Lord of the Rings Enneagram

Many people know that in Whiny the Pooh, the 4 classic personality types are represented by Pooh (phlegmatic), Tigger (sanguine), Rabbit (choleric), and Eeyore (melancholic).  However, searching online I could not find a clear typology of the 9 members of the fellowship of the ring in the Lord of the Rings, so I decided to put it up online here:

Character

Type 1 -- The Critic, Reformer

   

Peregrin Took (aka Pippin), cousin of Frodo

Type 2 -- the helper, giver

   Sam Gamgee, who worked as a gardener Hobbit Frodo

   

Type 3 -- The Performer, Motivator

   

Gimli son of Gloin. He was sent to represent the Dwarves Elrond

Type 4 -- the Tragic Romantic

   Meriadoc Brandybuck (aka Merry), cousin of Frodo

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Type 5 -- The Observer, Intelectual

   Gandalf, a Maia, who played as an assistant for the inhabitants of Middle-Earth Help

Type 6 -- The Skeptic

     Boromir, the eldest son of Denethor and Captain of the White Tower

Type 7 -- The Visionary, Enthusiast

   Legolas, Prince of Mirkwood Elf, which was sent to the elf Elrond represented

Type 8 -- The Leader

   Aragorn, Isildur and heir to the throne of Gondor and Arnor keturununan United

Type 9 -- the mediator, peacemaker.

   Frodo Baggins, a hobbit who inherited the ring from his uncle

To relate the two personality systems through the work of Gulen (a.k.a Gulini 150 C.E.), Types 1-9 could be described in this manner:

7 = Sanguine

8 = Choleric-Sanguine

1 = Choleric

2 = Melancholic-Choleric

4 = Melancholic

5 = Phlegmatic-Melancholic

6 = Phlegmatic

3 = Sanguine-Phelmatic

9 = Balance

Finally, the Myers-Brigs system could be tacked on to some of these types, at least in some general senses in as much as some studies show that 2 and 4 are always F (feeling types).  However, in spite of it's greater diversity of types, the Myers Briggs system is a more superficial treatment of persona rather than of deeper personality, so it doesn't make a completely useful comparison the way the Enneagram and the 4 humors do.  

Hello

Welcome Society of Memosphericists

This blog will now be dedicated to the Society of Memosphericists, because now Thoth DRaWS with Dashiell, Rutger, Wyatt, and Spencer.  Welcome DRaWS to the path to master of memory and the art of glyph construction for symbolic meaning and memory.

Sketching out our first 100 locations on the grid of global geography

This is the story of a wild adventure through time and space of 4 daring third culture kids living in Nepal.  These four high school students are attending an international school in Kathmandu, and they call themselves third culture kids because they neither identify fully with the native culture of their parents, nor with the culture of the place where they are living.  They are truly world citizens, third culture kids--not the old culture, nor the new culture, but the hybrid culture.  Let me introduce you to them.

The Senior class student is from a mixed Arab and old Zoroastrian Persian family.  His name is Sulayman Malik.

The Junior class student is from a mixed Irish-American and Chinese family.  Her name is Claire Hunter.

The Sophomore class student is from a mixed Russian and Spanish family.  Her name is Milagros Morales.

The Freshman class student is pure French, but while his father was from Paris, his mother is from Montreal.  His name is Philippe Blanc.

One day this unlikely cohort of 4 high schoolers, sneak into the private lab of a Buddhist Physicist who teaches at their school who some administrators have been accusing lately of being a quack quantum mystic who has been stretching the idea of entanglement in quantum mechanics theory too far by suggest to the students that time travel is possible.  Sulayman and Milagros believe him, but Claire and Philippe agree with the administrators that this is all ridiculous junk science that they should ever waste any class time discussing anymore.  Over lunch Claire and Philippe got into a heated debate with Sulayman and Milagros over their devotion to the Monk Professor and his ideas, so to try to settle their argument they decided to sneak into the professor's lab to see what evidence they could add to one side of the debate or the other.

