Here’s my (very long) answer:

This is such a great question. Thank you for asking it.

According to what I learned, the Human Design System was received as a revelation in January, 1987. Ra said he was the “bio-fax machine” who took notes, learned it himself and then transmitted it, that the Human Design System came whole and complete and that it was not his. He didn’t figure it out or make it up.

Ra did come up with his own original interpretation, still the world standard of interpretation, though altered and codified into a simplified formulaic rote system of this is what Ra says. My study began like that. I know it well. I was the first agent to promote and market the system in the US. I loved what he could see in charts that I couldn’t.

In the fall of 1993, Ra’s first public introductions to the Human Design System were the revelation story. In the first teacher’s training in Ibiza the next year, that’s ALL that training was. Four days of slide-by-slide lecture of the revelation. I didn’t get why Ra wasn’t teaching us how to teach, only give the introduction lecture; now I am very grateful in recognizing the revelation story was what was given to us all for free.

Ra returned to the US for some years to give more classes; Chaitanyo graphic designed loads and loads of helpful pages and the training expanded into a licensing program for analysts per Ra’s goal of “an army of analysts.”

However, five years into this, it was obvious that what Ra taught didn’t teach anything other than what he thought. I knew the training was flawed, that the starting point was in error. Though a diligent student, I and all others could not actually do readings or “get” the charts. By this time, Ra had also tired of his alliance with Chaitanyo and me.

His manner of dumping people was also a message that the way he used Human Design was disinterested in what he dubbed “the white path trip” (the spiritual path) when Human Design gave the form principle, and the world of No Choice, also no blame, it’s not’s your fault, it’s your design, what to do? By his own statements, he considered Human Design and the form principle a far superior wisdom school than any spiritual education.

At the point when I knew the trainings were flawed and he knew we were not the right agents, it was clear to me that only someone with a similar design to Ra’s (a design to do) would really have the right touch to imitate him successfully. I am so deeply different (design to wait). It never fit very well for me to do readings using Ra’s style. Invariably, I would recommend that my clients also get readings from him.

As a college philosophy major, I was smitten with Socrates (the dialogues of Plato) and the Know Thyself commandment. Ra’s trainings absolutely skipped this clue as to how one can learn Human Design authentically, though to be fair, he originally said, “Everyone will learn design according to their own designs.”

In his first book The Human Design System and The Rave I Ching his foreword noted that the Human Design System was a revelation, a gift and was not his. He acknowledged the revelation could not be claimed as his.

At the point of realization that Ra’s interpretation didn’t work, nor did it make the world a better place, or help people to treat others better; it did not adhere to the golden rule, I also recognized that he was no model for me in how to live a virtuous life. It was time to return to my own spiritual path yet I loved Human Design, so I set out to prove that it could be a spiritual path of awakening, and started over using the revelation mechanics.

Each of the four elements of Human Design’s synthesis are spiritual paths. How could it be that Human Design wasn’t?

Ra came up with very compelling descriptions, slogans, and hit the nail on the head many times, giving credence to his interpretation. What was especially notable was how he was able to describe one’s shadow, evoke recognition through feelings of guilt or shame, and then assure you that it was ok, not your fault.

It is a shadow form, and in his own words, it’s a mental virus. He indoctrinates people with these memes (Richard Brodie, Wayne Dyer).

All those slogans and terms are so compelling and captivating, people have no idea at all what the Human Design System actually is, what it shows to someone who skips Ra’s insistence on being its only authority. This is where he has been especially clever to blur his interpretation as the revelation, so that almost no one can tell where his interpretation starts.

So after all this, I have loved Human Design from the first moment I met it, and have felt that I was set on a mission to correct this terrible entrapment of the system by the shadow Ra cast. I was able to use the original revelation mechanics and its four elements to come to a very beautiful form of design that I call Zen Human Design that begins with Know Thyself and being on the path of virtue.

The I Ching is the interpretative basis of Human Design. This is where I began my own correction: to drop the Rave I Ching by Ra, and instead use Taoist master Hua-Ching Ni’s Book of Changes and the Unchanging Truth.

The Human Design System is a glorious, illuminating, amazing tool. I am grateful I met it and met Ra so I could meet the task to prove that Human Design can be used for the good instead of for the shadow. I found the way through the entire labyrinth to mastery and spiritual awakening.

I am in the midst of getting new tools to share the revelation story. It’s not quite there, but soon. It’s also time to write a new newsletter. In the recent weeks as I’ve been mulling what to write, I’ve been thinking about this a lot to just announce that I think Ra is full of crap. How arrogant to assert that he is the only one who can authorize its use! However, I do agree that he can say that about his interpretation.

