The Barrcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Barrcast. I’m your host, Nick Barr, coming to you on a Wednesday afternoon here in New York. We’re in the middle of a major cold period here and storms may be coming this weekend. So what better time to learn about tactics for resisting the eight evil thoughts or tempting thoughts or logismoi.

So let’s get right into it. We’re picking up where we left off on chapter 15.

Chapter 15: Stabilizing the Three Faculties

The wandering nous is made stable by one reading, two vigils and three prayer. Burning epithumia, that’s desire, is quenched by one hunger, two toil and three solitude. Churning thumos, indignation, is calmed by one, the singing of Psalms, by two, patient endurance and three, mercy. But all these practices are to be engaged in at proper times and in proper measure. What is done untimely or without measure is temporary. And what is temporary is more harmful and not beneficial.

So I did some research on this because here Evagrius is presenting some new vocabulary with epithumia and thumos. And it seems like he’s creating a new kind of framework of these three faculties: wandering nous, burning epithumia (desire), churning thumos (indignation). You could map this onto the three faculties of the Enneagram or the three faculties in Buddhism. There are a lot of pre-existing maps, but just so we can ground ourselves in Evagrius’s own influences, this is from Plato’s tripartite model of the soul with kind of the logical center. I place it in the head, the logical center. Desire, epithumia in the lower body could say in the gut. And then thumos, indignation in the chest. And thumos, or indignation is a word that we’re going to visit many more times in these chapters. So let’s continue.

When our soul longs for a variety of different foods, then its portion should be reduced to bread and water to make it thankful for a little more soul. It is satiety that desires variety in food. Hunger considers it blessedness just to have satiety of bread. A great aid to chastity is deprivation of water, as persuaded by 300 Israelites who defeated Midian in company with Gideon.

Just as life and death cannot coexist in the same subject at the same time, so also is it impossible for love (agape) to coexist with wealth. Love destroys not only wealth, but also this agape, our temporal life. The one who flees all worldly pleasures is a tower inaccessible to the demon of gloominess. For gloominess is the deprivation of pleasure that is either present or anticipated. So it’s impossible for us to drive away this enemy as long as we have any earthly attachment. He sets his trap and produces gloominess just where he sees our inclinations lead us.

So, you know, typical kind of monastic advice here around receding from pleasure, down to, you know, receding from food and water.

Understanding Anger and Indignation

Anger and hatred amplify indignation. Merciful compassion and gentleness decrease it even when present. So anger is this logismos that amplifies the natural indignation, thumos. So I think, as we’ll learn later, thumos, indignation is a natural state for Evagrius, but it gets inflamed by anger and cooled in contrast by compassion and gentleness.

He continues: The sun should not set on our anger so that the demons do not, rising up by night, terrify the soul and make the nous more cowardly the day after for the fight. For terrifying phantasms are produced by the disturbance of indignation. And nothing makes a deserter out of the nous so much as disturbed indignation.

When the irascible part of our soul, that’s the thumikon, so there’s an inherently irascible part of our soul, seizes some excuse and is troubled, then the demons suggest to us how good it is to withdraw into solitude, thus keeping us from resolving the cause of the gloominess and freeing ourselves from the disturbance. But when our desiring part, that’s the epithumeticon, is enkindled, then they make us sociable and call us hardened and uncivil, so that by desiring bodies we then come into contact with bodies. We should not obey them, but instead do the opposite.

Actually I think this is very good, simple advice here, which is when our anger is inflamed, we do have a way of retreating, I think. I know for myself I can withdraw where it’s easy for me to tell myself the stories that further my anger, as opposed to, say, calling a friend, seeking to resolve the cause of the gloominess. In contrast, when we’re in a desiring state, we want to be with other people, when actually maybe we should be withdrawing.

The Danger of Mental Combat

Do not give yourself to the tempting thought of anger by fighting mentally the distressing person, nor to that of fornication by spending most of the time in fantasies of pleasures. For the one darkens the soul, the other summons it to burn with passion. Both of these pollute your nous. And thus at the time of prayer, you will fantasize images. And not being able to offer pure prayer to God, you will immediately fall victim to the demon of acedia. This demon readily leaps upon such states and like a dog with a young deer, tears the soul to pieces.

Again, acedia has this sort of special property for Evagrius. And he’s naming kind of, I would say, the three temptations that are most closely associated with these three parts of the soul. So, and I’m applying more framework and more structure than I think we ever see Evagrius do. But because we’re in relationship to the Enneagram, we’re inclined to do that kind of connective work.

So he talks about the wandering nous. And I would say this wandering nous is closest to the demon of acedia. The inflamed indignation is most closely associated with the temptation of anger or orge. And then here, he’s saying the desire, inflamed desire is most, susceptible, you could say, to the demon of, here he says, fornication or lust. We could call it elsewhere.

Interesting. Those are the eight, nine and the one. So, in some ways maybe that’s, that top part of the Enneagram is in some ways sort of the falling point of the mind or of the soul. That’s where the soul first errs in these, in potentially these three ways, depending on which part of this tripartite soul is activated.

Again, like, why do we want to even do this kind of analysis? It’s to create a map of sorts for experiential sense making. And we’ll get to that soon. What do we do here? So we’ll get to instructions, I think, in this episode. And the point of the map is to facilitate a kind of inner combat ultimately that Evagrius is going to give us.

The Nature and Role of Indignation

Here he says the nature of indignation, so that the nature of indignation, the natural quality of this part of the soul, thumos, is to fight the demons and to struggle over any kind of pleasure. I did a little bit of translation inquiry on struggle over any kind of pleasure. And what I got back from the Greek was not struggle against any pleasure but to essentially, you could say wrestle with pleasure or, you know, either fight for pleasure or fight against pleasure to some extent. But it’s ambiguous, I would say for this reason. The angels suggest to us spiritual pleasures and the blessedness coming from them. They encourage us to direct our indignation towards the demons. The latter, however, dragging us toward worldly desires, violently force our indignation against nature to fight human beings so as to darken the nous, separating it from knowledge and thus making it a traitor to the virtues.

Take heed to yourself that you never so provoke any of the brethren that he runs away, or you will never escape during your lifetime from the demon of despondency, which will always become an obstacle for you at the time of prayer.

Gifts quench memory of injury. Let Jacob convince you of this. He insinuated himself into Esau’s graces with gifts when he came against him with 400 men. But as we are poor, we should make up for our lack by hospitality at the table.

When we are oppressed by the demon of listlessness, then with tears let us divide our soul in two. Or perhaps tears, let us divide our soul in two, one part encouraging, the other sowing good hopes within us, soothing with David’s chant, why are you downcast, my soul? Why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I will confess him, the Savior of my countenance and my God.

