When we first met Ra seven years ago, he introduced himself with the warning, “don’t believe me, don’t trust me,” as his way of asserting that he wasn’t here to be followed. The Human Design System was given to him during a revelation, whole and complete, and just as he had to prove its truth to himself, so should others. Its significance was that it was a logical system, testable and provable. In 1990, after observing the effect of planetary transits and looking at hundreds of charts, he wrote, and in 1992 subsequently published, the first edition of the Human Design System, a pair of books that included the Rave I’Ching and the annual Rave Body Graph Ephemeris designed by him to aid students in learning to study transits for themselves.

In December 1993, Ra visited us for the first time and trained a class of eight American Human Design analysts. From this small beginning, he asked us to prepare for his return the following year when he would do a tour, bringing Design to several cities. During this 1994 visit, he outlined a program to schedule a series of classes over the next years that would allow him to teach the comprehensive body of knowledge that he’d been given during the revelation. He said that by 2000, the essential components of Human Design, the last step of which was the “Global Incarnation Index,” would be complete.

In January 1995, we became the first American teachers. We established the Human Design School in America to provide an education in Design with an emphasis on training analysts, in part to help spread Design and also so that Ra would have a well prepared, advanced audience able to understand the professional class level. Based on his original concepts for teaching Human Design, we enhanced and standardized the basic education and eventually developed an effective analyst training program, new course materials and instituted the analyst-licensing program in order to provide a reasonable and recognizable standard in the market.

Each year, we held classes with Ra that were recorded to create the definitive library of these original Human Design courses given entirely in English. Now being gradually released as tapes and CDs, this invaluable resource allows anyone to “attend” the classes by listening to the unabridged information directly to make their own experiments and come to their own conclusions.

The Analyst education based on Ra’s model was thoroughly and painstakingly implemented, with efforts to improve analyst reading skills and also their capacity for using Design professionally. By spring 2000, there were enough people who’d been working with Design to call a symposium. We sought input for the training program itself and wanted to use the feedback from those in the field to draft new plans for the future. We knew there were corrections needed.

Everyone present agreed on the necessity of bringing higher professional standards into presentations and readings. We also wanted to know what kind of structure was needed so someone could progress through a Human Design education and eventually master their own understanding, able to integrate Design into their own work. These important considerations meant that the school itself needed to be much more flexible and able to expand, adapt, grow—not dependent on any one individual, but function as a larger cooperative. One viable suggestion toward this end was to make the school a non-profit educational institution.

After careful consideration, the benefits to organizing as an independent non-profit institution became obvious. This type of structure would afford the ability to raise tax-deductible donations, be endowed as a foundation, offer scholarships, create financing for school loans, be accredited for continuing education requirements, and so on.

We concluded that this is an important step for the future of Design—for it to grow within a self-perpetuating and self-governing educational institution, dedicated to excellence and open to all. It allows us to be replaced eventually and for those who replace us to be replaced in turn. This gives the opportunity to many well-qualified and interested participants for an active and meaningful role in bringing Design into the professional and academic world.

With this step, the Human Design School can continue the development and improvement of the standards for Human Design professionals. It can take over the function of the licensing of analysts and set up its own professional standards. The role of completing the library of Ra’s original teachings will remain with NSSA, as a separate entity.

It has always been obvious to us that the Human Design System had to be transferable to be really of value. It had to be accurate, understandable and applicable. After seven years of living with Human Design, we have come into our own with it. There’s a new sense of effortlessness in its use and application. Human Design has become part of our lives.

This time of new beginnings out of past ambitions brings us to a period of transformation with what we’ve built so far. We're looking forward to seeing it unfold.

December 2000, Human Design Network Newsletter

www.humandesignsystem.com