I know his chart and recognize one fundamental error he made that he didn’t figure out the essential piece: conditioning is not a bad thing, it’s the path, it’s life coming to you. How you respond IS your responsibility. And you can do something about how to handle being conditioned. It’s only if your fully asleep or fully indoctrinated by Ra’s bias that you think it’s not a choice you are fully in control to make.

Thank you for writing,

Zeno

I believe that just persevering will be ultimately successful, that the 100th monkey effect will kick in and I’ll mange these challenges. One Wayne Dyer affirmation I like for this is “I can accomplish anything I set my mind to with grace and ease.” So as I breathe through the discomfort of being a chronic amateur, I repeat this phrase to remind myself to check in with what’s truly important.

Since I love the I Ching, teaching and webinars, it seems appropriate to combine these into a class to give via the internet. This is a question of assimilating geekness and not resisting the learning.

However, it helps me enormously that people outside are compelling me in this practice. The next time I give this class, I will start with the oracle of the I Ching, in fact, I’ll do it now!

line 1, 8, broken yin line
line 2, 7, solid yang line
line 3, 6, changing yin line
line 4, 7, solid yang line
line 5, 6, changing yin line
line 6, 8, broken yin line

[note: these are in reverse order; line 1 is on the bottom and line 6 is actually on the top of the hexagram.]

For using three coins to access the Oracle, whenever there are three of a kind (either heads or tails), it means the line will change to its opposite. In this case, lines 3 and 5 change from yin lines to yang lines.

The first hexagram is Water below, Thunder above, Hexagram 40, called Dissolution of the Problem.

Changes into Lake above Wind, Hexagram 28, Great Excess.

I would start off reading the 40, and the two changing lines, 3 and 5.

From Hua-Ching Ni, “This is the right time to positively dissolve all problems.”

And then the lines:

Line 3, “A greedy undertaking brings humiliation.
This yin line in a yang position represents an incompetent person who takes a high position. Being weak or unqualified is not a disgraceful matter as long as one does not attempt to take a position beyond one’s capabilities. This line is like a newcomer who invites humiliation through arrogance.”

Line 5 “Dissolution is brought about by the virtuous one. His faithfulness makes the negative forces recede.
The fifth line unites with the second line in order to resolve the great problem of removing negativity. Only by being faithful to each other can a cooperative solution to the problem be discovered. The disappearance of negativity is proof of success for the virtuous.”

Excellent reminder. Incompetence is humiliating. Remaining humble, and working with good allies, it’s possible to dissolve the problem (name of hexagram is Dissolution of the Problem).

The thought came up “this guy has entered into the firmament, dissolving into the stars, as another of the heavenly ascended people who take root in our collective consciousness and teach us all for a long time to come. He goes right up there with Princess Diana. JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, as for being someone I think will only become more understood as the years pass.

Especially considering how completely misunderstood he was, as Human Design becomes more understood, he might be come to be seen as Innocent, very open, extremely charitable, generous and kind. It’s just a thought I had.

Here’s a link to his chart: http://humandesignsystem.com/archive/charts/JacksonMichael.pdf

It is my theory that the channel names represent one fundamental detour from you directly understanding what they tell you. It is one of the key identifiers in Rave Human Design that states definitions have names and are a “result.”

One problem with this is that you search for understanding and meaning into what the name might tell. What the Kabbalah can tell us is lost, gone. So what would the Kabbalah have to say about a channel connecting two centers?

A core understanding of the Tree of Life is that the sephirot (spheres) moderate and are changed through their connection, so you consider the two spheres, and I would then transfer this to say centers to realize the centers cannot be defined in isolation. You never see a definition without involving two centers and of course, two hexagrams and then two (or more) planetary activators.

By starting with a name, a single result, you spend your time trying to make meaning out of the names and get completely distracted from what would actually help you find real meaning to a channel.

Since years, I’ve said the names work about 70% of the time, but you still spend 100% of time searching in the wrong place to try to make some of those names fit or make sense.

Do you have the feeling that every one of his family members got financial support through the family connection? Powerful images emerge about how he made experiments to make a better life for children. It is one legacy he leaves behind but it’s unclear how strong will be Katherine Jackson’s influence.

Still, MJ made his own experiment with those kids, really saying yes to whoever they wanted to be. It’s an important experiment to make in raising and conditioning children, and MJ was specifically conditioning the peacefulness of laying down the fight, being open and vulnerable.

His life showed him the full Tao of extreme opposites, having to defend himself. I think the onslaught of aggressive or condemning conditioning in all that openness resulted in him looking incredibly sucked out.

