Gate 7 ⌇ The Gate of the Role of the Self in Interaction

The first  line is the basis and the foundation of all leadership and the foundation of leadership is obvious. It is authoritarian and that is something for us to recognize. No matter how much we would like to see the equality in all things, it does not exist. What we have is vast differentiation which creates an inherent hierarchy. ‘The Authoritarian.’ The iron hand, both enlightened and despotic. In other words, authority that will be either positive or negative, because that depends on other factors. Sometimes it is both at the same time. Venus exalted,  As in the basic values and rules imposed on a child. For most of our history, that is the way it worked. In other words, that those who ruled us assumed that we were rather infantile and had to be treated as children, so that we would able to survive. So we had kings, shahs and popes who ruled over us and thought us to be rather immature and infantile, and had to be looked after. We were their children of the state, we belonged to them in that sense.

The other side of the authoritarian is, The distorted intellect that believes only it knows best. Whenever I meet people who have the 7.1 in detriment, I always tell them, “Fine. good. If you only know best, good. If people do not agree with you, tough. Never look at what seems to be a negative line and say: you have to fix that. No, you have to live that. Like ‘The Optimist’ in the 13.6, the moment that you live that aspect you will discover that it is good and bad. It is right and wrong. It is great and terrible. Don’t get caught up in thinking in the language of it, because there is a detriment in front of it which means that it is inherently difficult. This is not true. Most people have trouble with their exaltations.

In the white Book, The capacity of the Self to guide with authority  or  The capacity of the Self to insist that its authority is best. Remember, that it is a first line. Most people who have the 7.1 are trying to figure out what authority is. It is not that they are transpersonal and they are ready to externalize that as influence. When their opportunity comes, they must be authoritarian. It is the basis of leadership. There is a famous American president, Harry S Truman, who had this wonderful plate on his desk that said: the buck stops here. Somebody had to be at the end of the line somewhere, all the time. That is the way it works.

Obviously, this is a gate in which there is the capacity  to lead. This is the role of the leader and so, when you come to the second line, this is somebody who does not know that they have the capacity to lead; it is other people who see it. This is the basis of what we call democracy. The moment that somebody is aware of that fact that they can lead, it is a different story. Others have to bring out this quality of leadership and it speaks of the nature of our democratic system, which is based on leadership being dependent on society providing the energy, in that sense, that they provide the votes, as an example.

So here we have ‘The Democrat.’  An overview line, The ability to lead by serving the will of the majority. Of course, the whole thing about the democrats is that they just don’t know that. They don’t know that they have the role. The role is found out and the moment the role is found out, they have this opportunity that they can be brought into the democratic process. Neptune exalted,  remember what I said about Neptune exalted. The application of universally accepted systems. When connected through the Alpha Channel to Gate 31, the potential for widespread and revolutionary effect on society. This generation that was born in this century,  I think in the 20’s, the fact is that this is an essential ingredient for the maintenance of democracy in the world. 

This is a second line that is very exalted in that sense and it does have universal impact, because the universal impact is that logic only works out of the sharing process and this is the best way to share leadership that we have. I think it was Churchill who said: democracy is not the best that is possible, but it is the best we have. Mercury in detriment, Elitism and denegation by democrats of democracy. This is very common. The second line, the paper tiger, you look inside and it looks like they have that role, and you bring that role out in them only to discover that they really would like to be dictators. It does not mean that they are democratic. It simply means that the possibility of that is there. Of course, this is a very common thing. The moment that these people really get into power, the moment that they get to assume their role, those are the people who turn around and say: the very voters that voted for them are too dumb to vote for them again and they are going to have to manipulate them, because they are not very intelligent. It was the same very unintelligent people that found out that these people had a role in the first place, and put them up into that position.

In the white Book,  The capacity of the Self to lead when chosen  - very important: to lead when chosen - or  The capacity of the Self once chosen to feel superior to those who chose them. “I am your leader and therefore I am better than you.’ The second line is itself surprised to have been elected. The classic example for a 7.2 is Indira Gandhi.

