WS07-Sept17: An Introduction to Family Practice:

Lecture 1: Genetic Imperative, Numbers and the Penta

Alright, hallo, and welcome to all of you and welcome to this introduction to Family Practice
and The Penta! And really, where I want to begin is, I guess, as radically as I can begin,
because I think at something that is really essential to grasp. Penta isn’t human! You know,
this is the first place that you have to begin. If you don’t begin there, you really don’t get it.
It’s not human; it is not in any way connected to our understanding of the way in which we
are programmed, the way in which we operate, the matrices that we work through. It’s very
different!

See, when I was given the knowledge, I was given the knowledge of forms. Human Design
was simply one of them, that is the design of the human form. But I was given all of these
forms, each one of them with their unique matrix, the way in which the accent is placed on
them in terms of their imprinting. The possibility of the expression of whatever uniqueness is
their potential to express.

But I was also given something that, yeah, it’s like so many things that we read about and we
are told about by physicists for example that we cannot see. There is so many things about the
limitation of what it is to be a human being in terms of what we can and cannot perceive. And
these trans-auric forms, because there is two trans-auric forms, they really have a grip on us
and a grip on us that is so vast and literally so complete that in fact we never really escape it’s
impact.

You see, the deepest conditioning forces that exist are conditioning forces that operate beyond
our ability to recognize them, literally. You see, we have no access to the penta, we don’t, we
have no conscious access to it; we have no way of sensing it. You will see, as we go through
this process of learning about it, then we can begin to recognize its work. And boy, can we
ever recognize its work, because the work, the result of the work is always us, because we are
born into pentas.

We live our lives in pentas, you know, this is the nature of our existence. I mean, how do you
think that the program is able to coordinate life on this plane? You can see the chaos that is
there in the individual process, you know, it isn’t controlled in that way where the determinant
is, whether or not a human being is going to be able to fulfil this potential or that. No, no, we
are not, in that sense, if I can anthropomorphize that, we are not even trusted with that.

We are controlled by a force that we have no conscious access to. And we are controlled by
auric, auric entities. The penta is an auric entity. It is a living thing, but it is very different
from us, very different. Very different in what it is about! You see, most people, when you
think about or ponder the concept of family practice, certainly somebody with very little
understanding of Human Design could not imagine that Family Practice in essence is not
about the members of the family, it isn’t!

You cannot understand a family by looking at its members individually. You cannot
understand that family by looking at the individuals and their relationship to each other.
Because that’s not what family is! It’s not! Those are relationships, but the family is
something different. It’s different! Think about it genetically, because it’s the only place to
begin to understand the genetic imperative of what it is to be a bio-form.

1
I mean, there is a pressure on us, an enormous pressure on us to be reproductive. I mean, if we
are not reproductive, we can not replenish the gene-pool. If we cannot replenish the gene-
pool, we are going to die out! It’s that simple! And basically what the genes do is that they put
pressure on us. And they put that pressure on us to be reproductive. And the imperative is
rooted in being attracted to difference. To difference!

And there in lies the great cosmic con-job(?05:26) because we are attracted to the very thing
that we are not and all of the things that it leads to in terms of the conditioning. But think
about it in simply the reproductive sense. Alright, two human beings, not-selves, with their
not-self purpose and their not-self attraction, bond together. And the moment that they have
an offspring, the moment that there is a child, something happens.

You know, what happens in that moment is that this genetic imperative, you know, the
assumption that here we go, we have had a child, you know, we are doing a good job. No, no,
no, no. no! The genes are really cruel, I mean, they are really cruel. They don’t care about the
consequences of our lives; they don’t care about what it means to be a mother and raise
children, they don’t care about any of that. It’s not the point!

The point is: Make more and 3, and 3 is never enough. As you will see, 3 is the worst number;
it’s the worst number, at least in the context of stability in terms of family. You know, it’s just
one of those things that’s so obvious! You put three people in a room together and only two of
them can connect at anyone time. It’s just the way that it is!

And that 3 is not enough for the genes, because it doesn’t replace the 2 that produced it. It
doesn’t! And they are not going to be satisfied unless there is that replication of, you know,
the producing agence. So, the genes keep pushing! And they push for the 4 and they push for
the 4 because the 4, one would think, ah, you know, at least we are replacing ourselves.

I want you to understand that in most advanced nations in the world today that it is the
moment that a nation has what is a reasonable and improving standard of living, the birth-rate
begins to drop. If you look at Europe as an example, there isn’t I think, as far as I know, a
single nation in the European Union right now that has a 2.0 average, in other words, an
average of being able to produce two human beings for every two human beings.

