Observations placeholder
Correspondences between The Enneagram and the Tarot – Enneagram No 7 and The Fool
Identifier
029562
Type of Spiritual Experience
None
Background
The Tarot card that corresponds to the Enneagram type 7 is the Fool, a head in the clouds optimist, cheery, good to be around, but as Richard Rohr points out, a person who refuses to admit the dark side exists.
They always see the glass as half full, and because they are optimistic and cheery, generally a joy to be around, smiling, full of jokes, jolly and full of energy, they are well liked. They are a wonderful foil to both the 6s and 5s, no one would guess that they are head types too.
The difference is that they ignore all danger. They pretend it doesn't exist. As the Tarot cards show, they can fall off cliffs, because they always have their head in the clouds. And despite the fact that their dog is either barking at them in warning, or tearing their clothes trying to get their attention to what an ass they are, they stride on regardless ignoring things because they don’t want to believe there is evil to be faced or bad in the world that needs to be tackled.
They are initially good to be around, and indeed are an excellent balance to the dreary 6s and the control freak of an 8. He or she is always likely to be nagging both to ‘lighten up’ and smell the roses, good advice for both the 6s and 8s , as both can take themselves way too seriously.
But at some point, danger and evil does have to be faced and the Fool has to abandon the somewhat shallow blinkered approach he has taken and use his wings – the two more serious and focussed numbers on either side, to face the demons.
An out of control Fool is a liability, constantly arguing that ‘there is nothing wrong’ and to ‘stop whittling’, constantly escaping from responsibility, they never finish anything they start and can't really be trusted with any task in a team or independently, because - at worst - they coast along. They can become adrenaline junkies always seeking more novelty and more 'highs', with habits that may spiral into serious addictions, whether it is sex or drugs or alcohol - all of which are ways of escaping from a reality they find too frightening and too unpleasant to want to face. They plunge head-first into various forms of escapism, until they feel like they’ll never fully understood what they’re truly seeking out of life. Jumping from place to place, or person to person, they lose all sense of groundedness and may appear to live in a perpetual fantasy world instead of facing reality.
A description of the experience
