Ra Uru Hu - Founder of Human Design

Ra Uru Hu, born Robert Allan Krakower (Montreal, Canada, 9 April 1948 - Ibiza, Spain, 12 March 2011), is the founder of the Human Design System. A man of letters, publisher, media producer and filmmaker, nothing in his early path suggested he would become the messenger of a cosmological system. Yet in January 1987 a mystical experience of rare intensity turned his life upside down, and gave birth to one of the most original syntheses of the 20th century between ancient spirituality and contemporary science.

A life before the Voice

Born into a cultured family in Montreal, Robert Krakower first led a brilliant career in the media: advertising executive, magazine publisher, producer, filmmaker. His curiosity drove him to explore philosophy, religion, art and science, without ever locking himself into a dogma. He described himself as a skeptic and a rationalist, a stranger to any esoteric pursuit.

In 1983, weary of Western urban life and looking for something else, he left everything behind and settled in Ibiza. The Balearic island became his « Eden », a place of retreat where he lived simply, far from the professional ambitions that had shaped his life until then. It was in this setting, four years later, that the founding event took place.

The experience of January 1987: the encounter with the Voice

On 3 January 1987, while walking his dog, Ra Uru Hu was gripped by what he would describe as an alien presence « entering » his field of consciousness. He would call it simply the Voice. For eight consecutive days and nights, without sleep, he transcribed what was dictated to him: the complete mechanics of a system unknown until then, combining astrology, the I Ching, the Kabbalah, the chakra system and neutrino physics.

At the end of this experience, Robert Krakower took the name Ra Uru Hu, under which he pursued his work. He always took care to point out that he was neither a guru nor a spiritual master: he described himself as a « passenger » observing his own life, a choiceless messenger charged with passing on content that was not his own.

The birth of the Human Design System

From 1987 onward, Ra Uru Hu devoted himself entirely to exploring, experimenting with and transmitting Human Design. He founded Jovian Archive, the body that preserves and distributes his teaching, and then the International Human Design School (IHDS), which trains the first analysts and teachers around the world.

His major work, the Rave I’Ching, rewrites the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching and their 384 lines in the light of Human Design. He also produced hundreds of hours of lectures, workshops and recorded transmissions, which today make up the raw material of the HD body of work.

His own Design: Manifestor 5/1

Ra Uru Hu had a Manifestor Design, with a 5/1 profile (the Heretic / the Investigator). His defined centres (Heart connected to the Throat) gave him a natural capacity to initiate and to speak in order to manifest. He shared with Jiddu Krishnamurti the 43-23 channel (Structuring), the channel of individuality that expresses what nobody has yet put into words, which may explain the often divisive reception of what he said: either deeply illuminating, or completely incomprehensible on first hearing.

A « choiceless » mission

Until his death, Ra Uru Hu insisted on one point: he invented nothing. He only transcribed what he was given. His role, in his own words, was that of a « choiceless educator », someone on whom the mission was imposed and who had no choice but to carry it out. This stance sets Human Design radically apart from contemporary « new age » teachings: no promise of transformation, no invitation to believe, only an experiment to be run over seven years.

He died on 12 March 2011 in Ibiza, aged 62.

Sources and references

• Ra Uru Hu, The Definitive Book of Human Design - The Science of Differentiation, HDC Publishing, 2011.
• Ra Uru Hu, The Rave I’Ching, Jovian Archive Media, 2001.
• Chetan Parkyn, Human Design: Discover the Person You Were Born to Be, New World Library, 2009 (biographical preface).
• Jovian Archive - jovianarchive.com: official archives and transcripts of Ra Uru Hu’s teachings.
• International Human Design School (IHDS) - ihdschool.com: official biography of the founder.