They are not, some of them are down to 1.6 and 1.3 and the fact is that the traditional tribes of
Europe in that sense are dying out! And they are dying out because if you are just a one-child-
family, which as you will see, is never really a family, you know, the 3-combination is the
easiest way out of a relationship. It leads to disproportionate number of divorces, so that you
end up with all of these single mothers, most of them simply with one child!

The moment that you get to that 4, it’s not like the genes are satisfied, they are not! They are
not! They can’t be! This, after all isn’t doing anything more than replacing, if replacing those
that are there! And what, if one of them dies young, one of them is diseased, what if one of
them is gay, who knows?

And so, there is this pressure to produce the 5, the magic number! You know, the whole thing
to understand about penta is that penta as an auric construct operates when there are 3, 4 or 5
people together! And I mean, together, that is together in a connective aura. And that this
numbering, this 3 and this 4 and 5, it carries very, very different values and it carries different
values because this is about how different we are in the Penta! In the Penta!
10:00

2
Penta is a homogenizing conditioning unit! This is what it is to come in to a family is to come
into a homogenizing unit in which the concept of harmony is which in which everyone gets
along and everyone moves along in the same way, together! (click)

See, when you are looking at this illustration, the pentagraph, the first thing to see about it,
just that you have an orientation, is to see that you have these three areas. They are not
centres, and it’s important to understand that because we are not talking about a self-enclosed
form, we are not. We are not talking about a human or a mammal or whatever it may be. We
are talking about an auric form, an auric form.

And the thing to recognize about this auric form is that the moment that you have a minimum
of three beings together what happens is that there is an electromagnetic field that gets
established. It’s actually a vortex. And basically what the Penta does is that it pulls the energy
from those that are there, auric information, pulls this into this vortex, into what is in fact a
kind of swirling phenomena.

So, these things are not centres and these things are not gates, but they are derivative. This is
derivative of the sacral and this of the G-centre and this of the throat, like any of the other
forms in that sense. But here is where the limitation is within the construct. And it means
something, when we think about this as a family dynamic, we are looking at a family map.

And yet, looking at all the things that are not there, from the individual human perspective,
what we are looking at is the three channels that move from the throat centre and move from
the throat centre down to the sacral. (click)

This zone here, this is what the penta grabs from! Now think about this! It doesn’t take this,
penta is not mental! Remember, it’s a thing! It’s a thing! The only way that you are ever really
going to understand or begin to recognize that this thing actually exists, it that by the time we
get through our six weeks together and you have looked at your own pentas and the pentas
that you can gain access to, you are simply going to see the evidence of it!

But you have to grasp something about it, it’s not like us, there is no immune system, this is
not a bio-form! It’s not a bio-form! It is not emotional; it does not have an ego! There is no
root! It’s not like us! And yet this is where we are mapping the family, it is what makes the
Penta, both, mysterious and extraordinary. It’s just here!

You see, how we live out our individual lives, I mean, think about that in relationships to your
own families. Think about what’s like when you become adult, you know and you go back on
those occasions, whatever they may be, you know, this festival and that festival or this thing
or that anniversary or whatever. And there you are with your own life and the way in which
your life has emerged. And all of the sudden, you enter back into that environment and you
fall back into very specific patterns.

It’s often very difficult for people in their adulthood to go home because of the discomfort of
being immediately drawn into those old pattern and it is not that it’s the obvious of nostalgia
that is the way in which it’s sort of emerges, it is in fact the discomfort with contracting in a
sense, you know, into the demands of what penta is! Oh, this is a very, very deeply powerful
force, a deeply powerful force. It coordinates everything, you know, you don’t just come into
the world in pentas, you work in them, you go to school in them, you know, you shop in them,
you entertain yourself in restaurants in them. I mean, this is something really to grasp!

3
It is the constant organizing field that is there and it is something that morphs so easily. One
person goes out, another person comes in; the entity simply, you know, deals with that. And
yet in the ability to be able to read this map? You get to see as you will see, so deeply into the
nature of the family and the way it works. And why it operates the way in which it does. And
why the relationships are there in the way they are.

To understand the environment that’s created, the drives that are instilled, to recognize the
roles that are carried even when in the uniqueness of each individual they would have no
sense of carrying those roles or responsibilities. It is the penta that established the way in
which we reach any broader communion. Any of them! It’s one of the jokes in my life, I am
not per se somebody that is a penta-person, that is, my particular activations are
extraordinarily unimportant in a penta-construct!