That almost feels like sort of prototypical parts work here, tearing one soul into two, such that one part of the soul can console the other.

Facing Temptation

We must not abandon our cell in time of temptation, making eloquent excuses. We should stay seated within and persevere and bravely receive all comers, especially the demon of acedia. It’s interesting: receive all comers, receive all demons. So this is sort of the Ajahn Chah instruction of put a chair in the middle, sit down and see who comes to visit. That’s the attitude that’s being advocated for here.

The demon of acedia, the most oppressive of all and thereby most highly proving the soul’s quality. Fleeing from such conflicts and trying to shun this teaches the nous to be incompetent, fearful, and fugitive. So Evagrius is not saying flee demonic thinking. He’s saying sit and face and receive demonic thinking. That’s the attitude here.

And then use indignation, we’ll learn more about, to fight it. I think it’s important for us to learn more about what is the nature of this indignation, how does it function?

Our holy teacher, who is greatly experienced in asceticism, said the monk must always be ready as though he were to die tomorrow, but he must as well treat his body as if he were going to live with it for many years. The first approach cuts off the thoughts of acedia and makes the monk more zealous, while the second maintains the body and keeps its control in balance.

And from a little bit of research about Evagrius and the background of Origen and Gnosticism, which I know very little about, this is one of the areas where Evagrius actually starts to get in trouble with the Church, I think, is his defense of the body and the importance of the body and spiritual work.

Dealing with Vainglory

It is difficult to escape the tempting thought, that’s logismos, of vainglory, since whatever you do to subjugate it becomes the occasion for renewed vainglory. Right. When our indignation is successful at fighting off a demon, of course, we get that vanity there. So our proper thoughts are not all opposed by the demons. Some of them are opposed by our own individual vices.

I have observed the demon of vainglory chased away by almost all the other demons, but then when its pursuers failed, it shamelessly came forward, proclaiming to the monk how great the monk’s virtues are. So this is the beginning of Evagrius’s sort of more advanced teachings on the demons. And he’s starting to note that while they all maybe serve the same purpose of having the spirit fall, they oftentimes work against each other.

One who has reached knowledge and harvested the pleasure it brings will no longer be persuaded by the demon of vainglory, setting before him all the pleasures of the world. For what could it hold out to him better than spiritual contemplation? But to the extent that we have not tasted the savor of knowledge, we should eat eagerly, engage in asceticism, demonstrating to God our goal, namely, that we do everything for the sake of knowledge of him.

By the way, asceticism here is translating as practice. This is the praktikos. So these are ascetic instructions for a monk I mentioned before. These are sort of groundwork instructions that are very much for someone in the phase of renunciation.

Remember your former life and your old trespasses, and how, while subject to passions, you transitioned to apatheia by the mercy of Christ. And how you then left the world that had so frequently and in so many ways humiliated you. And reflect on this for me, who kept guard over you in the desert and drove away the demons who gnashed their teeth against you. Thoughts of this sort will instill humility and deny entry the demon of pride.

Chapter 34: On Passions

If we have memories full of passion of certain things, it is because we once welcomed these very things with passion. Whatever things we welcome with passion, these things we will later remember with passion. This is kind of cause and effect, a sort of a simple karmic teaching here. So anyone who is defeated by the demons which activate such things makes light of the things they activate. The immaterial battle is harder than the material battle.

The passions of the soul originate from human beings. Those of the body originate from the body. And while the passions of the body are cut away by self control, those of the soul are cut back by spiritual love. So there’s sort of a two layered cutting here. And he’s being clear that the body is in some ways easier or really in many ways easier than the work of the immaterial battle. And the antidote is different: self control versus spiritual love.

There’s a deep teaching, this idea that these two battles actually have different weapons, as it were. And of course then the weapon of spiritual love is going to have a really different feel than that of self control.

The demons that preside over the passions of the soul, for example, anger, persist obstinately until death. Those that preside over the passions of the body withdraw more quickly. And other demons are like the sun that rises and sets, affecting only one part of the soul. But the noonday demon acedia generally envelops the whole soul and suffocates the nous. For this reason, the solitary life is sweet after we’ve emptied out the passions, then our memories are simple. And the monk’s struggle is thus not to prepare him to fight, but rather to contemplate the struggle itself.

So he’s making a claim here that the demons are never going to give up. That their battle will continue so long as we’re alive. But the nature of the battle changes as we empty out the passions first of the body and then as we move through the later stages of renunciation. We’re not entering a mode of fighting so much as a mode of contemplation. And it’s a gentler, sweeter life.

We must consider whether it is concepts that move passions or passions that move concepts. Some people have held the first opinion, others the second. By means of sensations, passions are naturally aroused. If both charity and self control are present, they will not be aroused. But if absent, they will be aroused.

Indignation requires more remedies than desire. And because of this, charity is called great. Because it bridles indignation and therefore holy Moses in his natural science symbolically names it snake fighter.

Recap of the Framework

So a lot of deep teaching there that we could go into. Just for what it’s worth, like I checked that Bible passage here with Moses. That’s Leviticus 11:22. And at face value it just reads about instructions about what you can and cannot eat. So, you know, this is pretty esoteric teaching here. But let’s just quickly recap here as we finish the Passions, Chapter 39.

On account of the strong stench in demons, the soul is usually inflamed against tempting thoughts when it perceives them approaching, being affected by the passion associated with a demon that is annoying it.

So in a kind of subtle, brief way, he is really laying out quite an energetic framework here where we have these three parts of the soul: the nous, which is the seat of reason, the head, and in some ways the sort of entire soul in Evagrius’s framing. In the chest we have thumos, indignation, natural indignation. In the gut we have natural desire.

And these natural parts of the soul have passions, through memories of having passions that happen in our lifetime and before our lifetime, right? The fall of Adam and Eve, the fall of Satan. These are all events that have wounded the tripartite soul of human beings. And therefore we have certain susceptibility, certain weak spots that demons seek to exploit.

Of these demons we have acedia attacking the nous overall, anger attacking natural thumos (indignation), and lust or fornication attacking desire. And he has very kind of practical advice, right? When indignation is attacked, seek others. When desire is attacked, seek solitude.

He talks about indignation being more in need of remedy than desire. In some way desire conquering the physical passions of the body, that’s sort of the initial work that requires more self control. But by the time we move toward indignation and protecting it from inflammation, that work becomes more subtle.

One of the subtleties he’s naming is demons themselves are so repulsive, they are stinky, nasty that the soul will already, thumos will already become inflamed against them when it perceives them approaching. Therefore this inflammation is already being activated.

