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A review by panda_incognito
The Essential Enneagram: The Definitive Personality Test and Self-Discovery Guide -- Revised & Updated by David Daniels, Virginia Price
1.0
Apparently, because I'm a One, this means that I have forgotten the eternal truth that I am "already perfect the way I am." I rolled my eyes at a similar line in another book that I just reviewed, but this book's version of the message enraged me, because it wasn't just a poor wording choice. It's a false worldview that the authors want to shove down your throat. Their research on the Ennegram is interesting, and I liked the resources that explain the similarities and differences between certain numbers to help reduce the odds of mistyping, but the authors' suggestions for personal growth and improvement involve embracing a lot of "fundamental truths" that were only ever true in the Garden of Eden.
Behold, the fundamental principle Eights have lost sight of: "Everyone begins in innocence, coming freshly to each moment, and everyone can sense truth."
An Eight's false belief about the world: "It is a hard and unjust world in which the powerful take advantage of others, which must be resisted."
This is absurd. This is crap. What self-respecting MD and PhD look at the world and then decide to coauthor a book about how people should stop believing in the reality of injustice?
You might like to believe that the One is wrong to see and struggle against their entrenched flaws, or that the Eight is mistaken to view the world in categories of oppressors and the oppressed, but these authors aren't telling people to restrain their overboard tendencies in these directions. Instead, they want us to believe that we're truly all cared for, loved, perfect, and involved in a Nirvana give-and-take where no one ever has a reason to feel guilty or take a stand against evildoers. I skimmed through the rest of this book in absolute disdain, bypassing their ideas for meditation and self-improvement, because if the bedrock of their philosophy is an imagined return to a world without sin and evil, they have nothing to offer me.
Behold, the fundamental principle Eights have lost sight of: "Everyone begins in innocence, coming freshly to each moment, and everyone can sense truth."
An Eight's false belief about the world: "It is a hard and unjust world in which the powerful take advantage of others, which must be resisted."
This is absurd. This is crap. What self-respecting MD and PhD look at the world and then decide to coauthor a book about how people should stop believing in the reality of injustice?
You might like to believe that the One is wrong to see and struggle against their entrenched flaws, or that the Eight is mistaken to view the world in categories of oppressors and the oppressed, but these authors aren't telling people to restrain their overboard tendencies in these directions. Instead, they want us to believe that we're truly all cared for, loved, perfect, and involved in a Nirvana give-and-take where no one ever has a reason to feel guilty or take a stand against evildoers. I skimmed through the rest of this book in absolute disdain, bypassing their ideas for meditation and self-improvement, because if the bedrock of their philosophy is an imagined return to a world without sin and evil, they have nothing to offer me.