Concretisation of Contra vs Syn

Yessssssssss.

I've been thinking about this for a long time, as this topic confuses me too.

The title of this thread is "Concretization of Contra vs Syn," but I think there's a problem with this. I don't imagine the flows are really concrete 'entities' that can be defined and distinguished with just words. They're platonic forms, as they exist 'before' the material world, the world of people and things -- where concrete definitions CAN be made.
Really, this phenomenon applies to all of typology, but I think it especially applies with the flows. Just like the other aspects of the E, the flows are probably best understood with exemplars.
You mentioned energistically observing the patterns between people of different flows, and I think that's probably the best way to go about it.

Just to clarify, what do you mean by "elemental" in your OP?



I think this may be a good place to start for what you're asking:

As far as words/archetypes, I REALLY liked David Gray's characterization of the flows and the stackings within those flows: enneasite.com/the-stackings/

sp/so: farmer, patriot, businessman
sp/sx: pirate, sex trader, voodoo fetishist

so/sx: ‘regalia’, jester, the Mayor
so/sp: witch hunter, ethnic cleanser, culture warrior

sx/sp: shaman, ‘cutter’ (self-injurer), tattoo artist
sx/so: comet, flamenco dancer, shooting star


Flow #1 ~ synflow stackings

sp/so (animals) = practical cooperation ~ revering the work of the harvest, the beasts of the field, the ‘fat of the land’
so/sx (humans) = multifaceted/multidirectional attraction ~ the radiant festival of the four corners of the Earth
sx/sp (hungry ghosts) = urgent bonding / ‘unfortunate’ belonging ~ the perpetually orthogonal embrace of the seeker/searcher

Deeply human, compelled toward the process of humanity. Involved.

Flow #2 ~ contraflow stackings

sx/so (gods) = cultural revolutionary ~ attractive social catalyst, steering popular culture/the arts/the cultural zeitgeist in a new direction using potent new creative forms
so/sp (titans) = culture warrior ~ social change by force and/or eternal higher principle, the booming thundering ‘voice of God’, the loftiest educators and highest clerics
sp/sx (Hell) = acultural solipsism ~ counterculture original, underbelly exposure, smoldering mysterian, the fermenting underground, cool & detached

Outliers, antisocial, energetically autonomous, chemically provocative, reverse-flow change catalysts. On some level, successfully rejecting the human condition…their own and that of others. Priest-gods of their own cult and eco-system.




All of the synflow stackings involve 'roles' which exist within the process of life and living on earth. The earth spins a certain direction and keeps spinning that way.
There's a "cycle" of life, and in some sense, I think people of the synflow stack experience themselves as fundamentally "entrenched" within it.

That's why you have Sp/So "businessmen" who symbolically (and literally) build and maintain the structures that keep everyone alive and keep the economy moving. There's a "deeply human" element to this, because Sp/So is dealing with the maintenance of conditions for "living well" and thriving on earth. They cooperate with other humans and make life on earth "what it is". (Sorry for this vague language).

Then there's So/Sx "cross polinating," "radiant festival on the four corners of earth" which ultimately helps to keep everyone connected and involved with one another. There's the media and the news which convey information from "different corners of the earth" and keep everyone involved and informed in a close, merged way.

Then there's Sx/Sp "hungry ghosts," which carries with it a reproductive element(Sx), where people fuse, create chemistry with one another, and this resembles "mating" I THINK.

The focus for these three stackings is on how life on earth is actually lived, how this can keep going, how they participate and fit into it, etc.


All of the contraflow stackings somehow manage to reject this "on earth" self-experience of the synflow stacks.

There's So/Sp "titans" and "Moses and the Tablets." There's a reception of the word of a god and being the one who carries that to the humans. Fundamentally, this role is somehow "outside" of that human condition common in the synflow stackings and introducing something new, something revolutionary. On the Two Stackings thread, Robin mentioned Liana Kertzer, the So/Sp 2 cosplayer who would dress up in superhero outfits and essentially take on this role of "the powerful TITAN"(just look at photos of her). There's something "outside of the human realm" to this.

Then there's Sx/So "gods" -- gods aren't human and gods do not live on earth, they live somewhere else(among the stars or something).

