This idea was discussed by Plato as the Divine Forms or Platonic Solids, qualities of existence that are essential, that cannot be broken down into constituent parts. This idea was further developed in the third century of our era by the Neo-Platonic philosophers, particularly Plotinus in his central work, The Enneads.
These ideas found their way from Greece and Asia Minor southward through Syria and eventually to Egypt. There, it was embraced by early Christian mystics known as the Desert Fathers who focused on studying the loss of the Divine Forms in ego consciousness. The particular ways in which these Divine Forms became distorted came to be known as the Seven Deadly Sins: anger, pride, envy, avarice, gluttony, lust, and sloth. Variations of the Enneagram symbol appear in the Sufi tradition. Franciscan mystic Ramon Lull also taught a philosophy and theology of nine principles in an attempt to integrate different faith traditions. The Jesuit mathematician Athanasius Kircher also has an Enneagram-like drawing that forms part of a 17th-century text.
G. I. Gurdjieff is credited with making the Enneagram figure commonly known. He did not, however, develop the nine personality types associated with the Enneagram. These are claimed to be principally derived from the teachings of Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo. However, Naranjo's theories were certainly influenced by some earlier teachings of George Gurdjieff.
Numerous other authors, including Helen Palmer, Don Richard Riso, Richard Rohr and Elizabeth Wagele, also began publishing widely read books on the Enneagram of Personality in the 1980s and 1990s.
Veronica Lunn - 12 April 2019
