This intermediate workshop will introduce participants to the phenomena of psychological and spiritual bypassing, how they differ and interact, and how they impact our Enneagram theory and practice. We will review materials from John Welwood, Robert A. Masters and other transpersonal psychologists to understand spiritual bypassing and why it has been such a hot topic of discussion these past 25 yrs. Then we will look at Roberto Assagioli and his psychospiritual system known as Psychosynthesis in order to better understand what has become known in some circles as psychological bypassing, which is a "tendency to get overly fascinated with and absorbed in our own personal process. It can be so fascinating to delve into our emotions, archetypes, dreams or relationships... To treat this kind of self-examining as the ultimate journey is to risk becoming narcissistic, a kind of'emotional junkie'..." Special emphasis will be on the famous Egg Diagram of the human psyche by Assagioli, as well as his descriptions of the Higher and Lower Unconscious, and how we may, for various reasons, dynamically repress the Higher Unconscious to our detriment. We will discuss the possibility that we may have an "enlightenment drive" (Almaas and Maitri) and "metaphysical instincts" (Shirazi).
Carl Marsak, MA has graduate degrees in religious studies (NYU) and cultural anthropology (CIIS), and has certified as an Enneagram teacher in the Narrative Tradition with Palmer and Daniels (2004). Carl has been studying the Enneagram since 1987 and teaching it since 1998. He lives in Southern Oregon. IEA Accredited Professional