There they found a strange wheel-like gadget with four handles and a cell phone like devise with special pocket in the center.  Above it they saw a note that read:

"When containing the precise elements or mixtures there of with X and Y half-lives, and when four souls of the primary elemental types of Airy Sanguine, Firey Choleric, Earthy Melancholic, and Watery Phlegmatic take hold of this wheel, they will be transported back in time to the precise previous sets of half-lives to the totem gate keepers ancient pyramid at the portal of X and Y wormhole."

"See that proves it!" Declared Claire angrily.  There in black and white is the most ridiculous load of junk science anyone has ever come up with.  "Indeed," parroted Philippe.  Then, with his characteristic sarcasm, he added, "the only thing it's missing is that it should ask us to add Z piece of coprolite to the mixture of elements X and Y to complete the potion.  After all, fossilized animal dung would fuel our journey backwards much faster, wouldn't it?"  Claire liked that and laughed.

"Hold on just a minute you skeptics," Sulayman insisted.  This is an interesting coincidence.  I remember the ancient personality archetypes from Greek Philosophy elective last semester, and those four descriptions fit the four of us to a T.  Let's just see what happens if the four of us take hold of the four handles of the wheel.  There already appears to be a concoction in the center."

"Really," added Milagros, "It's not fair to ridicule the poor dear professor without even testing his instructions."  "How will we ever know if his ideas mean anything if we don't even try?" she asked.

"This feels incredibly stupid," insisted Claire, "but just so you dreamy wishful thinkers finally snap out of all this irrational useless fantasizing, so we can get back to real work, let's grab hold and get this over with."

Following Claire's lead, they all grabbed hold of one of the four handles on the wheel and instantly they found themselves racing through a tunnel of light and streams of color.  Before they to say or do anything other than opening their eyes wide in awe and amazement, the light was gone and they found themselves staring at each other around the wheel in the center of a little stone hut lit by torch light and a strange diluted natural ambient light as well.  And thus their adventure began.

Outline: Start underwater at 0, 0 degrees at the intersection of the equator and the prime meridian at 1000 A.D.  Progress year by year and space by space across the map through 1000 steps until reaching the year 2000 where Claire will finally discover how to fast-forward back to the present.

Master Mind Grid: The Mad Linguistic Neural Science Continues

As my plotting continues for memorizing the whole Arabic lexicon, I've expanded my three point system into four and come up with a grid that will be mirrored in a way on the macro-global scale and then on the micro-pyramid scale to encode visually for me 36 x 36 x 36 x 36 root consonant options.  That should cover the ENTIRE Arabic lexicon (except for loan words, blast them, but those are mostly English cognates anyway, so who cares).  Here it is, my Frankenstein:

You'll have to click on the grid to see it at full size, but basically, what I've created is a grid for the 36 consonants in Arabic, Persian, French, Chinese, English, Spanish and Russian all transliterated into Arabic and then matched to existing ancient numerology rules to produce a new alphabet for me for memorizing all the languages I want to learn.  Of course, I'm starting with Arabic, but leaving myself room to expand later.  I'll explain more later... or you can post a comment if you want to understand more sooner.  Presumably though, these are mostly going to serve only as my thought evolution notes in the cloud for now.

Coding the Entire Arabic Lexicon into Memory

Dear Fellow Memosphericists,

Given that Arabic is perhaps the world's most formulaic language, it seems possible to cube the alphabet to systemically explore and remember all the words in the Arabic lexicon.  Virtually all Arabic words consist of 3 core consonants (called radicals) that form the root verb and core meaning of the word.  Imagine that if this were the case in English, the word for chair would be sitter, or something like that, because it would have to come from sit.  Actually, the world "seat" does work that way--the consonants stay the same, only the vowels change.  That's how all words work in Arabic.  So here is the basic formula:

Arabic words =
consonants "X" + "Y" + "Z" + (interlaced vowels and affixes in a predictable rule based manner)

If we create 3 memory models for each of these 3 letters and multiply them together we have a mental filing structure for all the words in the Arabic lexicon.  We begin by considering all the possible "radicals" in Arabic root words.  If you also add the four extra Persian letters to the Arabic alphabet for possible exotic imports to the language (perhaps from Rumi poety), we get a total of 32 Consonants.  We then chose 32 locations around the globe to represent our first 32 letters.  Then we follow the path of a compass from the center out along each of our branches in two step for each branch plus the center (1 + 16 times 2), as I'll explain in more depth later.  This gives us another 33 sub-regions inside of our 32 major geographic regions.  We added an extra location meaning "nothing" (the center) in case we have a short word like a preposition with only one radical.  Finally, we plant a standard prefabricated Mayan pyramid model at our sub-region to split that spot into 33 more options for our final radical.