And so if we take the approach that we took with the initial round of renunciation of self control of the body, the problem with that I think is that indignation was deployed to control the desire. But indignation’s inflammation can’t be used to control indignation’s inflammation. That only produces more inflammation, more anger.

This is where we need to call in charity, mercy, compassion, love. And the fight changes in nature. It becomes one of contemplation. Contemplation. It becomes sweet. We draw on Christian love, you know, in the Evagrius framework here. We draw on Christ’s love to, as he says here, to bridle indignation and turn indignation back on the demons to become snake fighters.

I don’t know. We’ll read the instructions. But I still think, what is the nature? You know, how does Christ, I guess, would be the question, right, for a Christian perspective here. What do we know about how Christ fights demons? How does he show this holy indignation? I think would be very important for us to study if we’re going to take up spiritual warfare in this framework. Is he angry? Or is he, you know, to use kind of Buddhist language, is he manifesting wrath? Is he wrathful presenting, but his thumos is calm? Not clear yet.

Instructions

It is not possible at all times to carry out the customary rule, but it is necessary to be watchful of the opportune time and thus to perform whatever commandments we can as best we are able. Again, discernment becomes so primary here that Evagrius is saying, as he did at the beginning of the last section, there’s, for every given time there’s a right intervention. There’s no playbook exactly. Even though he’s simultaneously sort of giving us a playbook. This is never rote. There’s never a protocol. This is never automatic. There’s a constant kind of watchfulness here that’s required.

Regarding these opportune times and what concerns them, the demons themselves are not ignorant. Thus in their movements against us, they prevent our accomplishing what is possible and force us to undertake what is not possible. They prevent the sick from giving thanks in their pain and from being patient in receiving their ministrations. And they exhort the weak to fast and those who are weighed down to sing psalms while standing.

So two really important points here. One is that the demons themselves are aware of, the demons are incredibly smart. They see the whole battlefield. Going back to Ignatius’s spiritual exercises, he compares demonic thoughts to a very brilliant general who sees all, you know, who’s on a hill and sees the whole battlefield.

So we actually are not going to outsmart the demons having access to this framework itself doesn’t put us ahead of the demons. Actually, all it sort of does is allow us to see what the demons already see. So the Enneagram in this way is kind of a demonic, I’m very sympathetic to the Christian subset who find the Enneagram demonic. It is in some ways demonology. It is a study of demonic thoughts and these ways that, you know, we move from one to another.

It is, we are not gaining transcendent wisdom that we use to fight the demons. Actually, Evagrius is very clear on this, that the demons already know all this stuff. We’re not going to outsmart them.

So that’s thing one and then thing two is given that they’re already making it hard for us to do the right intervention. They’re already ahead of the curve. So that even if we know what needs to be done, it’s going to be very difficult because the demons are already in their movements preventing us from applying the right remedy to the right sickness.

When we are compelled to spend time in cities or towns, we should especially maintain our self control on occasions when we interact with secular persons, lest our mind become coarse and be robbed of its accustomed diligence because of the present time, and so become a fugitive thrown about by the demons.

Using Anger Against Demons

Do not immediately pray when you are tempted. First speak some words with anger to the one pressuring you. For when your soul is acted upon by tempting thoughts, prayer cannot be pure. But if you speak to them with anger, you will confuse and utterly destroy the ideas that come from your enemies. This is also the natural result of anger in the case of good ideas.

Okay, let’s analyze this a little bit. So this is the first time he’s talking about speaking words with anger. I don’t know, actually, should we quickly Google, what, you know, let’s find out quickly how he’s using anger here. I’ve been using Claude. It’s been very helpful for these kinds of inquiries. So let’s paste that in and say, you know, say, what’s the Greek here? Anger here compared to indignation.

So I’m interested in this because this is really the first time that Evagrius is giving instruction about how to apply anger to demonstration. And indeed it is the same word, orge. So there’s, even though orge is listed as one of the evil thoughts, here he is advocating for speaking with orge to the one pressuring you. I mean, when he’s talking about one pressuring you, he’s talking about demons. So here he’s advocating essentially for using a demonic thought to fight another demonic thought.

Unless he’s just being maybe careless with the word orge. But you would certainly hope he’d be more intentional in the use of that word. Now, I’m not sure if he’s saying feel anger, succumb to anger, but he’s certainly saying the words, speak words of anger. Actually, don’t go to prayer first. Speak with them. Speak to them with anger. Why? Because you will confuse and destroy the ideas that are coming from them.

He says this is also the natural result of anger in the case of good ideas. I don’t quite know what he means by that. Like, natural result of anger in the case of good ideas. Maybe part of what he’s saying is because anger destroys bad ideas, the good ideas come through.

Well, since we’ve got Claude open on that, okay. He says this is actually, he’s saying the opposite, at least according to Claude’s interpretation of the Greek here. Anger naturally confuses and destroys any ideas, even beneficial ones. So again, we’re getting into really discerning territory here. We’re near the end of the treatise, and so any idea will be destroyed by anger. So be careful.

Okay. Continuing: It is necessary to be aware of the differences between demons and to interpret their different occasions. This we shall know from the tempting thoughts and the tempting thoughts from the objects they depict. Thus knowing which demons are less frequent and heavier, which are more frequent and lighter, and which leap suddenly and snatch the nous off to blasphemy. These things it is necessary to know. So that when tempting thoughts begin to move their own particular matter, and before we are driven too far from our proper state, we may speak out to them and indicate which one is present. For thus we shall, with God’s help, readily make progress, amazing them and forcing them to flee from us.

So Evagrius wants us to study this for ourselves. He wants us to say, that’s orge, that’s gluttony, that’s lust, etc. And to drive them off. That’s what he’s advocating for here.

The Intelligence of Demons

When the demons are powerless in their struggle with the monks, they withdraw for a little and carefully note which of the virtues the monks are meanwhile neglecting. And then they suddenly rush in and tear the wretched soul to pieces. The evil demons bring along even more evil demons to assist them. Temperamentally, they’re opposed to each other, but they all agree in seeking solely the destruction of the soul.

And from my coaching work and my training, this is really apparent. We can call it polarization when we get caught in these eddies of competing stakeholders or voices. Vanity and truth telling as an example. Right? Like they are at war with each other. And so even though these demons are in some sense in combat, they actually share an overarching goal, which is to destroy the soul, to tear it to pieces.

We should not be disturbed by the demon that seizes and carries off the nous towards blasphemy against God and towards unspeakable fantasies that I have not even attempted to record in writing. Nor should such things hinder our eagerness. The Lord is knower of the heart, and he knows that even when we were in the world, we were not guilty of such insanity. The goal of this demon is to hinder our prayer so that we do not stand before the Lord, our God, or dare to raise our hands on account of having these kinds of ideas.

