Collage-style artwork with a black and grey gradient background. At the top, white text reads 'Investigator/Hermit.' Three blue star shapes are present, the largest containing a keyhole symbol. An owl is in the bottom right corner, and mushrooms are illustrated in the bottom left. A blue and white checkered pattern runs along the left edge.
Collage-style artwork with a dark background. At the top, white text reads 'Investigator/Hermit.' An owl is in the bottom right corner. A blue and white checkered pattern runs along the left edge. Upright: Well informed. Innovative. Precise. Image text Reverse: Reclusive. Judgemental. Socially awkward. Your message: Recognise knowledge hoarding - make room for emergent voices and co-creation. Spirit animal: Owl The soundtrack to your life: Space Oddity, David Bowie

Introduction

The Enneagram of Personality (the Enneagram) is a pseudoscientific model used to identify personality types. Enneagram Tarot is our visual tool for changemakers to recognise your style, strengths and areas for development, and those around you.

I’ve drawn on my love of collage and professional experience of community-building, making social change and creating inclusive and equitable conditions to create this visual ‘Tarot Deck’ of nine cards. It’s for your personal growth and to help you better understand why and how you and others influence social change.

We all make decisions based on a mix of logic and emotion. Some of us listen to our head more than our heart, others trust their gut. To spot this at a glance, the cards are colour-coded with a yellow (gut), blue (head) or green (heart) strip to demonstrate how each type makes its snap decisions when under pressure.

Enneagram type 5s tend to operate from the head. Your mode is thinking. You tend to focus on facts, data and logic. Security is your priority. You make your decisions and navigate the world by consulting your head over your heart.

Type 5 – The Investigator

  • Core Desire: To be capable and competent
  • Core Fear: Being overwhelmed or helpless
  • Basic Motivation: Gaining knowledge and autonomy
  • Key Traits: Analytical, private, detached
  • How you can grow: Engage emotionally, share insights openly
  • Common Pitfalls: Over-intellectualizing, emotional withdrawal

Your curiosity and analytical rigour uncover structural inequalities, examining data on racial pay gaps, mapping food deserts, or coding accessible technologies. You build innovative tools that expand access and empower under-resourced communities.

Your Changemaking Style

  • You research systemic barriers, then publish open-source solutions for activists and not-for-profits.
  • You design accessible digital platforms in partnership with disability advocates.
  • You convene interdisciplinary think tanks inclusive of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ researchers and thinkers.
  • You mentor aspiring researchers from underfunded schools, sharing workspace and resources.

Balanced vs. Under Pressure

  • When in balance, you translate complex insights into community workshops and inclusive policy proposals.
  • Under pressure, you retreat into isolation, overanalyse, or lean on logic over empathy, risking disconnection.

How to Support Yourself

  • Schedule “collaboration sessions” with diverse stakeholders to test ideas in real contexts.
  • Use embodied practices like walking meetings or community gardening to ground your abstract thought.
  • Set deadlines and share prototypes early for feedback from those most affected.
  • Seek mentors from different identities to challenge blind spots in your research.

How to better support Others

  • Notice when over-analysis stalls change; pick one insight and experiment on a small scale.
  • Track tendencies to distrust emotion; practice active listening to lived experience.
  • Recognise knowledge hoarding – make room for emergent voices and co-creation.
  • Celebrate incremental breakthroughs that improve inclusion and access.

Your intellectual gifts, applied through diverse collaboration, become powerful levers for systemic transformation.

Just for Fun

Spirit animal: Owl

Fun fact: While in the Western world, owls are usually regarded as wise, some cultures view them as bringers of ill omens.

The soundtrack to your life: Space Oddity, David Bowie

Famous Type 5s: Jane Goodall, Jane Austen