Angels and the psychology of goodness

It has been suggested that I should be clearer about the role of angels in what I teach and how I teach it. After all I'm an Enneagram teacher and angels are not traditionally on the syllabus. There is a connection and it comes through Neoplatonism, and I will post more on that later.

The main reason that I use angels in teaching though is as a symbol of the best that we can be. There are nine types of angel in the Celestial Hierarchy and nine types of people in the Enneagram of Personality. For me each of the nine types of angel represents the highest part of one of the nine archetypes of the Enneagram.

The Enneagram tells us both what is good about us and what is bad about us and most importantly how these are connected with each other. But sometimes it can be seen as just a negative thing and I think one reason for this is that it is such a true description of our basic motivations - it can be scary seeing your deepest darkest secrets out there in black and white and this can distract our attention away from the good stuff.

There has been more research recently into positive psychology and wellness, which I think is a good thing. Maybe the Enneagram can be a part of that. It's not just a description of what is wrong with us, it also shows us the best we can be and how we can get there. And at our best we embrace the divine spark of life within us and become the angel inside ourselves.

Acknowledgement: thanks to Ted for the blog post title.