About Test

I put this Enneagram test together because most Enneagram tests fall victim to bipolarity, forcing you to choose between extremes (a flaw of most psychological tests). I think the results of bipolar based tests are therefore inherently flawed. By allowing a more natural range of choices, more accurate results are achieved. Furthermore, the SimilarMinds.com Enneagram test assesses your MEAN which reflects your scores on all nine personality types. Two people can have the same main type but be totally different because their MEANs are totally different. For more info on the rational/formula behind the current test, click here.

History of The Enneagram

The origin of the Enneagram is a bit mysterious (and still the subject of substantial debate). The earliest appearance in the historic record dates to a Greek man named Georges Gurdjieff ( 1866-1949). He was interested in the meaning of life and travelled around North Africa and Asia learning various spiritual traditions. Alledgedly, one of these was called 'The Work' which supposedly had been passed down from pupil to teacher for thousands of years. The Work made such an impression on Gurdjieff that he made it his life mission to teach it to the western world. The evolution of The Work into the Enneagram of today is attributed to a Chilean named Oscar Ichazo who in the 1960s developed a theory of nine personality types corresponding to the nine points of the enneagram (although he claims total originality of this concept). Ichazo taught his system to a Chilean psychologist named Cladio Naranjo. Naranjo reframed the Enneagram into the language of modern western psychology and taught his system (called the Enneagram of Fixations) in America during the 1970s. In the 1980s, Naranjo's Enneagram of Fixations was popularized as a psychological profiling system by authors Helen Palmer and Don Richard Riso. Today, the Enneagram is widely used, in this form, in clinical psychology and corporate America and is also very popular among Jesuit and Catholic priests (a Jesuit was one of Naranjo's students).

My View on the Enneagram

The core of the Enneagram, based on my experience with it, is a useful assessment tool of oneself and one's acquaintances (friends, colleagues, employees, etc.), which I think can be further improved (mostly on the analysis end). I think the 1 - 9 layout is superior in its simplicity to Myers-Briggs (another personality profiling system) and consequently it is more useful to the general public. A lot of the ideas connected to popular Enneagram teaching I personally do not agree with at all. I don't think you are necessarily one type throughout your life. I also think what you score on all the types is very important. (If you get one point higher on one enneagram type than the next, you are not much more that type than the other.) Based on the history/origins of the Enneagram, it clearly is an evolving work in progress. Using the data drawn from this site, I hope to add to that evolution, as well as to provide the most accurate Enneagram test possible.

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