In looking at transits you have to pay attention to the outer planets, because when they go through any particular gate or sequence of gates, you are going to have generations of people coming into the world that carry a similar kind of energy. One of the most interesting phenomena that is taking place since the second world war is the level of diversity that exists in the nature of roles. For example, when I came into the world, if you had a doctor, the doctor was known as a general practitioner, who was somebody that came to your house when you were sick. He was a real doctor and did everything. If you take a look now at any kind of medical registry or any kind of community in the Western world, you will find that there are thousands -literally- thousands of different doctor roles. There is an enormous diversification that we have now. 

The reason for that is that we have a whole generation of people that came into the world after the second world war - like my generation who was born in 1948 - that had Pluto in Leo. Pluto stayed there for a long time impacting heavily on these role gates through their expression by being in 33, 31 and the 56, 7 gate. In other words, a very strong and long term activation by Pluto there. In my generation, Saturn was also there and in my particular case Mars was there. So we have a society or a generation of people that are somewhere in their late 40’s or early 50’s, and they carry in them an enormous amount of potential to actualize roles in the world. I have three different lines in the 7. I have the 2,3 and the 6. This is a very common thing amongst my generation to have a lot of active role gates. I have Saturn in the 3rd line and I love it. The Anarchist is a very funny place for Saturn to be. That is the last thing on earth Saturn is associated with.

‘The Anarchist.’ It is an overview line. It is trial and error in finding a role. Remember the parallel in the 13.3 is ‘Pessimism.’ That pessimism is inherent in ‘The Anarchist.’  My way of relating to this line is what Graucho Marx taught me, the comedian. He said “never belong to an organization that would have you as a member” and this is the nature of the 7.3. The rejection of any institutionalized order. You notice that it is an overview. It does not mean that you reject your mother because she has given you milk. It takes time before you get to the point where you realize, through trial and error, that the institutionalized way will not work and you are not somebody that is waiting to be chosen.

The Moon exalted. The constant need for change no matter what the prevailing conditions.  Mercury in detriment, The nihilist.  In the white Book, The drive of  the Self to express many roles  or  The capacity of the Self to deny value in any role. It does not mean that these people do not get into the institutions, they do. Of course, the moment that they get in, they rebel against them and eventually have to leave in one way or another, this constant movement. At the detrimental side, it can get to the point of just pure nihilism. Nothing works, so lets break everything. People really misunderstand anarchy. I am a great burner of things. I have burnt so many things in my life. There is a great joy for me in burning things. I have burnt books that I have written that nobody ever got to see, and I would just sit there and watch it burn. That is the anarchist. It burns so that something new may be built upon it. No guarantee that they will be something new, but the pessimism that says that, whatever is there, stinks and unless we knock it down, nobody will build up anything new. The nature of the anarchist.

When you are dealing with these roles gates, the upper trigram, particularly the 4th and 5th lines, are always very significant, because they have the opportunity to recognize how the role can get out, because they know that there is a gate at the other end. When you come to the 7.4, ‘The Abdicator,’ you come to a line that is often misunderstood. The 4th line is one-tracked. Here you have somebody who needs to externalize their role as a leader, they need to. It must come out for them. That is what they are here to do and they know that there is another side, so they know that they have to deal with that other side. Because everybody in the 7th gate knows that logic requires energy, that the 4th line needs to compromise.

Think about what the 4th line always represented in the 10.4, because it tells you so much about it. Opportunity. This is always a line of opportunism. If you have a lover, don’t leave him/her until you have another lover. If you have a job, don’t leave it until you have a new one. This is the nature of the 10.4. This is what opportunism is about. So the whole thing to recognize about the abdicator is for them to realize, that when the opportunity is there, they can externalize their role, but the opportunity comes and goes and they won’t always be able to externalize it. The willingness to accept the judgment of the people and/or the rule of law. What I try to explain to the 7.4’s is: their leadership role is of value until it is rejected and then it is time to go on to something else. This is the peter principle which is to reach a level of incompetence. In other words, you get to a certain point where the majority no longer wants your leadership. It does not mean that your leadership is bad. It means that the majority is ready for another pattern. It means that your time is up. 

The Sun exalted, The grace and wisdom to step down for the benefit of the whole. In the white book, The capacity of the Self to accept the judgment of others. Look, everything about the logical role demands that there will be collective backing for that role. It cannot work otherwise. It is not possible. Even when you have the most vicious dictator. They did not get there alone. You can have the most vicious 7.1 you can imagine, connected in resonance to the 31.1. You can have the deepest darkness of leadership and you have that person surrounded by those that are backing that. Nothing, no role, no leadership is possible. Who is it to lead them? There always has to be someone who wants them to lead. All roles in gate 7 have to be voted for and backed. 

