FOUR: The Domain of the Intellect

The Intellect and Understanding

Four, the Domain of the Intellect, is perhaps the most confusing of the spiritual domains of the Enneagram. When we think of a person whose personality type is Enneagram type-Four, we think of artistic expression, melancholy, drama, a feeling of otherness, alienation, or being special. In other words, we think of pretty much anything other than what we normally call “the intellect”.

We are accustomed to regarding the intellect as the seat of rational, abstract thought. This might be a limitation of the English language which uses a single word – know – to mean multiple things that other languages have several words for. For example, French has two separate words. Connaître means to know personally, to be acquainted with. Savoir means to have knowledge of, to know about. Knowing, in the sense of personal knowledge or acquaintance, is something we feel in the heart. When we read or hear or experience something and let it drop into our heart in contemplative practice, we know it in a meditative or insightful sense, as “Mary pondered these things in her heart.”

At Four, we tend to constantly question and compare, never satisfied with the answers that may come. At Four, we seek knowledge, not abstractly, but directly, by experience. We seek to understand, which comes from the Old English understandan, meaning to stand in the midst of.

Polarities

The following table lists some word and phrase pairs that describe the domain of Four.

Common Sense	Bewilderment
Practical	Nonsense
Analysis	Paralysis
Found	Lost
Reason	No Reason
Orientation	Disorientation
Connected	Disconnected
Concentric (Centered)	Eccentric (Off-Center)
I know	I don’t know
Fits together	Comes apart

Lost and Found

Sometimes, in order to find our way, we must spend some time lost in the wilderness. I can be so bewildered, that, for a time, I lose my common sense. Understanding can come and go. As soon I say, “I’ve got it”,  I’ve lost it. Conversely, as soon as “I’ve lost it”, I’ve got it. Part of the engagement of the intellect is to be disoriented; we always understand incompletely and we can always gain new insight.

Why? Why? Why?

At Four, we rail against the universe. Why is this happening? Why me? Why anything?

We ask, “Why?”, but we don’t really want to know; we have moved up into our head centre to avoid the pain in our heart. Real understanding, real knowledge is a true encounter with the way things actually are. We must engage it fully, with all parts of our being. The spiritual work at Four is to sit with the discomfort until we can be content with what we do know, as well as with our not-knowing. Lost and Found do not exist without each other. Growth requires learning and understanding something new, which then introduces new questions, which require new pondering.

Spirit of Clarity

When we hold both poles of Four equally in contemplative practice, the Spirit of Clarity can arise and rule over this space. This invites us to discover who we really are and to come to terms with ourselves. We feel the confusion and bewilderment of this space, and yet, we are on our way forward. We are invited to find a home in our alienation.

We can also describe the clarity that arises at Four as insight. When we really see what is, when we accept all of ourselves without judgement, only then can we be at home with ourselves. This is not something we can achieve on our own. It is a gift that we can ask for and prepare to receive, but we cannot command it.

Paying Attention

In order to extend that invitation, we must enter deeply into all of our experiences. If I dismiss my experiences, or reason them away, I cling to the pole of common sense or certainty and cannot enter deeply into the experience I am actually having. I skim over the surface of my life and do not fully live it. On the other hand, if I allow myself to be simply overwhelmed, that is not a true experience either.

My teacher, David Walsh, used to say that we must pay attention to our experiences and when we pay that attention, it costs us something and we suffer. David was big on etymology and so he would tell us that suffer comes from the Latin sub + ferre, which means under + to bear/to carry. We undergo an experience. When we completely enter into an experience, we are able to say to ourselves, “I can bear it.” If we accept the unavoidable suffering of an experience, we avoid a great deal of suffering that is purely optional.

Inhabitants: The Envies

When we cling to the pole of common sense or the pole of bewilderment, the Inhabitants called The Envies move in. Envy is the opposite of insight. I want an experience other than the one I am having. By taking this stance, I am preventing myself from reaching the clarity that comes with fully entering an experience.

The Envies, rather than accepting what is, start looking around for something other and kind of relishing that other experience that they are not having. Comparing what I have or what I am experiencing to what someone else has or is experiencing drops me into that classical type-Four personality trap. Why me? What about him? (Never mind about him, you follow me.) Envy is one of the major barriers to having my own experience.

Entering My Own Experience

As a personal example, I fell and broke my ankle when I was a student. Forty years later, it still sometimes bothers me. I can bear it most of the time, but if I have overused it or the weather is humid, it can act up and cause more than average discomfort.

I could react to the discomfort by feeling sorry for myself and wondering why I have to live with this ongoing issue. This might spiral into catastrophic thinking. “I won’t be able to go for walks or hikes. I’ll lose my physical fitness and start having really serious mobility problems.” These thoughts might lead to a mental and emotional paralysis where I can’t take even simple measures to deal with the present pain.

On the other hand, I could get caught up in over-caring for and over-medicating the problem. Every time I go outside, I need to wear supportive shoes and not just sandals, not even to take out the garbage. I have to take a pain reliever every day. I must assess every activity must to see if my ankle will handle it. I must do my stretches every day without fail. These might seem like useful and thoughtful ways to manage an ongoing, but minor physical problem, just common sense, really. However, they can take on a life of their own. They make life about the problem, instead of the problem being a part of life.

Clarity

When I feel sorry for myself or when I over-attend to the problem, I want an experience other than the one I am having. When I can equally honour both poles of the common sense/bewilderment dichotomy, the Spirit of Clarity can arise.

Four is a personal space. Clarity will come with an accommodation and a suitability that is uniquely my own. I can recognize that my ankle pain can disorient me and put me off-centre, literally and figuratively, and allow for that to be a signal to care for myself. I can choose some sensible actions to help with the pain – stretching and gentle exercise, maybe a painkiller or maybe not. In extreme cases, maybe I would forego an activity to rest my ankle. Discernment will tell me what I need to do in any given situation, while allowing for limitation. I may not always like the situation, but I can bear it.

Totems

The Treasury is a totem of the Four space. The Treasury is a place to hold precious things; where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Traditions and rituals, repositories of the way something was done in the past, are also totems of Four. A living tradition allows us to interpret a present experience by comparing it to the way something was done before, integrating an old way and its wisdom with a new need.

Other totems of Four are the dramatic arts, in that drama picks apart a human experience and makes it special; philosophy (repository of wisdom and insight); universities, schools, and libraries;  and conferences (gathering to intellectualize and compare each other’s theories).