The Enneagram

1. The Enneagram: A Map of Nine Personality Types

The Enneagram is an ancient Sufi teaching that describes nine different personality types and their interrelationships.

Nine distinct lenses. The Enneagram presents a system of nine interconnected personality types, each with its own unique worldview, motivations, and patterns of behavior. These types are not rigid categories, but rather dynamic points on a spectrum, offering a framework for understanding the diversity of human experience. The Enneagram helps us recognize our own type and how to cope with our issues; understand our work associates, lovers, family, and friends; and to appreciate the predisposition that each type has for higher human capacities such as empathy, omniscience, and love.

Interconnectedness. The nine types are not isolated entities; they are interconnected through lines and arrows on the Enneagram diagram, which represent the dynamic movement and relationships between the types. These connections reveal how each type can shift under stress or in security, and how they relate to one another in complex ways. The Enneagram is a model of interconnecting lines that indicate a dynamic movement, in which each of us has the potentials of all nine types, or points, although we identify most strongly with the issues of our own.

Self-discovery and empathy. By understanding the Enneagram, we can gain valuable insights into our own patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior, as well as develop greater empathy for the perspectives of others. This understanding can lead to more effective communication, stronger relationships, and a deeper appreciation for the diversity of human experience.

2. Beyond Normal: The Enneagram's Spiritual Dimension

The Enneagram is part of a teaching tradition that views personality preoccupations as teachers, or indicators of latent abilities that unfold during the development of higher consciousness.

Personality as a stepping stone. The Enneagram is not just a system for understanding personality; it is also a map of human potential, suggesting that our ordinary patterns of behavior can be pathways to higher states of awareness. The diagrams that appear in this book are a partial view of a more complete model that describes the levels of humanity’s possible evolution from personality through a range of unusual human potentials, such as empathy, omniscience, and love.

Neurotic trends as teachers. The Enneagram views our neurotic tendencies not as flaws to be eliminated, but as teachers that can guide us toward our next phase of development. By understanding our preoccupations, we can learn to detach from them and allow other perceptions to come into awareness. From this expanded psychological perspective, our neurotic trends can be seen as teachers and as good friends who lead us honorably forward to our next phase of development.

Existential and spiritual growth. The Enneagram recognizes that there is a vital existential and spiritual dimension to humanity, and that true growth requires moving beyond the limitations of ordinary life and personality. Once there is reasonable success in developing the skills needed for ordinary level living, a person must grow in the existential and spiritual dimensions if he or she is to continue to be healthy and happy.

3. Oral Tradition: Experiencing Type Through Shared Stories

The Enneagram of types is part of an oral teaching tradition, and the material is still best transmitted by seeing and hearing groups of people of the same type speak about their lives.

Power of shared experience. The Enneagram is best understood through the oral tradition, where people of the same type share their personal stories and experiences. This method of transmission allows for a deeper understanding of the nuances and subtleties of each type, going beyond what can be conveyed through written descriptions alone. Seeing and hearing a group of articulate and willing people express a similar point of view transmits far more of the power of the system than can possibly be conveyed by a mere written record of their words.

Recognizing patterns. By listening to the stories of others, we can begin to recognize the common patterns and themes that define each type, including their physical holding patterns, emotional tone, and tension points in the face. The world looks very different to each of the nine, and by lending yourself to the way that others feel within themselves, you can shift out of your own point of view into a true understanding of who the people in your life really are, rather than what your ideas about them might lead you to believe.

Compassion and understanding. The oral tradition fosters a sense of compassion and understanding for the limitations and biases of each type, allowing us to move beyond our own point of view and appreciate the unique perspectives of others. When you see the world from the point of view of other types of mind, you are immediately made aware that each type is limited by a systematic bias.

4. Typing's Pitfalls: Avoiding Boxes and Stereotypes

The Enneagram, however, is not a fixed system. It is a model of interconnecting lines that indicate a dynamic movement, in which each of us has the potentials of all nine types, or points, although we identify most strongly with the issues of our own.

Dynamic system. The Enneagram is not a rigid system of boxes, but a dynamic model of interconnecting lines, suggesting that each of us has the potential to embody all nine types, though we identify most strongly with one. The structure of a nine-pointed star with interconnecting lines also suggests that each type possesses a versatility of movement between points.

Versatility and change. Each type is not a fixed entity, but a composite of three major aspects: a dominant aspect, which identifies a type’s world view, and two additional aspects that describe behavior in security or under stress. We alter radically under stress or when we are secure, and each of us alters in the degree to which we identify with the issues that define our type.

Purpose of typing. The purpose of discovering your own type is to build a working relationship with yourself. You can count on the experience of your similars to guide you, and you can discover the conditions that will make you thrive rather than continue to play out neurotic trends. The most important reason to study type isn’t so you can learn to spot other people’s character traits, it’s so you can lessen your own human suffering.

5. Attention and Type: How We Filter Reality

Once personality is formed, attention becomes immersed in the preoccupations that characterize our type.

Selective perception. Our personality type shapes how we filter information, causing us to focus on certain aspects of reality while ignoring others. We do not see the same reality because we are oblivious to what does not attract our attention and tend to focus on the information that is important to our type.

