Enneagram tests are a new technology, but they can be an excellent tool for self-understanding, especially when paired with the familiar imagery we are so used to seeing in the Tarot cards.
The Enneagram 1 personality type is known as the Perfectionist or the Reformer.
The Perfectionist knows what their tarot card reading will reveal. The Reformer aims to improve the answers.
The Enneagram 1’s archetypes embody their desire to lead and create a difference in the world.
They cannot begin the revolution until they embrace the duality of their personality. The Reformer cannot banish society’s darkness until they confront the darkness withinGather your coins to begin the reading.
Core Personality Type of Enneagram 1: The Six of Pentacles Card
The Type 1 is the Libra of the Enneagram system. They hold the scales in their fist, utilizing their strong sense of right and wrong to reach a verdict. Their goal: perfection.
What is perfection but balance achieved?
The Six of Pentacles represents fairness, equality, and improvement. The Enneagram 1 offers his coins to the beggars at his feet, a hint of a smile on his face. He is happy because he stands in righteousness.
If “practice what you preach” was a personality type, it would be the Enneagram 1. Type Ones believe each person should act with integrity, and they lead by example.
The Perfectionist and Reformer archetypes will not suffer a hypocrite. If a priest does nothing but stand at the pulpit, the Enneagram 1 calls them out for the world to see. They expect others to follow the very high standards they have set.
Enneagram Type 1’s strive to be a good person to avoid their basic fear of being evil. As part of the body-based types, their dominant emotion is anger.
In childhood, Type Ones learned that negative feelings were wrong.
Enneagram 1’s choke down their anger until it is ash in their throats. Often, they repress so much that they aren’t aware the anger is still there. It festers like an infection in an unhealthy personality.
Healthy Ones are detail-oriented and self-disciplined. They exert great effort, and they reap the rewards.
The Six of Pentacles is a card of prosperity. It represents the exchange of monetary wealth, ideas, or wisdom. For the Enneagram 1, the pentacles are hard-earned change.
Much like the Giver, an Enneagram 1 will serve others throughout their life. The Six of Pentacles is the reciprocity that an Enneagram 1 expects in return. While the Type 2 seeks love, the social reformer wants practical action and results.
The Enneagram 1 jumps into the trenches of life and digs their own route out. They feel responsible for the world and build their lives around duty.
Nonprofits, political campaigns, and classrooms often have an Enneagram 1 at the helm. They control their environment
The Perfectionist walks the path of self-discovery so they can share their lesson with the world. They understand that a rich man cannot give what he does not have. After all, how can you reform the world if you cannot reform yourself?
The Dark Side of the Type 1: The Justice Card
Every Enneagram type, like every tarot card, has darkness. The Justice tarot card is the shadow of the Enneagram Type 1.
The Justice card encapsulates Enneagram 1’s non-adaptable concept of right and wrong. Justice holds a sword in one hand and the scales in the other, confident in her judgment. She is the self-image this enneagram type has curated throughout life.
On its face, this tarot card is the honest, self-controlled nature of The Perfectionist. Reverse the card, and their physical rigidity begins to crack.
Enneagram 1 will strive for greater self-knowledge to identify their mistakes. The inner critic finds a piece of themselves that does not fit their high standards, and they root it out like a weed. When they become aware that the roots go too deep, their self-control dissolves into anger.
Of all the personality types, the Reformer and the Giver are the martyrs. Joan of Arc herself was an Enneagram 1.
The heart-based Type 2 will go to the guillotine for someone they love. Their emotions guide their journey into the afterlife.
The Enneagram 1 will sacrifice themselves before they sacrifice their principles. When their self-image upsets their strong sense of morality, they crumble. The Perfectionist will bring the sword down on their own neck in a final attempt at control.
Herein lies the skeleton of the highly critical personality type. The epitaph: “Justice.”
The bloody sword isn’t limited to the inner critic. It hangs above every relationship they have.
An unhealthy Enneagram 1 relies on their emotions instead of their instincts. When they surpass their average levels of stress, they see only through their blind spots. In their critical view of the world, they focus only on the mistakes of others.
They cannot dispense true Justice.
To unhealthy Type Ones, no one is good enough. Honest people don’t exist and personal integrity is a myth. They are the only One responsible enough to make a difference.
Overly critical verdicts occur when a relationship doesn’t meet an Enneagram 1’s expectations.
Their Enneagram Type 8 father isn’t responsible enough to control his emotions. Their Enneagram Type 6 girlfriend will worry over her stagnant career but won’t leave her job. Beggars cannot spend pentacles on the “wrong” things.
The shadow of the Enneagram 1 whispers damnation until they cannot hold their feelings back. The repressed anger takes the sword and abandons the scales.
Personal growth comes in the dark hours of our lives, and the Enneagram 1 is the harbinger of change. In their distorted self-image, there is light.
The Light Side of Your Type 1: The Death Card
The Enneagram 1 is more than the rich man handing out pentacles, or the Queen bringing down her sword of justice. They are the bleached bones of Death, come to take your kingdom.
The Death card is a bad omen to the untrained practitioner, but it is the light at the end of the tunnel for the Reformer. Death does not end our spiritual journey but alters our form so that we can move on to the next. The skeletal knight ushers in a new era of transformation, setting wrongs to right.
Unhealthy Type Ones live on their deathbed. Their inability to accept their own mistakes reflects their unwillingness to cross over. They fear condemnation but do not understand that they live in a hell of their own creation.
The Death card appears for the Perfectionist when they understand that their flaws do not negate their principles. A healthy Enneagram 1 embraces the radical change of Death when they become self-accepting. They no longer avoid mistakes but see them as an opportunity for growth.
Anger is no longer stifled but channeled as energy for change. The healthy Enneagram 1 rides their rage like a pale horse, letting themselves feel the emotion without being overcome by it. They tend the fire that drives their personality.
Distress is a prominent theme in the Death tarot card. The townspeople plead, weep, and fall dead.
Internally, the villagers represent the Enneagram Type 1’s basic fear of being corrupt.
Externally, they are the people who resist the advancements that the Reformer brings. Their deaths signify their acceptance or their removal from the path of the Enneagram 1.
The Enneagram 1 lives in their truth when they unconditionally love themselves. The aristocrat and ruler can improve their societies, but they damage when misguided. They are pretty masks with their own hidden darkness.
The true Type One steps into their light when they are bared to the bone. They step through the portal depicted in the World card and find new realms to perfect.
The average Enneagram Type 1 represses their anger, but that cannot be said for the rest of the Gut Triad. You’ve perfected your understanding of the Reformer. Are your instincts correct about the Challenger and the Peacemaker?
Explore my Enneagram series for tarot card readings of each personality type.
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