There's Sp/Sx, "the world of hell," where the self-experience is sort of ghoulish, and they don't directly experience themselves as "on earth," rather, somehow "underneath earth" and introducing new elements from "earth's underside." Carl Jung was sp/sx, and he isolated himself for years, talking to demons(Philemon) and unveiling DARK psychoanalytical and mythological dynamics "buried beneath the visible surface."

With all 3 of these stackings, the focus of attention goes OUTSIDE of the human realm, outside of life on earth, where they speak to gods and demons and introduce NEW, revolutionary things to life on earth(where the synflows focus). It's not just a focus on how they fit into life on earth, but rather they possess an impulse to introduce new elements to it.



This is how I see the stackings based on what I've gathered and learned.

But he's also sp/sx.

Now there are a couple of things to clarify here.

First of all this can't be clarified..

For comparison, what is a chair? That seems simplistic but is a loveseat a chair for two or is it a small sofa? If a stool is designed for sitting, not climbing, but it has no back, is it a chair? Why? If it is, then what if we go on a picnic and we use a rock as a seat. Does that make it a chair? Probably we would say no. But what if we get stranded for weeks at that picnic site and we  get more rocks and designate that area an eating place and  and that's all we do with those rocks? Are they then chairs and if so when did they become chairs > rocks? Finally, if you insist they're seats, not chairs, what if we make backs for them? Do they require legs to be chairs? What about manmade chairs without legs? Are they all thrones, perhaps, not chairs?

The problem with David's evocations (or one of the problems with them) is that he evokes a chair that has a back and legs, seats only one person, is manmade, intended for sitting, etc. But that's not the way it goes with people and Gray leaves out the gray area.

So you may as well start with Gray because after all it's Gray who came up with the syn and contra flows. But the second thing to clarify is you cannot end with Gray. The reason you can't end with him is because his intuition is instrumental; this is a closed system that as far as I know hasn't been changed since the site went up about eight years ago--once he gets something to 'work' through Ni (Te efficiency dom seeking Se 'power agenda'), he expediently considers the deal done But this case can never be closed because we're dealing with humans, billions of 'em actually.

So David and the other three Enneagrammer guys all have these 'glamour E-types' but there is a lot (and I mean a LOT) more 3 and 6 among them than they admit. So you just can't expect people who are so obsessed with 3ish 'production and promotion' of what has been discovered and/or thought to be discovered--who are so INVESTED in things remaining as they are so they can continue to be packaged and sold, down to their own E (and now ct) types--to be moving and their system moving with them.

The problem is that these evocations just don't work well unless the range makes it very clear and there aren't other factors from type duplicating them.

And yes, David will tell you he knows that but there's still a problem with application. And so they're going to use certain stackings to PROMOTE and DEMOTE people as they do with E-types.

And...that's a big problem. So you have to start with David (and by extension now Enneagrammer) but you can't end with him.

In any case when you're dealing with a clear counterflow (and it is OFTEN not so clear), a way to distinguish this from 'the Hole' (4/5 line) is that the 4/5 line feels 'alien'. But 'alien' implies there's a home planet. With heavy counterflow there isn't a home planet because there's a sense of life as a force, beyond what's incarnate. In this sense titans, gods and demons really does work. Not just 'inhuman', because that could be 'extraterrestrial, which is a feeling many Five-heavy people grapple with. Really above and beyond it ALL.

But again the problem is there's a spectrum due to ranges so there will be double variant syn flows who due to influence of E-type will seem a lot more counterflow than some counterflows. Dark social so/SX e.g. that seem more counterflow than soft sx/SO's. And vice versa.

And David will tell you (without using the word 'range' as far as I know) that he knows that. But.


The thing is people who want to chuck the flows, or who never accepted them, have a point. A big point. And this is because not enough recognition is given to the difficulty of situating so many people, to the gray area, the area of overlap, in order to 'promote' this system.  All you can do is point to the really obvious ones and say this is the pure unadulterated thing, this is how we know it exists. Such a person would be a Diamanda Galas for instance.

And of course there are still a lot more synflow than counterflow people, and sp/so is the most common stacking, followed by so/sx in modern Western societies. Also, ct-wise Gamma quadra is most likely to be counterflow due to relative lack of both Fe and Si/Ne--"T" I feel is rather neutral in this regard.