIAL IDENTITY
8—Point Seven: PLEASURE VEHICLE
9—Point Nine: BOUNDLESS LOVE
10—Point Five: DIAMOND GUIDANCE