There’s a very gentle piece of instruction here. He’s basically saying, no matter how awful the thought or the fantasy is, don’t beat yourself up over it. Actually, that’s the point of it. The demon is trying to make you feel so lousy that you abandon your prayers altogether.

The sign of the passions within the soul is some word which we utter or some movement of the body. Through these, the enemies perceive whether we have their tempting thoughts within us and are in labor of childbirth with them, or whether we have cast them away and are concerned with their salvation. For it is only the God who made us, who knows our nous and does not require signs to know what is hidden in our thought.

That’s very interesting. Another subtle point here. But the information that demons get is solely through the body. Now, the mind body. Right. I mean, I think the intellect here is part of the body. And the enemies are able to watch us labor. That’s such a gestalt metaphor. We are impregnated by these thoughts. And there’s some sort of gestation cycle. And they’re monitoring that very closely to try to induce birth of these tempting thoughts. And therefore, make us fall even further. But God is the only one who knows our nous. That’s sort of our soul. And so doesn’t require signs to know what is hidden in our heart.

Different Battles for Different Lives

While the demons prefer to fight persons who live in the world by means of external matters, they attack monks primarily through tempting thoughts. For they are separated from things because of the desert.

And someone commented on the previous barcast I did, pointing out how interesting it was that the way that Evagrius conceives of, for instance, gluttony is like fear of deprivation, or avarice as fear of destitution. So rather than these positive greedy qualities, they were actually a response to sort of not having, an aversion to not having. And here Evagrius, I think is clarifying that, you know, that’s sort of the deeper level that monks experience this. For people in the world, demons will employ external, external wanting. But for the monks it’s an internal battle and a battle with the thoughts themselves.

Since it is easier to sin mentally than by action, the mental war is more difficult than that which arises because of external matters. The nous is something that is easily moved and hard to restrain when confronted with all his fantasies. Such a simple way of putting it. But like the body isn’t that easy to move compared to the nous, that can move a mile a minute.

The Primacy of Prayer

We are not commanded to work the whole time or to keep vigil the whole time or to fast the whole time. But there is a law that we should pray ceaselessly. The first three which heal the part of the soul in which the passions are, need the body for their practice. And it is congenitally too weak for such labors. But prayer makes the mind strong and pure for the struggle, since the mind is naturally made for prayer and it is natural to it to fight demons even without the body, on behalf of all the powers, excuse me, of the soul.

Practice Instructions

If any monk wishes to experience of the savage demons and to become acquainted with their art, he should observe his tempting thoughts and note down. So here’s really clear practice instructions. And so with Lent coming up, you might want to spend your 40 days in the desert doing this. I’m not sure if I’m going to, but I’m thinking about it. So if you want to put on your monk’s habit and engage in a kind of warfare with the demons, this is how he thinks you should do it. It’s through observation.

Observe and note down their intensification and diminution and their interconnectedness and their timing and which demons produce what, and which demon comes after another and which does not follow after which. And he should seek from Christ the inner meanings of these things. They dislike, that’s the demons dislike those who approach the ascetic life with greater knowledge, for they wish to shoot in darkness at the upright of heart.

So this is observation. This is a very painful, difficult part of spiritual practice that is also an indispensable part. And in this framing it’s observation of the demons themselves. And in particular it’s so dynamic. It’s so much like the Enneagram here. Noticing which comes after the other, etc.

Buddhism in my training doesn’t have anything quite like this. I think the closest would be the six realms. And then kind of extending the six realms into the psychological domain being described here. Maybe using the five elements too. But for me there’s something very kind of useful about the Enneagram or about these thoughts that come in, particular around their relationships. How one one seems to reliably follow the other.

And you know, I mean, I think any amount of observation here will, to some extent, at least from my experience, you can’t help but see a kind of intelligence behind this attack. You know, it’s not one after another in a neutral way. There seems to be a demonic intelligence, if you want to call it that, behind this.

And I love this very brief passage. He should seek from Christ the inner meanings of these things. And I think that’s maybe for the first time that’s where I see in Evagrius, some wiggle room about, do we really need Satan in this undertaking? I mean we certainly, we’re certainly invited to. But what are the inner meanings of these things? That’s just such a great question, you know, what is underneath this gluttony that I think that invites a kind of curiosity that doesn’t have to conclude in there’s an external force that wants my soul to be destroyed. I do think that, you know, I do think that there might be other possibilities there.

Final Chapters

Okay, we’re wrapping up the instructions, last couple chapters. Through observation you will discover that two of the demons are the sharpest, so quick that they almost overtake the movement of your mind: the demon of fornication and the one which drags us off to blaspheme God. But the second does not last for long, while the first, provided it does not stir our thoughts with passion, will not impede our knowledge of God.

This is interesting. I don’t think I read this carefully the first time. Let me finish the next two sections, chapters.

To separate body from soul belongs solely to the one who united them. But to separate soul from body belongs also to one who longs for virtue. Withdrawal into solitude has been called by our fathers meditation on death and flight from the body.

Those who wickedly cherish the flesh and take thought for it to satisfy desires should blame themselves, not the flesh, for they know the grace of the Creator. Those who obtained apatheia, dispassion, of the soul by means of the body, and to some extent zealously strive for the contemplation of beings.

He mentioned zeal frequently and zeal is sometimes one of the words used as a passion in the one which is anger, orge, indignation. What I’m really struck by and what speaks so much to my spiritual practice is this deep ambiguity about what to do with ire, wrath, indignation, to what extent it is our natural gift and it’s just a matter of pointing it in the right directions, versus to what extent it itself is an obstacle that the best course is simply to kind of cool it, through mercy, compassion, love, etc.

So I just want to return as we close to this chapter 51. Two demons are the sharpest so quick that they almost overtake the movement of your mind: the demon of fornication, the eight, the lust, and the one which drags us off to blaspheme God. I’m going to just quickly go, I say Google, I mean, check with Claude about this second one. I think you would be talking about pride here.

Let’s see. You know, he’s calling it blasphemy. I’m just going to push a little bit because we have blasphemy hasn’t come up. Yeah, so Claude doesn’t know, which is fine. I do think it’s pride, because, I mean, when we talk about blaspheming God, isn’t that pride? I mean, isn’t that Satan, Satan’s thing?

