Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Enneagram

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

You're not controlling, you're a 1. You're not dramatic, you're a 4. You're not avoiding your problems, you're a 7. This week, certified 3's, Reese and Iman investigate the cult of the Enneagram, where a mysterious set of numbers has convinced millions of people they finally understand themselves, their exes, their coworkers, and the reason they forgot to text back. They're joined by Enneagram expert Ashton Whitmoyer-Ober (@enneagramashton) to unpack how Enneagram has become a sacred culty language for explaining literally everything. We dig into its surprisingly mystical origins, devoted followers, and the irresistible appeal of having your deepest flaws neatly organized into a convenient numerical category. Whether you've spent three years debating your wing, accidentally made your type your entire personality, or have weaponized attachment styles and the Enneagram in the same conversation, welcome home. The numbers already knew you were coming.  Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult on Youtube!Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod, @amanda_montell, @reesaronii, @chelseaxcharles, @imanharirikia.  To pre-order Iman's new book, Once in a Timeline, click here! Thank you to our sponsors! Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to https://Quince.com/slac for free shipping on your order and 365-day return To Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain, Head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.squarespace.com/CULT⁠⁠ If your glasses are overdue for a refresh, now is the time. Use code PODCAST15 for fifteen percent off your first order at ⁠⁠bit.ly/3OdtU5X Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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seamlessly engineered into a portable 15-inch body, powered by Intel Core 7 processor for high performance during every session, all wrapped in the elite and durable alienware design. It's everything you need for an immersive gaming experience distilled into one iconic machine. Visit alienware.ca. slash alienware 15 today. The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Hi, my name is Jordan, and I am in San Francisco, California. I became a member of the cult of the Enneagram

when a therapist introduced it to me in 2018. I immediately became obsessed and felt like I found the secret to understanding myself and everyone else around me. I started attending workshops and worked with an Enneagram coach for about a year. At the time, I would talk about the enneagram with anyone who would listen. I would try to figure out their number as well,

even though you're not supposed to do that. Also, when I had friends over, I would pull out my copy of the complete aneogram by Beatrice Chestnut and tell them that it was my Bible. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Reese Oliver, Sounds Like a Colts resident rhetoric scholar. And I'm Imondri Kia, author of female fantasy, the most famous girl in the world, and 100 other girls. Every week on this show, we discuss a different fanatical fringe group from the cultural zeitgeist, all the way from mom. talk to marching fans to try and answer the biggest question of them all. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really?

And if so, which of our cult categories does it fall into? A little life, watch you back, or a get the fuck out. Because not every group that seems a little culty for comfort is mixing up poisonous off-brank cool it. Cultish influence these days, who's this son of spectrum, baby? It's all spectrums. From the slightly on beat to the seriously concerned. And the point of the show is to explore how fanaticism creeps into everyday life. So to examine how power and identity can get warped in the farthest of corners of the internet

and to critique the culty places that you might not think to look, but maybe you should. Like a harmless personality quiz that you take with your friends, something that helps you understand your relationships, your fears, your patterns, until suddenly you're organizing your entire identity around a number. Yes, today we are talking about the cult of Enneagram. So I am pretty familiar with the cult of Enneagram. Reese, I don't know if you and I have ever discussed this before, but Amanda and I have something in common,

and that's we're both escapees from the cult of women's lifestyle media. So I worked for a women's digital media group for many, many years, specifically in the sex and relationship space, which I've mentioned in the past. But a big chunk of what I did for about a year and a half when personality quizzes were all the rage a la BuzzFeed quiz was edit articles that sounded a little bit like who you should hook up with this Thanksgiving break based on your star sign. or why you should text your toxic X based on your Myers-Briggs. Or here's what your Enneagram number can tell you about your favorite sex position. So that's my background with the cult of Enigram. What about you? That actually makes so much sense because it is such like a little teen magazine thing.

But Enneagram specifically feels a little more sophisticated to me, a little like a little more grown-ups than the other ones for whatever reason. Maybe not Myers-Briggs. I feel like Myers-Briggs and Enneagram are the two that feel. They just have a slightly more clinical feel to them, which I think kind of gives them an air of credibility. I'm not sure if they fully deserve. But yeah, I don't have a ton of experience with Enneagram. I think I've like heard the term tossed around loosely.

