The Enneagram of Death

by Elizabeth Wagele

Helpful insights by the 9 types of people on grief, fear, and dying. 8-10 stories, essays, poems per type chapter. Suitable for anyone interested in how death impacts our lives. Good for therapists, coaches, hospice workers, anyone with a fear of death, caregiving someone who is dying, anyone grieving, facing death. Inspiring and soothing.

207 pages, Paperback

First published July 13, 2012

About the author

Elizabeth Wagele was an American artist, musician, and author best known for her engaging and accessible works on the Enneagram of Personality and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Raised in Salt Lake City before moving to Berkeley at age 10, she was drawn to creative expression early in life, spending her time drawing, playing piano, and inventing stories. A talented pianist and composer, she studied under Bernhard Abramowitsch and Andrew Imbrie, graduating cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1961. Music remained a central part of her life, both personally and professionally.
Wagele began writing books in her mid-fifties, often infusing humor and self-drawn cartoons into her work. Her 1994 collaboration with Renee Baron, The Enneagram Made Easy, became a bestseller and was translated into 17 languages. She continued to explore the Enneagram through various lenses, including parenting (The Enneagram of Parenting), relationships (Are You My Type, Am I Yours?), and even the experience of grief (The Enneagram of Death). A champion of introversion, she authored The Happy Introvert, blending psychological insight with personal reflection.
Beyond writing, Wagele produced music CDs like The Beethoven Enneagram and Enneagram Variations, where she interpreted personality types through musical performance. Her multidisciplinary approach brought psychological concepts to life in a uniquely creative and compassionate voice. She passed away in 2017 in Berkeley, leaving behind a legacy of warmth, insight, and wit through her books, music, and art.

Reviews

[Elizabeth]

This is my own book but there were many authors so I can boast and not feel embarrassed. I'm grateful to dozens of people for contributing their true stories and ideas and poems on this important subject. We need to have conversations about death and dying instead of sweeping it under the rug. Editing these stories and working on this book changed my life for the better. I recommend it highly.

[Joyce Dowling]

This book has many short stories (over 80 - one of which is mine) about experiences with death by many different personality types. Some of the stories are a bit dry for my taste, but they illustrate that personality. Other stories are personal and emotional. In society, people don't talk about death very much. This could be a discussion starter.

[pne]

it's heartbreaking to learn in this book that Elizabeth had passed before it was published in thai. i just became a fan very recently, and was hoping to read more of her books.

for the contents, i love it, very much. because i like stories, and these stories are just involved with death, which is a morbid subject i've been secretly obsessed with and been hiding since adolescence. reading about many deaths packed in just one book is quite a dream. there are stories about losses of loved ones: friends, family members, some of which are shocking, some of which are "understandable." I enjoyed most of them. although they are stories about deaths, but they revealed so much about oneself, one's process to embrace grief, one's process to merely accept grief, or not accepting it.

i jumped to this book because this year i've been facing a lot of deaths, more than any period in my life so far. my grandma is bedridden and can pass anytime. my partner's maternal aunt has stage 4 breast cancer who refused chemotherapy.we had to give up on a young ginger cat. i saw a death kitten. a bird died in my house. it's been much more than i could handle. so i grabbed this book in hope that it might help me come to terms with losses and grief, things that have been haunting me since childhood, and it did. and i am grateful. i am less scared of death and grief. thank you elizabeth.

[Wiranto Bakri]

Very grateful to find this Book. I find a lot of insight about my personality, instead my "Wing Character" that support me to decide things which can be my solution to face every problem.

Elizabeth Wagele has a great Book. There are nine types of Character, and a lot fun story in between them.

I was read this Book in Indonesian Translate. Highly recommended to every single of you that need a self-book list.

[Sandra Modell]

Very disappointing book. Extremely superficial and devoid of any real content - basically a collection of individual people's stories. Fine, I guess, if you find value in a small collection of true life experiences, but I failed to gain any insights into the complexities of this subject. I have liked the author's other books, but this was a big miss for me. Surely the subject matter is deserving of some analysis, not story telling which can be encountered elsewhere.

[Pat]

©2012

This book is presented in a format that can be confusing for people who have no acquaintance with the enneagram. However, each of the 9 points of the enneagram is approached with stories or essays by individuals who identify with that point, and each essay or story is a reflection or experience with death through the lens of that point of the enneagram.

Different.

[Nadya]

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