THE ENNEAGRAM:
AN ENLIGHTENING TOOL
OR
AN ENTICING DECEPTION pt.5
Richard Rohr says that the “true gospel must be proclaimed that everything—humans, animals, or materials—is created in the image of a loving God. “Therefore, says Rohr, that settles all questions. For then we are all universal children of God, and thus, we are in union with all other children of God because we all have the divine and the beautiful in us from the very start.”
How contrary to the biblical Gospel that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and that in order to become a child of God, we must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. In Enneagramism, it’s not about sinners needing to be redeemed by a Holy God (“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalm 51:5). There is no need for that. Rather, after working through our false self-delusions to find our true selves, we come to the realization that we have always been lovely.
CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER AND THE ENNEAGRAM
It is essential to note that the majority of those who teach the Enneagram are proponents of contemplative prayer. In chapter ten of The Sacred Enneagram An Innvitation to Inner Work, Chris Heuertz, a Rohr disciple, introduces the reader to three prayers that can be used “as an on-ramp to the . . . Christian contemplative tradition: centering prayer, St. Ignatius of Loyola’s* “The Examen,” and “The Welcoming Prayer: Praying with the Instinctive Body Center” whose creator was Mary Mrozowski. Mrozowski was a Catholic mystic and lay contemplative.
IGNATIUS LOYOLA
*editor: It is imperative to know a few facts about Ignatius Loyola. He was the founder of the Jesuits, as is the present Pope. The Jesuits have an unquestionable loyalty to the Pope, even to the extent of blind absolute obedience which led them to insist – under penalty of death – that others do the same. Jesuits were the backbone of the bloody Inquisition. It is the “Ignatian Exercises” that form the basis for Contemplative Spirituality prayers. In his biography “the Image of Our Lady with the Holy Child Jesus” appeared to Ignatius and from the notes he received from her came “The Spiritual Exercises.” http://www.new advent.org/cathen/07639c.htm
Thus we see another root of mysticism and the occult in contemplative prayers in the Enneagram.
In Phileena Heuertz’ book Mindful Silence, she explains how “incredibly helpful” the Enneagram is for “spiritual development.”
“In the foreword of Mindful Silence, Richard Rohr praises how quickly “contemplative teaching is occurring in our time.” He then states that “we are building on the Perennial Tradition.” Rohr describes what he means by “Perennial Tradition” in a 2015 article on his website:
The things I teach come from a combination of inner and outer authority, drawn from personal experience and a long lineage of the “perennial tradition” . . . The Perennial Tradition points to recurring themes and truths within all of the world’s religions.
The Perennial Tradition (or Perennial Wisdom as it is also called) is the belief that all the different religions in the world are interconnected through metaphysics (mysticism). The fact that the “father” of today’s Enneagram movement (Rohr) promotes the Perennial Tradition in a book written by one of his foremost disciples—openly welcomed in mainstream evangelicalism—should not be overlooked or dismissed as irrelevant; nor should the Enneagram’s compatibility and connection with contemplative prayer and mysticism.
THE ENNEAGRAM OR THE WORD OF GOD?
The Enneagram focuses endlessly on the self through self-awareness, self-observation, self-motivation, self-knowledge, self-love, self-this, and self-that. For as 2 Timothy 3:2 states, “For men shall be lovers of their own selves.” Through the Sacred Enneagram, it is said we’ll discover that underneath all our failures of our false selves, we’ll uncover our essence—that true self enabling us to make our world a better and more compassionate place.
On the other hand, God’s view of our “selves” is that at our core, we are sinners as Romans 3:23 declares, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Therefore, we need to believe not in the power of the Enneagram or the voice heard in contemplative prayer but in a Savior who can save us from ourselves and our sins.
Scripture says:
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8,9; emphasis added)
In the end, it is through the Word of God and the sacrifice on the Cross by Jesus Christ, not the Enneagram, where we can find out who we are and what we must do.
Holding His Word Higher 
