1 Remarks
The following text is an excerpt from my book ENNEAS, which was published in June 2017. It bears the subtitles: Gurdjieff’s Enneagram - His universal systemic Process Model.
This clearly distinguishes it from the popular typology enneagram, which is only one of the few applications of the Enneagram. The Enneagram, as described in my book, can be considered a meta-model.
The text of this excerpt had to be adapted because it was taken out of the context of the printBook. However, there was no loss of content or substance of the selected chapters.
2 The Quest or the Hero's Journey
2.1 My two Heroes of the Quest
In Wikipedia you can read the following about the term "Quest" (English translation of an article of German Wikipedia):
"The word Quest ... in the Arthurian epic originally refers to the heroic journey [my emphasis] or adventure of a knight or hero, in the course of which he accomplishes various tasks, has adventures, defeats enemies, finds objects, overcomes difficulties and thereby reaps or gains fame and experience or achieves the desired goal (for example, the Holy Grail). The purpose of the quest is generally the fulfilment of honourable duties, but also the inner maturing and purification of a hero."
The Quest or Hero’s Journey is the basic pattern of almost all myths and fairytales around the globe and of any epoch in human history. Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), the great American mythologist, was the first to describe the Hero's Journey and its archetypal stations in his book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces."
Georg Ivanovich Gurdjieff (1866(?)-1949) researched transformation processes of the microcosm and macrocosm among other things. The goal of Gurdjieff's teaching was the harmonious development of man. These teachings are based on the Enneagram, which is a universal symbol for explaining and designing transformation processes of all kinds.
Transformation processes towards higher levels of development and consciousness were thus the great common theme of these two pioneers, whose thoughts are merged into the integral concept of the Quest in this eBook.
Subsequently, the Enneagram represents a map which serves to determine one's position and orientation on the way of personality development as well as a tool for meaning- and self-discovery.
Above all, the Enneagram helps to systematize and visualize the various aspects of this complex subject.
2.2 An illustrated Depiction of the Hero's Journey
2.2.1 Preliminary notes
Starting point for the following chapters is an outline of the heroic journey, the essence of which is then transferred to the logic of the Enneagram. In describing the course of the heroic journey, I rely on the version of Christopher Vogler, which is based on the model built by Campbell, but – functioning as a guide for screenwriters - is made somewhat more compact.
For each station of the Hero's Journey an example is given. I have chosen to use “The Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien as my source because I have a special relationship to this new-age mythical tale. In 1973, the first German translation of Volume 1, "The Fellowship of the Ring" was published by Klett-Cotta, and I really devoured that book. It then took a (painfully) long time to wait for volumes 2, "The Two Towers" and 3, "The Return of the King" to get published.
In 1978 I followed Ralph Bakshi's well-meant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to translate “The Lord of the Rings" into a mixture of animated cartoon and real-life footage, a technique developed by Disney Studios.
For a long time it seemed that "The Lord of the Rings" could not be transported to the screen, until Peter Jackson presented his brilliant trilogy, starting in 2001.
Since millions of moviegoers have seen the three parts (by now even more people on TV), I may assume that the story of Frodo and the Ring has a wide reputation, which is probably not as big as that of "Star Wars", but because of its mythological design and the occurring archetypes closer to the spirit of the Hero’s Journey.
After some deliberation, I decided to go with Frodo's heroic journey, even though there are several Heroic Journeys integrated into the great narrative cycle of the three volumes and films.
For example, Gandalf the Grey becomes Gandalf the White, Aragorn the Strider becomes the King of Gondor, Merry and Pippin rise from "bourgeois" Shire dwellers to paladins of King Théoden of Rohan as well as of Denethor II, Steward of Minas Tirith.
The stations of the Heroic Journey are each accompanied by a short description (in italics) of the corresponding
Impressum
Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG
Texte: Wolfgang W. Liebelt
Bildmaterialien: Wolfgang W. Liebelt
Cover: Jutta Znidar, artspace-JUTTA-ZNIDAR.ch
Lektorat: Markus Liebelt
Übersetzung: Wolfgang W. Liebelt & Markus Liebelt
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 05.12.2018
ISBN: 978-3-7438-8840-1
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Widmung:
For Georg I. Gurdjieff, whose Life, Teaching and Work fascinated and inspired me for more than 20 Years