Now we are equally pleased to be able to present an interview with Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. Don is widely considered one of the foremost developers and teachers of

Don Riso

the contemporary Enneagram. He has had four best-selling books on the topic, available in British, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish editions, and has been teaching the subject for over 20 years.

Don holds degrees in English and Philosophy and was a Ford Foundation Fellow at Stanford in Communication (Social Psychology). He was a Jesuit for 13 years, and was elected to the Jesuit Honor Society, Alpha Sigma Nu. A Founding Director of the International Enneagram Association, and President of Enneagram Personality Types, Inc., with Russ Don co-founded The Enneagram Institute.

Russ, a scholar and innovative thinker, holds a degree in East Asian Studies.

Russ Hudson

He has been co-teaching the Enneagram Professional Training Programs with Don since 1991. Russ assisted Don in writing Discovering Personality Type, and Enneagram Transformations. He is also co-author of Personality Types (Revised Edition), and The Power Of The Enneagram. A Founding Director and former Vice-President of the International Enneagram Association, he is also the Executive Director of Enneagram Personality Types.

Walter was fortunate to catch Don and Russ on the eve of the release of their new book, The Wisdom of the Enneagram - the Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types.

In the discussion that Walter captured on tape, a wide range of topics was covered. Of particular interest to us, in light of our focus in this journal on the relationship between the Enneagram and the MBTI, are Don's comments on some of the rather simplistic hypotheses that were typically offered when people first became interested in understanding the interface between the two. Our current series on 'The Enneagram as Mandala' seeks to follow through on the ramifications of the fact that mandalas are representations of the 'Self', and to demonstrate that the Enneagram may in fact be primarily a 'spiritual' tool that is neither exclusively nor primarily concerned with the individual's 'shadow'. In this context, we find what Don has to say on this subject, along with Russ's comments on the 'Ego' and its relationship to the 'I', to be quite perceptive and deserving of further in-depth discussion.

It is auspicious that Don and Russ's book should appear at the same time that some of us are be seeking to understand how various typologies deal with the depth-psychological (or 'spiritual') dimension of human experience, and how this consideration might account for differences between the two systems.

As Buddhist practitioners in the 1970s we became aware of a personality typology that is built into the use and meaning of the traditional Tibetan mandala. When we were introduced to the Enneagram in the 1980s, we were struck by similarities between it and the Buddhist approach. From the comparison that we made at that time, we concluded that the Enneagram was designed with the spiritual path in mind, and particularly suited to what we have referred to in our current series as a 'Path of Realization' approach to personality - one that assumes that there are specific spiritual 'wisdoms' that lie behind particular personality types. But when, in our 1995 paper, 'Nine Qualities of the Enlightened Being', we first attempted to articulate, from a Buddhist perspective, our view of the Enneagram as a primarily spiritual tool, no other published materials of which we knew took a similar approach to the Enneagram.

Since that time some rather interesting books have indeed appeared on the topic of the Enneagram and various spiritual paths. We welcome the latest offering, Don and Russ's new book, with open arms. We are pleased to see that they have turned their attention in this direction with a book in which, as Don says, the topic of spirituality is 'woven through the whole texture, from page one to the very end'.

Also in this issue of the Journal is the next part of our 'Enneagram and Mandala' series. This series began on March 3rd, when we posted the introduction. Since then we have continued, on subsequent Tuesdays throughout March, April and May, to post additional parts.

We are suggesting that whereas the primary focus of the MBTI may be said to be on the

What a 4-dimensional 'hypercube' looks like in 3-dimensional space according to mathematicians

individual's 'Ego', the primary focus of the Enneagram is on what Jung called the 'Self'. As such, the Enneagram's strengths lie in assisting the individual with his or her work on the 'spiritual' path. So far, we have presented an in-depth analysis of the Enneagram as a Mandala, as a 'Double Mandala' (to use Von Franz's term), and as a nine-fold 'Triple Mandala' of the type that is associated with esoteric spiritual teachings of Central Asia.

In the part that we offer in this Issue, we pause just before the Conclusion of our series, and take a closer look at some very important issues that arise as a result of taking a 'Path of Realization' approach to the Enneagram. In the four papers that comprise this INTERLUDE we

Salvadore Dali's Christ, crucified on a 3-dimensional representation of a 4-dimensional 'hypercube'

1. Conceive of the 'Self' as a 'hyperbody' existing in a transcendent space that is psychologically equivalent to a 'fourth dimension', just beyond the reach of object-oriented consciousness.

2. Take a look at what three 'Path of Realization' tales have to tell us about the nature of the spiritual 'Qualities' associated with such a 'body', and their ontological status.

3. Explore how these bodies and their qualities are intimately related to the 'non-linear nesting orders' on which myth and ritual are founded, and to the liminocentric structure of consciousness.

4. Appreciate how these Spiritual Qualities manifest in everyday life in such a way as to provides us with a window of opportunity for profound personal change.

These considerations impact on how one conceives of the relationship between the characterological DEFECTS and the SPIRITUAL QUALITIES that are associated with each EnneaType - which will be the topic of our final paper in this series, to be posted in July.

Also in this issue, John Gonsowski maps the MBTI onto the 'five-factor model' and onto circumplex models to show the sound construction of the MBTI scales. Jackson PRF scores are used to illustrate the mappings in this paper. Entitled 'The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: Mapping to Circumplex and Five-Factor Models', John's work is well thought out and well written. Furthermore, it has interesting implications for understanding the relationship between the Enneagram and the MBTI, as the 'cicumplex' models onto which John is mapping the MBTI are, after all, circles.

Because the discussion that we had with Pat Wyman continues to be relevant to the topics addressed in the yet-to-be-completed seven-part series, we continue to display the correspondence that we had with her on the Conversations page in this issue.

Three new written works are presented in Roslyn Kopel Gross's Type Writer page in this issue, along with a discussion about the guesses that were made about the pieces presented on her page last time. Ros is an excellent writer herself; we hope that she will some day yield to our frequently expressed wishes that she present some of her own work on the page. She is also a personality type afficianado who applies her trade with charm and subtlety. She takes care in selecting these

Center of Kali Mandala with 9-pointed star (composed of 3 superimposed equilateral triangles) and inner 5-pointed 'eternal knot'

charming poems and stories, which are contributed by very talented writers in the Enneagram and MBTI communities, and in scrutinizing them through the lens of type. Her work is greatly appreciated by all who are involved with the process!

No new art pieces appear in this issue, as all of our efforts have gone into producing the 'mandala' series. But past works continue to be available in the Art and Personality page and we will resume displaying new art work in September.

Please be sure to have a look also at the Letters to the Editor column, containing some of the correspondence that we have received since the last issue. A number of interesting points are raised there, and questions asked. You also might consider writing replies to some of the queries posted at our Community Forum message board.

Thanks to all who sent in letters, comments, and survey returns, and to those who posted messages at the board. Your input is invaluable, and it is treasured!

A special thanks to Paula Prentice and Roslyn Gross. Ros's insightful comments about the curious manner in which religions can insist upon taking seemingly 'figurative' statements 'literally', and Paula's interesting thoughts about 'paradox' and its relationship to 'contradiction', inspired us to try to address their concerns about these issues in the papers that are presented herein.