Modern systems: close reading

Human Design:
origin, sources, evidence

Human Design is a self-knowledge system that turns your birth date, time and place into a chart of types and centres; its founder said a voice dictated it in 1987.

Who created Human Design, and when?

Human Design was created by Alan Robert Krakower (1948-2011), who wrote as Ra Uru Hu; he dated it to eight days and nights on Ibiza in January 1987, when, by his account, “a Voice” transmitted the system.

His life is known almost only from Jovian Archive, the company that sells his teachings; we found no independent biography.

Dates before 1999 rest on his circle, not on records; 1987 is his testimony. Why we date claims first: Ask for the date.

Is “Human Design” a trademark?

We found no US trademark for “Human Design” on its own held by Jovian Archive: its two live word marks containing the phrase, registered in 2025, disclaim any exclusive right to it, and all three of its applications for “The Human Design System” were abandoned. The chart wheel is protected as a picture mark.

Applicants: Toronto companies from 2004, Singapore companies from 2018. Jovian claims “the exclusive copyrights and trademarks”; we checked only the US register.

What is Human Design made of, and how old are the parts?

Human Design combines four older systems, the I Ching, Western astrology, the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and the Hindu chakras, with two modern ideas, the genetic code and the neutrino; the combination dates from 1987.

In Jovian’s description, planets read at birth and about 88 days before fall on 64 gates; nine centres come from the chakras, 36 channels from the Tree of Life. Each part has its own date:

The parts are old, the chart is not; Jovian itself calls the system “something entirely new”, and its history page claims, without evidence, that humans were “seven-centered” until Uranus was found in 1781. By its own dates, the nine centres are no older than 1781, and a chart placing Pluto, no older than 1930.

What is the neutrino claim, and what does physics say?

Human Design claims that neutrinos from the Sun and planets carry information and imprint it on you at birth; physics confirms that neutrinos have mass, not that they carry or leave information in people.

Jovian’s version: neutrinos “leave behind information”, Ra was told of their mass in 1987, and the 2015 Nobel Prize “validated” him. Checked:

• The prize. Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald, “for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass” (press release), made in 1998 and 2001 (popular information). Nothing about information or birth.
• Not new in 1987. Bruno Pontecorvo predicted oscillation, which needs mass, in 1957 and 1967 (Wikipedia).
• Barely touching matter. Of over 60 billion solar neutrinos crossing each square centimetre every second, the Sudbury detector caught three a day in its first two years (Nobel Committee).
• Numbers. Jovian gives about 3 trillion per square inch, 70% solar, without a source; the Committee’s figure for the Sun, over 60 billion per square centimetre, converts to over 390 billion per square inch.

The mass is real; the imprint at birth, which your chart depends on, has no physics behind it.

Is Human Design real? What the research shows

We found no peer-reviewed study testing whether Human Design types or authorities predict anything: PubMed returns nothing for “Ra Uru Hu” or “bodygraph” (12 November 2026), so the nearest evidence comes from tests of personality feedback and of astrology.

• Forer, 1949. 39 students rated a “personal” sketch a good fit; all got the same text, from a newsstand astrology book (Wikipedia; paper not read).
• Dickson and Kelly, 1985. Review: acceptance rises when a profile seems relevant and favourable, as a reading “for you alone” does.
• Carlson, 1985. Double-blind, protocol agreed with astrologers: 28 astrologers matched over 100 charts to personality profiles no better than chance (Wikipedia; paper not read). Human Design starts from the same planets.
• Base rates. By Jovian’s figures, about 70% of people are Generators (pure or Manifesting) and about 51% have emotional authority, so the Generator descriptions are the ones most readers receive.

Proponents cite a Rave Life Sciences report on “the Human Design System and Health”: by its abstract (Scribd copy) it counts types in five samples of 5,000 birth records, tests no people and names no journal.

None of this proves Human Design wrong for you. Feeling recognised is weak evidence, because it happens with almost any reading; the test below checks that.

Does anything in Human Design hold up on its own?

Two habits Human Design prescribes have support outside it: not deciding at an emotional high or low, and noticing what your body signals, though research shows bodily signals can mislead as well as help.

• Wait out strong feeling. The rule for emotional authority is “no truth in the now”. A 2015 review of 35 years of research finds emotions “potent, pervasive, predictable” drivers of choice, sometimes harmful (Lerner and colleagues). Sleeping on a big decision suits any chart.
• Listen to the body, then check. In Dunn and colleagues, 2010, sensing bodily signals helped when they favoured good choices and hindered when they favoured bad ones. A gut response is data, not a verdict.

Neither finding tests Human Design; they may explain part of why people find it useful.

How can you test your own reading in five minutes?

Rate three type descriptions for fit before you know which one is yours; if yours does not clearly score highest, this round gives no sign that the fit depends on your chart rather than on the text.

1. Three texts (1 minute). From one source you have not read before, copy short descriptions of your type and two others. Delete type names and words that give a type away (respond, inform, invitation, centre and authority names).
2. Hide yours. Ask someone to shuffle and label them A, B, C, or shuffle them yourself and come back tomorrow.
3. Rate each (2 minutes), 0 (not me) to 5 (exactly me), writing each score before reading on.
4. Reveal (1 minute). Your text’s score against the best of the other two.
5. One line. What fitted every text? That part is general.

