Influences
It has been suggested that Ichazo "either came under the influence of the school that taught G.I. Gurdjieff or, at least, studied under students of Gurdjieff." Ichazo, however, has denied any connection between his and Gurdjieff's teachings (http://www.arica.org/articles/trletter.cfm). Some writers in the Enneagram of Personality field have claimed that the enneagram figure is a Sufi symbol. Although the symbolism of the number 9 is ancient, there does not appear to be any evidence for the enneagram figure before Gurdjieff in Sufism or elsewhere.
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 1990s when Ichazo was intent on correlating Arica with Tantric Buddhism. In recent years, Ichazo has pointedly asserted that 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 he states that he encountered the enneagram figure before he encountered the works of Gurdjieff, implying that it was before he joined (circa 1950) a group of mystics in Buenos Aires that included some people who had participated in the Fourth Way work presented by Gurdjieff.
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