But what really struck me as like, oh, this is a cult that we should talk about is I was listening to an episode of Ret and Link's podcast. And Rhett went on the record about how very into this cult he is. And he has brought it up many times on their podcast. since then. And hearing him talk about how insightful was for him, I was both like, wow, there are clearly people that are really into this. And selfishly, and as a three, I'm pretty sure Rhett is also a three. I was like, I wouldn't know about myself. I want to take the test. Are we all threes in the chat right now? All two of us. All two of us are threes, which is crazy because there were truly nine other options that we could have fallen under. So many options. Who are the bitches of the

microphone going to be, though. Come on. Like, we need to do a test of the other hosties. That's very true. And we're going to get into this a little bit later in our conversation. But the wing, which is like a supplemental number that you're given that is like adjacent to your number and can tell you more about your type. I do think that like when I read the full description of my type with the wing included, I found it to be incredibly accurate. And I will say every personality test I've ever taken. taken from Myers-Briggs to Enneagram to, if you count astrology, has told me like pretty much the exact same set of things about myself. So I'm just to put that out there. I want to ask you, does this remind you of any other cult or are we like expecting it to be culty? How are you feeling on the cult meter starting off? Well, it does remind me, as I mentioned, about the cult of Myers-Briggs, but definitely also reminds me a little bit of the cult of romance novels because of the romance trope categorization, all of the different subtropes. But can I just say, like, I think that's because microtropes tell us so much about why we're attracted to what we're

attracted to and why we love who we love. And I think that Myers-Briggs types teach us a lot about why we do what we do and why we are who we are. Yeah, as we're going to get into with our guest, she mentioned that the Nagram is very motivation-oriented. And I feel like that's something that reflects itself quite easily in Britain media. So now, come on, take us away into some history and some basic info about the Enneagram. So the Enneagram is a personality type system that sorts people into nine distinct types, each with its own core motivations, fears, and behaviors. And these types are type one, the reformer, type two, the helper, type three, the achiever, type four, the individualist, type five, the investigator, type six, the loyalist, type

seven, the enthusiast, type eight, the challenger, and type nine, the peacemaker. Oh, this is so interesting, I didn't realize that your type changed based on your wing. So as an intigram three, wing four, my type is the professional, which is not one of these types. So it combines type three's ambition and focus on success with type four's desire for authenticity and individuality. Embarrassing. As we'll get into later on in the episode, tests are highly contested within the cult of enneagram. So regardless of which test you took, both our tests might not mean anything and we can choose to be whoever we want. We could be the challenger. We could be the investigator for all I know. That takes the fun out of it for me. That's not the point. Tell me,

I don't want to decide who I am. I want some anonymous website on the internet to tell me who I am. No, the whole point of the test is so I know how to better act in the future. Well, Enneagram is widely used today for self-discovery, relationships, and even workplace dynamics, despite the fact that it's not recognized as a scientifically validated personality assessment in mainstream psychology. Very culty. According to the American Psychological Association, widely accepted personality frameworks for rely on empirical testing and reproducibility, standards that the Ineagram does not meet

for reasons that we literally just discussed. Its origins are also not exactly academic. The symbol itself is often traced back to George Gerjeff, a 20th century spiritual teacher, before being developed into a personality system in the 1960s by Oscar Ichazzo and later expanded by Claudio Noronho. Naranjo himself said that much of the system came from intuition and what he described as automatic writing rather than empirical research. We can make up whatever we want to make up at any time.

Well, pseudoscience or not, Enneagram is extremely popular with over 50 million uses of hashtag enneagram on TikTok and 77K grammars in R slash Enneagram. Enneagram has gained traction in two spaces, the workplace, and one's spiritual practice, according to Peter Clark's encyclopedia of new religious movements. Both avenues of engagement highlight differing potential benefits of, well, I don't know, what exactly does it highlight, Reese? Yeah, so I know I mentioned that free bag seen a lot on this show, but I think it's so applicable to cultiness. Like, I just want someone to tell me what to do, man. It's rough out here, I think everybody has so much decision fatigue because we are beholden to so many systems

that force our hand. A lot of our decisions have stakes behind them that they shouldn't have. Like, where I buy my groceries shouldn't necessarily decide whether children across the world should eat tomorrow. But that happens. That's a reality we have to face. So I think the more that we can eliminate choices and put ourselves on one streamlined path that we kind of know is correct and we don't really have to do as much critical thinking to be blunt. I think people like that. And I mean, I'm included in that. It's nice to be told what to do sometimes.