And the moment that I am in my family penta is the moment that I am at the lowest level in
the organisation. You know, my role is very constricted by the way in which I operate within
that penta! I mean, it’s one of the reasons that, you know, I operate the way that I do, I spend
as much time as I can out of pentas because they don’t, they are not constructive for me. It’s
something to grasp, our whole lives are dictated by these things. And they are there; and they
are the future, not us, quite frankly.

You know, this is in so many ways, you know, a deep underlying dream in humanity, a night
mare really, you know, this dream of surrendering to a larger whole. Well, the penta is that
force and it is that force that takes from us. We are not consciously surrendering, takes from
us, you know, essential ingredients in order to bring those ingredients together and dominate
our lives with them.

So, penta is quite a thing. One of the most interesting things to notice in penta is to notice the
movement of energy, of energy. See, this is not, you know, again, this is not a bio-form and
the construct of these particular gates and channels as we would understand them, they do
operate very, very differently here. (click)

You can see, there is a gap! That gap is very important. As an example, in somebody’s design
this would be the 46th gate. And this here is the 29th gate. But in somebody’s design that 46th
gate is in the G-centre per se! It isn’t in the Penta! See the Penta is unlike a human being. In
the mechanics of a human being the movement of energy it can move in any way, it is the
basic binary of what it is to be us, you know, the way the energy moves in a channel that you
have defined, it can move from one end to the other or the other end back. It doesn’t make any
difference, you know, it is multidirectional in that sense. 20:00~

But the moment that you look at a penta, you see the penta is something else. Eh? That penta
is something that is in essence unidirectional! That the energy that is here in these four areas,
that those energies can only move upwards through this configuration in the centre. The
energy doesn’t move backwards, it doesn't move back and forth, it is unidirectional. And it
says something very implicit about the nature of penta itself. That penta is something that is
deeply focussed on the unidirectional movement. And it is this power of unidirectional
movement that pulls everyone along with it that’s part of that penta.

But there is something else about penta that’s really interesting. See the direction for penta is
always material. Always material, always! I mean, I cannot stress that enough! See again, we
come back to the dilemma of what it is to be a bio-form, you know? It’s a real dilemma.

4
Because the whole thing about being a bio-form is that in order for us to survive we need to
be able to feed ourselves. We do! We need to be able to accumulate material, we need to be
able to provide for our safety, our protection, our shelter; it goes on and on and on. We are in
fact rather fragile.

And this whole material demand in us, you know, I have seen it over and over again, that
people look at designs. You know, every 3rd line has a material nature, I mean, any bio-form
is going to have a certain material demand that is inherent in it. But materialism, you know,
the ‘ism’ as we understand it, is not something that can be attributed to human kind.21:44

Materialism is the whole purpose of the penta. It is its whole purpose. It is the thing that keeps
the material dynamic of life, it is the thing that keeps it most at the front which is why
throughout our history, since our tribes are built on pentas, that ultimately form gene pools,
that everything about our tribes is an aggressive development of, you know, their material
power.

Every tribe is trying in that sense competing with other tribes in order to be able to ensure that
they have the materiality that’s necessary. This is all penta! It’s all penta! And it’s something
to grasp about the basic family construct and it’s something that, no matter how you look at it,
it’s something that has to be understood objectively. Families and the success of families is
rooted in their capacity on the material plane.

Now, like with anything that exists in the spectrum, you are going to have all kinds of
variations. But it is something really to grasp that the, you know, for example, the material
strength of a family, you know, that material strength is something that, you know, all pentas
strive for. The more material success of the particular penta, the more likelihood that the
offsprings are going to be well nourished, are going to be healthy and are going to be capable
of fulfilling their reproductive destiny.

I mean, again, when you think about anything that is a controlling agent of what we are, and
does not think, because this is not a thinking entity, you know, this is not! I mean, it’s the
thing that is so interesting about it, it is a directional force. And it is this directional force that
controls the nature of our lives. It does!

And it doesn’t matter whether you have, you know capitalist or socialist tendencies
intellectually this or that, no matter how you look at the nature of the world, everything about
the nature of the world is about material. It just is! It just is! You know, it’s like the privilege
you have because you have the material to be able to participate in this program. You know,
the world is material, whether it is about, you know, great truth or great lies.

And it’s really something that instead of laying this at the feet of human kind, to really
understand that this is the organizing agency. And it’s not like it is bad, you know, it is always
a good/bad stuff. It’s always there, it’s always a binary. It’s simply about seeing that in this
movie, as we live out our existence as bio-form that we are being controlled by what are
deeply material forces.

You know, the family is the first business. It is! And the survival of the family, you know, the
bread winner whatever their, whatever connotation you want to bring to that. From the
moment that family exists is the moment that the material imperative becomes its most
powerful. We all know that!

