Gate 16 ⌇ The Gate of Skills

The first line always acts as a foundation. Here the first line is called ‘Delusion.’ It says, False enthusiasm. The Earth exalted, The daydreamer. One of the things to understand about the nature of these skills is that one has to identify with the skills, but one does not necessarily get the energy or the depth to be able to enrich the skills and turn them into manifestation. Daydreaming is something very important in the logical process. We already saw that in the 62.1, that in order to be able to establish the best detail, one needs to go into a fantasy world in order to collect all of the possible information. For example, if you are trying to work out the detail of something so that you get other people to understand it, it helps to go through your own process, logically, to see how you would explain it and to see, whether you really understand your own description of it. 

Here, this is about the beginning of skills that are recognized through daydreaming. It is very difficult for a 16 to actually get to live out their talent unless they have access to a motor. If they do not have some place else to go, they will be very frustrated. So much about the logical process is being prepared for the possibility that the energy may be there. That is why you have all these committees doing all of the work and preparation in order to get everything done, to get all the daydreaming out of the way, so when the moment comes that the energy is available, manifestation is possible. 

In the white book, The expression of talent through daydreaming . That can mean many things. This can be a very creative force. But it is also as a musician who does not have to have the instrument in his hand, he can hear the music in his head. You can daydream about what kind of configuration it should have, how it should be orchestrated, which instrument should be there and so on. That is not just about the traditional arts. It is true for anything in the life.  Mercury in detriment, The public communication of inevitably unrealized claims. "I have the skills to be able to do this.”  That does not mean that the skills are actually going to manifest. The 16 is a Throat gate which says, "I experiment" or "I don’t experiment". Because it is a Throat gate, it is always ready to say "I have the skills," without necessarily having the capacity to bring those skills into manifestation. 

In the white book, The tendency to express fantasy as fact. These are people that will say to you, "I have this theory and I know that it works." They know that it works because they looked at it in their fantasy structure. That is like somebody sitting with a computer and theoretically designing an automobile. It is one thing to fantasize that automobile and to create its virtual reality, but it is another thing to actually get the energy to turn it into a real vehicle that will drive through the streets. This is the dilemma of a 16 without a motor. What often happens to these people is that it is so frustrating, they will say that they already have the proven experiment out of their fantasy, simply because they never had an opportunity to actually manifest it. When you daydream, you are looking for patterns and you are experimenting with them. The key to our creative logical process is that we go through so many patterns first within our conceptual nature, before we can ever get a chance to actualize them. It is very difficult for any logical process to manifest because the access to energy is difficult. It is very simple to understand this gate. The nature of this gate is that it dreams to have energy. All that daydreaming represents is: How could my skills function, if I actually had energy? The same is true for the 62. How can I express my opinion unless I have all the details. So you try to find all the details. In the 16th gate we find the skill to recognize the need for energy. The skills are already there. It is the energy that is missing. Because it is fundamentally frustrating, you start off with the first line that says, "All I can do is dream to have the energy." Sometimes that dream can become a delusion, when I think that I really have access to that energy.

When you get to the second line, you get to those people who project out exactly that skill,  "I know who has the energy and who doesn’t." That is why it is called  ‘The Cynic.’ They burst your bubble. You come to the 16 and you say, "I have got this wonderful theory and plan to do this" and the 16 says to you,  "it won’t work. I will not give you my skills, because I know that it will not work." That is the capacity  because the first three lines are not transpersonal, they are only caught up in their own process. The second line can be very painful, if you are coming to that second line. You see, the 16, unlike any of the other gates, really does not like the 48. It is looking for the 58, which is much further down the road. The 48 is just depth and the 16 knows that there is all kinds of depth in the world, and it can meet all kinds of 48’s in the world. For the 16 it does not make any difference but it asks itself,  "Can I turn that into something that really manifests." This is what cynicism means. 