Totally. I also think post-pendemic and also because of the popularization of social media and technological spaces, we have so much more trouble communicating with one another. And so it doesn't surprise me that more than ever in the workplace, people are using personality tests to help them navigate conflict and talk. and talk to their coworkers and manage people because ultimately we're lacking in that face-to-face contact. I'm wondering if there's any kernel of truth to it being a byproduct of a further diversification of a lot of workplaces where like a lot of social norms that before we're kind of taken for granted are being re-evaluated.

And people like you were saying, in addition to post-candemic, are needing to kind of recalibrate how they behave in those settings and having something like aneogram that's kind of demographically neutral. And so up to personal interpretation, then it's like, well, now you're only treating people in a way that they've explicitly told you to treat them kind of. So it takes a lot of guesswork out. Yeah. I also think because of the even further rise of astrology in mainstream culture, I think that now people do have some baseline information about who they are. And they're looking for any kind of supplemental information to emphasize and mirror why they are the way they are. They want to affirm what they already know about themselves to be true through astrology.

Yeah. And they want information that feels credible. So to turn to something that's called the Enneagram Institute with an acronym for the test, it's called the ready. Like it looks like I was saying earlier, very clinical. I think in a maybe kind of cultish way, it does really present itself as an authority for people who are trying to figure out who they are. And with that, we're going to get into some culty analysis. A lot of people have the experience of reading their type description and feeling like very completely seen just like you, Amman. And that makes sense because these descriptions are often kind of like astrology broad enough to apply to a wide range of people, which is a phenomenon that psychologists will sometimes

refer to as the Barnum effect, where individuals believe vague general statements are uniquely accurate to them. The American Psychological Association defines this as a really common cognitive bias that underpins things like astrology and personality tests. It also offers something people are actively looking for a sense of identity, a sense of control, and a sense of belonging, a lot of what we were just talking about. Much like other cult adjacent spaces that we've covered, personality tests like the anagram gives people language for their struggles like you were saying them on, and a community that reinforces it and embraces them for it. This is so common across so many cults. A immediate community belonging to an in-group,

some sort of explanation or understanding of why the world is. looks the way it looks and why we act the way we act. I'm not surprised that this is a cult that many are susceptible to, including myself. Yeah, there's just something about a fun little cult where it's like, here's how you can toy with your presentation to the world. So you can project yourself onto a predetermined category of some kind because then it's like, I'm unique, but I'm also one of many. So I'm not alone. Yeah, I wonder if it also helps us sort of mitigate responsibility or like, well, it's not my fault. I behaved this way. Like, according to my enneagram, my motivation was actually XYZ. That's so interesting. And I think probably really true. And I'm

wondering, like, if there are any devious people in the enneagram space who have taken advantage of that. I don't even know how someone would do. Like, all the fours should zel me money. I don't know. Or, like, I'm not being overly friendly with you. I'm a seven. I wasn't flirting with her, babe. I'm just an eight. I swear. Exactly. I just love to have fun. It's like when people say like, sorry, I'm just really blunt. It's like now there's like a little title for that kind of thing. Rees, do you remember Group 7 on TikTok? And like me know. Okay. This is maybe exposing how chronically online I am. But maybe let's say like six months ago, a girl on TikTok made a video that just said if you're seeing this on your feed, you're in Group 7 basically. And there was no explanation for what group seven was. The types of people that fell under the category, nothing. It was just a way to incite engagement. However, anyone who received that video on their feed immediately enthusiastically embraced being group seven and started making sort of copycat videos for their own followers and their own feeds. So ultimately, I think this just exposes that like at the

end of the day, people are dying to belong to something greater than themselves. They're dying for community, for acceptance, for a sense of belonging. So regardless of whether you're in group seven or type seven, it has less to do with the specifics of what it means to be in group seven or be a type seven and more to do with our yearning for categorization says about how like disconnected and even lonely we are. Yeah, for sure. And I think it's, becomes kind of like a feedback loop of identity formation where like you find people that identify with whether it be the things you like or the way you behave or what shows up on your fee. And that becomes the thing that bonds you with people. And then because you're bonded with those people,

you're exposed to a bunch of other things that you are more likely to like and enjoy because you have a similar taste profile or you behave, you know, like whatever it is. So I think that it's for sure a recipe for cultishness in that way, but not always necessarily for the worst. Like you were saying, just finding itself within a group. We wanted to be unique, but not too unique. Unique, but still, but still one of many. And then the dark underside of that is that it creates like exclusionary practices, like everyone who didn't get the group seven video on their feed and then felt totally left out and like a giant loser. So we're going to get into some actual horror stories, some consequences, because it's not all sunshine and rainbows. When you're fully buying into this