Here are the two maps and the compass pattern to consider for this "1, 2, 3 done" memorization device:

For Radical 1: The World divided into 32 regions for IPCC climate studies.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch2s2-4-6-1.html

For Radical 2: We divide each of our regions up like a pie with a compass into 32 more sub-sets each:

If we don't want to move in and out from the center to get thirty two points, we could expand fully:

 

Finally, for the 3rd radical we use my own special construction of a Mayan Memory Matrix:

As we start exploring these tools, I will explain my matrix further.  For now, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comment box below.

Salaam,

Tauth

Vlog Blog 012: Arabic Transliteration, Baha'i Calendar, + Base 20 Mayan Matrix

Dear Fellow Memosphericists,

     I've been working a great deal on perfecting our Mayan Memory Matrices.  I've been inspired by discovering recently how well the Mayans themselves used their own pyramids as real life Mnemonic structures for conceptualizing and mastering their study of astronomy (for example, making steps equal to the number of days in their year for starters).  Considering all of these things, I've come the conclusion that for Mnemonic reasons down the road, it's going to be more useful to develop a Base-20 numbering plan for sectioning out memory locations around (and on on top of) our pyramids rather than just using the four sides or the Base-10 Major System that we could have also used.  One reason for this is that the verb conjugation systems of most of the 6 official languages of the United Nations (highly worth learning) often make different conjugations for verbs in one tense for far more than 10 different pronouns--Arabic uses 16 pronouns for example.  We need a memory tool that conveniently clumps together up to 20 items easily in one location to be on the safe side, so that we don't have to run around the whole globe in our minds in the future to conjugate just one verb in one tense.  It will be more enjoyable to mentally just walk around one pyramid to complete that task.

     To this ends I've conceptually expanded our 12 month calendar out to 20 divisions (like the Baha'i calendar of 19 months and 1 intercalary period).  Furthermore, while doing this I've also decided that since it's so easy at this point, I might as well memorize the basic outline of the Baha'i calendar to get started with something from real life.  Even if you're not Baha'i and just interested in learning Arabic, don't worry this will benefit you too.  It's part of the real life memosphere, so by definition, it's useful to us as a potential tool to make meaningful associations with.  Remember, it's always best to overlay as much of the truly meaningful and real in our memory systems as possible and then only imagine completely contrived stories when necessary as extra mental glue.  So here we go.  We're going to get really intensive now:

      Warning: to start with, you are going to need to know the order of the Arabic Alphabet as a pegging system, which I have previously created Mnemonics for with great success on one of my earlier blogs.  I've conducted a few experiments with these tools and found that I can teach anyone all 28 letters of the Arabic Alphabet perfectly within 2 hours from scratch even if they've had no prior memory training, so please tackle this exercise with my specially draw pictures if you don't already know the Arabic alphabet in order perfectly, or even just to get familiar with the icons (or glyphs) that we'll be using.  Here's the link:

http://arabicforpoets.blogspot.com/2010/10/1st-letter.html

      Since inventing those Arabic Alphabet Mnemonics last October, I've had the chance to discuss my Arabic work with a university Arabic professor at Georgetown University who's written numerous books on Arabic herself, and she's recommended that I use (or invent) an Arabic transliteration system that only uses ONE LETTER on our European keyboards for ONE LETTER in Arabic.  For example, the "th" sound in Arabic shouldn't be transcribed as "th" with Roman letters in Arabic because it's only one letter in Arabic, and if we use "th" we won't know if we mean "th" as one sound or "t" and "h" as too different sounds.  Taking this wise advice, I've settle on the following Arabic transliteration system that includes the capacity to add extra Persian letters and other sounds that don't exist in Arabic.  Since Arabic uses no capital letters, one of my most important distinctions is to use capital letters for the more emphatic version letters that generally cause the pronunciation of surrounding vowels to be darker and lower, like in "AUdible" instead of "Edible."  Here's the system in the order of the Arabic Alphabet:

01)  \'  = \'alif with hamza (use only \ for \'alif only), pronounced variously in context
02)  b  = the "b" sound like in "bunny."
03)  t   = the soft "t" sound like in "test" and "toad"
04)  x  = the soft, voiceless "th" sound like in "think" and "Thoth." (Looks like a slanted "t")
05)  J  = the emphatic, dark, "J" sound like in "Jellyfish"
06)  H = the emphatic, dark, "H" sound like in laughing diabolically "Ha, Ha, Ha!" or saying "Aha!"
07)  K = the emphatic, dark, "Kh" sound in foreign names like Khan, or when clearing your throat
08)  d  = the soft, voiced, "d" sound like in "dolphin," and "double-decker ice cream."
09)  X = the soft, but VOICED, "th" or "dh" sound in words like "that" and "dhole."
10)  R = the emphatic, dark, "R" sound like in rolled Spanish "R's," or at the end of "better" in English.
11)  z  = the soft, voiced, "z" sound like in "zebra."
12)  s  = the soft, voiceless, "s" sound like in "scorpion."
13)  & = the soft, voiceless, "sh" sound like in "ship" and "shark."
14)  S  = the emphatic, dark, "S" sound like in "Salt" and "Sawfish."
15)  D  = the emphatic, dark, "D" sound like in "Dock."
16)  T  =  the emphatic, dark, "T" sound like in "Talk."
17)  Z  =  the emphatic, dark, sound between "th" and "z," which doesn't exist in English.
18)  A  =  the emphatic, dark, sound in the back of the throat that sounds like a straggled A
19)  G  =  the emphatic, dark, rolled G sound like the French R sound

20)  f  = the soft, "f" sound like in "flamingo."
21)  Q = the emphatic, dark, "Q" sound that pops in the back of the throat saying "Qatar."
22)  k  = the soft, voiceless, "k" sound like in "kangaroo."
23)  l  = the soft, "l" sound like in "lamb."

24)  m = the soft, "m" sound like in "mouse" and "midnight," which is zero hundred hours.

25)  n  = the soft, "n" sound like in "noon," and at the end of the name of the letter Ayn (letter 18).
26)  h  = the soft, "h" sound like in "heat."
27)  w  = the soft, "w" sound like in "whale."
28)  y  = the soft, "y" sound like in "yak."

     Now, to compress and add to this list of letters to make a base twenty system that we can use to somewhat replace the base-10 major system for learning foreign languages, we can make the following adjustments:

     It's easy to remember "m" is both the 24th letter of the Alphabet and the perfect number for ZERO because MIDNIGHT is both, the 24th hour on the clock and the reset point to ZERO.  So this will be our new 20-digit Mnemonic numbering system around our Mayan Pyramids (but not for number elements or countries or other long lists--don't worry, we'll still use regular numbers):

00)  m  -- because of midnight

01)  \'  (+ w + y) because these are all semi-vowels and Arabic substitutes these letters for each other

02)  b (+ p) because "p" is said with closed lips like "b" but voicelessly

03)  t   

04)  x (+ f) because people who don't have "th" sounds in their native language use "f" instead  

05)  J  

06)  H (+ h) because it's really hard for English speakers to tell these apart.

07)  K (+ k) because English speakers mispronounce names like Khan using the soft "k"

08)  d  

09)  X (+ v) because people who don't have "dh" sounds in their native language use "v" instead

10)  R  (+ l) because "r" and "l" sound the same to many East Asian English speakers.

11)  z  

12)  s  

13)  & ( + c, for he "ch" sound) because "sh" and "ch" are easily confused in languages with only one

14)  S  

15)  D  

16)  T  

17)  Z  (even though this is pronounced as a dark "dh" in perfect Arabic, many accents use Z)

18)  A (+ n) because we need something to go with this letter, which rarely exists in other languages

19)  G (+ Q) because many Arabic speakers pronounce "Q" as "G" in their dialects.

