Why The Odyssey Still Speaks to Us: The Enneagram and the Human Journey Home
With all the recent excitement surrounding the new film adaptation of The Odyssey, I've been thinking about a connection I first explored in my first book, The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge. Long before Hollywood’s most recent return to Homer, I was fascinated by the way Odysseus's journey mirrors the most powerful map of human development: the Enneagram.
At first glance, these two traditions seem to have little in common. One is an ancient Greek epic about a king struggling to find his way home after war. The other is an ancient system that maps the universal patterns of human personality and development. But the more closely I studied Homer, the more I became convinced that The Odyssey isn't simply an adventure story. It is an account of the inner journey that every one of us must make on the way to becoming our truest self.
One of the ideas that has guided much of my work is that the Enneagram is not merely a framework for understanding personality. I believe it reflects universal archetypal patterns that have surfaced throughout humanity's great wisdom traditions for centuries. We find echoes of these same patterns in sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Dante's Divine Comedy, and, I believe, Homer's The Odyssey.
Interestingly, in it, Odysseus encounters each of the psychological challenges in the very same sequence as the nine points of the Enneagram. Each island presents not merely an external obstacle, but an inner challenge—one that must be understood and transcended if he is to continue his journey home.
What fascinated me most was not only that the encounters in The Odyssey echo the nine Enneagram archetypes, but that the character’s primary defining trait is usually what leads to their undoing. This is exactly what the Enneagram teaches us: that to come home to ourselves we need to challenge the very aspects of our personality that we most identify with.
And perhaps that is why The Odyssey continues to resonate nearly three thousand years after it was written. Home is never just a place. It is a metaphor for returning to our essential nature. Odysseus's voyage is ultimately the journey each of us undertakes: the long, difficult process of waking up, confronting the patterns that keep us asleep, and finding our way back to who we really are.
The Nine Stops on the Journey Home
After fighting for ten years in the Trojan War, Odysseus longs to return to his home on the island of Ithaca to reunite with his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus. But what should have been a relatively straightforward voyage becomes a ten-year odyssey filled with storms, monsters, temptations, and seemingly endless trials.
Type Nine: The Lotus-Eaters
Odysseus's first stop after leaving Troy is the Land of the Lotus Eaters. And there, the challenge is not violence or danger; it is forgetting. The Lotus-Eaters are a friendly group who live on a plant called lotus, which makes them go to sleep to themselves. They symbolize the temptation to fall asleep to our deeper purpose, settling into comfort instead of remembering who we are and where we are meant to go. Like the Nine personality, the journey begins by awakening to the desire to come home to ourselves.
Type Eight: The Cyclops
The Cyclops embodies raw power, self-reliance, and the belief that strength alone is enough. Yet unchecked power becomes blindness. In the second land that the men visit on their way home, they encounter Cyclops, “lawless brutes” who don’t fear gods or humans (Homer/Fagles, 1996). The Cyclops Polyphemus, in particular, gives us a closer look at the Type Eight archetype. He takes what he wants when he wants it, eating Odysseus’s men without care. Polyphemus ends up hurling boulders at the sea in a (literally) blind rage after Odysseus’s men spear his eye after intoxicating him with potent wine. This encounter reminds us that appetite and anger, when unrestrained, can lead our downfall.
Type Seven: Aeolus and the Island of the Winds
Odysseus and his men next arrive at Aeolia, the floating island, which is a Type Seven’s dream: there, life is easy, comfortable, and filled with feasting and celebration. To help the men get home, Aeolus, the island’s ruler and controller of the winds, captures all the troublesome winds in a bag, leaving only the favorable West Wind to carry the ships safely toward Ithaca.
After sailing successfully for ten days, Odysseus falls asleep just as Ithaca comes into view. But his men are tempted by the bag of winds, which they think is filled with treasure, and they open it. The winds are unleashed, creating a violent storm that blows them all the way back to Aeolia. The Seven challenge reminds us that pleasure, distraction, and the desire for "something more" can cause us to lose sight of what matters most. Real freedom isn't found in chasing endless possibilities—it comes from staying committed to the journey home.
Type Six: The Laestrygonians
From there, Odysseus lands in the territory of the Laestrygonians, a race of enormous, powerful giants. What first appears to be a peaceful harbor quickly becomes a nightmare as the giants attack without warning, destroying nearly every ship in Odysseus's fleet. Only his own vessel escapes.
The Laestrygonians represent the Type Six archetype taken to its extreme. They assume anyone approaching them must be an enemy and react immediately with overwhelming force. Like the fearful side of Type Six, they illustrate how vigilance can become paranoia when we stop questioning our assumptions. When fear completely takes hold, we lose the ability to distinguish real threats from imagined ones.
Type Five: Hermes and Circe
The next stop’s main characters embody the Type Five archetype. After escaping the Laestrygonians, Odysseus and his remaining crew arrive at the hidden woodland home of the sorceress Circe. She welcomes his men inside, but soon transforms them into pigs with a magic potion, symbolizing how easily human beings can become consumed by greed, appetite, and the fear of not having enough. Before Odysseus confronts Circe himself, the messenger god Hermes appears and gives him a protective herb that allows him to resist her spell.
