PREFACE
For more than 800 years Western universities have successfully built specialized disciplines based on empirical and deductive reasoning in the Aristotelian tradition, which has eclipsed the exercise of speculative and inductive reasoning in the Platonic tradition. Nonetheless, the Platonic tradition remains available as an alternative for pursuing the integration of today’s many specialized disciplines. The First Analysis Institute of Integrative Studies (FAI) explores integrative models that draw upon Platonic reasoning while still imposing the rigor of Aristotelian reasoning so that these models will be acceptable to the broadest possible audience.
Our latest study in this regard concerns evolution and the Personality Enneagram. For over twenty years FAI has sponsored annual seminars at Loyola University Chicago focusing on the Personality Enneagram. The Enneagram encompasses nine different personality types represented by the numbers 1 through 9 circularly unified around three triangular centers at 3, 6 and 9, which can also be viewed as a “3, 6 & 9 Triune” convergence. Notably, the Personality Enneagram assumes the natural tendency for humans is to be regressively egocentric in approaching this process of convergence, which they must constantly work to overcome. Given the strong growth in the population of those who embrace the Personality Enneagram, FAI decided to explore the possibility that it has an evolutionary genetic origin.
This search first led to the Genetic Code, which is the Rosetta Stone for interpreting the DNA blueprint that has been used to construct all living organisms. FAI found the Genetic Code could also be represented by an enneagram-like format emulating the “3, 6 & 9 Triune”. Unexpectedly, this novel representation of the Genetic Code proved to be useful as a discovery framework facilitating new scientific insights, such as the unique synergy of combining vitamins A and D to address epithelial-based diseases including cancers and immune disorders (e.g. COVID-19). To determine the efficacy and safety of this readily available treatment, FAI has sponsored research/educational programs at the University of Illinois, Chicago and the University of Chicago. The initial results were sufficiently encouraging that some were published in two issues of Harvard’s peer-reviewed journal Functional Foods in Health and Disease.
Having uncovered the resonance of the “3, 6 & 9 Triune” in the Genetic Code and the Personality Enneagram, FAI turned to the intervening four billion years to search for other evolutionary phenomena that emulate the “3, 6 & 9 Triune”. Only Neurons, the Human Brain, and Language Formation qualified. Moreover, these three phenomena, when
collectively viewed as constituting the Human Mind, also recursively emulate the “3, 6 & 9 Triune” and, as such, could be perceived as evolution’s physiological culmination.
FAI then looked at the ten billion years preceding the evolution of the Genetic Code. It found two other evolutionary phenomena emulate the “3, 6 & 9 Triune”: the Elementary Building Blocks of Matter/Energy and the Building Blocks of the Hindu-Arabic Numbering System, which plays a unique role in understanding evolution. When these two phenomena along with the Genetic Code are collectively viewed as Evolution’s Elementary Building Blocks, they also recursively emulate the “3, 6 & 9 Triune”.
After identifying evolution’s elementary building blocks and evolution’s physiological culmination as the human mind, FAI began the search for other phenomena that, together with the Personality Enneagram, could individually and collectively emulate the “3, 6 & 9 Triune”. These phenomena could be interpreted as evolution’s psychological culmination. Given that the Personality Enneagram assumes humans have a natural tendency to be regressively egocentric, FAI concentrated on remedial phenomena that evolved to cope with this regressiveness. It found two: the tri-Abrahamic faith traditions when viewed as a totality and the meditative process underlying the Hindu-Buddhist faith traditions. Since these faith traditions collectively encompass about three-quarters of the world’s population, they could constitute evolutionary proportions. We note FAI has repeatedly tested the synergies of tri-Abrahamic dialogue in addressing important topics and has sponsored seminars with this focus for over a decade at the Catholic Theological Union. Likewise, the synergy of the unique “3, 6 & 9 Triune” meditative focus, versus more conventional meditative focal points, can be personally tested through its efficacy in overcoming common sleep problems (see pages 29-31).
As laid out in the Table of Contents, which follows an evolutionary chronology, these three sets of three phenomena form a third iteration recursively emulating the “3, 6 & 9 Triune” to represent evolution’s grand culmination. Possibly the best summation of this idea is a quote attributed to the scientist Nikola Tesla: “If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6 and 9, then you would have the key to the universe”. Accordingly, these nine phenomena are explained at only the most elementary level, with just enough detail to illustrate their emulation of the “3, 6 & 9 Triune”.
On a personal note, an inflecting affirmation of the 30+years of analysis leading up to this publication occurred in the spring of 2019. A duct tape patch covering a cut in the liner of my parka disappeared, resulting in several days of leaking insulation. When I attempted to repatch the cut, the original patch had mysteriously, and exactly, been restored. The affirming message was in the shape and positioning of the patch. The duct tape patch had always formed a lazy “T” laying on its side, with the top of the “T” being vertical and its shank horizontal. Accordingly, when the jacket is closed, the end of the horizontal shank points to my heart while the ends of the vertical top point to my head and viscera, which respectively emulate the “3, 6 & 9 Triune”, as explained in the text below. Also, the facilitating role of the parka in overcoming a hostile weather environment could be analogized to the role played by the “3, 6 & 9 Triune” in evolutionary order overcoming a hostile environment favoring disorder according to the universal Second Law of Thermodynamics. Thus, this restoration of the same patch reaffirmed to me the primary focus of the “3, 6 & 9 Triune” and thus served to inspire this publication.