The sharpness to burst bubbles. Sun exalted, Self-reliance and the skill to judge objectively any claim regardless of rhetoric. This is the 16 saying, "yeah, but if you had the energy, this would not work." Being self-reliant in the sense that they identify with their skill, otherwise they say, "Maybe it will work" and then they get caught up in this business that it does not work and they feel very uncomfortable and they do not feel talented at all. In the white book, The expression of the skill to judge objectively  or the other side,  Objectivity expressed through cynicism.  

Mercury in detriment, The compulsive cynic, whose very cynicism is a source of enthusiasm.  Whenever you see this word enthusiasm, please translate that into talent or skills. What this is really saying is: the compulsive cynic whose very cynicism is a source for talent, a source for skills. When you come to them and say "lets do this and that," and they say “no, that will not work. If you had the energy it just wouldn’t work." There are many people who will take that and recognize the skill that is being projected on them; they will see what will work, or they try to find what will work. The other thing is that these people themselves, within their own process, and not simply the cynic that penetrates others because they are projecting beings, are very uncertain about their own skills. Again, we have the paper tiger. The projecting field does not know the depth inside. The first line knows that it has skills and it spends all its time about dreaming how to use them. The second line is just looking out to see where the energy is, and does not really know the depth of its own skills. So, these are people that can be very cynical about themselves and their own talent as well. Most of that is rooted in the fact that they have never had access to energy, so that they could really experiment with their talent. There are so many children who have the 16th gate that is not connected to a motor. If you give them a piano lesson, you cannot expect that they are really going to be proficient at the piano. It is not going to happen. They will be able to dream about being a great piano player. They will be able to tell everybody else who can or cannot play "this one plays good. This one plays terrible." But they for themselves will not have this consistent energy and they will not  be able to stay with it, and then they spend the rest of their lives being frustrated asking themselves "why didn’t I finish my piano studies? Why didn’t I become a musician? I can dream how wonderful that would be because I know that the skills are inside of me." 

The whole talent process can be very frustrating if you cannot get to the energy, and it says something important about the nature of talent. As we progressed in the development of our civilizations, we have created arts that have now multi-complex, multi-personality art forms exemplified by television and film in which you have hundreds and sometimes thousands of people working together on the same creative process. A creative process is a logical process. To get access to all of that energy, you will need a lot more bodies around in order to release the magic of what talent can be. It is collective. 

What happens when the Sacral center is connected to the 16 is that  anybody who has a motor connected to the 16 is going to be able to operate in their skills. There is no question about that. We are working in streams here. If you have a motor connected to the Throat and you have a 16  it is operating, but it is not operating in the logical way. The way it works is dependent on how the energy is connected to the Throat. If you have somebody that has the 20/34 Charisma and they have the 16, you know that their Charisma is their skill. It will come out in a different way. They have a skill in being able to say "I am."

When you get to the third line, you get to the line of adaptation. It says ‘Independence.’  Whenever I see anybody with this line, I always tell them the same thing, "You have the skills. All you have to do is wait. There is just nothing to do. You have to wait for the energy to come. You can’t get the energy yourself and you have to stay comfortable with the fact that you have the skills."  Self-generating and sustaining enthusiasm. Moon exalted, The proper timing to maintain rhythm and avoid deflation. In other words, if you have the skills and you do not wait, you will be very frustrated because you can’t exercise those skills the way you  want to. You have to wait for the right energy to come into your life so that you can exercise your skill. It is a process of trial and error where you learn to recognize who, when they come into your aura, can allow you to manifest and you learn to recognize the right timing for things. 

Mars in detriment, The child who’s overconfidence - which lies in the third line, recognizing that it does have skills – may lead to frustration, and the ensuing dependence on others to regenerate enthusiasm, thus creating un unnecessary reliance. In other words, early frustration with this process leads to the idea within them that they do not really have the skills, and they are very dependent on other people in order for any kind of skill within them to manifest. 

