Spirituality Studies 10-2 Fall 2024 9 Samuel Bendeck Sotillos Although it is suggested that Ichazo appropriated the teachings of the Enneagram from Gurdjieff without giving him due credit, Ichazo denies such claims. The Gurdjieff Foundation of California has stated the following about Ichazo and his institute: “The Bolivian founder of Arica expounds his system, a popular psychological training which draws – usually without acknowledgment – on several of the Gurdjieff ideas, especially the symbol of the enneagram (called here the ‘enneagon’)” (Driscoll 1985, 89). Palmer links Ichazo’s “new tradition” with New Age thought because of his theoretical departure: “He [note: Ichazo] has moved the Enneagram from a Sufi context, from a Christian esoteric context, from the Gurdjieff context, and couched his ‘new discovery’ in an eclectic, new age spiritual growth context” (quoted in Ichazo 1991, 111). Others suggest that “the enneagram is a teaching device used by the Sufi school and developed by Ichazo” (Lilly and Hart 1975, 333). While Ichazo admitted to having read all Gurdjieff’s books (and those of his disciples), he responded to the accusation of having borrowed from his work, and not giving him due credit, as follows: “In synthesis, though I have gone through all of Gurdjieff’s material, as well as all the important literature about him, I have never come to an ‘idea’ that I can call the unique apport [note: a term indicating the paranormal transference or appearance of an object] of Mr. Gurdjieff” (Ichazo 1991, 93). Here Ichazo appears to adopt Gurdjieff’s concepts without giving him credit for them. Ichazo alludes to the syncretic underpinnings of the Arica Institute: “Arica is not as much my invention as it is a product of our times. The knowledge I have contributed to the school came to me from many sources I encountered in my peculiar quest” (quoted in Keen 1973, 64). Although Ichazo has studied the numerous religious and mystical systems of the world and warns against syncretism (the indiscriminate mixing of heterogeneous ideas in an attempt to fashion a synthesis), it is not clear if Ichazo (quoted in Bleibtreu 1982, 176) had a traditional spiritual affiliation or whether he offered a more nuanced version of the piecemeal approaches found in the New Age movement: You cannot make a cocktail of traditions. That is totally false. I was not doing that at all. At any time I would teach one distinct path, just that path without including any elements of a different path. Or more clearly, suppose: If we were doing some Sufi exercise we would be working that Sufi exercise exclusively, not mixing Súfism with yoga, or yoga with Zen, etc. We worked them as separate units and never really mixed them. We were studying these traditions, just as you can study geography, mathematics, or history, and yet you don’t confuse them: each is a different science with a different method. Ichazo (1991, 104) went as far as to say: “Since I am proposing a completely new method, I am certainly correct when I say ‘I am the root of a new tradition’” [6]. According to Naranjo, “he [note: Ichazo] asserts that he received the enneagram of character-fixations by direct inspiration” (quoted in Parkin and Fittkau 1996, 22). What was the source of this “inspiration”? Ichazo claims to have received his instruction from the Metatron of the Kabbalah, the prince of the archangels, and from the mysterious “Green Qu’Tub” (likely referring to Khaḍir meaning “the Green One” in the Islamic tradition), and claims that both entities are in theory available to all Aricans. Indeed, a person “may receive instructions from the higher entities such as Metatron, the prince of the archangels, who has given instructions to Ichazo” (Lilly and Hart 1975, 341). Furthermore, “The interior master of all Aricans is called the Green Qu’Tub. He may or may not make himself known to individual Aricans, depending on the stage of development of the student” (341). Ichazo (1991, 106) emphasizes that the Enneagram came to him as in a vision, and its development into a system is his alone: They came to me, 108 in all, as in a vision, showing their internal relations with complete clarity, in 1954 in Santiago, Chile. Not only am I the holder of the beginning of this tradition, but also, as can be absolutely and concretely proven, the 108 enneagons and the entire system in all its terms have been developed by me, only and exclusively, and I am more than ready to contest it publicly. Naranjo informs us that he first learned about the Enneagram through the Fourth Way teaching in his early youth: “I was first acquainted with the enneagram by reading Ouspensky’s ‘In Search of the Miraculous’ when I was in my late teens” (quoted in Parkin and Fittkau 1996, 22). It was this early exposure to the Fourth Way teaching of Gurdjieff that led Naranjo to study with Ichazo. “[M]y main interest in learning from Oscar Ichazo was a conviction that he was a link to the Sarmouni – the school behind Gurdjieff” (quoted in Parkin and Fittkau 1996, 22). Naranjo has stated that Ichazo had, on several occasions, alluded to his affiliation with the Sarmouni or the “School of the Bees” – the same ancient source from which Gurdjieff obtained certain Sufi teachings, which is what drew Naranjo to Ichazo: “As we worked with Oscar [note: Ichazo], I had no doubt about regarding him as a link with that tradition which had been the main element in Gurdjieff’s own background” (1996, 16).
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