ideology that is at the end of the day self-determined and not being checked by any like empirical source. So the consequences are usually subtle with enneagram than with something like, I don't know, maha. But they are still very real. One of the biggest concerns is how often anagram gets used in spaces where it probably doesn't belong. Some companies have used it in hiring or team building contexts, even though experts in industrial organizational psychology caution against using non-validated personality tests for employment decisions. It feels very non-profit to me, very like, we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings and we want to create a good work environment without imposing any rigid structure. So we're kind of going to like make you guys figure it out

yourselves and blame it on your personalities. Wow. There's also the issue of therapy. People often use the anagram as a substitute for actual mental health treatment, reducing complex issues like trauma, anxiety, or depression into personality types. It's actually something interesting. that the guest said, some people are in the camp that Enneagram is very nature, some people are in the camp that Enugram is very nurture. How trauma interacts with that is something that I would be intrigued to learn more about. But the APA makes it very clear that because of things like that, evidence-based therapy requires clinically tested methods, not just like personality frameworks that are built on some Rando's automatic writing for 20 minutes. Like your creative writing class warm up should not be determining

how people behave in the workplace or what kind of therapy, their therapeutic treatments people are trying to give themselves. Now I'm also thinking of more questions because if that's true, does that mean that you can change your type? That's what she was saying. Some people say yes and some people say no. But also it's like if you are a certain type and then you experience a traumatic inciting incident, does your type organically evolve or do you have to compare everything that happens to you against your original type? And then I think it also comes into the like when you are a traumatized person. I mean, I guess this goes for any like, I don't. I don't think anyone is like fully 2020 in terms of like mental health. But I'm wondering just how

valid our own interpretations of ourselves are. I think there's probably a good reason that we want authority of some kind. Like I think, yeah, I'm not like a medical or a mental health expert and I shouldn't be trusted with diagnosing myself essentially. But yeah, there's also the interpersonal fallout aspect of the anyagram. So instead of having like real conversations, this turns into a labeling game. Like, you know, you're such a two or there's your age showing, which like really Latin's relationships and takes complex human behavior and turns it into something really simplified and shallow. It can also become a way of avoiding accountability or genuine understanding like Amman was saying, I didn't do my homework because I'm a three and I'll achieve regardless.

Yeah, that's so interesting. Like, I do think, though, that that is not something that's a specific to an eagram. I think people do this all the time with other personality quizzes and or astrology. And honestly, I think I would rather have people saying like, oh, I'm such a five than people saying like, oh, I'm so OCD or something like that. Maybe this kind of thing is what statements like that are for instead of more serious diagnoses or other things that we have no business categorizing ourselves. At least this is like, no, you're supposed to be the authority. So no one can really hold you to anything if you're speying out of your ass. Yeah, absolutely. Like this is a safer way for us to sort of like hide behind a more general descriptor of who we are. Well, to how. help us get the 401 on all things Enneagram today, we will be speaking with Enneagram Ashton, who is a speaker, workplace consultant, and Enneagram expert who provides resources for those interested in Enugram.

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stone. And a lot of people who get into Enigram, the pipeline to life coaching is kind of inevitable. You're kind of lured in with this self-help sphere and you dig deeper and deeper and you think, oh, this is like a real science. This makes a lot of sense. But there's just not a lot of room for nuance. They're kind of boiling everyone down to nine types in the case of Enigram. There's no cognitive functions that explain away, all of the behavior that doesn't make sense for the core behaviors of the type, things like that. So I think Enigram is kind of. cultie for those reasons. Ashton, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. We're excited to have you. Could you introduce yourself to the culties and share a little bit about

your relationship to the cult of Enneagram? So it's funny because I feel like, and I'll probably say this a couple times, but I feel like so much of my work that I do is telling people that it's not a cult. Here I am on here. But my name is Ashton Whitmore, Ober. I'm an Eniore. I'm an Eneagram educator, speaker, author. And I became obsessed with the Enneagram, like so many people, back in 2018, when I was in my master's program for psychology. So I have my bachelor's and master's degree in psychology. I'm a psychologist by trade, discovered the Enneagram, and just became totally obsessed with the way that you can use it as a tool to better understand yourself and others. And so that is what started my Enneagram journey and what led me to make a full-blown.

career out of it. And why do you think certain people prefer Enneagram over other personality tests like say Myers-Briggs? And why has there been such a resurgence lately? Yeah, great question. So people gravitate more towards the Enneagram over other personality typing systems because the enneagram is not about your behaviors. So in tests like Myers-Briggs or strength finders or disc assessment, we're often trying to figure out like who we are. Maybe we're extroverted or we're introverted or we avoid conflict or we face it head on. But with the enneagram, it's about why we do things the way that we do. So it's instead about our motivations.