He gives an important clue in how to understand open centers. During his flowering into his own individuality, there was a pervading sense of joy and knowing that he was loved. Then his personal duality, his own dance of light and shadow, the shadow covered much of the light in that second half of the life. The peak of life, the halfway point at 25.

It’s now 25 years later that We Are The World becomes an anthem; Michael Jackson’s contribution gets its due and we are left with the recognition that he was persecuted because he didn’t understand himself nor did anyone else.

Where does your attention go with this kind of validation? In my ears, it has a taint of egoism, of specialness, and of permission or an excuse for being a little radical, a little freaky, but also possibly unrecognized for genius. I don’t think it helps a person understand the dynamic of why the person with this channel  can be brilliant or ignored.

It’s just a fun label the person recognizes and then that’s as far as the Human Design analyst needs to go, the thinking of the “analyst” doesn’t explore much further. Part of the reason I don’t use the word “analyst” is because it implies a conclusion of meaning, a certainty of perception. I prefer the word “practitioner” which is far more inclusive, namely, to practice, probe, explore, question, to be in a discipline, on a path.

When you look at this particular channel, I think it’s illuminating to start with 23 in the Throat. 23 is Erosion in Hua-Ching Ni’s I Ching and describes the five yin lines and one yang line at the top as an image of the base of the mountain eroding  (hexagram is Mountain over Earth), and since the yang line is in the top place, it’s rising upward, while the five yin lines are descending, therefore they are “splitting apart” (the Wilhelm translation of Po - Chinese hexagram name).

This then is the basis for the advice, or what is the necessity of virtue in the practice. On pag3e 338 of The Book of Changes and the Unchanging Truth, Master Ni writes, “Never compete with persons of inferior virtue, because doing so gives them the opportunity to undermine you. Also, when interacting with them, remain detached from personal credit or merit. There is no need to broadcast what you have done. By claiming credit, you only create enemies and eventually harm yourself.”

There are two more paragraphs especially illuminating that describe what it means to live the integral path. This is so helpful to start by mulling on the weakness of expressing the mind without remaining connected to the awareness.

Observe people with the channel to see whether they are impatient or demanding, whether they let the other person in, the pace of conversation, the balance between listening and talking. Those Throat gates, 62, 23, 56, that connect to the Ajna, share the advice of caution, cluing us into the fact that just because the Throat can connect to an awareness gate doesn’t necessarily mean it expresses awareness.

43 is about insight, in-sight. It’s only when looking in that you touch the awareness.

He is an example for the planet, a model for educated, measured, profound and inspired thinking about the state of the earth. The Thinking Man. Here’s Al’s chart: http://humandesignsystem.com/archive/charts/GoreAl.pdf

He has something to say. When you listen, it’s like he’s opening a thinking furrow in your brain, a new path that can bring you to a kind of awe, certainly respect for how much he knows, how clear and insightful he is and incredibly able to alter and enhance your own mental understanding on a very important issue.

The reason I felt it was so cosmic that Al Gore was on the cover of that Scorpio issue was because the Sun now transits those degrees of Scorpio that activate gate 43, forming the channel with Earth in opposition, gate 23.

Kim Gould, www.loveyourdesign.com, recently wrote about the transiting Sun Earth channel, using key phrases that are popular, Genius to Freak. You can certainly agree that Al Gore gets his share of that polarity. She said people with that channel really identify with it.

I began a correspondence with her on what I think gets completely ignored and is much more important than registering recognition (though that’s important, too). The 43 is an Ajna gate, meaning it’s an awareness gate, and has an expression gate in the 23 that can weaken the insight, the breakthrough, the revolution by not listening.

People with this channel need to study to really know their material and benefit by truly turning inward to gain the awareness aspect of this expression. It’s Al’s North Node in 23. Kim asked, “what about this evil yin, the growing of the dark force? Is there anything good about the 23?”

The receptivity to the awareness and to allow the insight to be heard, to make a radio groove, a record, recording what inspires. Kim has the 63-4, like Al and then the 23. She studies, follows her own muse, is inspired, then maybe that’s the erosion, to be like the tiller, making the ground fertile for innovative ideas to come out into the world and grow.

It happens more frequently all the time. It feels like time is coming to a climax, a crescendo. Something coming ever nearer.The astorological community consensus is that we’re on a huge wave of transformation. Consciousness takes its evolutionary reckoning.

The jump from the third dimension to the fourth is like the step from the third to the fourth chakra. This is the step  imagined and prepared for a long time. The time of the Osho’s New Man and Eckhart Tolle’s New Earth. Don’t you feel it, too?

Does it feel like you have to stay clean in your practice?

Take your place, be exactly you with love, appreciation and joy that you’re alive. These are times of tremendous change. The key is turning. Let it unlock your own understanding of what it means to be emotionally aware. That’s where we’re going. We heal the collective Heart center by loving. And understand what it means to be emotionally defined.

