The Chart
BodyGraph. The diagram of nine shapes and connecting lines that a Human Design chart is drawn on. The Centers, Channels and Gates all live here.
Rave Mandala. The wheel used to calculate a chart, with the zodiac on the inner ring, the 64 hexagrams on the outer ring and the BodyGraph in the middle.
Personality. The black column and black activations on the chart, calculated for the moment of birth. The conscious side of you.
Design. The red column and red activations, calculated for about 88 days before birth. The unconscious, body-level side of you.
Activation. A planet sitting in a Gate at one of the two calculation moments. Activated Gates are shown as numbers in the Centers and as colour on the Channels.
Definition. The coloured-in parts of the chart, meaning the Channels and Centers that are consistently switched on. Also the name for how those coloured areas connect: single, split, triple split, quadruple split, or none.
Defined and Undefined. A Center or Channel is defined when it is coloured in and works the same way all the time. Undefined means white: no fixed way of operating, open to the energy of others.
Open Center. An undefined Center with no activated Gates in it at all, as opposed to one that holds single Gates without a completed Channel.
Center. One of the nine hubs on the BodyGraph: Head, Ajna, Throat, G, Heart, Spleen, Solar Plexus, Sacral and Root.
Channel. One of 36 pathways joining two Centers, defined when the Gates at both ends are activated.
Gate. One of 64 numbered points where a Channel meets a Center. Each corresponds to a hexagram of the I Ching.
Line. One of six subdivisions of every Gate, numbered 1 to 6, giving the Gate a more specific flavour.
Hexagram. A six-line figure from the I Ching. The 64 hexagrams are the source of the 64 Gates.
Circuit. A group of Channels that share a way of moving energy. The circuits form three families: Individual, Collective and Tribal.
Incarnation Cross. The four Gates activated by the Sun and Earth in both calculations, read together as a life theme. There are 192 of them, in three angles.
Variables. The four arrows near the top of an advanced chart, describing digestion, environment, perspective and motivation.
The Person
Type. One of four energy configurations: Manifestor, Generator (including Manifesting Generator), Projector and Reflector. Type is read from which Centers are defined and how they connect to the Throat.
Strategy. The practical rule each Type follows to meet life correctly: inform, respond, wait for the invitation, or wait a lunar cycle.
Authority. The part of your design that gives a reliable decision, such as Sacral, Emotional, Splenic, Ego, Self-Projected, Mental or Lunar. It is never the mind.
Signature. The feeling that tells a Type it is on track: peace, satisfaction, success or surprise.
Not-Self Theme. The feeling that tells a Type it has drifted: anger, frustration, bitterness or disappointment.
Profile. Two numbers such as 3/5, taken from the Line of the Personality Sun and the Line of the Design Sun. It describes the role you are here to play.
Aura. The energy field around a person, which Human Design describes as differing in quality by Type and as the medium through which people condition one another.
Conditioning. The influence of other people's energy on your undefined Centers, and the habits and beliefs you build on top of it.
Not-Self. The version of you that runs on conditioning and mental decision making rather than on your own design.
The Practice
The Experiment. Human Design's name for living by Strategy and Authority and observing the results, instead of taking the system on belief.
Deconditioning. The slow shedding of the not-self that follows from living the experiment, traditionally measured in a seven-year cycle.
Passenger, Vehicle, Driver. The image of the person as a mind riding in a body steered by something deeper. The mind is meant to watch, not to drive.
Keynote. A compressed word or phrase for any element of the chart, such as the Gate of Ideas or the Channel of Curiosity. Keynotes are the working language of a reading.
Transit. The current positions of the planets on the wheel, read against your chart as a temporary influence that everyone feels at once.
Reading. A session in which an analyst walks you through your chart and what it means for how you live and decide. On this site that starts with a free Discovery Reading.