In the white book, The independent skill and possible talent to express proper timing and rhythm. The word possible refers to the trial and error process. With the 16.3 you have to learn. On the other side we have, The need to have others confirm one’s skill or talent. That other side refers to situations in which, as a child, - the focus here is on the child - the talent gets diminished. The talent can get repressed at a very early age because the  skills are there and they feel comfortable in their skills, but because they do not necessarily have the right energy available to them, they cannot live that out. Remember, that we are dealing with a Throat gate. That means they speak as if they have the skills. It can be very embarrassing for them not to have the energy, and it simply does not work.

When you get to the upper trigram, to the 4th line, you get to the process of externalizing. The moment that you get to the capacity to externalize you get to a transpersonal gate. This 16 knows that there is a 48 on the other side. It knows that talent is a collective process and it recognizes, that the only way that things are going to work is  if it externalizes its capacity to recognize, who has the energy and who doesn’t. That is why it is called ‘The Leader.’ Genuine and sincere support and recognition of others. Genuine support comes after the recognition. This is the 16 that always gets recognized when the other one has the energy necessary, so that there is a possibility that what they do together can manifest as talent in the world. 

Jupiter exalted, Enthusiasm for and service to higher goals. Mars in detriment, The demagogue. Well, the demagogue ain’t pretty but nevertheless, they do the same job. These are people that will guide the collective force and give it an outlet in the Throat center for manifestation. In the white book, The skill to recognize and support the talents of others  or  The refusal to support and recognize the talents of others. Both of those are built in, because this is the leader that can recognize where the energy is. This is the capacity of creative leadership, "I recognize where the energy is and I better look after these people, support them, pump them up and make sure that they are ready to deliver that energy.” The leader is very fixed in finding the energy. The lives of these people are absorbed with identifying with energy so that they can get the energy for manifestation.

When we come to the 5th line, we come to the line that gets projected on. The first line tells us the nature of a hexagram and the 5th line tells us how the world sees it. This line is called ‘The Grinch.’ That is a name that comes from a children’s book by Dickens. The grinch is like Scrooge, they are not the kind of people that give easily. They are very tight in that sense. This is called, The refusal to share in enthusiasm - in talent. These people are being projected on that they are the ones that have the skills, that they are the ones that can get everybody else’s depth out. It is always being projected on them. "This one has the skills. I hook up with this one. I am able to get to the Throat and get my stuff out." Pluto exalted, The power to avoid enthusiasm for the sole purpose of being converted. As with Dickens’ Scrooge, eventual conversion leads to greater and more enduring enthusiasm. Here is somebody that has skills. But he/she is a 5th line and the outside world is saying, "Wow, you have all these skills." They need to be told that over and over again. They usually answer with, "Maybe, I don’t know." 

The 16 can always recognize the skills in others. It is the resonance to the second line, to ‘The Cynic.’ The 5 has the capacity to distinguish who has skills and who doesn’t. The 16.5 waits until all that pressure comes, and only when others encourage them are they going to have an opportunity to flower. The people who are coming to encourage them are people who have the energy,  but no skills. They have the energy and say  "this is the one that has the skills. Let me project on them that they are really the best." In the white book, The lack of confidence in the expression of skills that needs the encouragement of others. This is a lack of confidence because it is all projection. "I do not know if I am talented, but all of you are saying so. I don’t have the energy myself and so I don’t really know how talented I am. I don’t really know how good my skills are. You keep on telling me that they are great, but I still don’t know." 

This is what you get to in the lunar detriment, The perverse feeling that sharing in enthusiasm hampers individual development. Why should I be happy when…etc. This line asks, "Why should I make all of them happy and give all of them talent, when I still don’t feel good myself. Why should I bother? This is only a projection." This is the universalization of talent. One of the things that we expect from our artists is when they are complimented or asked about their art, they all play humble. This is the image of the 5th line. "Yes, but there are others who are so much better. The music, the dance scene, the editing could have been better." The nature of the collective logical process is deeply connected to our critical capacity to check it and perfect it and to work upon it. 