5
You know, you have a couple that have a thing with each other and they really enjoy each
others company and everything else and they have a light relationship and they have a lot of
fun and get married and they have a child and boom, things change! They have stopped being
a partnership of potentially unique individuals and are now being dominated by a penta force.

And that penta force changes their relationship to each other! It turns things into, you know,
things that are important that individually or in their partnership were never important. And
the material pressure, you know, every single parent knows this? Every single parent shakes
their head as kids go through one pair of shoes after the other, it seems weeks apart.

You enter into a totally different domain, ones whose rules are different, whose laws are
different. And we are helpless in it because it is our construct. This is genetically and
biologically the way it works for us. And that the moment that we produce the young we are
there, we are drawn to nurturing that young. And we are locked into penta. And it’s going to
control us! You know, for years and years and years to come.

See, I take great pride in being a mechanic! In being a mechanic, you have the opportunity to
cut away the subjectivity of phenomena. And you get to see simply how the mechanism
operates. In being able to understand the family dynamic by being able to grasp how penta
operates. It opens up a door to be able to transform within the penta. Because you cannot
change it! But by understanding it, to be able to bring the best possible advantage, you know,
to the grouping, to the children first and foremost. Click 28:20

Alright, let’s take a look at some numbers. One of the first things that I am introducing you to
here is a, just a very simple formula, but it is only simple in its presentation. It is actually
really deeply profound in terms of how effective it is as an overview tool to begin the process
of looking at any kind of family grouping, any kind of penta grouping. We will look next
week at the actual penta itself. And we will begin to look at the way in which it operates and
what happens to the members of the family within the penta construct.

But I want to give you some things to begin to look at. It’s very important by the way that, as
we go through this process together that you do have pentas that you can look at, whether it is
a penta that you came into, that is your parents, siblings, if that’s possible, often that is not so
easy. The penta that you have with your own children or that you had with your, you know, a
family situation that you had at any given time or the family of others. Very helpful by the
way for projectors in this class to look at other peoples families as well as their own. It will be
very helpful for them to see the differences. 30:00

And all of this begins with two very simple things. It begins with the size of the family unit,
whether it’s going to be a 3, a 4 or a 5. Now please understand, these are very, very different
things. They are very different! The first thing to recognize about a 3, just the obvious thing to
recognize is that the chances diminish that the penta is going to have enough activations.
After all it’s only 3 beings. It is possible of course that they can, all those activation or many
activations can be there.

But the real dilemma of the 3 is simply the fact that it’s never really a family. Think about the
young couple, that young couple that had it all so nice and breezy and all of the sudden, they
have a child. Think about it for a moment. First of all, in having a child the mother at least for
a year is going to have to be with the child. And in most cases three years with the child,
depending on whether the mother has a career or not.

6
Obviously, in all the things that come with the modern way of life. But let’s just take the
example of the first year and the mother is there with the child. The father has got to go out
and make a living unless they are very lucky. The father has to have a job. Now think about
what happens to this penta, that if you have got a three and you are sitting in the kitchen in the
morning and the three of them are there.

And they are in the penta, so that there is this, you know, beginning of this family
conditioning energy. But within 15 or 20 minutes, when the breadwinner goes out the door
and normally, the mother is left behind with the child, you don’t have a family any more. You
don’t have a penta any more, you have a relationship. And relationships are very different.

Because when you are looking at a relationship, you are looking at the complexity of two
designs. And you are looking at that complexity from the point of view the way in which
those two individuals operate, can operate so forth and so on in relationship to each other.
And that they establish very specific bonds in that relationship whether they are
electromagnetic connections or dominants or compromises, whatever the case may be.

They are no longer a penta! And they no longer operate as a family, they don’t! And one of
the things that is obvious if you take a look at what’s happened in, you know, the last 40 years
in particular, particularly since the sixties, the sexual revolution, birth control, all of these
kinds of things that you have ended up with a lot of families that had one child and never
really survived this families.

I mean, they have the 3-person-family, the basic beginning penta, has the highest rate of
divorce! You know, this is, this is where you don’t really have the family and you don’t really
have this sense of being a family. You know, even when the male comes home as that
example, the mother is exhausted. I mean, she is exhausted, she likes to have a break.
And in the moment that she steps out, again, that penta phenomena, that family phenomena is
fleeding.(?33:34) And then you have the relationship between the father and the child and so
forth and so on. And finally they get the child to bed, you know, and then you have the
parents that are together and then again, you are going back into their configuration.