Yeah. So, I mean, I guess all we can say for sure here is Evagrius is saying, go observe it for yourself. And in part, maybe, you know, part of what we could say here is that he’s, you know, he’s really encouraging us to see for ourselves how these demons operate. And, you know, this is some of the more poetic language he’s used, the one that drags us off to blaspheme God. So maybe, you know, maybe in his spiritual work he had a real relationship with the demon that would come and attack him again and again. I haven’t read other treatises yet and I’m interested to do so.

Maybe through observation, these demons start to take on much more personality. You know, we develop more of a relationship with them. Whereas I think what he’s given us as a starting place is the eight tempting thoughts. None of which is blasphemy, but if we’re thinking about the Enneagram in our head, the nine acedia, forgetting, sleepiness. The eight to the left, lust or fornication. The one to the right, ire, wrath, anger. And then down there, right after that is pride. And so, you know, we could think of the fall of Satan as one of initially forgetting, followed by indignation, potentially toward God, anger toward God, moving into pride.

Again, take of that what is useful. Really, the only thing that matters with this mapping is to somehow plant it in a way that is meaningful for us. So that, yeah, we have a kind of experiential map and a little bit more fluency and agility as we’re navigating this sort of thick, thick experiential air in our renunciation work.

So we’ll end there. The next chapter, I will review one more time to see if they’re worth recording another Barrcast on. But they’re concerning things that happen during sleep. And then some comments on apatheia, which is dispassion, which is sort of the goal of renunciative work.

So thanks for listening. See you next time.

Transcript

Welcome to the Barrcast. I’m your host, Nick Barr, coming to you on a sunny and cold winter morning here in New York.

We are going to start reading the Praktikos today. So this is 100 chapters. It’s not long, but I expect this to take two episodes.

Why are we reading the Praktikos? This is a work by Evagrius Ponticus. If you’ve followed previous videos, you know, we’ve been doing a lot of work on the Enneagram and reading through Claudio Naranjo’s contributions. If Naranjo is sort of the father of the Enneagram of personality, then Evagrius is the grandfather. He’s a desert father, a Christian mystic from the three hundreds who lived in Egypt and led a nomadic life.

And so we’re going to dive into the Praktikos. And I think the only piece of context that I want to lay out now is I’m just getting started on Evagrius’s work. But what I know about the Praktikos is it’s sort of considered groundwork on his end. So what we’re going to be reading here could be thought of as sort of foundational or training material or groundwork. If you practice in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, you maybe have heard of the word ngondro. This is kind of like training material. And so it’s written for someone still very much working on the foundations of practice. That doesn’t mean exactly that it’s like junior varsity material. But there’s a kind of a tone and approach to groundwork spiritual training that pervades here. And I think basically we’re going to be talking a lot about fighting demons and resisting demons. And it’s written for a spiritual practitioner who’s at a stage of practice where that’s really central in their practice is this kind of combat with temptation. And let’s get started.

I love the way he starts it. So it’s a letter to Anatolius. And he begins, since you recently wrote to me in Scetis from the holy mountain, dear Brother Anatolius, demanding that I explain to you the symbolic habit of the Egyptian monks, for you believe it to be neither accidental nor superfluous that the habit is so different from what other people wear. I will therefore tell you what we have learned concerning this from the Holy Fathers. So he’s going to describe his habit, the clothes he wears.

The hood is a symbol of the grace of our Savior and God. It shelters their mind and nurses their childlike relationship with Christ in the face of those who are always attempting to beat and wound it. Anyone who bears this hood on his head is truly chanting the inner meaning of the psalm quote, “Unless the Lord builds the house and guards the city, in vain did the builder and watchman labor.” Recitations like these produce humility and uproot the primordial vice of pride that cast down to the earth Lucifer the dawn rising star.

The nakedness of their hands manifests the absence of hypocrisy in their way of life. Vainglory is terribly clever at covering and darkening virtues, always hunting for the esteem that comes from men and chasing faith away. “For how is it possible for you to believe,” it says, “when you receive glory from one another and the glory that comes only from God, you do not seek?” For the good ought to be chosen for no other reason than itself. Apart from this, anything that moves us to do good will appear far more precious than the good itself. And nothing could be more absurd than to consider and assert that something is better than God.

And again, the scapular that wraps around the shoulders in the form of a cross is a symbol of the faith in Christ that supports the gentle and always, despite obstacles, permits them to work unimpeded.

The belt tied around their loins repels all impurity and declares it is good for a man not to touch a woman. They wear the sheepskin, those always carrying around in their bodies the death of Jesus and muzzling all the body’s irrational passions, cutting back the wickedness of the soul by their communion in the good and loving poverty, but fleeing from avarice as the mother of idolatry.

The staff is a tree of life to all who hold it reliable, for those who lean on it, just as they lean on the Lord.

The habit, then, is like a symbol that summarizes these things. And these are the words the fathers always say to them. “Faith, oh, my child, is steadied by the fear of God. And this fear in turn is strengthened by continence. The latter virtue is made unshakable by patient endurance and hope. From these is born apatheia, or dispassion, which brings into being love. Love is the door to knowledge of nature, which leads to theology and the supreme blessedness.”

So that’s the conclusion of this first part, which is the description of the habit. And I find it very beautiful. I don’t know yet enough about sort of this system that we’re approaching, but you can hear certainly the hood as a symbol of protection from pride. The naked hands as a protection from vanity or vainglory. I think I need to make sure I understand what vainglory exactly means to Evagrius. And check if vainglory is another word for pride or is for vanity. And then other adornments there. And so he mentions apatheia. So, you know, you maybe hear apathy, but it’s dispassion or non attachment. Or you could maybe try equanimity out. This is freedom from the passions. And this is the purpose of the groundwork of the Praktikos is to birth dispassion, birth apatheia. And so these qualities here—continence, endurance, hope, humility—these are the qualities that will birth dispassion, which brings into being, he says, love. Love is the door to knowledge of nature which leads to theology. And so that’s his progression: the Praktikos to the knowledge of nature to theology. And so we’re just focused on the Praktikos for now.

He concludes the prologue by saying, and so, concerning the holy habit and the teaching of the elders, these things we have said should suffice for now. But concerning the life of the ascetic and the knower, I now propose to describe in detail not only what we have seen or heard, but also what I’ve been taught by the elders to say to others. I have compactly divided ascetical matters into a hundred chapters and matters of knowledge into 50 plus 600.

So we’re going to be reading the hundred chapters on ascetical matters here. And some things I’ve concealed and shadowed over so that we do not throw holy things to the dogs, nor cast pearls before swine. But this will be clear to those who have embarked on the same quest. So I think he’s hinting here that there’s going to be some twilight language, some secret language here, that we can keep our eyes out for as we go without totally rabbit holing on it. So here we are. The treatise on the Praktikos. 100 chapters.

