Arica School

The Arica School (also known as the Arica Institute, which is its incorporated educational organization, or simply as Arica) is a human potential movement group founded in 1968 by Bolivian-born philosopher Oscar Ichazo (born in 1931).

The school is named after the city of Arica, Chile, where Ichazo once lived and where he led an intensive months-long training in 1970 and 1971 before settling in the United States where the Arica Institute (incorporated in 1971) has since been headquartered.

Origins

The Arica School's origins began in 1956 when groups of people formed in major cities in South America to study the thoughts that Ichazo was proposing. For fourteen years these different groups studied his teachings. In 1968 Ichazo presented lectures on his theories of Protoanalysis and the Ego-Fixations at the Institute of Applied Psychology in Santiago, Chile.

Ichazo's theories are based upon such traditional metaphysical questions such as: "What is humankind?"; "What is the Supreme Good of humanity?"; and "What is the Truth that gives meaning and value to human life?"

Enneagram of Personality

Ichazo is considered by many to be the modern father of the Enneagram of Personality (usually just called the Enneagram) movement which uses an Enneagram figure (which Ichazo and the Arica School also call the Enneagon). In a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals [ [http://floridalawfirm.com/arica.html Arica v. Palmer, 970 F 2d 106 ] ] , the court ruled that Ichazo is the original author of the application of the Enneagram figure to a theory of personality types. The basis of this ruling denied copyright injunction under the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law.

Ichazo has applied the Enneagram figure in connection with his theory of mechanical ego mechanisms which grow out of psychological traumas suffered at an early age in specific aspects of the human psyche. In his basic theory, these aspects of the human psyche include the sense of well-being (Conservation Instinct); the sense of relations with others (Relation Instinct); and the sense of adapting to our environment (Adaptation Instinct). Ichazo's goal with regard to the study of the Enneagram is to facilitate the recognition of repetitive, mechanistic thinking and behavior in a person's psychological process and to eliminate the suffering rooted in the attachment to, and identification with, these mechanisms (which, Ichazo teaches, attempt to protect us from suffering but actually tend to perpetuate it).

The original branch of this popular use of the Enneagram began principally with Claudio Naranjo who had studied with Ichazo in Chile but was asked to leave before the intensive 1971 training had finished. Ichazo consider Naranjo's understanding of the Enneagram to be limited and incomplete http://www.arica.org/articles/effross.cfm Interview with Professor Effross, although Naranjo's Enneagram teachings, and those of other Enneagram teachers, have been more influential in popularizing familiarity of the Enneagram figure than any available works by Ichazo.

Other influences on Ichazo

The Enneagram, however, is just one component of the Arica system. The Arica School can be considered, as "Ramparts" magazine put it in 1973, as "a body of techniques for inherent consciousness-raising and an ideology to relate to the world in an awakened way." In creating Arica's system and methodology it is sometimes believed that Ichazo took inspiration from the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff on consciousness. Ichazo, however, has explicitly detailed why this is inaccurate and a complete fabrication (http://www.arica.org/articles/trletter.cfm).

Elements of the Arica work are, however, similar to and consistent with methodologies and concepts from traditions that include Sufism, Tibetan Buddhism, Yoga, Zen, Kabbalah and the I Ching. As presented in later years (post-2000) a large part of Arica is the study of Classical Philosophy as compared to "modern" philosophy. This is a departure from the early 1990's when Ichazo was intent on correlating Arica with Tantric Buddhism, as his published essays in "The Arican" attest. In recent years, Ichazo has pointedly asserted his understanding of the Enneagram originated with reading Classical Philosophy and Plotinus' Enneads and not as any consequence of any writing or work of Gurdjieff. In "Interviews With Oscar Ichazo" Ichazo states that he encountered the enneagram before he encountered the works of Gurdjieff, implying that it was before he joined the group in Buenos Aires at age 19, because that group was, according to Ichazo, at least partly composed of members who had participated in the Gurdjieff work. In the same book, Ichazo claimed he traveled to Hong Kong to "achieve a mastery of the Chinese Classics" without discussing when he learned to read or speak Chinese. However, Ichazo is known to read several languages, including but not limited to French, ancient Greek, German and is facile in both writing and speaking English as well as his original language of Spanish. He stated in a lecture given in Hawaii in 2000 to his students that learning a language becomes much easier after the eighth language when the underlying structure of language becomes apparent.

Protoanalysis

The tools that the Arica School teaches are called the “Protoanalytical Theory, System and Method” or "Protoanalysis".

Protoanalysis is believed by Aricans to be a comprehensive analysis of the complete human being, from the grossest aspects of the human process (e.g., enneagramatic and mentational analyses of human anatomy and physiology), progressing systematically to the higher states of consciousness where enlightenment can be attained (e.g., the direct and ceaseless experience of non-dual union with the Divine).

The Arica School claims to offer a clearly defined map of the human psyche as a guide for discovering the basis of one's ego process enabling individuals to transcend that process into a higher state of consciousness that is found in and available to every person. This state of being is seen as our true essential self, experienced as an internal state of great happiness, light and liberation.

The Arica School offers group and individual trainings through sponsorships in a number of countries, or directly from the school.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.arica.org/ Arica School website]
* [http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3580&SearchTerms=Arica/ The Enneagram Institute discussion of Oscar Ichazo and Arica]