So, the whole thing about the 3 is that it’s fundamentally unstable. And if you could measure
the genetic imperative, if you could measure the difference between being a couple and the
drive to have a child and having a child and the drive to have the next one, the drive to have
the next one is the most powerful. There is no more powerful a drive, you know, genetically
than the drive that exists once you are a 3 and it creates a lot of tension. I mean, it creates a lot
of tension, so the 3 is something that can be very unstable.

And then you get to the 4. And the 4 is a whole different story. You know, we know, the basic
dilemma of the 3, you know, that only two people can look at each other at the same time.
Some body is always left out. The moment you have a 4, everything becomes stable. And
remember that genetically speaking this is the first success platform where the pressure is
taken off. It’s not completely taken away, you know, but you don’t have the same intensity
that you had when there is a three, because you finally have established a viable family.

Now think about the construct from before. Now you have the breadwinner and there is, you
know, the partner and two children. That means, when somebody goes out the door there is
still a family in the house. And it is extraordinary how different that is! This is the real
beginning of a family process.

7
I mean, I have watched that myself, I have watched going through a process of, you know,
being for seven years a family of 3 and all of the tension that came with that. And the
transformation that happened when we became a family of 4! It’s fascinating, it nothing really
changed, I mean, so to speak, if you know what I mean! It is just a phenomenal thing, the way
in which we are so deeply controlled in our chemistry.

You know, by the genetic imperative, by the demands of what it is to be bio-form. And you
see, the penta is then establishing the real family direction. The moment you have a four, you
have the beginning of the family direction, consistent family direction. You know, as I
mentioned earlier, in understanding the nature of the penta, to really understand that this is a
unidirectional material force.

And of course, you know, in order for a family to survive, to thrive, you know, that the
material dynamic is something that has to take hold, the ritual of supporting and maintaining
the family while at the same time, enjoying the benefits of what family lives can bring. So, the
4 is an important step.

And then we reach the 5. Now, you know, the 5 takes all the pressure off the genes and puts
all the pressure into the family. It’s just one of those curiosities. I mean, after all, if I were
doing a penta course, three-four hundred years ago, I would go on to the next penta. And as a
matter of fact the actual family construct is what’s called a ‘Wa’ which is three pentas and an
alpha. I mean that was for most of our history a range of what family size was really about.

Looking at penta in this way, the limitation of the 5, please understand that it goes beyond
this. And yes, there are all kinds of analytical things that I can talk to you about in terms of
being the 6th, the 7th, the 8th, whatever the case may me. But again, in most cases in dealing
with families you are not really going to deal a lot with anything more than that.

I mean, think about housing. You know, I grow up in Canada; I grew up in the North-
American housing boom that took place after the 2nd world war. And those houses
traditionally had four bedrooms, I mean, they were big houses and larger. And these weren’t
upper class houses, these were middle class houses because it was normal and not simply that
each of those bedrooms was for one child, often two children in a room and so forth and so
on. The fact is that the houses were all built so much bigger.

The moment that you enter into the seventies and eighties, if you look at the whole movement
in architecture, particularly in, you know, housing development and these kinds of things,
immediately you see that it’s rare to find a three-bedroom house. I mean, rare. That is, the
assumption that two bedrooms is sufficient for a couple that sleeps in the same bed, God
forbid, and the child in the other room.

And I mean, I have had that experience, particularly when I was looking for a house in
America. Wow! You know, to find a house big enough to give everybody a room, you know,
you were suddenly into the stratosphere of pricing, because nobody was building them any
more.

And it’s just something to understand about, you know, the way in which the family construct
has changes. In some ways it makes it simpler for us to understand it, but at the same time, the
fact that there are so many families that begin as and end as 3’s, while actually end as 1’s and
2’s, that you see in that the beginning of the breakdown of the family construct, as we

8
understand it! And this is something that’s also a natural phenomena that is taking place. The
smaller the family becomes, in essence, you know, the closer it comes to, you know, ending
as a viable force. Now obviously, it’s not like that is, you know, tomorrow or any thing like
that, but it’s simply to grasp that the fertility of our species is changing. 40:00

We may want to blame that on affluence and selfishness, and so forth and so on, but in fact
that’s just the convenient way of describing a choice-less phenomena that’s taking place in a
homogenized planet. I mean, the fact that we are producing less and less, in that sense, is an
indication of what's happening to our fertility.

I mean, even the global population survey has predicted that for the very first time by the time
we get to the middle of this century, we are going to begin to see a major collapse in these
growth trends in terms of population expansion. Again, this is all part and parcel of a
changing era, this era coming to an end.

The 5, one of the things to recognize is about the 5 is, that the 5 never feels like it fits in and
of course, this can be an interesting phenomena. We know for example that youngest children,
whether they are the 2nd child or the 3rd child, the 4th child or whatever the case may be, the
youngest children often have an intellectual development that is far superior than that to their
siblings.