And these first chapters are incredibly dense, sort of deceivingly so. So let’s see how we go. Christianity is the teaching of our Savior Christ, consisting of ascetical practice, the contemplation of nature and theology. This is this trifold progression. The kingdom of heaven is apatheia, dispassion of the soul together with true knowledge of beings. The kingdom of God is knowledge of the Holy Trinity, coextensive with the capacity of the nous, mind or intellect, but surpassing it in incorruptibility.

So he’s just sort of outlined the whole project here and hinted that the kingdom of heaven is what we can hope to achieve, or become through this practice of dispassion, the ascetic practice. If you want to make a Buddhist connection, you could call this renunciation, that plus true knowledge of beings that will come later in his contemplation of nature. But even then, if you have this sort of practice of equanimity, that is dispassion combined with some sort of seeing into the true nature of things, that is exceeded still by the kingdom of God, which he says is direct knowledge of the Holy Trinity, coextensive with the structure of the nous, structure of the mind, but surpassing it in incorruptibility. We can just leave that aside for now. Just knowing that that’s there. For whatever person ardently loves, he uses eros here. Loves he will want completely and what he wants, he will struggle to acquire.

Now, every pleasure is preceded by desire, epithumia. And desire is born of sensation. Thus, that which is not subject to sensation is also free from passion.

Against the hermits, the demons engage in naked combat. Against those laboring at virtue in monasteries or communities, they armed the more careless of the brethren. For the second battle is much lighter than the first. Since there cannot be found on earth men more bitter than the demons, or able to undertake all their evil doings at once.

So where are we here? He’s making a general statement about what it’s like to be a being. You know, a person on Earth, a human being. For humans, we love things. And what we love we want. And what we want, we struggle to acquire. Again, you know, you could map this into a Buddhist framework pretty easily.

So every pleasure that we experience is preceded by desire born of sensation. And so, you know, putting two and two together, I think part of what he’s trying to say here is that pleasure seeking is incompatible with dispassion. Because when we seek and experience pleasure, it’s because we’ve given into desire born of sensation to some extent. And what we’re looking for in dispassion is something that’s not born from sensation. It’s not contingent on sensation.

So he continues. There are eight principal kinds of tempting thoughts. So here I think, and I don’t have the Greek available, but it’s on this website. All you have to do is just search Ev Ponticus, Praktikos. So, if you’re a scholar here, you can do more tracing than I can. But I think for the first time he’s introducing this word, logismoi, the singular being, logismos. These are like tempting thoughts.

I think they’re tempting thoughts that are born of sensation. So these eight kinds of tempting thoughts, he says, contain within themselves every tempting thought. And this is the origin of the Enneagram. First, that of gluttony. And with that of sexual immorality. Third, that of love of money. Fourth, that of sadness. Fifth, that of anger. Six, that of acedia or sloth or torpor. Seventh, that of vain glory. Eighth, that of pride.

I just want to check. Yeah, I guess vanity would be an acceptable translation of vainglory. It’s not the same as pride, although they’re certainly related.

He says we cannot control whether these tempting thoughts can agitate the soul or not. But whether they remain in us or not and whether they move the passions or not, that we can control.

So the basic framework, as far as I can tell that Evagrius is laying out is this soul or, I think he would use that interchangeably with nous, Mind. This mind of ours is assailed by logismoi, tempting thoughts. And it is outside of our control whether these thoughts agitate us or not. The mind has sort of wounds in it that date back to the fall of man and before that the fall of the angels and Satan. So we are already subject to agitation. We are already subject to passions. So agitation is part of life. Though what we can control is whether they move the passions or not. So the passions you could think of as sort of grooves in the mind that if animated or moved by these tempting thoughts, if captured or captivated, then those actually move the mind. That’s where our responsibility begins.

* The tempting thought of gluttony suggests to the monk the sudden rejection of his asceticism. And it’s interesting he starts here. Naranjo also starts with gluttony. He says something interesting about gluttony, that in a way gluttony is the door to all the other passions, in the sense that, you know, here if you give up your asceticism, everything will fall from there. Right? So it’s interesting that Evagrius starts with gluttony. The stomach, liver, spleen and resultant congestive heart failure are depicted along with long sickness, lack of necessities and unavailability of physicians.

It often leads him to recall those of the brethren who have suffered these things. Sometimes it even deceives those who have suffered from this kind of thing to go and visit others who are practicing self control to tell them all about their misfortunes and how this resulted from their asceticism.

Super interesting depiction of gluttony here, where what’s being presented to the mind, to the nous in this logismos is not a banquet table full of delicious things. It’s actually the possibility of sickness, of destitution. You know, you’ve got no access to health care. We could say as a monk, you think about all of your brethren who died or suffered from ailments. You might even go out and tell people about misfortunes. So it’s basically gluttony is getting people off the ascetic path through fear. Although, you know, fear interestingly, is sort of the great missing element in the these eight evil thoughts. So fear is the, you know, if Enneagram is nine and the eight evil thoughts here are eight, fear is the one that’s missing.

So anyway, that maybe contributes to why gluttony goes first.

* The demon of sexual immorality, that’s porneia, compels desiring for different bodies. Especially violently does it attack those who practice self control so that they will cease as if achieving nothing, contaminating the soul. It bends it down toward these sorts of deeds. It makes it speak certain words and then hear them as if the thing were actually there to be seen.

So these are these sort of temptations off the ascetic path—gluttony on the one hand and immorality on the other.

* Love of money. Avarice suggests a long old age, hands powerless to work, hunger and disease yet to come the bitterness of poverty and the disgrace of receiving the necessities of life from others.

So again, the presentation of the logismos is not abundance, is not, wouldn’t it be great if I had wealth. It’s the presentation of poverty. So stinginess is my preferred translation of avarice rather than greed. And here again the mind is being presented or assaulted with things that are basically undesirable fears, things that we want to avoid.

And if we’re just keeping track of the numbers here, you know, avarice is the five, sexual immorality is the eight, is lust. And gluttony is the seven. So we kind of have, while that’s not a traditional triad of the Enneagram, and it skips over the six, that is a pocket of the Enneagram. And which is interesting to think about. And they are in some ways all in relationship to threat. I think you could safely say, 5 and 7 are in the fear triads, more explicitly avoidant or fearing types. The eight being a neighbor that sort of responds to fear in that kind of aggressive way of lust. Again, we don’t need to map these perfectly onto the Enneagram. That’s not really the point here.

