Where did Human Design come from?

Robert Krakower was a successful buisness man living in Canada when suddenly he abandoned his life and his work and booked a flight to Spain. He settled onto the island of Ibiza, where he lived the life of a recluse. He taught physics to some local kids who had been labelled “unteachable,” had a dog that followed him around (though he never fed her) and a few friends but other than that he was a loner. He lived in a ruina away from other houses and spent most of his time alone.

One day, after having a meal with a friend, he had a strange encounter. As he opened the door to his ruina, his dog ran in around his feet and fell down, dead. Robert heard a voice ask him, “Are you ready to get to work.” As he puts it, “it was not a question.”

Without knowing what he was doing, he sat down at his desk, picked up a pencil and and drew the Human Design Bodygraph:

Over the course of the next 7 days, Robert, who would become Ra, was given a vast amount of information, information he called “The Design of Forms.” Human Design, he said, was one of those forms.

He was told that the information he was getting was coming from a star, a star that was dying. He was told that humanity is about to go through an important transition, that there is a new kind of awareness being born into the world, and that living according to our design will help us with the transition.

After the 7 days, Ra was given a mantra and told to look into the sun. He did as he was told and did not go blind. As he stared into the sun repeating his mantra, he felt the voice leaving and knew that his experience had ended. A few minutes later, his dog came running out of the ruina.

Still quite a loner, Ra had to decide what to do with the information he’d been given. He is often quoted as saying essentially, “I realized that I could either be a guru or I could be a mechanic. I chose to be a mechanic.”

Ra shared his knowledge generously, educating people in what he had learned. When he finished his work and no more left to teach, he died of the flu.

Ra’s work lives on in the lives of the people who heard his clarion call and experimented with living as their authentic selves. Many of us in the Human Design community feel a great deal of gratitude for the work that Ra did and the apparent sacrifice that he made.

His work also lives on in the online archive Jovian Archive. Jovian Archive is now run by Ra’s children, who continue to follow their own Strategy and Authority to make decisions about how best to continue the work that their father began.

You can hear Ra tell his story of the encounter with the voice on the Jovian Archive website: Encounter with the Voice.