1. Introduction.

There are many types of human characters. People long time tried to find a “map” that would help them navigate the variety of human characters, also called temperaments, personalities, and types. These terms have a broader or narrower range of meaning. In general, however, they try to capture some source, core, base, essence, etc., from which various human ways of doing something come from.

The “maps” of human characters are sought for various reasons. One of the main reasons is the desire to understand ourselves and others. As for others, we are most often interested in these people:

• who are any problems or mystery to us;
• who we cannot understand and do not know why they do something in one way and not another;
• who we want to know better for various reasons;
• etc.

In this work, I try to answer these and other issues using a new “map” of human characters, which I called—“The Mandala of Characters”.

This “map”, however, is actually not new, because I based it on three old and proven typologies describing human characters. These three typologies in this work I brought together. And they form one common personality typology. In other words, what is on the three old separate “typology maps” I appropriately transferred to one common “map” of human characters.

The three old typologies that create the Mandala of Characters are:

1. The typology derived from antiquity. On this typology worked, among others, Empedokles, Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen. This typology, mainly thanks to Hippocrates and Galen distinguishes four temperaments:
   • Sanguine,
   • Melancholic,
   • Choleric, and
   • Phlegmatic.
   In turn, thanks to Empedokles, Plato, and Aristotle, the ancient typology defines the division into the Elements. It means, into four Elements, and a fifth extra one. The main (or classical) Elements are:
   • Earth,
   • Air,
   • Water, and
   • Fire.
   The fifth extra Element is:
   • Ether.
   The Universe is made of the Ether, and the Ether occurs somewhere beyond four main Elements or penetrates, or fills them all. In other words, Ether is the Element that connects four main Elements and unites them into one common Element.


2. Enneagram, which distinguishes 9 types of characters:
   • 1—The Perfectionist.
   • 2—The Giver.
   • 3—The Performer.
   • 4—The Romantic.
   • 5—The Observer.
   • 6—The Loyal Skeptic.
   • 7—The Epicure.
   • 8—The Protector.
   • 9—The Mediator.
   (The names of the Enneagram types I took from the book—Enneagram, written by Helen Palmer).


3. “Psychological types” created by Carl Gustav Jung. This typology distinguishes 8 psychological types. Intuitive types:
   • Extraverted Intuitive Type.
   • Introverted Intuitive Type.
   Thinking types:
   • Extraverted Thinking Type.
   • Introverted Thinking Type.
   Feeling types:
   • Extraverted Feeling Type.
   • Introverted Feeling Type.
   Sensation types:
   • Extraverted Sensation Type.
   • Introverted Sensation Type.

The Ancient Typology is the base of the Mandala of Characters. Ancient Typology I treat with the greatest respect. It is because it has stood the test of time and is deeply rooted in culture, science, philosophy, art, alchemy, and others.

Thus, Ancient Typology became the foundation. The foundation on which I appropriately arranged Jung’s typology and Enneagram.

Then, I went through the process of matching three personality typologies to each other. And thanks to it, I created one common personality typology. That is, the Mandala of Characters, on which I distinguish 12 types of characters.

Why 12 types?

When I was exploring the above typologies, I discovered that some types are similar. It means, some types in one typology are similar to the types in other typology.

So, I compared and arranged similar and different types from three typologies. Thanks to this, I obtained 12 main types of Mandala of Characters.

In the table below, we can see which types from the Ancient Typology, Jung’s “Psychological Types” and Enneagram, are similar to each other. Then, we can see that in total, there are 12 main types of characters.

The creation of the twelve types also resulted from logic. It is because I just wanted everything to be logically connected. Important was also geometry to make everything symmetrical. That is all the elements of the Mandala of Characters needed to be in balance with each other. Thus, opposing elements should be on opposite sides and similar elements nearby.

Besides, it results also from the symbolic layer. It is because the ancient division into main Elements such as Air, Earth, Water, and Fire, play a special role. The reason for this is that these Elements are commonly used symbols. These symbols are deeply rooted in our psyche because they often occur in our dreams. These symbols are used by all types of art and culture. They were used for abstract thinking in science. They are also used to express thoughts in every language in the world.

During describing the Mandala of Characters, I often use the main (or classical) Elements. This is because main Elements are used by both the Conscious and the Unconscious part of our psyche.

Besides, to the above symbols of classical Elements, in this work, I also refer to various types of symbolism. I often use symbols of different kinds and in many contexts. There are several reasons for this, among others:

• My interest and being inspired by Carl Gustav Jung’s work. Jung worked with symbols on an everyday basis. Among other things, he researched and interpreted dreams, culture, tradition, traditional customs, practices, habits, rituals, etc.
• My interest and being inspired by dreams. In dreams, symbolism is one of the main ways in which our Unconscious express itself.
• Symbols are often very ambiguous and are rich in content. At the same time, symbols can define something very precisely. Thanks to this ambiguity and precision, symbols give the possibility of various types of associations. These associations often lead to discovering something new.

Therefore, associations connected with symbols are very helpful. Because they make easier to discover the different secrets of the particular types of the Mandala of Characters.

So, the various symbolism plays one of the main roles in the work on the Mandala of Characters.

On the creation of the Mandala of Characters, the great impact had Enneagram. Personally, I have a lot of sympathy for Enneagram. Mainly it is because the 9 types that Enneagram distinguishes have such personality traits that they are very expressive and characteristic. It means, in my opinion, they are more expressive and characteristic than in other personality theories.

From Enneagram, apart from types, I took also three psychical (or mental) states that it distinguishes. It means Enneagram describes this:

1. How we usually behave (in the influence of our Enneagram type that we represent).
2. How we behave under stress.
3. And how we behave during comfort or relax.

In the Enneagram, it is presented in such a way that when we are in our normal or typical state, it corresponds to the type of Enneagram that we are.

When we find ourselves in stress, it is like switching to another type of Enneagram. And then we are behaving like this another type.

In turn, during comfort, we also move to another type of Enneagram, and we behave like this another type. Of course, when we are moving to another type of Enneagram during stress or comfort, it is not the same type. It means, during comfort, we are moving to one type, and during stress, we are moving to another type.

This principle, that given person is constantly changing his psychic (or mental) states and behaves similar to another type of character, I am using very much in this work.

However, in the Ennagramic principle of moving between types of characters during changing mental states, I made several changes. Among other things, I enriched Enneagramic principle with the ideas of Jungian psychology.

As a result of this combination of ideas from Enneagram and Jung psychology, I distinguished four main psychological states (instead of three that we have in Enneagram). Psychological state that I distinguished are:

1. Conscious State, that is, when we are most typical and normal in our own view. And we are most aware of ourselves. Or we are to the greatest degree behaving according to our own Consciousness.
2. Strong Self-Esteem State (or Power State), that is, generally speaking, when we feel powerful or when we have high self-esteem.
3. Soft Self-Esteem State (or Vulnerable State), that is, generally speaking, when we feel vulnerable or when we have low self-esteem.
4. Unconscious State (or Complementary State), that is, the State which in our case is the least typical, normal, predictable, expected, etc. This State is opposite to our Conscious State. And at the same time, this State is complementing our Conscious State.

So, in general, Mandala of Characters is an analysis and synthesis of the Ancient Typology, Jung’s “Psychological Types”, and Enneagram. Mandala, therefore, combines three personality typologies into one. Or Mandala is “three-in-one” typology.

Let us go to the description of Mandala of Characters.