And so it's the motivation behind why we avoid conflict or why we're more introverted. And so I think people just like that a little bit better because we're able to, once we understand why we do things the way that we do that. then we can change those behaviors that we might not like versus other personality typing systems. It's just you take that information and you kind of just go away, right? And you just like, oh, okay, this is who I am. Now that's that. But with the Enneagram, we can actually use it as a tool for change.

I think that there's been a resurgence for a couple different reasons. When I first started doing this work, I was just explaining this to somebody the other day. There were hardly any books that were out there on the Enneagram. There was like one book that people, would read and follow, et cetera, but there weren't a lot of books. And so I think with it becoming more of an obsession lately, more people are writing books about it, but also we have access to information today more so than we would in years past. So the Enneagram is actually one of the oldest typing systems. It's between two to four thousand years old. But it was created over in the

Middle East and it didn't really come to this part of the world until the 50s. And then it had a resurgence in the 80s because books were starting to be written. And then it kind of died down a little bit more. And then with social media and the way that we kind of consume our content and information just started to have people become more obsessed with it. I think also the pandemic, when we were all just kind of sitting around and scrolling and not really doing much, it just became more prominent on people's feeds. That's really insightful what you said about people being more drawn to the motivational aspect of anagram as opposed to something more diagnostic because I do think that things like, I don't know,

for example, astrology can get very general because people do similar behaviors for very different reasons. So I think that getting a little bit more specific sounds really helpful. My next question for you is, are there any immediate tells that would signify a new person you're meeting as part of the enneagram in group? Like, how would you be able to tell that someone is like a fan of the anagram? Well, the easiest way is if someone were to be like, do you know your anagram type? I feel like that's always what I hear is people are always like, do you know your enagram type? Or what is your enneagram type or what type are you? And so it's really just that like intro question.

And then if people say, like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Then they can open it up with, oh, let me tell you about like this really amazing thing that I know, right? Okay. Do you think there's a power hierarchy within the goal? Enneagram, like, do some types get all the glory? Are they ranked or otherwise compared against each other? I would say that some types probably feel like they are ranked and compared or like pitted against each other in some way. A lot of people will often say like, oh, I wish I was a type 9 or I wish I was a type 7. They're so fun. And so I think the nature of content creators creating really fun and like exciting

graphics about the Enneagram, even if they're just like not very serious and just funny, it kind of naturally creates those hierarchies. And then you have your Enneagram for who in general tends to feel like something is missing in them and that other people have what they don't have. And so they in general just feel like they're kind of the ones that are left out or not as talked about as much. I have a wing for. So that's interesting to know. Some cult lingo will have you define in a second. Already, well, every cult needs a leader. Who would you say is at the forefront of Enneagram and who's putting in the good work to spread the message?

So I think there's probably a lot of people who might be aware. Some people might be unaware that they are like the leaders, right? So Richard Roar was one of the people who wrote like the first books in English, as well as Riso and Hudson have created an Eniogram test called the R-H-E-T-I. And so it's the Riso-Hudson enneagram typing instrument. So I always consider them the founding fathers of the modern-day enneagram. But of course, then we have Suzanne Stabil, who we actually call her like the enneagram godmother. Because she is just so knowledgeable. I don't know if she'll ever listen to this, but she's like, I don't want to call her old.

But she's older than a lot of us. And so because of that, she has a lot of wisdom when it comes to the enneagram. as well as Ian Morgan Cron wrote the book, The Road Back to You, and that was the book I was talking about earlier. That is also part of the lingo. It's like the book that people were reading back in like 2018, 2019 to learn about the enneagram. So I feel like those are probably the ones that are most prominent with shaping this. Well, speaking of both the lingo in that book and me interjecting to say that I'm a-wing for me wanting to know the motivation behind everything that I do. I love to learn about myself.