It isn’t necessarily that genetically they are endowed with, you know, better grey material or
whatever, it tends to be the environmental phenomena of trying to compete with those that are
older and more sophisticated. And obviously, their processes are speeded up. But there is a
constant competition that enters the moment that you bring in that 3rd child.

You know, if you look back at all our traditions, the eldest sun, the eldest daughter, you know,
they have their priorities in this live, and, you know, it often meant an enormous difficulty in
the lives of those that were not firstborn. And all of the jealousy and all of the stories of, you
know, fratricide and all of these things, historically, that we have read about in these
competitions between those who weren't, you know, the firstborn and they struggle to find
their place and to get their recognition.

So, the moment that you bring a 5 into a mix, even though you have fully satisfied genes, you
end up with a much more competitive environment. And in that sense, you know, there is
much more potential tension that is going to exist within the family construct.

So, we have the numbers, that is the unit size. The first thing that I want you to look at,
because this is something that is easy for you to look at, because, of course, you can work
with that within, you know, your normal MMI-program! And again, I do suggest to any of
you that are going to go further in this process to get the family penta modules, so that you
can really work with penta.

This you can do just by looking at the charts themselves. And basically, what we are looking
at is whether or not all the members of the family, whether they fill in all of the centres
together or not. And it doesn’t matter how it’s filled in. What only matters is, are all the
centres coloured in, if you look at everybody that’s in the family, look and see, and if, you
have to be careful sometimes because of course, it can be connections that you don’t sort of
notice immediately. So, be careful with that.

9
But it’s very important to look at this. We have a basic formula. That is: 9+0, 9 centres that
are coloured in by the family and none that are open; the 8+1, the 7+2, the 6+3. And as you
move downwards, they become less common. In other words, you are going to see a lot of
9+0, 8+1 families, go are going to see a share of 7+2 families, but it’s going to be rare for you
to see 6+3 families.

And that you can see that this is a, you know, cross graphing, so that there is a relationship
between the unit size, the family unit size and to its centre definition configuration. So, if we
look at the 3, as an example, and we follow it’s track, we can see that if the family is a 9+0,
that is, all the centres are defined. Now, think about that, if a family is 9+0, it’s very hard to
walk in on them.

You know, if you have a 9+0 family, the chances are that they don’t get a lot of visitors,
because people don’t really feel auracally(?44:23) welcome. It’s just like that and you can
understand why. It’s like a couple that’s a 9+0, you know, that couple, that’s a 9+0, and you
always try to sort of hock up with them, you can’t! You can meet them individually, you
know, when the opportunity arises, but very, very difficult to be connected to them and what
they are into, when they are together because they are going to be a 9+0.

So, you, you know, you are obviously going to meet your share of families that are 9+0.
These are families that are insular. You know, they are families that aren’t necessarily open
to, you know, a lot of people coming by for visits or, you know, they don’t necessarily have a
social open door policy, this kind of thing.

Now if they are 9+0 and there is 3 of them, you have ‘compromise tension’. And basically
what that means is, wherever the compromises are in their relationships, their various
relationships, because you have three of them, the mother and the child, the father and the
child, the mother and the father, that compromise is going to be heightened in that family. In
other words, you know, you are going to have a lot of argumentation.

So, one of the most difficult configurations is going to be the 9+0 and the 3. This is not a
family that on the surface thinks they need another child. They are a 9+0, they are 9+0! And
of course, as a 3, it means that there is already this tension and more tension when there is a 3
than at any other point of their configuration and one of them is always stepping out of the
movie. See, you get all of this compromised tension that is built up.

The 9+0, that’s a 3, you know, the chances are if they are not aware, if they don’t understand
the way things work and the way they work, you know, that they are headed for a very
uncomfortable breakdown in their relationship.

When you see an 8+1, you gain a certain advantage, you know, you have a hole that opens up.
You know, that 8+1, in this case, you know, it’s showing an open head centre, it could be
anything. You know, there is an opening there, that opening, you know, brings an
opportunity, you know, for the family to try to find, you know, the focus. And it really is
pushing them towards getting to that 4, you know, to get out of the dilemma.

If they are a 7+2, and they end up with, you know, pardon me, over here, with 2 centres open,
you know, then all of the sudden, this is a real problem. ‘Where is the glue’, there is nothing
to hold them together. Think about the 8+1 for a moment. In a partnerships, a normal
partnership, an 8+1 is called ‘Have some fun’.

10
And it’s ‘have some fun’ because an open centre is like a window in a relationship. It’s like a
window and it’s sense in the penta, the problem with the penta is, it’s a window where all the
problems are. But we get to that later.

