It originated with the Sufis, an ancient Persian culture, and was passed down through the oral tradition until the mid-20th century when several western psychologists began to write about it.

The enneagram is represented by a circle containing a 9-pointed star-like shape. Ennea is Greek for the number 9, and gram means "a drawing." Enneagram means a drawing with 9 points. But the drawing includes arrows to depict the enneagram system as dynamic, meaning it involves movement along the points. Learning the drawing and its arrows greatly aids your ability to use the enneagram for psychospiritual transformation.

The core concept for the enneagram, as with most spiritual systems, is that we are born into "essence" or pure consciousness without a point of view. Essence or consciousness or energy – whichever term you're comfortable with – has intelligence; it's the invisible intelligence of the universe that makes the planet hang in space, the sun rise and set, etc. We humans really don't have anything to do with that essential intelligence of the universe. It simply is.

As childhood progresses however, each of us encounters challenges within our families of origin. To cope with those family dynamics, we develop strategies (consciously and unconsciously) to help us feel safe and manage the work of growth into adulthood. The nine points of the enneagram represent nine behavior patterns or strategies that most of us developed early in life.

Not accidentally, each of us gravitated toward one of the enneagram patterns based on our natural talents and abilities. These behavioral strategies worked to help us cope and grow. But since each provides only one lens through which to view the world, these once-winning strategies rigidified with maturation and thereby disallowed us from seeing life from a broader point of view.

Since this coping process begins at a very young age, it's best to look upon these mechanisms as the survival strategies that got us through childhood. Once we reach adulthood, such survival patterns may no longer be necessary. The enneagram can help us recognize and extinguish the dysfunctional aspects of those survival patterns and open us to great insights about ourselves.

Through the enneagram, we can:

• Self-assess and recognize our primary personality (and behavioral) patterns, including both the dark and light sides of our preoccupations,
  
• Learn to accept other people with entirely different points of view based on their coping styles,
  
• Transform our learned patterns by strengthening our original Observer Self to watch where we focus our attention.

There is a great deal more to learn through the enneagram than just our own primary point or number. We each embody aspects of the "wings" of our type (these are the points on either side of our own, one of which tends to influence us more than the other).

We also have "security" and "stress" points, called our "arrows" in accordance with the arrows of the enneagram. Movement along the arrows occurs when you are relaxed (secure) or when you’re stressed. Given these combinations and permutations, we can easily identify with many of the points of the enneagram.

After you learn your core type, your stress and security points, plus the influences of your wings, the enneagram becomes a dynamic tool for transformation.