This is one of those weird feelings of identity paranoia, where you’re completely unsure what the message is. But in fact, there is always this huge range of potential in any center.

So as I sit with this and let it in, I wonder if I feel like a vampire to the other person. This is a very penetrating feeling, those red -less (bloodless) centers so thirsty and clamoring for appreciation and acknowledgement. When I meet love in the Other, I feel like I’m blossoming, coming to life.

I think this is the deepest understanding of what it means to be a triple split To wait projector. Oh my god, to try to be of some use, some value to the Other, and in doing so, seeking appreciation and credit, wanting to get that back while the other person is trying to get away, feels something clingy, creepy, trying to escape.

I have seen this manifest with one man I know who has no defined motors (energy centers), and he always gets taken for a ride, then the women always bolt.

Just taking in this feeling that I can feel like a vampire to someone else, I must admit that I do feel sucked out myself, like my blood has been drained but not yet replaced with embalming fluid. I think of myself as not being overly demanding. But just taking in the concept, framing my experience of my life through this perception is absolutely ground-breaking, deep, seismic shifts in consciousness and identity.

I would say this is a Pluto in 10 realization. An earthquake to my complacency. And so, once again, I can say I’m sorry. I love you. Please forgive me. Thank you. (Ho’ponopono).

These earth shattering experiences lead to greater understanding. Maybe all of us can feel like vampires to someone else at one time or another. It’s just not a topic of discussion  that comes up.

The queasiness, a sort of fluttering under the breast leaves a message of some resonance I need to embrace. There is some truth I need to hear, that are ones I avoid. It gives me growing pains.

The training of being grateful for what is, of trusting my relationship to the Whole; that I am playing my role just to enjoy and savor, of seeing my part in things keeps these kind of identity ailments at bay. I mostly feel completely connected with other people, however I’m only really seeing half the story.

Being on a mission to heal, I want to stay self-loving and accepting rather than picturing myself as vampiric.

We are all really so open, affect each other so much. It’s just that we don’t know it yet.

To summarize, DP said he was told that he had to be his own boss, that he should not have partners in business, that a business should be wholly his and that he should ideally create a situation where others make money for him, do what he says but that he should not ever try to have someone too close to the decision making.

He called me just to get a second opinion, what was my take on that advice?, he asked. His question stuck with me long after we’d gotten off the phone as it began dawning on me what an excellent example of extreme advice he was given and how strange it is to imagine that the advice he was given could possibly be good for his whole being.

He is just in a business development moment where he is having a great time with a collaborator and it feels like the right person to be growing into his next business stage. That’s why he called. He’d like to have a companion. He wants to assure himself that it’s ok to trust his feelings, even though it goes against the original reading.

It must be noted that Human Design can be a very powerful penetrating experience so the information sticks with you and you may adjust your behavior to fit to the instructions to try to be more successful in your life.

Now let’s look at this advice from my perspective on design.

He has three centers, Heart, Throat and Ji defined while the other six are undefined. No defined awareness or Sacral center make it challenging to know how to find guidance for himself.

He has no defined awareness, therefore the feel-good of the Spleen conditioning is very attractive. He has an undefined Mind, so can really spin himself around with all kinds of thoughts. He also doesn’t have a defined Solar Plexus, so the emotional juiciness is something he experiences only when conditioned. It’s not to say conditioning won’t throw him for a loop sometimes, but conditioning is what gives us a life full of opportunities to experience ourselves.

This is a man who meditates. His business is coaching. He’s spent most of his adult life searching out consciousness. Awareness is a very attractive conditioning.

I interpret the advice he was given as “You’re a manifestor. Tell others to do your bidding and make you money.” This reflects a deep bias of the superiority of being a manifestor, like a permission or justification for being selfish and disconnected from the emotional connectedness with other people that gives our lives its true meaning.

What is important to note is how penetrating this advice has been, how long it stayed in my friend’s mind and how deeply he questioned his desire for collaboration, conflicted by this pronouncement that essentially, he shouldn’t trust anyone.

We’re one humanity. Someone with only three centers defined, even though s/he can manifest, is going to desire conditioning, and is smart to identify when it is comfortable versus conditioning that is dysfunctional. We all need to recognize how the conditioning feels, and equally know how to identify our influence coming back in reflection. (Are we disturbing others?)

The advice he was given, when taken to an extreme, is to be a miser-to-Midas guy, a scrooge, hoarding and protective of money. There are many ways to view this. Maybe the advice would lead to greater profits. That chart? I think it is essential to feel the love that’s there. The nature of abundance is love.