He continues. Gloominess sometimes arises from frustrated desires, but sometimes it is the result of anger. When desires are frustrated, it arises thus, certain tempting thoughts first seize the soul and remind it of home and parents and its former course of life. So there’s that nostalgia and the melancholy of the four. When they see the soul following them without resistance and dissipating itself in mental pleasures, they take and dunk, literally baptize it in gloom. Since it is the case that these earlier things are gone and cannot be recovered due to the monk’s present way of life, then the miserable soul, having been dissipated by the first tempting thought, is humiliated all the more by the second.

So some subtleties around how gloominess or melancholy can arise. Sometimes it’s frustrated desire, but sometimes it’s anger at the course of life that one has taken.

Anger or orge, is the sharpest passion. It is said to be a boiling and movement of indignation thumos against a wrongdoer or person, presumed wrongdoer. So now we’re in the one. It causes the soul to be savage all day long, but especially in prayers. It seizes the nous, reflecting back the face of the distressing person. Then sometimes it is lingering and is changed into rancor, menace or menos. And thus it causes disturbances at night, bodily weakness and pallor, and attacks from poisonous beasts. These four things associated with rancor may be found to have been summoned up by many other tempting thoughts.

So you can see how relational and interdependent all these thoughts are here. That anger can arise from other thoughts, gloominess can arise from anger and so on.

* The demon of Acedia, which is also called the Noonday demon, is the most burdensome of all the demons. So he’s using demon and logismos or logismoi interchangeably. I don’t know if in Evagrius’s system, all thoughts, all logismoi are demons. I think he’s using them interchangeably now. And that’s how we’ll do it. But certainly not all thoughts have to be demonic, I would think. And we’ll learn more about that I think later in the Praktikos.

It, that’s Acedia, besets the monk at about the fourth hour, which is 10am of the morning, encircling his soul until about the eighth hour, 2pm. First it makes the sun appear to slow down or stop, so the day seems to be 50 hours long. Then it forces the monk to keep looking out the window and rush from his cell to observe the sun in order to see how much longer it is to the 9th hour, i.e. 3:00pm. And to look about in every direction, in case any of the brothers are there. Then it assails him with hatred of his place, his way of life and the work of his hands. That love has departed from his brethren and there is no one to console him.

If anyone has recently caused the monk grief, the demon adds this as well to amplify his hatred of these things. It makes him desire other places where he can easily find all that he needs and practice an easier and more convenient craft. After all, pleasing the Lord is not dependent on geography. The demon adds, God is to be worshipped everywhere. It combines this with remembrance of his relatives and his former way of life, and depicts to him a long life, placing before his eyes a vision of the burdens of the ascetic life.

So it employs, as they say, every possible means to move the monk to leave his cell and flee the race course. No other demon comes immediately after this one. Rather, after the struggle, the soul receives in turn a peaceful state and unspeakable joy.

Very interesting. So, he has a lot to say about the nine, sloth, laziness, torpor, acedia. And again, it’s so interesting that, you know, you can really hear the sequencing of demons. So this particular demon is not followed by another demon. Actually after this one, there’s a peaceful state and an unspeakable joy. Evagrius seems to have the deepest relationship with this one. This is quite a long description of how the demon operates. Quite detailed. Yeah, very interesting.

Continuing. 13. The tempting thought of vainglory is especially subtle and easily sneaks into those whose lives are going well, wanting to publish their efforts and go hunting for glory among men. And it imagines demons shouting and women being healed and a crowd wanting to touch his clothes. It prophesies his ordination to the priesthood with people seeking him at his door. And even if he resists being carried off to be ordained by force. So really fantasy of fame.

And having raised him up with these empty hopes, it suddenly leaps off, leaving and abandoning him to be tempted by the demon of pride or the demon of gloominess. So quickly there, you know, we have the three, which is the temptation of vanity. And then in the departure of the three, one either goes up to pride or down to gloominess, up to the two or down to the four, bringing on tempting thoughts, the opposite of his earlier hopes.

Sometimes it also hands him over to the demon of sexual immorality, the man who shortly before was being carried off to be made a holy priest by force.

That’s interesting. There’s kind of something a little sexual about that phrase, being carried off to be made a holy priest by force. So there is almost a little bit of that sexual fantasy. No, is that just me picking that up?

* The demon of pride conducts the soul to the very worst fall. It urges it, one, not to acknowledge God’s help. Two, to think it is responsible for its own success. Three, to be arrogant towards the brethren as unintelligent because they do not all share the same opinion concerning this. This demon is followed by anger and gloominess and the ultimate evil, complete insanity and madness and visions of throngs of demons in the air.

So that’s an introduction to the eight tempting thoughts. I think we’ll pause there, before continuing where he’s going to talk about tactics for resisting these temptations.

The order here is roughly. Let’s look carefully. So we went 7, 8, 5, 4, 1, 9, 3, 2. I don’t, that doesn’t speak to me in any profound way, but certainly within these descriptions, he makes some really interesting claims that do, some of them do continue on to the Enneagram today. For instance, the way that the 9 is somehow sort of special and different from the other numbers. And you know, his description of the nine here is one in which it sort of assails him with the other thoughts. Right. I mean, I think that’s part of what he’s talking about in terms of hatred of his place, grief, desire, remembrance of other ways. Right. So there’s sort of this assault that comes from what he says is the most burdensome of all the demons. And conversely, it is never followed by another demon. So there’s a way that the nine kind of exists outside of the cycle that we see in other places. And I would say the modern Enneagram kind of reflects that in some sense.

In contrast, when you think about vanity, he’s saying vanity, you know, oftentimes moves him either into pride or gloominess or sometimes sexual immorality. Right. So anyway, we’re not getting stretch and release points. We’re not getting wings exactly. But you can see how that kind of dynamic mapping is so core to Evagrius’s eight tempting thoughts.

Okay, we’ll pick up next time. Thanks for watching.

In this episode of the Barrcast, we get to know the Sexual Two, whose keyword is conquest. Unlike the Social Two's ambition to impress groups, the Sexual Two channels their energy into one-on-one relationships, employing seduction as a tool for eliciting affection, loyalty, and recognition.

Transformation for the Sexual Two involves dismantling pride and embracing humility, vulnerability, and authentic connection.

Talking Points:

🌱 From Pride to HumilityTransformation begins when the Sexual Two acknowledges their limitations and relinquishes the need to be seen as perfect or irreplaceable. This journey includes learning to ask for help, accepting their shadow, and discovering the beauty in ordinary, unadorned love.

💔 The Wound of AbandonmentAt the heart of the Sexual Two's psyche is a fear of abandonment. This fear often leads to patterns of manipulation or preemptive withdrawal to avoid being left behind. True growth requires facing and feeling abandonment fully, allowing it to dissolve their false sense of invulnerability.