When you have a 5th line, somebody has to recognize your talent and project that on you in order for you to have the opportunity to respond to it. That is true for all 5th lines. When the 5th line complains that it does not get recognition, you can ask them if they recognize other people. What is underneath here is that the 5th line is concerned about finding  whether they truly have the skill. They do not care whether others have it. People can project onto my 51.5  that I am an initiator but until I initiate somebody, it is nothing but a projection. The 5th line is taking in all this projection and it needs to see, whether or not that projection has a basis in reality.

When you get to transition in the 6th line, you get to another process. We have seen that 6th lines have a resistance to their process, because they are looking for something that is much larger in context. When we are getting to the 6th line here, we know that it is looking to the whole circuit. When somebody is born with a 16, how talent and what kind of talent is going to come out of that 16 is an open book. It depends on how you are conditioned, it depends on your culture, your environment, your education and training and the people around you. However, you are brought to whatever that talent is. The great dilemma for the 16.6 is not the question of:  Where is the energy? They already recognize that energy is available. It comes and it goes, but it is available and they know that. They are deeply concerned about what kind of skill can actually take that energy and manifest it, so that the experiment can be proven and then can be used to guide humanity into the future. 

In other words: How can they find their immortality? How can they find the perfection in the pattern that they are looking for? This line is called ‘Gullibility.’ The susceptibility to propaganda. They start very early in their life being susceptible to which skill is really the answer. They are not willing to commit themselves and their talent to anything, until they can really see that not only will the energy be there, but there are exactly the right skills involved to manifest that and bring that out. Neptune exalted, The ability to experience, examine and then reject misleading enthusiasm. These are people that get pointed towards different talents very early in their lives. This is an ongoing process in which they themselves can go through their whole life not really knowing which one, and therefore not commit their talent. They do not think that they have the correct type of skill to work with. They have not seen a skill yet that can really manifest what they want to manifest. 

On  the Jupiterian side, The same principle, but where Neptune will destroy and then seek new forms, Jupiter will painfully withdraw, its enthusiasm for social structures permanently prejudiced. This is so typical for 6th lines. You get to a point where you do not get to see whatever this ideal is. You don’t get to see that it is possible, and then you get very depressed with that and leave it alone. It is just a matter of,  "Yes, I have talent but I don’t have the skills that I really need," even though the skills are there. In the white book, The talent to assess the expression of others  or  The failure to assess the expression of others. This is the whole nature of propaganda in that sense. It is always about them being pointed towards skills, until they can get to that skill where they can recognize, that it is really them and it works, that they can manifest this very skill. Only then will they commit their talent. 

What these people end up being most of all is disinterested critics of the arts. They have very good mouths. They are connected to the talent process and they end up saying, "That one is not very good because their technique is bad." They walk into a museum and they point at three paintings and whether they have been trained or not, they say, "This technique is not very good." Or they go to the opera and say, "The baritone is terrible." Not that they want to do anything about it. They don’t want to go and tell them, they do not want to train them or help them. They do not want to write books on criticism. They do not want to make their living recognizing all that. There is just this kind of, "Well, that is not good enough. That is not quite going to work." This becomes their nature. By the way, people who are gullible when they are young become very good in recognizing  lies in regard to a skill. People who project outwards that they have a skill, the 16.6 can look at it and say "No, no." But they won’t bother to tell them, correct them or join them in a healing process.

When you go from the 16.6, you come to the 35.1. Again, we have seen throughout the whole process of looking at the collective logic and the collective abstract, how they constantly keep intertwining with each other. They keep moving into each other. There is a famous cliché that we have. It is about ‘art as an imitation of life.’ The 16th gate is the gate of art in this cliché, and the 35th gate is the gate of life.