So, on one side is the ability to accept that, “You made me a leader, I have done my work, you don’t want me to be leader anymore, very good. I step down.” There is nothing wrong with that. It means that that is correct. But the moment that we get into the detriment, they stay in power. The refusal of the Self to accept the judgment of others. In the black book, Uranus in detriment. One who must be forced from power by overwhelming opposition. Because they are externalizing, like the listener in the 13.4, they are so busy externalizing that they forget that it has its limitations. If you keep on listening and you don’t take a rest, you get ill. If you keep on trying to lead when your time is up, you breed revolt. It is what we see in the world all the time. You get somebody into power and everybody is excited, they are wonderful and get voted in - they can be democratic, they can be any kind - and then they just stay there and don’t go away and their time of leadership and of value is over, and everybody knows that it is over.

What they are doing now is that they are filling their pockets and their children’s pockets. A guy that is i.e. running for the 7th time. He can barely breathe for god’s sake. This is what this is about. In other words, one-tracked in living out the role and yet not realizing that the role has to come to an end and instead of them becoming sick, somebody makes them sick. These are people that get the plug pulled out. These are people that have their telephones disconnected. Like Mobutu in Zaire, who transformed from national hero to king of thieves: he was valuable to the country as he brought a new pattern. By now he’s already outlived his purpose and is now filling his children’s pockets until the country’s had enough and puts him into exile. 

And it’s not like they are not supposed to have a role. They are here to be wonderful leaders and then give up. These are the kind of people that accept to be the chancellor for Germany for one term and after five years, they go home. They did their job, they did what they wanted to do for the people. The people are satisfied and then they step down because it is time for somebody else to take over the job. In that sense, it is very exalted. It is the first line’s harmony: It is limited authority in terms of time span. That is what we have in our political systems, we try to limit the authority of our elected officials. We say that they can only be in power for four years or they can only run twice of whatever. This is what we are establishing out of the fourth line.

The line of projection. The fifth line in its harmony to the second line. The fifth line is always waiting to be the savior, like the 13.5, of democracy. ‘The General.’ The whole thing about being a 7.5 is that everybody projects on you that you are the one that should lead, whether you are equipped to lead or not. Anybody who has the 7.5 has to pay a lot of attention to the fact that they are called on in life to lead and if they can fulfill that, obviously their reputation will grow. The whole thing about this is that it is projected on.

Leadership whose authority must be absolute and is sanctioned by society in times of crisis. That is when these people are important. In the harmony to democracy, society will give up its democratic leader when it is in trouble. This line is patterned on the ancient Greek community in which there was a relative democracy, but when they got into trouble they would go to one of their military commanders, one of their generals, and they said, “Look, we are in a lot of trouble. We will give up our democratic ways and we ask you to be dictator until you defeat our enemies. By the way, when the enemies are defeated we want you to allow us to go back and be a nice democracy and we will give you a pension and we will have a parade for you and everything will be terrific.” 

This is what is expected. This is what humanity sees as the greatest value of a leader, which is that the leader is there to guide us in times of crisis. This is when leaders are important to us. And if you go back through history, those leaders that are remembered are  leaders that took their people through a time of trial or turmoil or war. So the general, this form of leadership, is called upon in times of crisis. In other words, these are not people to be involved in a day-to-day leadership. They are called to leadership in times of crisis. 

Venus exalted. The gift of attracting loyalty necessary in harmonizing the potential of society. Again, it is a very important social context here in the most transpersonal of these lines. The capacity of the Self through its role to attract loyalty. It attracts loyalty before it starts. There are all kinds of people that say, “look, we are in trouble and I know that general so-and-so could really help us.” The loyalty is already there because when this 7.5 is around, people always project on it, “You know, he would be the best leader. He/she would be able to solve our problem.” 

