You may remember that the Holy Ideas were among the first four Enneagons taught by Óscar Ichazo, and of those, perhaps the most misunderstood. Ichazo described them as the unconditioned self’s higher mental states, presenting them as the nine essential qualities of humanity’s divine nature. Some even suggest they represent the nine faces of God. Regardless, along with the Virtues (the unconditioned self’s higher emotional states), the Holy Ideas are a key component of the foundational elements that make up our Essence.

These nine divine thoughts are often overlooked or grossly mistaught in most Enneagram teachings because their terminology can be vague at best, leading to considerable confusion. Furthermore, there are very few resources available to help us understand the true meaning behind the Holy Ideas.

Hameed Ali, one of the first students in Claudio Naranjo’s original SAT program, integrated the Holy Ideas into the framework of his Diamond Approach to Self-Realization. His groundbreaking book, Facets of Unity: The Enneagram of Holy Ideas, is an unprecedented text on this obscure aspect of human character structure. Ali views the Holy Ideas as the nine objective views of reality or unobscured perceptions of what is. He writes, “The Enneagram of Fixations reflects the deluded or egoic view of reality, expressing the loss of the enlightened view, which is represented by the Enneagram of Holy Ideas.” It can be argued that the Fixations are the inverse of the Holy Ideas.

If these unobstructed views of reality are, as Ichazo suggested, the psycho-catalyzers on our journey of inner transformation, they might be the principal aspect of the entire Enneagram tradition. Aligning with the truest version of ourselves and the gifts we were born to bring forward into the world requires compassionate clarity of our inner landscape. It demands that we tell ourselves the truth, which is why the Holy Ideas are fundamentally the first truths we need to acknowledge.

Acceptance and belonging of these Holy Ideas pave the way for inner clarity and spiritual openness by revealing what has been forgotten. This focused work will unearth everything, embarking us on the painful yet ultimately rewarding process of excavating our lost Essence. It all begins with telling ourselves the truth.

How Do We Recover Our Holy Ideas?

I believe the Holy Ideas are the first truths we must tell ourselves to awaken from the slumber of forgetfulness and live into the gift of our belovedness. These first truths help us return to our divine mind aligned with love, or the mind as it was always intended to be. Not to sound cliché, but I’ve developed a framework for implementing these divine thoughts in our personal lives, which I call “The ABCs of the Holy Ideas”:

  • A for Affirmation: The assertion of our inner truth with which our soul longs to reconnect.
  • B for Belief: The celebrated acceptance of our truth that leads to freedom.
  • C for Confession: The acknowledgment of these divine thoughts as necessary for transformation.

Type One

The concept of perfection cannot lead to precise experiences of exactness or correctness. This affirmation of divine perfection is an inner state of discovering perfect love within. Ones are perfect just as they are; nothing more or less is required of them than to simply be. Celebrating their perfection means accepting the gifts and limits of their humanity. This requires compassion for what is intrinsically true of all humans: we are not as bad as our worst failures; we are better than our best successes. It also requires a reorientation in how we understand ourselves: God is not as harsh on us as we are on ourselves. Ones who learn to find beauty in their flaws join the rest of humanity, holding hands with love, and making room for all of us as they’ve made room for themselves.

Type Two

The strength of Type Two lies in aligning with inner or divine will, realizing they are participants in love rather than its drivers or sources. Holy Will creates the freedom to not give oneself away but to become a liberated participant in the flow of love exchanged in relationships—love that gives and receives. The will of the Two allows them to not be in charge of all their human connections. They can flow from the source and cocreate with their relationships rather than being the gods of them. Holy Will is the strength of the Two that allows for true freedom. Humility is not a means to an end; it is the passageway through which a soul journeys toward its truest source of strength and will. As a virtue, humility flows from love, allowing one to affirm their need for something and someone outside themselves, recognizing their need for belonging and admitting they are not the source of belonging. Twos who embrace their divine humility can cocreate fecundity in relationships, allowing themselves to need without being needy. Moving from humiliation to honor is the shift from self-importance to self-love.

Type Three

The divine mind, centered in its Holy Idea, creates through loving and compassionate order, and this creation is not dependent on us. Affirming the divine plan for creation transforms our desire to control our efforts in altering reality to attain value. Instead of attempting to change their world to attain value, Threes are changed by the world, discovering there is nothing they can do to earn love. Threes align with this interior change when they are grounded in their being and find the seed of transformation and the source of love. Awareness of the harmonious perfection in the laws of nature is the source of hope for lasting change. When Threes live into their Holy Idea, conversion is realized as transformation, shifting illusions of worth from merit-based pursuits to alignment with inherent worth. Here, they discover they cannot change themselves to be loved, for they are inherently and unconditionally loved as they are.