✨ Revisiting SexualityFor the Sexual Two, sexuality can often be a means of control or conquest. Healing involves reframing intimacy as an experience of mutual surrender, sensitivity, and connection, moving away from performance-driven interaction toward tenderness and trust.

In this episode of the Barrcast, we get to know the Social Two, a personality structure driven by the need for ambition and recognition in the social sphere. The Social Two’s pride fuels their desire to be "above," leading them to craft an image of importance and seduction to win admiration from groups. The Social Two’s transformation work moves them from leadership to equality, in which they embrace humility, vulnerability, and genuine relational intimacy.

Talking Points:

🔗 Superiority vs. AmbitionEchoes of the Social One (Superiority/Inadaptability) are here for the Social Two, but the Two’s need to be above is ultimately more about relationship than it is about getting things right – a reflection of the Two’s position in the feeling triad.

💰 Confessing criminalityThe journey of the Social Two includes confronting their own "criminality"—the covertly selfish motivations behind their actions—and replacing these with empathy and accountability. The practice of giving and receiving genuine feedback helps dissolve pride and deepen their relational authenticity.

🐆 Reconnecting with the mammalian SelfAt the heart of transformation lies the reconnection to one's emotional and relational needs. By emerging from the "reptilian" mindset of conquest and control, the Social Two can embrace the humility and humanity that allow for true intimacy and belonging.

🌱 From Leadership to EqualityGrowth for the Social Two involves moving from a position of dominance to one of humility and equality. This transformation entails relinquishing the "golden child" role, acknowledging personal vulnerabilities, and embracing the needs of others without an agenda for self-glorification.

In this episode of The Barrcast, we wrap up the One with the Self-Preservation One, whose keyword is concern, a constant worrying. Unlike the other subtypes, the SP One accesses perfectionism through being painfully attuned to their own imperfections.

Talking Points:

🫵 The Inner CriticUnlike the Social or Sexual Ones, the Self-Preservation One internalizes their imperfections acutely. This fuels an obsessive cycle of self-improvement that masks their anger with benevolence and service, often at great personal cost.

🎭 Acceptance and pleasureThe path to growth includes reconnecting with instinctual life and allowing space for pleasure. This involves letting go of guilt and embracing moments of silence, leisure, and sensory enjoyment—freeing themselves from the grip of self-denial.

💡 Perfection as a gift, not an attainmentUltimately, perfection is revealed not as a result of effort but as a gift that arises when one accepts life as it is. In the words of St. John of the Cross, "I no longer tend my flock… my only practice is love."

In this episode of The Barrcast, we explore the Sexual One, whose keywords are vehemence and zeal. Unlike the other One subtypes, the Sexual One channels their anger into a passionate pursuit of justice and righteousness. The result is a personality whose trust in the instincts of their body overrides other inputs.

Talking Points:

⚔ The CrusaderThe Sexual One feels a fiery, embodied urge to address injustices and “make things right.” Their instincts become a vehicle for justice, resulting in a confident and determined approach to life.

🛡️ The Warrior's PactFrom an early age, the Sexual One may forge an inner pact with their “warrior self,” prioritizing confrontation and strength over vulnerability. While this leads to a commanding presence, it can come at the cost of spontaneity and playfulness.

⚖️ Between Aggression and BenevolenceThe Sexual One oscillates between passionate anger and genuine warmth. As they soften and transform, their vehemence gives way to serenity, and their perfectionism shifts to a tender acceptance of life as it is.

🎭 Pleasure and PlayFor the Sexual One, a significant part of growth involves accessing sensuality, spontaneity, and play—experiencing pleasure for its own sake rather than tying it to ideals of justice or righteousness.

In this episode of The Barrcast, we learn aboutthe Social One, whose keywords are inadaptability and superiority. Unlike the other subtypes, the Social One asserts their correctness and moral high ground through a subtler, more withdrawn approach.

Talking Points:

🧍 Sitting at the grownups tableFrom a young age, the Social One often assumes a grown-up role, gravitating toward adults rather than peers. This early sense of responsibility reflects their drive to distinguish themselves and avoid the perceived mess of childhood.

🏔️ Moral High Ground as RefugeThe Social One’s need for superiority often manifests as a retreat to their “moral high ground.” Maintaining this ground, and separating it from the rest of the environment, requires constant effort – resulting in rigidity, isolation, and tension in relationships.

🔥 Anger Beneath the SurfaceUnlike other subtypes, the Social One rarely displays anger outwardly. Instead, their frustration transforms into a quiet demand for perfection—both from themselves and others.

In this episode of The Barrcast, we introduce the Enneagram One, known as the Reformer. As part of the doing triad, the One is characterized by the passion of anger— not the fighting instinct, but something more primordial, rooted in the frustration caused by the friction between what is and what ought to be. The result is an internal, fiery drive to correct what is perceived as wrong or imperfect.

Talking Points:

🎄 The Divine Memory of PerfectionRichard Rohr’s account of experiencing perfection as a child—a perfectly trimmed Christmas tree—illustrates the One’s simultaneous longing for and burden of enforcing perfection.

🫸 Pushing the RiverThe phrase highlights the One’s tendency to impose their will on the world, striving to reform external contexts rather than adapt to what is.

🧹 Occasional PeaceUnlike other types, Ones sometimes achieve the perfection they seek, but this fleeting success only reinforces their belief in their “special access” to what is right.

In this episode of The Barrcast we wrap up the Nine with the self-preservation subtype, a character shaped by “appetite.” Unlike the overt hunger of other types, the Nine’s appetite is a more instinctual desire for comfort, stability, and numbing pacification. We discuss how this appetite manifests not just physically but as an unconscious strategy to avoid the deeper question of being.

Talking Points:

🍽️ I Eat, Therefore I Am

The unique Cartesian expression of the self-preservation Nine reflects a substitution of being with physical satiation. We explore how this subtype’s appetite goes beyond food, encompassing a craving for the mundane comforts of everyday life—sleep, routine, and possession—that mask a deeper existential void.

📺 Life on Standby: The Remote Control Metaphor

Emilia Ligi’s metaphor of living life like a TV on standby mode captures the essence of the self-preservation Nine’s strategy. This subtype often hands over their metaphorical remote control to others, allowing external influences to dictate their experience while they remain passive and disconnected from their true desires.

🪞 The Elusiveness of Presence

Despite their grounded, physical presence, the self-preservation Nine often lacks a metaphysical depth, presenting as elusive or hard to pin down. We explore how this subtype’s tendency to retreat into comfort leads to a life lived on the surface, with little engagement in the deeper currents of self-awareness or transformation.