Astrology as the Perfect Handmaiden to the Enneagram
- Erin Mulligan
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
As purveyors of ancient symbols and archetypes, Enneagram coaches and therapists play somewhat of a priestly role in their clients’ lives, marrying the material with the spiritual planes through symbols to help them, as Gurdjieff would say, integrate their various I’s into one mature, integrated and individualized self. Of course, the Enneagram of personality wasn’t fleshed out under Gurdjieff, but he did share something in common with another master of the human psyche, Carl Jung: an interest in astrology. As I hope to demonstrate with three examples, the leap between the Enneagram and astrology is an intuitive one- they complement each other beautifully in a therapeutic or coaching setting and provide the coach with more places to lead the discussion. The Enneagram puts our projections back in our bodies and sorts and balances our intelligence centres; whereas astrology situates the conflicts that the client is having in a particular life setting. Introducing astrology, even just a little, allows more interpretations of symbols to fan out over time in both the therapists’ and the client's mind, helping integrating connections to be made faster.
Just as one of the biggest gifts of the Enneagram is an objective vocabulary, one of the biggest gifts of astrology is a mathematically-calculated visualization that represents us. It provides a physical representation of our psyche, and by extension our everyday life, that can come out of our printer and be pointed at during the session. The chart provides a visual of our broken selves, our various libidinal impulses torn asunder and scattered across a chart, connected by various angles and lines, some easy and supportive, some painful and aching. Seeing the parts of ourselves arranged into houses and zodiac signs is a powerful way of picking out threads to get us thinking along a certain line.
As a SP/SX Four, it took me until my 40’s to realize I was ignoring the Neptune in my chart, hobbling along in life on one foot, trying to squeeze around it, and yet constantly having to account for it at the metaphorical cash register of my life’s transactions. Not working with it meant I was being taxed on it, and I resented it for that. It was only recently during a conversation about Sandra Maitri’s book that I was really challenged to look at my Neptune square in the eyes. Among other things, Neptune represents trust and intuition, but also the spiritual domain, and I have always resented “God” for not being supportive and making me do all the decision-making in my life, particularly around career. I was jealous of people who had intuition because I had no guidance. I had gone to missionary school and read the classics of Christian missionary stories of men and women of God who seemed to have direct line to him- he seemed to communicate so clearly with these “prayer warriors” and I wanted to be like them so much. All I seemed to get was the still small voice that I could barely hear, and it seemed like I got the dollar store version of communication with God. I needed to know that the body was a conduit of intuition and that that connection to my body WAS holy, and by developing a trusting relationship with my intuition, I was developing a telephone line to divine guidance.
A young type four walking into the coach’s or therapists’ office isn’t typically going to complain of having no guidance like a Six would. A Four is going to distill her problems down to her identity and who she truly is and how that will lead to a career. But seeing a planet in trouble like my Neptune might prompt the coach to start a conversation with her relationship with her intuition which in turn, will strengthen the coach’s case that the body might be a big place from which her career answers will arise.
The decisions we have to make aren’t necessarily type-aligned. Let’s say the coach or therapist has gotten their Type 5 client to see what they’re giving up in life in order to stay in a particular location, and forced the question: “Which is more important to you? Keeping the farm or having a career?” Even though the Five is speaking rationally about the farm, the therapist will intuit that the farm might have something to do with his heart, but can only ask the client to speak about the farm from his heart and hope for the best. A Five who is just in the beginning stages of connecting with his heart might stare blankly back at the therapist or just speak from the head until the therapist interrupts him and circles him back to his heart. It is understood that the awkward silence and the no-feeling in his chest is part of the self-awareness muscle-building, but we don’t know if this client is coming back and the best a therapist might get at the end of the session is his promise to try and connect with his heart between this session and the next (if there is a next). On the other hand, a therapist who has the client’s chart in front of them can look at the ruler of his fourth house (his land) and notice that the moon is indeed in the fourth house (aha, confirmation!) and TELL him it looks like his emotions are tied to his land. This is interesting to him because it differentiates him from other farmers who don’t have their moon in the fourth house. I mean, of course as a Five, he’ll guffaw at the unscientificness of astrology, but it will make him wonder for a brief moment if he is more emotionally connected to his land than his neighbors. At least it legitimizes the therapist’s intuition and provides an additional handrail for his journey down into his heart; now he has a handrail on his right- the Enneagram- and an optional handrail on his left – astrology (“Even the planets see me this way?!”) Next, the therapist can look at the ruler of his fourth house and see that it’s in good standing, getting positive aspects, but the ruler of his career house is in detriment and is situated in a difficult house. That information adds a new layer that will help his decision-making because it means income from his farm might be steadier and might be worth giving up a career for. It also begs the question, “What do you mean my career planet is in detriment?” That is a new opening into the therapist’s question- Why CAN’T Venus perform very well in Aries? “Well because Venus wants to care and provide for needs whereas Aries wants results and it wants to compete- does that resonate with your experience at work?” This brings the Five closer to his heart- he recollects the times when he wanted to do things in a more wholistic and sure…”caring” way than his industry allowed (note that he has now been given “permission” to think of himself as caring; whereas in his mind, that caring was just rational arguments with industry trends). Finally we look at his aspects and see that his career planet, Venus, is being opposed by Saturn, which represents among other things, the government, and come to think of it, the government is always negatively involved somehow in his lifelong attempts to carve a career for himself, and the leak has sprung in his heart- you’ve touched on something extremely painful and he’s now in touch with a deep well of emotions. Astrology acts as fertilizer to the often difficult questions that the Enneagram coach or therapist gives the client to work through; it sprinkles in more keywords, imagery and memories to feed into the apparatus that the coach has set up to parse stimuli with.
A 7w6 might be struggling with her desire for freedom and feel bogged down by boring divorce paperwork, even if it’s the very paperwork she needs to get done to enjoy her freedom with her new boyfriend! The therapist looks at her third house, the house of paperwork, and notices it’s ruled by Mercury, also the planet of the mind, and it has a supportive aspect from Mars- the planet of going and doing- but sure enough, it’s got a difficult square from Uranus, the planet that craves freedom. Hmm, the therapist thinks, interesting that Uranus is in the 5th house of romance. The therapist already knows that the new boyfriend is what she wants, but identifying Uranus as the culprit visually locates the locus of the conversation on the chart and allows the therapist a point from which to look 1) around at its location in the chart and the other aspects it’s receiving, and 2) laterally to other levels of meaning they might extract from the Uranian archetype. Archetypes materialize on different levels, so now the therapist sees that Uranus is both the itch for freedom and a quality of the boyfriend himself. With that tense square, this archetype is asking her Mercury- her intellect AND her sobriety around paperwork- to compromise. As the higher vibration of Mercury, Uranus rules intellectual brilliance, originality, rebellious thinking, and flashes of insight, so is she attracted to smart men who are squaring her Mercury (mind)? Knowing we’re attracted to partners who have qualities that we can’t integrate very well, the therapist might ask if she is attracted to men who are smarter than her. That brings the conversation back to her un-integrated Mercury - the paperwork - with a newer sense of urgency and purpose- is her intelligence honored in this relationship? Is she projecting her original thinking onto him? Who exactly is in a hurry here?
Because I believe it’s useful for coaches and therapists to have astrology as a tool in their toolkit, I’ve devised a five-week introductory course to teach therapists how to use basic astrology with their clients. It begins on Saturday, May 23, and it will cover the planets, aspects, houses, signs of the zodiac, the essential dignities, ethical concerns when working with astrology, and the question of fate versus freewill. I hope to see you there! Course info here.