[Tutorial] The Enneagram as a Magical Machine: Ritual and Practice

Most people today know the enneagram as a pop-psychology typology — nine “personality types” on a neat diagram. But that isn’t what Gurdjieff taught. For him, the enneagram was a cosmic engine: a living glyph of process, transformation, and the laws that govern change.

What follows is both a primer on the enneagram’s esoteric roots and a practical ritual for walking it as a path of power. Think of it as stepping inside the machine, letting it run, and coming out the other side transformed.

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The Enneagram is one of those occult-adjacent tools that sits at a strange crossroads between mysticism, psychology, and practical esotericism. Let’s break it down in layers:

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1. What the Enneagram Is

• At its root, the Enneagram is a nine-pointed figure inscribed within a circle.
• It has:
  • The circle (wholeness, totality).
  • The triangle (points 9–3–6), representing the law of three (active, passive, reconciling forces).
  • The hexad (points 1–4–2–8–5–7), representing the law of seven (the law of process, cycles, and interruption).

So, the Enneagram is a symbolic map of how forces move, interact, and transform. It’s not just a static diagram — it’s a machine for understanding process.

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The Enneagram in Gurdjieff’s Work​

The enneagram is the marriage of two universal principles:

• The Law of Three – all phenomena arise from active, passive, and reconciling forces.
• The Law of Seven – all processes move in cycles, deviating unless conscious shock intervenes.

The symbol encodes both. It is not just a nine-point star but a process map.

Gurdjieff used it as a master key to understanding transformation: digestion, music, alchemy, and the evolution of consciousness. He had his students dance the enneagram as part of the Movements — literally moving through the forces at work.
the Law of Three and the Law of Seven are central to Gurdjieff’s cosmology, and they’re also the keys to understanding the enneagram.

The Law of Three​

• Sometimes called the Triad.
• States that every phenomenon is created by the interaction of three forces:
  1. Active force (affirming, initiating, yang)
  2. Passive force (resisting, receiving, yin)
  3. Reconciling force (balancing, harmonizing, transforming)

In ordinary thought, we think in binaries: yes/no, positive/negative, male/female, action/reaction. Gurdjieff said that binary thinking is incomplete — nothing real comes from only two forces. Something new only appears when a third force enters.


Examples:

• Fire (active) + Wood (passive) → Heat/Light (reconciling)
• Father + Mother → Child
• Thesis + Antithesis → Synthesis

In magickal terms: intent + resistance → transformation (with the magician’s will as the reconciling force).

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The Law of Seven​

• Sometimes called the Law of Octaves.
• States that nothing proceeds in a straight line — all processes develop unevenly, with intervals where the momentum slows, changes direction, or fails unless an extra push is applied.
  

Imagine a musical scale (Do–Re–Mi–Fa–So–La–Si–Do). The “half steps” between Mi–Fa and Si–Do are gaps. To move a process smoothly through those gaps, you need a conscious shock (an extra input of energy, awareness, or will).


Examples:

• A new project begins with energy, then falters around the “first gap” (loss of momentum). Most things die there.
• If carried forward, another stall happens near completion (“second gap”). Many processes collapse right before they finish.
• To get all the way through, you need to insert conscious effort at those gap points.

In magickal terms: a spell, a working, or inner transformation needs deliberate boosts of will or ritual at key stages, or it will wither out or misfire.

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In the Enneagram​

• Law of Three = the triangle (points 9–3–6).
• Law of Seven = the hexad (1–4–2–8–5–7).
• The enneagram unites both laws, showing how a process begins, encounters resistance, deviates, and requires conscious intervention.

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In short:

• Law of Three explains how anything arises.
• Law of Seven explains how anything develops (or fails to).
• Together, they’re not just philosophy — they’re instructions for magicians: when to act, when to wait, and when to intervene with force of will.

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🜍 Magical Applications Today​

For magicians, the enneagram can serve as:

1. Ritual Framework – Lay it out and walk it as a pathworking.
2. Magical Engine – Use it as a stabilizing glyph in sigils, talismans, or servitors.
3. Psychological Key – If using the modern personality enneagram, spot how your type sabotages your practice.
4. Alchemical Map – Track where inner or outer processes stall, and learn where to apply the “conscious shock” of Will.

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The Enneagram Pathworking Ritual​

Setup​

• Enneagram diagram on floor, altar, or drawn in chalk.
• Candle or light at the center.
• Optional: nine candles or stones for the points.