Colts love lingo. How does the intigram test then cultivate a lexicon? And do you feel like followers such as myself just now speak in tongues? Teach us a little bit about the terminology involved. Yeah. So I mean, I would say the number one thing is the wings. Like you kind of walked right into that by sharing that because when people say like I'm a two wing three. or I'm a three wing four, I'm a seven wing eight. Like that is so enneagram coded, right? Like if you don't know anything about the anyogram, you're like, what are you talking about?

I actually had somebody say to me before that when I was talking about wings, they assumed that I meant like chicken wings instead of like the enneagram lingo. So that is definitely something that people say. What does that mean for our followers who don't know? So the wings are the number on either side of your main type. So if you are a three, then you're. wing could be a four or a two. So when people say, like, I'm a two wing three, it just means that they're a two and their wing is a three. So there are two that can look like a three.

Kind of like a rising sign situation. Yes. Supplemental sign to like offer like further context to your type. Yeah. Are you a three? Yes. Okay, I'm making assumptions. But it's because I wouldn't assume that you would be a five. So a three with a four wing is going to look different. than a three with a two wing. And so that's what differentiates people. You know, what's crazy. I think I might be a three with a two wing. I'm a three. I don't remember what my wing is. That could track. So definitely the wings. The wing is a lot of the lingo as well as like people will say stress and growth. You're in your stress line and you're in your growth line. People will also say like healthy or unhealthy. Like are you a healthy version of your type? Are you an unhealthy version?

And I always think because I'm in this lingo, like often, sometimes I forget that it sounds weird. But when I say, like, are you a healthy version of your type? People sometimes will look at me like, what are you talking about? Because, like, healthy is just, when you think about it, it's weird. Or not a common word, I should say, that we use in everyday language. So that is common. And there are subtypes, like instinctual subtypes or what way do you stack when we think about, subtypes. So things like that, that if you aren't familiar with the enneagram, you would be very

confused about why we're speaking in that way. Okay. I'm going to guess. Is that just in reference to like the progression of what percentage of each type you are, I guess? Like, what does that mean? How do you stack? So it's with your instinctual subtypes, which your instinctual subtypes, if you're new to the aneagram. We all have a natural instinct. And then when we combine that with our type, it produces another type. It's very confusing. So for, example, I'm going to use you, Eamon, and I guess you guys are both threes. So I'll use the threes. So the three is like their biggest motivation, their biggest desire is to succeed, but then to be seen as like respected or valued because of that. And then their biggest fear tends to be failure or being like

disrespected or not valued, not seen as like capable. And so when you mix that with the three instincts which you have your self-preservation instinct so like your natural desire to like protect yourself you have social so like for that need for belonging or to like be part of something and then you have what we call like sexual or one-to-one which is the need for intimacy or connection so we all have an instinct and when we're referring to stacking it's the way that our instincts stack so like what i would say is i'm a social self-prez to wing three because social is first for me and then self-present. I know it sounds crazy. I know. Wow. And are these, is, is your stack something that, like, you determine and intuit? Or is that something that an Enneagram expert can, like,

read for you? Or? Either or, like, we're big believers that in the Enneagram community, that, like, it's ultimately up to you to determine what your motivation is. It's similar to why, like, me watching people, I can't just assume what their type is because I don't know their motivations behind why they're doing those behaviors, right? And that's why we aren't that big of fans of tests, because they're a great place to start, but we don't really think that, like, a test can determine who you are. Like, it's really up to you to trust yourself and to determine why you do things the way that you do, which, like, as humans, we don't really like that. Like, we want people to tell us. And so what does the word healthy then mean in the context of Enneagram? Like, are you the best

version of yourself. Are you kind of living out those great qualities of your type versus are you unhealthy and so are you more on those not so great qualities? Well, the healthy, unhealthy dichotomy seems like a Colty red flag to me, but I think it's balanced out by the lack of standardization. I think that the ability to kind of read oneself. I think that that's a green pie. Yay. I'm here for a green flag. Hi, Colties. This is a great idea. Amanda calling in from Los Angeles and I think the cultiest thing about enneagram is how I can't help but notice that everyone I've ever met who's gone on to become an enneagram coach, maybe through

some kind of pseudo-certification or like offshoot coaching program, who the heck knows, is some man with a totally cult leadery. disposition. They're always these kind of like wild-eyed, kind of charismatic. Maybe they wish they were charismatic types. And they totally have a cult leader complex and are using Enneagram to avoid having to be a functional adult in the real world. That's what I think is cultiest. So high entry and exit costs are another hallmark of any cult. Both getting and keeping all of your followers is very important. What would you say? are the entry or exit costs to the anagram lifestyle if there are any and follow up?