     Now for the magic, let's expand our 12 month year conceptually to 20 periods along these 20 new Arabic digits, seeing how quick and easy this can be.  I'm going to add two sets of 4, the names of the seasons (summer, fall, winter, and spring), and the 3 phases a matter plus energy like the ancient 4 elements for another 4.  That gives us 12 + 4 + 4 = 20.  Here we go:

00 = 0 = SPRING, because we Spring forward through our intercalary days (a period with no month)

            

01 = \' = MARCH, which ends with Baha'i month #1, Splendor (Baha)

     We march forward with a new spring in our steps as the splendor of life returns to earth.

02 = b = FIRE, because we pray for the return of the fiery sun in April showers, #2 is Glory (Jamal)

     The Sun is the GLORY of the skies, which is why we miss it and pray for it's return.

03 = t = APRIL, which ends with Baha'i month #3, Beauty (Jamal)

     When the Sun finally does return at the end of April, we say, "wow, this is beauty."

04 = x = MAY, which ends with Baha'i month #3, Grandeur (Azamat)

     With all of the May flowers in full bloom, we see the Grandeur of Spring at it's greatest.

05 = J = SUMMER, because summer breaks starts in May or June, and #5 is Light (Nur).

     Summer break is the LIGHT at the end of the tunnel for many students and teachers!

06 = H = JUNE, which ends with the Baha'i month #6, Mercy (Rahmat)

     At the end of June, many people enjoy the mercy of a vacation.   

07 = K = JULY, which ends PERFECTLY with the Baha'i month #7, Words (Rahmat)

     We don't have to study on vacation in July, the calendars line up and differ only in WORDS 

08 = d = WATER, which is when we pray for water, to keep nature in PERFECTION (Kamal)
     It starts to dry up in August and we miss the cool green of Spring, so we pray for a little more water.

09 = X = AUGUST, which is the end of August, the Baha'i month of Names (Asma)
     When we go back to school at the end of August, we have to start learning new NAMES.

10 = R = FALL, which is the full return of the FALL SEMESTER for everyone, MIGHT (Izzat)
     Now we have to summon all of our Might  after Labor day to get back to hard work.

11 = z = SEPTEMBER, which begins a new Baha'i month at the end, WILL (Mashiyyat)
     If you have the WILL to continue, you won't drop your college courses before the withdrawal date.

12 = s = OCTOBER, which ends with the Baha'i month, KNOWLEDGE (Ilm)
     Since you didn't drop your college courses, you're now starting to get new KNOWLEDGE

13 = & = AIR, which begins with the Baha'i month, POWER (Qudrat)
     You pray now that POWER of the Aroma of Thanksgiving will be great, and the family will unite.

14 = S = NOVEMBER, which ends with the Baha'i month, SPEECH (Qawl)
     Your prayers are answered and the speech at Thanksgiving is warm and kind.

15 = D = WINTER, which begins with the Baha'i month, QUESTIONS (Masa'il)
     Before WINTER BREAK you face semester final exams and you cram for al the QUESTIONS

16 = T = DECEMBER, which ends on New Years Eve with the Baha'i month of HONOR (Sharaf)
     You celebrate during December holidays that you passed your exams with HONORs.

17 = Z = JANUARY, which ends with the Baha'i month of SOVEREIGNTY (Sultan).
     Many people try to get greater Sovereignty over their lives with New Years Resolutions in January.

18 = A = FEBRUARY, which ends with the Baha'i month of DOMINION (Mulk).
     You try not to let the snow and ice get DOMINION over you in February.

19 = G = EARTH, as March begins, so does the Baha'i month of LOFTINESS, (Ala).
     You pray that the earth will thaw from the cold and that your LOFTY dreams for he new year will be fulfilled in God's providence.

     In the next lesson, we'll build more on weaving these 20 divisions of time into our Mayan Memory Matrix more completely with direct links to the Arabic names and the Arabic letters of the Alphabet, but for now, this is a good start.  See how easy it is to get down facts with a good system?  At least, I hope that makes the Baha'i calendar as easy for you as it does for me.  Let me know.

Salaam,
Sky