Why I am obsessed with the Enneagram Personality Test

I first became acquainted with the Enneagram 16 years ago, in the midst of an existential crisis brought on by the sudden death of a family member. Distraught and looking for solace, I enrolled in a course called “Jewish Spirituality.” Although I don’t remember the exact description, the basic idea was that we would study nontraditional, non-God-oriented ways in which Jews connect with an experience of transcendence, something I desperately needed. Whatever the wording in the brochure, it was most assuredly not a description of the actual course.

The actual course, it turned out, was about whatever the teacher felt like talking about that night. A charismatic rabbi with a devoted following, he taught the course continually, in an unending loop of eight-week sessions attended by an enthusiastic group of regulars, many of whom both wrote down and made an audio recording of everything the rabbi said while he discoursed freely on whatever happened to be on his mind. And what was on his mind during that eight weeks was the Enneagram.  

I sat there, reeling from loss, hardly able to take in what I was hearing — or, rather, seeing, which was this drawing:

Get it?  Neither did I.  But according to legend, in the early 1900s, the famous Armenian choreographer Gurdjieff drew it on the walls of a cave where he had retreated to enjoy hallucinogens for a bit and study mysticism, emerging to bring to the world the Enneagram drawing, a secret code that implied a deep truth. 

Now, I have a nearly physical aversion to non-logical (to put it mildly) theories like this. As soon as people start talking about ancient secrets and codes and mysticism, it’s just a hop, skip and a jump to Dan Brown and the Illuminati.  For Gurdjieff and his adherents, on the other hand, the thing was a work of genius, a profound utterance that could not be expressed otherwise. It wasn’t until about 30 years later, around the middle of the 20th century, that South American psychologists Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo worked the shape into their theories of psychology, a set of ideas that later became codified as the Enneagram personality types.  

This theory is now expressed in wildly different ways by a variety of warring psychologists, each of whom claim their version is correct. But as I understand it, basically, the theory is that all of us are splinters of a larger cosmic whole, which, when it broke apart, created life. According to the Enneagram, our personality type is determined by the particular manner in which our own splinter longs for reunion with that wholeness.  These types are described generally as:

1. The Reformer or Idealist, motivated by perfection

2. The Helper or Giver, motivated by generosity

3. The Achiever, motivated by ambition

4. The Artist, motivated by self-expression and beauty

5. The Investigator, motivated by internal logical understanding

6. The Loyalist, motivated by a desire to belong to (or reject) a community

7. The Enthusiast, motivated by fun and change

8. The Leader, motivated by a desire to be in charge

9. The Peacemaker, motivated by a desire for calm

The numeric order does not reflect a value judgment; each type has equal potential for good or bad. A key element of the Enneagram personality types is that every type has its own characteristic ways of behaving when under stress (disintegration) and when very healthy (integration).  A giving 2, in an ideal state, can become a paragon of kindness, but under stress, can become a passive-aggressive, manipulative back-stabber. Also, you are born with your personality type and will never, say, suddenly become a soulful, artistic 4 if all your life you’ve been a reclusive, thoughtful 5. You may become a more evolved 5, you may become a more gregarious 5, but you will always be a 5 (unless you achieve full integration, in which case you will become a highly evolved and world-changing 8, or totally fall apart, in which case you will become the worst possible version of a 7, deranged, risk-taking and heedless.)

Sounds nuts, right? Even the rabbi seemed to agree: After a few weeks, he pronounced himself “kind of sick of it” and then was absent, replaced by a charismatic nun who regaled us with hilarious stories about her use of the Enneagram at work. Afterward, I’d trudge home to complain to my husband about what lunacy it all was. He agreed wholeheartedly.

Here’s the problem: We then couldn’t stop talking about it. First, of course, we placed ourselves on the Enneagram (he’s an 8, obviously, and I’m a 6, though for a while I mistook myself for a 4). Next, our family members. Finally, our friends.

And then everybody we’ve ever met. Because the addictive thing about the Enneagram is that unscientific though it may be, it is has remarkable descriptive powers — and is uncannily accurate, once you’ve typed someone, at predicting how that person will behave under extreme stress or when doing really well. 

For me, the Enneagram is not so much a scientific theory as a weirdly compelling metaphor, one that helps categorize the mess of human nature far better, for me, than more supposedly scientific measures, because categorizing human nature is not fundamentally a scientific pursuit. For me, in my grief-stricken state back then, it was a way of putting order into a universe that felt terrifyingly chaotic — and now, years later, still feels satisfying — not true, perhaps, but with a strange kind of beauty. And in the pain and mess of life, maybe sometimes a touch of beauty is what we really need. Hey, maybe I’m a 4 after all.

And if you don’t agree … well, then you’re obviously a 1 or a 5.

Ellie Herman is a writer, teacher and life coach. She blogs at gatsbyinLA.wordpress.com.