Is there more than one level of investment available within aneogram, either financially or otherwise? So not typically because, again, you are really just supposed to figure out your type yourself, you know? And so that, unless you are going to buy a book, you could have like your cost of your book. But the internet's free for the most part. And so doing your own research on what the types could be or scrolling social media. Like that could all be free to whoever wants to spend that time figuring it out and like sitting with themselves and really seeing what resonates with them. The costs come into play when you have people who are charging for a test. And again, I don't always believe that tests are that accurate.

And so that's when people can kind of get sucked in, right? And then they pay for like results. They pay for the test. Then they pay for results. Then they like want to go deeper into that. And so I very clearly see how that can happen. But as far as doing it, the right way. It's very low risk to really figure out what your type is. But of course then, we have people who are coaching and speaking and courses and programs and all of those things that could keep people in and wanting to learn more. Have you ever seen someone like drastically changed their life because they've learned something about them via Niagram? Like I'm a four so we can't hang out anymore. Like anything like that ever?

I feel like it's drastically changed my life because I like made it my entire personality apparently. I feel like now that I'm sitting here, I'm like, am I in a call? Because I've made it my entire personality and it's my job. Like it's my business, you know, where I wasn't doing that before. But as far as people, like I've seen people who have really struggled with setting boundaries before are able to like adhere to going no contact with like a toxic family member. So I'll just use an example. Somebody who was an eneagram too and has this need, their desire is to be loved and wanted, realize that and then be like they're not giving me what I need and I need to find that elsewhere and then have that ability to set those boundaries. Also, I work with a lot of people in the workplace.

So people who really struggled to work through like conflict situations or tension being able to understand like why it is that they struggle with conflict. and being able to overcome that. So I feel like those are pretty big deals when it comes to healing and growth and being able to use it like alongside of other. And I think that's the biggest thing. Like it's not the end-all-be-all, like using it alongside other areas or things that you're using in personal growth. Well, speaking of conflicts, what are some of the cultiest or crazy conflicts or clashes that you've witnessed within the Enneagram community itself? Like, have you seen someone go so hard for one thing or the other, either for better or for worse?

Yeah, I would say that the biggest thing is when, you know, a lot of us are trying to tell people that tests aren't that accurate. And then you have this other group of people who are like creating and monetizing off of tests, right? Like, that's a big clash for us. Also, just in the way that, like, we communicate about the enneagram, like, we were trained to believe that your enneagram is more of, of the nature versus nurture, like you were born with your type. But then you sometimes have like somebody come in and be like, no, your type can change. And we're like, stop teaching people that because that's not true. So there's some changes or differences, I should say, in the way that people teach or educate others about the anagram that can make it difficult for people who are

trying to, you know, determine what's true and what's not true. How cool. Is there like a worst case scenario here for someone who follows aneurgram really closely? Like, maybe a horror story of someone who maybe went a little too far in the name of Enneagram? I would say just like anything, you know, anytime you are having a very black and white thinking, right? Like if the Enneagram is my sole way that I'm going to change my life or like change these behaviors I don't like. And they're going all in in that way. I think that could probably be harmful to like their own personal growth story because they're just believing everything that it says all the time, right? There are things that go into our types, like life experiences,

our family relationships, you know, just who we are as people. And so if you're only ever, like, reading something and taking it fully to heart or this is the way that it has to be or this is just who I am and that's just the way that it is, then that can be harmful. If there is one, what do you think the central dogma mission or guiding principle of? of Enneagram followers is. Is there like one core truth that unites all cult members? I would say that the biggest truth for people who are following the Enneagram or wanting to learn about the Enneagram is that they're like learning about themselves, right? That they're understanding these things that they do and that they likely are feeling less alone because of

that. Like a lot of times people will say I thought I was the only one that thought that or I thought I was alone in my thinking. And so I think that most people who are following the Enneagram would say that they're doing so because now they know they're not. I also think that people just like like the graphics, right? And people always ask me like about how I got followers on Instagram. And I'm like, people love to talk about themselves. And so I think that is probably part of it. They love to talk about themselves. They love to share things about themselves. And so when, you know, they see something about an enneagram 3, they're like, oh, that's me. I'm going to share it to my story so that everybody can know that that's me. And so I think that it's this like dogma of like

wanting to learn about themselves, but then wanting everybody else to also learn about that. To be tagged is to be understood. So poetic. That anygram 4 in there. Okay. Thank you so much. You literally just proved that to be true. You just saw me, understood me, and proverbially tagged me, which I love. journey with the streamlined Alienware 15. We designed this machine to refine the essentials, creating a more focused gaming laptop for players who demand quality without the clutter. We engineered a brilliant 15.3-inch 16.5 hertz display seamlessly into a portable 15-inch body. You get a larger immersive window into your game that still travels easily wherever your mission takes you.

