Gate 33 — Retreat — Active withdrawal, and the transformation of a weak position into strength

Full breakdown

Yesterday we began with the collective Gates of Communication. This morning we moved on to the individual process — from the individual Gates of Communication to the individual Gates of the Self, the ones that express our innermost identity. This afternoon we'll be looking at the two collective Gates of the Self. We'll start with the abstract process in gate 33, and then move on to the logical process and gate 31. The channel 33-13 is the Channel of the Prodigal, the Channel of the Witness. The personal identity of the abstract process rests on what we call reflection and memory. Reflection and memory are part of the 13-33 process. The voice of gate 33 will never say, "I know I have something to contribute." This voice says, "I remember" or "I don't remember." It's memory that brings the abstract process to its conclusion. Gate 33 is one of three Gates of Solitude, along with gates 12 and 40. Gate 33 is the Gate of Seclusion, of Secrecy, and of Private Life.

Whenever I work with abstract people — whether or not they have gate 33, or whether they have gate 13 instead — I always remind them that in order to genuinely make sense of their lives, they need time to reflect. At the end of every day, at the end of any long process, they should create an auric space for themselves where nothing and no one can influence them, so they get the chance to reflect wholeheartedly on the experience they've just been through. Retreat is the gate of seclusion, private life, and secrecy. This need for solitude says: "I can't remember everything that happened unless I'm left alone, by myself, so I can really think it all through, reflect on it properly. Only then will I be able to remember it, and by remembering, share my reflections with other people." On a mystical level, gate 33 is the Gate of Revelation. When it's unconsciously defined, gate 33 can share unconsciously imprinted memories that rise up from the subconscious, and in that case it can have a profoundly mystical effect. The gloss over the lines of Retreat speaks of active withdrawal — this isn't passive retreat, not simply running away. This gate would never say, "I want to be alone because I need to hide." This gate says, "I need solitude in order to survive. I need to be alone in order to find clarity" — and the transformation of a weak position into strength. People with abstract definitions feel at their weakest and least certain exactly at the moment an experience ends. That's their weakest position, because there's a temptation right then to throw themselves headlong into something else, to jump straight into a new experience, to surrender to new sensations without reflecting on what they just went through. That's why the same experiences and the same situations keep repeating in the lives of so many abstract people — which, fundamentally, has nothing to do with the abstract process at all. In its true form, the abstract process works like this: have the experience, reflect on it, and through that reflection come to know the fundamental value of the experience and everything tied to it, and only then move on to something new. In other words, turn a weak position into strength. The weakest position of an abstract being is the moment an experience ends, and in that position, seclusion, solitude, separation from everyone else, and the chance to reflect and think it through, matter enormously. That's the weak point.

In the abstract process, nothing is ever known while the process is still underway. An abstract person can never learn anything essential about an experience while they're still living through it. That's exactly why the key to the abstract process lies in 46-29, which starts from the premise that you first need to commit to something, make a choice, while being in the right place at the right time. Gate 29 makes the choice — surrenders to some undertaking, activity, or experience — and gate 46 says, "I am in the right place at the right time." If you accept that, it doesn't really matter what the experience itself is or what's happening during it, because either way you can't know or understand anything while the process is still going on. You can only draw the lessons from an experience once it's over. That's why it matters so much for abstract people to reflect on what they've lived through, to think it over, rather than simply collecting experiences one after another.