I've put this in it's own thread as it's proven to be an incredibly useful technique for me in the past and is worth outlining in a bit more detail. Basically it involves mapping your own experience and looking at things like self-image, how you believe yourself to be perceived by others and how you would like to be. The way I approached it seems closer to contemplation than meditation, it's just dispassionately observing what you believe yourself to be. It's likely to be more useful to beginners than advanced practitioners so, again, if I'm way off the mark with this then please correct me so that I can refine my own understanding.

Ego Mapping - A Groundplan For The Assault On The Identity.

This can be a really fun and revealing process.

• Perceived strengths and weaknesses
• Fears
• Ego supporting fantasies
• Desires and dreams
• Turning points in your life
• Successes and failures
• Embarrassments, fuck ups, perceived mistakes and traumas

Other useful exercises include:

• Write an account of yourself as you are.
• Write an account of how you would like to be.
• Write an account of how you think others see you.
• Write your own obituary.

This exercise is inspired by Phil Hine's technique as discussed in "Prime Chaos", applied to AF practice rather than creating a magickal self.

Useful? Pointless? A travesty?!

Enjoy.

Definitely a good exercise. Will do it, I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes up my social identity because it has decreased in beliefs so much that I am getting the same two or three (however many) big parts of my social identity on repeat.

Many people that I've met use the enneagram as a spiritual tool to help understand themself. I've also had a personal interest in socionics, which is like the popular Myer-Briggs personality typing but more academic and explores the dark side of personalities more, none of that sugar coating the types so they all seem perfect crap. It gets a lot more honest about types and is practical in daily life.

Good luck with all this!
Oliver

Edit: Some useful links/books:
Socionics:
http://wikisocion.org/
http://www.socionics.us/blog.shtml
Enneagram:
http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/
Sandra Maitri also has very in depth books on enneagram with content that you won't find surfing the web.

Cheers

I'm familiar with the enneagram through Gurdjieff's teachings but hadn't thought to consider it's usefulness within an AF context. Personally I find that the methods I use work well enough for me without involving another philosophical system but perhaps someone else will benefit from your information.

If it works for you, use it!