Preoccupations and habits. Each type is characterized by specific preoccupations and habits of attention, which can both limit and enhance our perception of the world. The preoccupations of a type are easy to name. This book is filled with self-descriptions by acute self-observers who have been generous enough to describe their habits of heart and preoccupations of mind.

Shifting attention. By becoming aware of how our attention is organized, we can learn to shift our focus and see the world from different perspectives, moving beyond the limitations of our type. It is, however, of great interest to me that we have become so preoccupied with naming what our attention is attracted to that we have neglected to look at how attention is organized when we perceive the information that interests our type.

6. Intuition and Type: Accessing Higher Awareness

Intuition can best be understood as the emerging side effect of the withdrawal of attention from habitual thoughts and feelings.

Intuition as a side effect. Intuition is not a separate faculty, but rather a byproduct of detaching attention from habitual thoughts and feelings. Without a basic attention practice, we tend to overly focus in the thinking state, so that equally present impressions are not accessible in a reliable way.

Type-specific intuition. Each type has a unique intuitive style, which is often connected to the preoccupations and habits of attention that define their personality. The way that you pay attention to the key issues in your life can be well over the line of ordinary perception and into an intuitive zone without your being aware that anything unusual is going on.

Training intuition. By learning to recognize and work with our type-specific intuitive style, we can develop a greater capacity for accessing higher states of awareness. If an intuitive connection supported your sense of security and well-being when you were young, then as an adult you probably use intuition as a source of information in many unrecognized ways.

7. The Enneagram's Structure: Trinity and Process

The nine-pointed star maps the relationship between two primary laws of mysticism, the law of Three (trinity), which identifies the three forces that are present when an event begins, and the law of Seven (octaves), which governs the stages of implementation of that event as it is played out in the physical world.

Law of Three. The inner triangle of the Enneagram represents the law of Three, which states that three forces are necessary for creation: active, receptive, and reconciling. The central triangle of Three-Six-Nine can also be mathematically described as the attempt of the trinity of forces present in the original creation to be reconciled back into one.

Law of Seven. The outer circle and lines of the Enneagram represent the law of Seven, which governs the stages of implementation of an event as it unfolds in the material world. The relationship of Seven to unity can be expressed by dividing 1 by 7, which yields the repeating series 0.142857142857, … which contains no multiples of three.

Dynamic interplay. The Enneagram is a dynamic model that maps the interplay between these two laws, showing how events unfold through time and how different forces interact to shape their progress. The full Enneagram is a circle divided into nine equal parts that represents the fusion of the law of Three and the law of Seven, which interact in specific ways along the diagram’s inner lines.

8. Chief Feature: The Core of Our Personality

Gurdjieff spoke of type as being organized around a Chief Feature of character.

Central axis. Each personality type is organized around a "Chief Feature," a central axis around which the delusional aspects of our personalities revolve. If we could know that chief feature, the work of understanding and transcending the delusional aspects of personality would become much more efficient.

Hidden from ourselves. Our Chief Feature is often hidden from our own awareness, obscured by psychological defenses and buffers that protect us from the pain of recognizing our limitations. Those around him see a man’s Chief Feature, however hidden it may be. Of course they cannot always define it. But their definitions are often very good and very near.

A key to growth. By identifying our Chief Feature, we can begin to understand the core patterns that drive our behavior and work toward transcending the limitations of our personality. It is very important at a certain stage of self-study to find one’s Chief Feature, which means chief weakness, like the axis round which everything turns.

9. The Passions: Emotional Habits and Their Potential

The Enneagram identifies nine chief features of the emotional life. They are parallel to Christianity’s seven capital sins with the addition of deceit and fear at points Three and Six.

Emotional shadows. The Enneagram identifies nine "passions," or emotional habits, that developed during our "fall from grace" into the material world. These passions are the emotional shadows that stem from the need to cope with early family life.

Potential for transformation. While these passions can be a source of suffering, they also represent potential access points to higher states of awareness. If a child develops well, then the passions are worn lightly, presenting themselves as mere tendencies. But if the psychological situation is severe, then one of the shadow issues becomes an obsessional preoccupation; the capacity for self-observation weakens and we cannot make ourselves move on to other things.

Naming our passions. By naming our own passions, we can learn to observe the ways in which these habits have gained control of our lives and enlist them as allies in our journey toward self-understanding. Chief Feature is a neurotic habit that developed during childhood. It is also a personal teacher, a reminding factor that has a constant presence in the privacy of our inner life.

10. The Path to Essence: Transcending Type Limitations

The Enneagram’s nine-pointed star suggests that there are nine major aspects of essential being and that each may be approached in a slightly different way.

Essence vs. personality. The Enneagram distinguishes between our acquired personality and our essential nature, the qualities with which we were born. The search for a particular aspect of essence is motivated by the fact that you suffer from its absence.

Reclaiming our essence. The goal of the Enneagram is not to perfect our personality, but to transcend its limitations and reconnect with our essential nature. The relearning of our original connections with the environment and with other people can be thought of as a way back home, and the way implies an integration between a mature personality and the ability to experience the different aspects of essence at will.

Integration and wholeness. The path to essence involves integrating our mature personality with the ability to experience the different aspects of essence at will, allowing our talents and skills to become vehicles for expressing our higher potential. There is a Sufi saying that addresses the kinship between personality and essence. It says, “To become that which you were before you were, with the memory and understanding of what you had become.”

Last updated: February 2, 2025