Type Four

If we affirm that all people are significant because of their holy origin, we likewise affirm that no one is without a basis for belonging. Aligning with that basis assigns meaning. The emotional ache to locate source in the soul of Fours is evidence that the source exists, just as human restlessness with time points to our eternal nature. The divine mind of the Four owns this for themselves. Connecting with the source of love requires connecting with self, accepting oneself, and allowing oneself to be loved unconditionally. Here, connection is simply the echo of love reverberating from one soul to the next—being without doing.

Type Five

Many spiritual teachers suggest that the first language of the divine was silence. In silence, love is no longer anonymous though it’s known without a name. Fives who surrender to the mystery of this unnamed yet knowable love stand in the lineage of mystics before and beyond them, affirming that not needing to know everything is the only thing one needs to know. With transparency, they realize, “Love is what I’ve always held because love has always held me.” Here, they discover the coherence they’ve longed for; love holds everything together, resonating with the universal frequency of love. There are no answers Fives need to find because love is the answer to every need, the solution to every problem, the completion to what is missing. If they can be compassionate with themselves in silence, they will perceive love.

Type Six

Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; certainty is. Faith requires making an option for the absurd, hoping for something better than could be imagined. One doesn’t need to believe in the things they put their faith in because faith and belief are falsely correlated aspects of a larger commitment to trust. Faith is rooted in love and grounded in truth—faith is hope-filled. Faith is courageous doubt. Courage doesn’t imply a lack of fear; just as faith needs doubt, courage needs fear. Courage is being honest with fear, facing the illusions and truths it conceals. In a quasi-spiritual trust fall, the divine mind of Sixes finds authentic peace by liberating their concerns through courage—seemingly the most absurd option they can make.

Type Seven

The wisdom of love is experienced in the present. One cannot participate in the present while fixated on anticipating the future, just as a preoccupied mind can’t occupy the moment that holds it. The painful struggle for Sevens demands they slow down the fast-paced brilliance of their minds long enough to remember that the present moment is always enough. In every moment of our past is held, and every potential moment of our future is incubated. This moment, now, is the only moment that matters. It holds every answer and every question. The enoughness of now is the compassionate embrace of love’s patience, which has consistently waited to be held. This divine thought of Sevens celebrates constancy through constraint, evidence of their spiritual flourishing.

Type Eight

Truth is the severe mercy of love showing its tender aspects. It is an invitation to love. The strength of the Eight lies in surrendering to love and discovering they are held with compassion. In this embrace, Eights can be vulnerable. But in such an exchange, rejection is possible. Opening to this possibility is true strength. Being sensitive to the potential pain incurred by rejection is true courage. Closing oneself off from the joy or sorrow balanced on the knife’s edge of rejection is controlling, and any effort to exert control is an overcompensation of weakness. Learning to let go of control is how Eights make peace with their power—a power realized in the mastery of self rather than attempting to control others. As Lao Tzu suggests, “Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.” The divine mind of the Eight opens their vulnerable heart, inviting them to bear their most woundable and tender selves as the validation of their power.

Type Nine

To be love is divine. To be divine is to cooperate with love. Located at the top of the Enneagram’s circle rests the Nine, like a full moon or the risen sun, permeating the world with rays of love beaming from the clarity of their divine mind. Nines know that to love is to be loved and to be love is to start by loving oneself without condition, commentary, or constraint. The experience of love must be internalized. When the divine mind cooperates with love, it sparks action and activates love in the world.

The Holy Ideas and the Essence of Love

As the poet and mystic Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi mused, “I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God.” The Holy Ideas are not merely emotional states or experiences but unobstructed views of reality that embody the essence of love. Fundamentally, love doesn’t objectify what it holds with attention; rather, love makes the object its subject. It takes a divine mind to realize this—not just a conceptual realization, but an embodied reality lived in the world.

While living and working all over the world for 20 years with an international humanitarian organization, Chris Heuertz was first introduced to the Enneagram in a slum in Southeast Asia. Since then, he has trained under some of the great living Enneagram masters — including Marion Gilbert, Helen Palmer, Father Richard Rohr, and Russ Hudson.

As an International Enneagram Association Accredited Professional Chris now works as an Enneagram one-on-one coach and consultant, teaches the Enneagram all around the world, hosts the Enneagram Mapmakers podcast, delivered a TEDx talk on the Enneagram, and has published seven books including two bestselling Enneagram books: the award-winning The Sacred Enneagram and The Enneagram of Belonging.

Enneagram illustrations by Elnora Turner; do not use without permission. Cover image by NASA, courtesy of Unsplash. Content is a revised and updated excerpt from Chris Heuertz’s The Enneagram of Belonging: A Compassionate Journey of Self Acceptance.