Example.
A: 4 of 5. B: 4 of 5. C: 3 of 5.
Revealed: A Projector, B Generator, C Manifestor.
Mine: B; gap to the best other: 0.
Fitted all: tiredness, feeling unseen at work.

Why it works. Hiding the label “this is you” removes what the Barnum studies suggest does much of the persuading.

Where it stops. One round is not a study: a win does not validate the system, and a tie does not make the chart useless to you.

Is Human Design Hermetic?

No: Human Design does not come from the Hermetic texts, but it runs on the idea that made Hermetic astrology possible, correspondence, the claim that the sky and the body answer each other.

That idea, later compressed in the Emerald Tablet tradition into “as above, so below”, set stars, metals and organs in parallel rows (correspondences). The Picatrix (c. 959) used it for astral magic; Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535 or 1536) printed tables in 1533; the Golden Dawn, from 1888, joined Kabbalah, astrology and tarot in one grid, published by Israel Regardie in 1937-1940. Human Design’s wheel is a new table in that old genre (see Hermetic Qabalah; on chakras in Western occultism from the 1880s, Helena Blavatsky).

The Hermetica also pull the other way: in Corpus Hermeticum XIII, rebirth drives out twelve torments tied to the zodiac, freeing a person from the stars rather than fixing a type. The old text raises the question; it does not prove the chart. The dated line: Modern systems.

What does a Human Design chart not tell you?

A Human Design chart does not tell you which job, partner, diet or treatment is right for you; nothing in the research above supports using it for such decisions.

• Not career or money advice. A reading about work is a prompt, not a finding.
• Not health advice. We found no peer-reviewed test of diet or health guidance drawn from a chart. For symptoms or medication, ask a doctor.
• Not a diagnosis. A type is not a measure of personality or mental health. If you feel low most days, or anxious about living “out of alignment”, talk to a doctor or a licensed therapist.
• Not a limit on you. No study we found shows that a type restricts what you can do or whom you can work with.
• Not a verdict on faith. If the chart helps you, that is your call; we neither endorse nor mock it.

Key facts

Founder	Ra Uru Hu (Alan Robert Krakower, 1948-2011, per Jovian)
Origin claim	A “Voice”, Ibiza, January 1987
Oldest LoC record	1999, three cassettes
Parts	I Ching, astrology, Tree of Life, chakras
Chart	Birth moment and about 88 days before
Research	No peer-reviewed study of its types found
US trademarks	“Human Design” disclaimed; wheel live (2019)
Checked	13 November 2026

Fair questions

What is Human Design?

A self-knowledge system that Ra Uru Hu (Alan Robert Krakower) dated to January 1987. From your birth date, time and place it draws a chart of types, centres and gates mixing the I Ching, astrology, Kabbalah and chakras.

Who created Human Design?

Alan Robert Krakower (1948-2011, according to Jovian Archive), a former Toronto advertising executive on Ibiza who wrote as Ra Uru Hu. He said a voice gave him the system over eight days in January 1987; that account cannot be checked.

Is Human Design scientifically proven?

No. We found no peer-reviewed study of its types (PubMed, 12 November 2026), and physics does not support its neutrino imprint; the 2015 Nobel Prize showed only that neutrinos have mass.

Is Human Design ancient wisdom?

Its parts are older, but the system dates from 1987; Jovian Archive itself calls it something entirely new. Its chart also uses Pluto, discovered in 1930.

How is a Human Design chart calculated?

According to Jovian Archive, planetary positions at your birth and about 88 days before are mapped onto 64 gates named after I Ching hexagrams; these set your centres, channels, type and authority.

Sources & further reading

• Jovian Archive, publisher of Ra Uru Hu’s teachings: About Ra Uru Hu, About Human Design and pages linked in the text (read 12 November 2026).
• Library of Congress, LCCN 2004581231; name authority n2004069987.
• USPTO, seven TSDR records linked in the table, e.g. 88009411.
• Wikipedia, Human Design, for the 1992 book date only.
• Nobel Prize in Physics 2015, press release, popular information; Wikipedia, Neutrino oscillation.
• Not read, details from Wikipedia: Forer 1949 (doi; Barnum effect), Carlson 1985 (doi; Astrology and science).
• Abstracts read: Dickson and Kelly 1985 (doi), Lerner and colleagues 2015 (doi), Dunn and colleagues 2010 (PubMed).
• PubMed, 12 November 2026: “Ra Uru Hu”, bodygraph: no results.
• Rave Life Sciences, “Preliminary Research on the Human Design System and Health”, undated, abstract (Scribd).
• Older parts: Open Library, Legge 1882, Wilhelm-Baynes 1950, The Serpent Power 1919; DNB, Schönberger 1973; Sefaria, Sefer Yetzirah.
• Reference: NHGRI, Codon; NASA, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto; Wikipedia, I Ching, Chakra (dating).