Anyway, there is a window. That window is something you can go out together with! In other
words, this 8+1 family, that’s a 3, you know, they need to find time, seeking the focus. The
8+1, they need to find something that they can all do together. You know, this is a family that
makes a point of, you know, the Saturday, that they go out to the park together and they do
things, you know, all that kind of stuff. You know, they need to find that focus as a family.

When you get to the 7+2 and there is 2 centres open, all of the sudden you have got a much
more difficult problem, because they can go in separate direction. You know, the male wants
to sit in front of the TV and the female wants to do something with the child and then there is
a conflict and then, you know, it goes on and on.

And the 6+3, you can see not as funny as it might be. But what to do, you know, you have an
inherent problem. And the only solution is to become a 4. And if not, you are going to have a
marriage that is slowly but surely going to break down. Again, the most difficult dilemma is
the 3. It is!

You know, and what we have had ever since the, you know, the whole sexual revolution of
the sixties is that we have had this enormous rise in the divorce rate and that rise in the
divorce rate, you know, the vast majority of them are these 3’s.

So, it’s one of the things that, you know, when I counsel young couples and they are 3, you
know, I let them know that, if they are really comfortable in their bond with each other, that
it’s a good idea to think about having another child. Because it’s that having that other child
that is going to bring, well, it’s going to bring a release from the tension and the compromise
dynamic, the dilemma dynamic that always in the 3.

It’s such a trap, isn’t it! You know, you get locked into the reproductive game, because we
have no choice, you know, and the moment that you play the game is the moment that
everything seems so difficult. You know, having enough material to be able to look after the
demands, having enough time, having enough rest, having enough, you know, space for
yourself, being able to be responsible and loving at the same time and on and on and on and
on. And then the tension that grows in the bond itself because the family isn’t really there!
50:00 You know, couples get deeply alienated in that, in that first year, unless they have good
counselling, unless they are, you know, aware.

When you have the 4, the dynamic changes! The very same couple, you know, the moment
that they have that 4, if it becomes a 9+0, because you never know what the child is going to
bring, after all, if it becomes a 9+0, you have ‘Save at home’. You know, here is a family that
is really comfortable, being a family. I mean, they just comfortable. They all feel very secure
in their home life, they feel good in their home life, every body had a possibility for
recognition. And the family is stable, no matter whether somebody leaves or not.

And of course, one of the things that is very noticeable about the families of 4 is the way in
which they divide up in different way, the children together, the parents together, one parent
going out with one child, another parent going out with the other child. In other words, you
have all of these bonds that are established. But the whole frame of it operates consistently as
a family.

11
What's interesting about family financial dynamics is that a family of 4 is going to earn more
money that a family of 3, that is, when I say that, they are going to have more resources than
the family of 3. It’s quite something to think about.

You know, I mean, the whole thing about the 4 is the moment that you get to the 4, the real
dynamic of the family takes over. And again, this goes back to penta, I mean, we will look at
it how powerful that is next week. It goes back to penta and its unidirectional material
process. And because penta can be functional, that the whole thing about penta is that it can
be an enormous shift in the way in which the family resources have operated.

It doesn’t mean, necessarily that, you know, any thing more than what would appear to be the
coincidence of, you know, somebody getting a promotion, you know, somebody getting a new
opportunity, a business today, I have been working on, suddenly taking off, there is all kinds
of reason, you know, to put, point the finger in different directions, but I tell, you, this is one
of the advantages of penta is that it is designed to be able to look after the needs of the
expanding family. And traditionally a family that was really quite large.

The 8+1, you can see that the 8+1 doesn’t change anything other than, you know, the security
of being at home is then ‘take it for granted’. In other words, you know, this is a family in
which, you know, the child goes out and invites somebody home without telling the mother.
You know, they take it for granted, that all of that’s going to be okay. They take a lot of things
for granted. And the only real dilemma in the 8+1 family of 4 is making sure that everybody
understands their responsibilities and their privileges in that sense. But nonetheless, it is not
inherently a negative.

When you get to the 7+2, you always have a difficulty, always. You know, because you have
these two different ways, you know, that are open in the family and it means that there are
holes that are there, in that sense. And here you have ‘problems at home’. And again, notice
the ‘at home’, because it’s a 4.

You know, so this is a child that is, you know really having problems, in that sense. But you
know, the problems don’t get out of the house and it can be very dangerous. In other words,
you know this is the kind of family that doesn’t call for help, when help would be something
that could be very valuable. You know, they keep everything to themselves; they lock it into
the closet(?54:25), as it were.

