Origin 1987
Gate 21 sits in the Heart or Will centre and is read as the will to control material life on one's own terms, including the resources and the territory a person considers theirs. Its number belongs to the twenty-first hexagram, Biting Through, whose image is an obstruction between the teeth and whose classical setting is the just administration of law and punishment. Human Design keeps the forcefulness and shifts it from justice to ownership, joining the gate to Gate 45 in the channel of Money. The Heart centre itself, and its small store of willpower, is a modern construct built from the ego rather than from any classical source.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period1987 3Tradition: Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987) Origin PeriodControl of Resources is gate 21 of the sixty-four gates of the Human Design system, corresponding to Hexagram 21, Biting Through of the I Ching; the system itself was synthesized in 1987 out of the I Ching, the chakra teaching, Kabbalah and astrology. 3 Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseThe I Ching of China, the chakra teaching of India, Kabbalah and astrology are drawn on here inside a scheme assembled in 1987 and offered as an instrument of psychological counselling. The four traditions it draws on are old; the arrangement that joins them is not, and none of them produced it. 3 Correspondences
CenterSourced to the subject's own account Channel PartnerSourced to the subject's own accountGate 45 (Channel of Money) 2 I Ching CorrespondenceSourced to the subject's own accountHexagram 21, Biting Through 2 Learn More
The Gate and Its I Ching Hexagram
Gate 21 of the Human Design system carries the name "Control Of Resources," and this entry describes it as the system itself presents it. Human Design is a modern esoteric system, originated in 1987 by Ra Uru Hu (born Alan Robert Krakower, 1948-2011), who presented its content as received teaching rather than as an inherited tradition. It is roughly four decades old and is best read as a contemporary synthesis, not as ancient wisdom or established fact. Ra Uru Hu combined four older systems that had never before been joined: the I Ching supplies the sixty-four gates, the Hindu chakra model the nine centres, the Kabbalistic Tree of Life the connecting channels, and Western astrology the method of calculation.
The gates take their numbers from the King Wen sequence of the I Ching, so Gate 21 corresponds to hexagram 21, Biting Through. The link is one of numbering and binary structure only: the hexagram belongs to a genuinely ancient Chinese text, while the gate's psychological keynote, here summarised as "Control Of Resources", was formulated in the late twentieth century and is not drawn from the classical commentaries. The two meanings are best kept side by side rather than merged.
The Gate in the Bodygraph
Within the bodygraph, the composite body-map at the centre of Human Design, Gate 21 is placed in the Heart/Ego/Will centre, one of the nine centres the system maps onto (and expands from) the seven-centre chakra model. Gates do not act alone in the model: each pairs with another gate to complete a channel joining two centres. It belongs to the Channel of Money (21-45), which it forms with Gate 45 ("The Gatherer"). These placements and pairings are features of Ra Uru Hu's 1987 design and describe the system's internal mechanics; they are presented here as the system's own claims, not as verified facts about human beings.
Human Design's own teaching connects Gate 21, control of resources, to its I Ching correspondent, Hexagram 21, Biting Through, whose received image is an open mouth biting through an obstruction lodged between the teeth; the system carries that image into a gate concerned with asserting control over materials and resources within one's own domain, paired with Gate 45 in the Channel of Money, which the system reads as the material governance of a group's resources. Gate 21's placement in a chart also depends on the Rave Mandala, the wheel of all sixty-four gates arranged around 360 degrees; since 360 divided by 64 is 5.625, each gate spans exactly five and five-eighths degrees of zodiacal arc, and it is the Sun, Earth, Moon and other bodies' positions at birth and at a second, pre-birth moment that the system uses to determine which gates a given chart activates.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Corresponds To
Human Design Gate 21, Control Of Resources, corresponds to Hexagram 21, Biting Through, per its own iching-correspondence fact.
Human Design Gate 21, Control Of Resources, and Gene Key 21, From Control to Valour, are the same wheel position, both keyed to Hexagram 21, Biting Through.
Design Earth in These Crosses
Design Sun in These Crosses
Located in Center
Personality Earth in These Crosses
Personality Sun in These Crosses
Sources
1. The I Ching, or Book of Changes
Richard Wilhelm (trans.); Cary F. Baynes (English trans.), Princeton University Press, 1980The corresponding King Wen hexagram 21View the Source 2. The Human Design System
Ra Uru Hu (Alan Robert Krakower), Human Design America, 1992Gate 21, Control Of ResourcesView the Source 3. Über den Tellerrand, ein Blick ins Human Design System (HDS)
Petra Stute, Virineya Würgler and Johnny Würgler, Springer, Journal für Gynäkologische Endokrinologie/Schweiz 24 (2021), pp. 50-51, 2021p. 50: the four systems synthesised, and the use made of the synthesisView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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