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he's a 10 but, and here's how it works. We're going to describe an otherwise perfect 10 person and then add a surprising flaw or quirk, and then you will have to say what that person's new number is on a scale of 1 to 10, given the new quirk or flaw. He's a 10, but he's an an aneogram one, aka the reformer slash perfectionist. This is so much pressure, a six. But at least my house would be clean, I guess. Interesting.

We're going to be learning a lot about how you rank the... That's why I said it's a lot of pressure and everyone's listening. He's a five, but he knows his Enneagram type. Oh, yeah. He's a 10. We're all about that self-awareness. He's a nine, but he hates Enneagram and loves astrology. I mean, loses points for hating Enigram, but like, gaining points because he loves

something, you know? It's difficult. I'm going to go right in the middle with a five, right in the middle. What a positive way of looking at that. I love that. Right. He's a 10, but he's spent thousands of dollars on enneagram-related paraphernalia and tests. That's insane.

He's a two. He's not doing a great job with his money. He's a two, but he plans your first date based on your enneagram time. And he's a 10. Like, he's seeing who I am. He's understanding what I will like. because of my type. I'm here for that. Prisley, he's a seven, but he only dates people with his mom's enneagram type.

That's weird. Like, not that he's dating somebody that is his mom's enneagram type, but the fact that he's doing that on purpose is weird. So we're going to go with one. The lowest of the low. Yeah. Okay. He's a nine, but he has a chess piece that his anagram type. I don't even have anything eneogram tattooed on me because I just think that it's weird. No offense to anybody out there who has done it, but is it like a symbol or like a reflection of his type or does it say like anagram six?

I think it, don't they all have like little titles like the blank? I think it probably says whatever that it. I'm going to go three. Okay. Ashton, thank you so much for joining us today. If listeners want to follow you or your cult, where can they do that? I'm happy to share my call with you. Please come follow along, become a member. You can find me at. Enneagram Ashton on Instagram. Also at anyagram ashton.com. And again, you have me believing that I do have it in my name.

So maybe it's concerning. Okay, thanks so much. So Amman, at the end of the day, out of our three cult categories, live your life, a watch your back and get the block out. Where are you putting Miss Anymer? This one feels pretty firmly in the camp of live your life to me. feels like a relatively safe cult if you're dying to join one to be a part of.

There haven't been that many major controversies. The cult of Inneagram doesn't appear to be actively hurting anyone. So as long as you don't use your Inneagram type as an excuse to behave badly, isolate yourself or exclude others, I say, live your life, girl. Yes. I feel similarly. I also think that Anyagram is a live your life. I mean, I don't know, it's being taught in like corporate workshops, not to say that everything that's taught in corporate settings is good, because I definitely don't believe that. But I think the fact that makes it culty in a less directly harmful way is that it is such a personal relationship and like an adjudication that one makes for oneself and that there's not really a living, centralized leading figure as far as I'm concerned that seems to be dictating people behave in like one way or another. It's more just like every man's journey for themselves. Yeah.

And there's literally no exit costs. You can even change your Inagram type if it no longer agrees with you. Okay. Well, that's our show. Thank you so much for listening. Stick around for a new cult next week. And in the meantime, stay culty. But not too culty.

Sounds like a cult was created by Amanda Montel and edited by Jordan Moore of the pod cabin. This episode was hosted by Reese Oliver and Amon Harrier Kiyah. Our managing producer is Katie Epperson. Our theme music is by Casey Cole. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave it five stars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It really helps the show a lot. And if you like this podcast, feel free to check out my book, Cultish, the Language of Fanaticism, which inspired the show. You might also enjoy my other books, The Age of Magical O overthinking, notes on modern irrationality, and wordslet, a feminist guide to taking back the English language.

Thanks as well to our network studio 71. And be sure to follow the sounds like a cult cult on Instagram. for all the discourse at Sounds Like a CultPod or support us on Patreon to listen to the show ad-free at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult.