Gate 10 Line 5: The Heretic of Self-Love
The Line and Its Keynote
Line 5 is the projection line, the upper-trigram middle of the hexagram, the voice that turns an inner pattern into a universal solution. Classical I Ch'ing commentary names it the "sage" or the "prince" — the place where a person's private orientation becomes something projected outward, offered to the world as a teaching. In the harmonic of the hexagram, the 5 is the universalizing position: the place where an individual revelation is tested in the field of others, where the personal becomes a principle. The line is neither passive nor defensive; it is the leader-as-heretic, the one who steps forward because no one else is willing to hold the frequency.
The Theme Within Gate 10
Gate 10, Behaviour of the Self — sometimes rendered Love of Self — sits in the Solar Plexus as the motor end of the Channel of Awakening (10–20). It carries the potential energy of self-arousal, the solar warmth of embodied self-regard. When the 5th line enters this gate, the theme becomes: the universalization of self-love. This is not quiet self-acceptance; it is self-love as a teaching, as a way of being that has consequences for everyone in the field. The Line 5 in Gate 10 stands for a person whose behaviour toward themselves is so visible, so projected, that it inevitably instructs others on what behaviour of the self can look like.
The Gift: Conscious and Healthy Expression
At its most luminous, Gate 10 Line 5 is a natural heretic-leader in matters of self-honour. They model self-love with such clarity that others feel permission to drop their own self-betrayal. They do not preach; they embody. Their projection has a catalytic, almost magnetic quality — simply by being unapologetically themselves, they give others the experimental proof that self-love is possible. Jupiter's expansive grace supports this gift: the 5th line, when exalted in consciousness, radiates generativity, optimism, and a regal willingness to stand alone in a principle. They become a doorway of awakening for those around them, a living transmission of the Solar Plexus's warm potential.
The Shadow: Unconscious and Not-Self
In the shadow, the same projection becomes dogma. The heretic turns inquisitor. Self-love hardens into "my way is the right way," and the very behaviour of the self that was meant to liberate becomes a measuring stick used against others. Saturn's contraction shadows the Jupiterian gift: rigidity, the need to be right, resentment when one's projection is not received as teaching. There is also a withdrawal pattern — the 5th line that has been ignored or punished for their projections can retreat into the role of the bitter outcast, deciding that if the world will not follow, the world is damned. The Solar Plexus motor, undirected, becomes a sullen, irritable, or self-martyring energy that confuses suffering with authenticity.
Planetary Tones
- Exalted: Jupiter (♃) — the line of universal solutions, leadership, and grace in projection is most fully itself when expanded, generous, and metaphysically inclined.
- Detriment: Saturn (♄) — the contraction of the same line into dogma, isolation, the bitter hermit or the self-appointed judge.
Activation in the Chart
Carried as a Personality line (5/1, 5/2, 5/3, 5/4), the person is wired to project their behaviour of the self outward and will inevitably be cast into the role of the heretic — leader or scapegoat, depending on consciousness. As a planetary activation, this line in transit or design points to a moment or a deep pattern in