The Neptune in detriment. The commander, isolated from his troops and obsessed with victory at any price. In the white book, The lack of loyalty when the Self insists on isolation. This is a very common thing that happens to 7.5’s, which is: they do not show up in times of crisis, they stay isolated; and the fact that they are isolated when there is crisis all along makes everybody else nervous. As a matter of fact, 7.5’s are the kinds of people that, whoever is an authority, may even find them to be very threatening, because they know that if they came out into public, they would be strong leaders and might challenge their own role. All projected fifth lines do not necessarily want to participate in the process. They want to be selective about when they take leadership. They are not fourth lines, they are not there to lead all the time. So in the detriment, when the 7.5 does not show up, does not come around and makes itself available in times of crisis, there are those that can actually find that threatening. That are the ones who are trying to fulfill that role themselves.

So ‘The General’ has these two sides to it, but always remember: it is coming from the projected field. It is coming from the need in times of crisis, because humanity is in trouble, because society is in danger and is threatened. But as long as that role is not offered in times of crisis, then the person itself becomes somebody that is considered to be dangerous, isolated from its troops, isolated from its supporters that are out there saying: we really need you to come now and help us, because we are in so much trouble.

There is this wonderful story of the Messiah coming into the world. He comes into the world, he hangs around for a while, then he checks everything out and he starts teaching a few people and he says: You know, I don’t feel like doing this. Everybody is projecting on me that I am the Messiah, and I feel like somebody who wants to farm. So the Messiah gives up and goes and sits on a farm. Because the presence is there and the projected power of the savior is there, all kinds of people get upset and they kill him because he would not play his role as Messiah. It is a very nice story. Very typical of the 7.5 in detriment. The lack of loyalty when the Self insists on isolation. I am blessed that I don’t have the 1st, 4th or 5th line. Life is cute sometimes. I would not want to be a 7.5, not with my configuration.

Sixth lines are always so strange. Remember ‘The Optimist’ in the 13.6 because it helps to understand ‘The Administrator’  in the 7.6. Everything about the sixth line is about sitting and looking in that sense, paying attention to what is there in the circuitry. The moment you get to the 7.6, you actually get to a great deal of pressure, because the logical circuitry is so important. The right patterns for humanity are so important, but there is something else. The Optimist in the 13.6 carries with it an optimism or a hope that any interaction is important, and the mystical beauty of the 7.6 is the recognition that all human beings are leaders, all of them, and that they all have a role in this life and that can be very beautiful. 

So, here in ‘The Administrator’ an overview line, The ability to share and justly apportion power. Think about the 7.6 child. It is 5 years old and it says to its father, “You should really organize your time better, I know exactly what you should do and Mother, I know exactly what you should do.” How long that kid will live? The fact is that every time that you look at any line and you see it in the context of a child, you automatically will understand how distorted our upbringings have been. If you don’t know the nature of the child, then how is it even possible to nurture their being? You can’t. You can only respond to that in your own conditioning. So the moment that this child begins to administrate, the first thing that happens is that it is told to shut up and mind its own business and it learns to sit on the roof and it learns to watch what is going on.

Mercury exalted. The power to communicate the frameworks of responsibility. The fact is, that  because of their perspective and recognition of the importance of the whole logical process, they recognize that many, many roles are involved and that  is a real gift, to be able to see them. In the white book, The capacity of the Self through its role to communicate responsibility.  I am a 7.6 and I tell everybody that they do not need a guru or a master. Everybody can be their own chief. This is classic of the 7.6. By the way, for most of my life that was the last thing I would bother to tell anybody, I would just watch their folly.

Uranus in detriment. The bureaucrat whose lust for power eventually destabilizes the organization. The capacity to recognize clearly what roles people should have also leads to possibilities of power and abuse. The fact  is that it does not happen all that often. Yes, it is there. You are not really going to see 7.6’s who will be active in the direct leadership business. What you will see out of the 7.6 is the creation of what we call bureaucracies. The Egyptian disease where you have administrators who administrate the state and it just gets bigger and bigger, and everybody has a role. And in that way, out of the detriment, comes abuse of those powers where the entrenched bureaucracy, the administrators, have more power than those that are elected. But recognize that most 7.6’s, by the time that they are adults, by the time that they get into their twenties, they have already given up on the business of being leaders and they tend to be very good at pointing out of what other people can do. Everyone can be a leader.

The 7.6 then leads to the 4.1., this is quite a process. Timing is everything. You have to wait for the right time. Pleasure (4.1) cannot be achieved without perfect timing. This goes back to the whole business of what it is to be in direction anyway.