The Enneagram has become extremely popular over the last several years. You may have seen someone say, “I’m a 2,” “I’m a 6,” or “I’m an 8,” referring to their Enneagram personality type. It is presented as a personality test, something similar to taking a quiz that tells you whether you are outgoing, quiet, organized, emotional, or analytical. Because of that, many people, including Christians, may never think to ask where the Enneagram actually came from.

Before going any further, I also want to make something very clear. People are free to make their own decisions. The purpose of talking about things like the Enneagram is not to control what someone else does. I am not the Holy Spirit. I believe Christians should be able to examine something honestly, learn where it came from, compare it with Scripture, pray about it, and make their own decision before God. It’s why I post what I do. Giving someone information is not taking away their freedom. In fact, you cannot really make an informed decision about something if you do not know what it is.

“Test all things; hold fast what is good.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21

So let’s test it.

What Is the Enneagram?

The Enneagram is a system that divides personalities into 9 basic types. You take a test, answer questions about yourself, and then receive a number from 1 through 9. Each number supposedly represents certain fears, desires, motivations, strengths, weaknesses, and patterns of behavior.

At first glance, that sounds completely harmless. After all, there is nothing wrong with recognizing that people have different personalities. Some people are naturally outgoing while others are quiet. Some people avoid conflict while others confront problems immediately. Some are highly organized, while others are spontaneous. Simply recognizing personality differences is not unbiblical.

But the Enneagram did not begin as a psychological personality test. And that is where its history becomes important, and for me posting this.

Where Did the Enneagram Come From?

One of the first major names we need to know is George Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff was a spiritual teacher in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who taught an “esoteric spiritual system” that eventually became known as the Fourth Way.

NOTE: The word “esoteric” simply means teachings that claim to contain deeper or hidden spiritual knowledge that is not ordinarily known or understood.

Gurdjieff believed human beings normally lived in something like a “spiritual sleep” and needed to awaken to a higher level of consciousness. He used a 9-pointed symbol called the Enneagram as part of his teachings about spiritual development and how different processes supposedly operate in life and the universe.

Gurdjieff was using the Enneagram symbol within his spiritual teachings. The personality types were attached to the system later.

So when someone says, “The Enneagram is just a personality test,” historically that is not the whole story. At all. The symbol existed within an esoteric spiritual system before it became the personality tool people recognize today.

Then Came Oscar Ichazo

The next important person is Oscar Ichazo. During the 20th century, Ichazo developed a “spiritual system” that dealt heavily with the human ego, consciousness, spiritual transformation, and different inner conditions of mankind. He began connecting different human characteristics, passions, fixations, virtues, and spiritual concepts with the points of the Enneagram.

This is where the Enneagram began looking much more like the personality system people recognize today.

Again, this was not originally someone sitting in a university psychology department conducting ordinary personality research and discovering nine personality types through scientific testing. The system was developing within a spiritual and metaphysical framework.

Then Came Claudio Naranjo

Another major person in the development of the modern Enneagram was Claudio Naranjo, a psychiatrist who studied under Ichazo in Chile around 1970.

Naranjo took these teachings and developed them further, connecting the 9 points of the Enneagram with different personality structures and psychological ideas. His work had an enormous influence on what eventually became known as the modern Enneagram of Personality.

So, in very simple terms, the history looks something like this: Gurdjieff used the Enneagram symbol within an esoteric spiritual system. Ichazo later connected the Enneagram with different ego fixations and spiritual concepts. Naranjo developed those ideas further into recognizable personality types. Other teachers then continued developing the system, and eventually questionnaires and personality tests were created that people can take today.

So, we can not say: “Psychologists created a personality test called the Enneagram.” … They didn’t.

What About the Spiritual Side of It?

This is where Christians should at least slow down and look carefully. The people involved in developing the Enneagram were not discussing whether someone was shy, outgoing, organized, emotional, or analytical. There were teachings involving higher consciousness, spiritual awakening, the ego, inner transformation, mystical experiences, and other spiritual ideas.

What we can document is enough to warrant examination. The modern Enneagram developed through people who were deeply involved in spiritual and esoteric teachings. It was not born as a basic psychological assessment and then somehow hijacked by spiritual people afterward. Spiritual ideas were involved in its development. Christians should know that history.

But What If I Am Just Taking the Test?

There is still a legitimate question Christians should ask: What am I allowing to define me?

There is a difference between noticing something true about yourself and accepting the entire belief system used to explain it. An Enneagram description might say that you dislike confrontation, tend to help people, struggle with rejection, like being in control, or withdraw when you are overwhelmed. Maybe that description is completely accurate. But something describing you accurately does not automatically mean the entire system behind that description is true. Someone can observe real human behavior while explaining that behavior through a worldview that Christians do not accept.

The issue is whether Christians should use the Enneagram system as the framework through which they understand who they are and how they are spiritually transformed.

As Christians, our identity is ultimately found in Christ. Scripture already talks extensively about human nature, sin, fear, pride, selfishness, love, anger, self-control, wisdom, temptation, spiritual gifts, renewing our minds, walking according to the Spirit, putting off the old man, putting on the new man, and becoming more like Christ. We don’t lack a framework for understanding spiritual transformation. We have one.

Christians Are Free to Make Their Own Decision

Whenever I write about subjects like this, I want people to understand something. I am not trying to make anyone’s decision for them. You can take an Enneagram test if you choose to. You can disagree with me. You can research it yourself. In fact, I encourage you to research it yourself.

But Christian freedom does not mean we should never investigate something simply because we enjoy it or find it useful. Neither should we become defensive when someone brings information to our attention that makes us uncomfortable.

• We should be willing to ask questions.
• Where did this come from?
• What did the people who developed it believe?
• What spiritual ideas were connected to it?
• What am I actually participating in?
• Does this agree with Scripture?
• Can I separate the modern personality questionnaire from the spiritual philosophy that helped produce the system?
• And most importantly, is this something I believe the Lord wants me involved with?

Those are questions each Christian needs to answer before God. The Bereans were praised because they did not blindly accept what they heard. They examined it.

“These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.”Acts 17:11

That is what biblical discernment should look like. Research does not hurt truth. Questions do not hurt truth. Examining history does not hurt truth. If something is good, true, and compatible with Scripture, examining it should not frighten us. And if something has spiritual roots we were unaware of, learning about those roots gives us the opportunity to seek God and decide what we should do with that information.

We sometimes have to ask ourselves: Now that I know where this system came from, what do I believe I should do with it as a follower of Jesus? That decision belongs to you. But make it informed.