Opening​

• Center/banish as you prefer.
• Stand at Point 9 (top).
• Declare: “I enter the circle of nine. I walk the process of transformation.”

Walking the Points​

Move clockwise. Speak or internalize the mantra at each point:

• 9 (Unity) – “All begins in stillness.”
• 1 (Impulse) – “The first force awakens.”
• 4 (Resistance) – “What resists me teaches me.”
• 2 (Adjustment) – “I bend without breaking.”
• 8 (Power) – “I act with strength.”
• 5 (Reflection) – “I observe the pattern.”
• 7 (Flux) – “Disruption is movement.”
  • Insert your conscious shock here: chant, sigil, surge of will, offering — whatever drives the process forward.
• 3 (Synthesis) – “The three are one.”
• 6 (Stabilization) – “The pattern holds.”
• Return to 9 – “In stillness, I become new.”

Closing​

• Sit in the center, visualize the enneagram folding into your heart.
• Say: “The process is complete. The circle of nine rests in me.”
• Ground and close in your usual way.

Enneagram Occult Attributions​

Here’s one way to map the nine points into traditional magical frameworks. It uses the enneagram’s process stages and lines them up with planetary, elemental, and Qabalistic forces.

Point	Process Stage	Planetary Force	Elemental Force	Qabalistic Echo
9	Unity / Source	Sun	Spirit / Æther	Kether (Crown)
1	Impulse / Spark	Mars	Fire	Chokmah / Geburah
4	Resistance / Friction	Saturn	Earth	Binah
2	Adjustment / Balance	Venus	Water	Chesed / Netzach
8	Manifest Power	Jupiter	Earth-Fire fusion	Hod / Chesed
5	Reflection / Withdrawal	Mercury	Air	Hod
7	Flux / Disruption	Moon	Water-Air fusion	Yesod
3	Synthesis / Reconciliation	Sol (harmonizing)	Fire-Water fusion	Tiphereth
6	Stabilization / Commitment	Saturn-Mars blend	Earth-Air fusion	Yesod / Malkuth

Notes​

• 9 (Sun/Spirit/Kether) is the starting and returning point: pure potential.
• 1 and 4 show the “law of three” at work: force + resistance → reconciliation (2).
• The 1-4-2-8-5-7 hexad = the “law of seven,” the cyclical process.
• 3 and 6 form part of the stabilizing triangle (3-6-9) = synthesis, stabilization, unity.

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These are working correspondences — not dogma. Feel free to swap in deities, Tarot trumps, or Chaos sigil glyphs. The enneagram is flexible. It’s a gear system for whatever magical engine you’re running.

Sources & Notes​

• Historical: In Search of the Miraculous (P. D. Ouspensky), Views from the Real World (Gurdjieff), J. G. Bennett’s writings.
• Ritual structure and attribution system: my synthesis, extrapolating Gurdjieff’s principles into practical magic. To my knowledge, this exact “walk the enneagram as a ritual circle” has not appeared anywhere else in print or online, because this is the first time I've shared it outside my circle. The ritual structure/pathworking I outlined — the nine-point walk, the mantras, the conscious shock insertion, treating it like a living mandala — is original to me in this Tutorial, and is based on research began in 2021 after my girlfriend got into the modern Enneagram personality system. It’s an extrapolation, drawing from Gurdjieff’s principles, ceremonial magick frameworks (pathworkings, Qabalistic ritual structure), and chaos magick flexibility.

TL;DR:
The enneagram isn’t about personality types. It’s a machine. Step into it, and you can run processes of transformation — personal, magical, alchemical.

 

[Yazata]

I read this one this morning quickly. Very good post.
Wouldn't dismiss the personality types completely though, this framework might be a good frame to do small "path workings" towards different forms of yourself.

 

[reverendsteveii]

Gurdjieff mentioned, I appear. I always have such a hard time finding anything about him beyond what he wrote and what Ouspensky wrote about him. I only recently learned that he had influenced enneagrams, and now this arises as a way to pull that away from pop-psych and back toward the occult that it originated from. Fabulous post, OP, thank you.

 

[aviaf]

I read this one this morning quickly. Very good post.
Wouldn't dismiss the personality types completely though, this framework might be a good frame to do small "path workings" towards different forms of yourself.

I mentioned that in the post.