Both Hermes and Circe are keepers of secret knowledge, but they use that knowledge differently. Hermes represents discernment, healthy boundaries, and the wisdom to reveal hidden truths when the time is right. Circe tests whether Odysseus can use that wisdom without falling prey to fear, greed, or self-protection. Because he resists her magic, Odysseus frees his men, earns Circe's respect, and receives the guidance he needs to continue his journey into the underworld. Like the Type Five personality, this episode reminds us that true wisdom isn't simply accumulating knowledge; it's knowing how to use it skillfully in service of the journey ahead.
Type Four: Hades and the Sirens
Circe directs Odysseus to descend into Hades to receive more guidance, and there, he encounters the spirits of the dead. He speaks to many, but they are consistent: they consistently describe their regrets and envy the living. Soon afterward, he must sail past the Sirens, whose songs offer the chance to truly know human longing and depth of emotion. But they are temptresses, who–if listened to–bring travelers to their deaths.
Together, Hades and the Sirens reflect the emotional landscape of Type Four. Hades represents the grief, longing, and unfulfilled desires that every human being must eventually face. The Sirens symbolize the temptation to become lost in those emotions, believing fulfillment lies in endlessly exploring our pain. Odysseus prepares carefully for this encounter, tying himself to the mast while preventing himself from acting on the Sirens' call. In doing so, he demonstrates that emotional depth can become wisdom—but only when it is experienced consciously rather than allowed to consume us.
Type Three: Skylla, Charybdis, and the Island of Thrinakia
After passing the Sirens, Odysseus faces one of the greatest leadership challenges of his journey. He must navigate between Skylla, a six-headed monster, and Charybdis, a deadly whirlpool capable of swallowing an entire ship. Knowing he cannot avoid both dangers, he chooses the course that will save as many of his men as possible, even though, as Circe explained, it will require him to sacrifice six men.
Later, on the island of Thrinakia, Odysseus warns his exhausted crew not to slaughter the sacred cattle of Helios. While he sleeps, they ignore his instructions, believing they know better, and their decision ultimately leads to their destruction. These episodes capture both sides of the Type Three archetype: authentic leadership that remains focused on the larger mission, and the dangers that arise when ambition, entitlement, or the desire for immediate reward eclipse wisdom and restraint.
Type Two: Calypso
By the time Odysseus reaches Calypso's island, he has already survived years of hardship and has nearly completed his journey home. Calypso is a beautiful goddess who welcomes him into an idyllic paradise. She gives him everything he could want: the best food, comfort, safety, and even the promise of immortality if he will stay with her forever. But there is one thing she cannot give him—his home. While Calypso wants Odysseus to remain with her as her husband, Odysseus longs to return to Ithaca, to Penelope, and to the life that is truly his.
Calypso represents both the gifts and the shadow of the Type Two archetype. She genuinely nurtures and provides for Odysseus, but beneath her generosity lies a desire to keep him for herself. Under the guise of helping, she tries to control the outcome of the relationship so that her own needs are met. Only after Zeus commands her to let Odysseus go does she embody the higher qualities of Type Two. Knowing he will never return her love, she still helps him prepare for his voyage home. By finally releasing him with no strings attached, she demonstrates what authentic love without reciprocation can look like.
Type One: The Phaeacians
The last people Odysseus encounters before finally reaching Ithaca are the Phaeacians of Scheria. They are disciplined, orderly, courteous, and deeply committed to doing what is right. Their kingdom is beautiful and well-governed, their ships are expertly navigated, and they ultimately feel morally obligated to help the weary traveler complete the final leg of his journey home.
The Phaeacians embody many of the admirable qualities of the Type One archetype: integrity, responsibility, conscientiousness, and a commitment to virtue. But Homer also reminds us that even our greatest strengths have their limitations. The Phaeacians' perfection and moral certainty can become rigid and self-righteous. And despite all of their discipline and virtue, they are not spared from fate. After they help Odysseus, Poseidon turns their returning ship to stone and threatens their harbor, reminding us that perfection alone cannot protect us from life's uncertainties.
Why These Stories Endure
One reason great works like The Odyssey continue to resonate is that they are about far more than the adventures of a legendary hero. They speak to recurring patterns of human experience that transcend culture and time. Whether we encounter them in Homer, Dante, the Kabbalah, or the Enneagram, they remind us that the journey toward greater consciousness has always followed familiar terrain.
That is one of the ideas at the heart of The Complete Enneagram. While the Enneagram offers a powerful framework for understanding personality, it is ultimately much more than that. It is a map of the universal human journey—a journey from unconscious habit toward greater presence, freedom, and wholeness.
As we prepare to release the new edition of The Complete Enneagram this August, I'm delighted that so many people are rediscovering The Odyssey. I hope this ancient story (especially in its book form) encourages you to look beyond the monsters and adventures and recognize your own journey home.