And when you get to the 6+3 again, as you can see, as you move along, obviously the more
open it is that is there the more difficulty that is there in terms of the overall characteristic of
the family grouping.

When you get to the 5, again, remember that the 5 is always going to bring competitiveness
and of course the 9+0 that’s a 5, you have ‘hierarchical tension’. You know, there is always
going to be this tension and this is where you have the real rise in sibling rivalries. I mean this
is the most powerful expression of sibling rivalries arises here particularly in the 9+0.

Again, they are closed in, again, whenever you are looking at 9+0 families, they don’t have a
lot of room for the outside coming in. They are the kind of families that go out, in that sense.
You know, this is their movement, you know, they will go out as a family, they are not that
welcoming in that sense.

12
When you get to the 8+1 in this configuration, ‘someone is missing’. It is something that you
can notice in any, you know, café or restaurant that you frequent. You know, you are there,
lets say that you are two couples and you are sitting there and you are having a really nice
time and then somebody that one of you knows, notices you at your table and comes over and
sits down and immediately the whole atmosphere changes. It may turn into a 2 and a 3 and all
the tension goes into the 3.

But one of the things you notice a lot in those situations is that when that 5th person sits down,
somebody gets up. Not necessarily in a huff or any thing, but somebody gets up, they get up
to go do something or they go to the wash room or whatever the case may. In other words,
there is this discomfort with the 5th leg on the table.

And of course this is what happens when you have the full penta. You have the discomfort of
this 5th leg. So when you have the 8+1, someone is missing. There is always somebody
missing. You know, this is a family that pretends that it’s a 4 all the time. And often it’s the
same one, that’s missing. And of course, they end up not feeling like, you know, they really
fit in to the family at all.

When you get to the 7+2, you get to ‘Taking sides’. And you get to the kind of taking sides in
which there is always a decision. Again, you are dealing with the 5, you know, any kind of
vote can end up as nothing more than, ultimately, the weakest it can be is a 3+2. In other
words, there is always a competitive structure in the family itself that gets very, very
dysfunctional as a potential. In other words, children that only side with, you know, certain
parents or in fact, parents that side against the children, all kinds if things are possible in this
taking sides.

And of course you can see that the 5’s, that’s a 6+3 is simply dysfunctional.

See, have a map and it’s a beginning step for you. Take a look at the family configurations
that you know and that you can look at with reasonable accuracy. And take a look at the unit
size and think about the number first. I mean, you know, again, it is something really to grasp.
Think about what it means to be a 4. It can be beautiful and it can be a horrendous trap,
because it’s stable.

You see, the 3 could get divorced in a moment, but the 4, oh, it’s a trap! It’s stable! Even
when it has its problems, because all pentas, unless they are functional and I talk about
functionality next week, you know, that it’s something really to understand about each and
every one of these numbers is that you need to really ponder them. You know and just
understand them in that sense, just as the number and what the number breads because this is
what you get to see.

You know, the 9+0 and the 8+1 and the 7+2, these are nuances. They are nuances. But it is
the simple numbers that matter. And they matter a lot 5919 it gives you a deep inside into the
basic nature of that family. And then, when you look into the penta, you can see the way the
whole mechanism within that framework, the way the whole mechanism operates. But it’s in
the numbers, it’s in the numbers. 3 brings tension, 4 brings stability, 5 brings tension again.

And it’s just something to see.

Alright, I want to thank you all, I hope you are going to have a, an interesting ride and it will
be useful and practical for you in your own lives. I think this is what this knowledge is most

13
about, to come to grips with your own families and in being able to understand the
constraints, to be able to surrender.

I mean, it is in the end, always the same thing. To be aware of a construct is simply
information, it may be interesting information and stimulating information, but still just
information. It’s how we live our lives, uniquely as ourselves. That is the decisions that we
make in this live, that’s what matters.

You know, along with understanding a construct, when you are making decisions that are
correct for you, it gives you an enormous advantage. And it allows you the grace, the grace to
accept what you cannot do anything about. We cannot in any way influence the way in which
these dynamics operate. We can be aware of them and in being aware of them, learn how to
take advantage of them, mechanically. 60:00

It begins with our own decision making process. And not simply our own, but to really
understand that family practice ultimately is about benefiting children. And the most
important thing for children to learn is how to discern, how to make correct decisions as
themselves, so that they do not begin their lives with relationships that do not benefit them.

That they do not end up in a relationship that is going to lead to a reproductive program in
which they are with the wrong being. You know, most of the work that we do with family
now is trying to salvage a very difficult situation. But salvage we can.

Anyway, to all of you, you take care. Til next time, bye for now 1:00:43

14