Human Design Glossary

A complete glossary of Human Design terminology — types, centers, gates, channels, authorities, and more.

Human Design glossary

Human Design has a dense vocabulary, much of it invented by Ra Uru Hu. This glossary defines the terms you will meet in any chart reading, from aura and authority through to Variable and the not-self theme.

Core terms

• Aura: the energy field around you that determines how you interact with others; each type has different aura mechanics.
• Bodygraph: the chart itself — nine centers, 36 channels, 64 gates.
• Type: one of five aura mechanics — Manifestor, Generator, Manifesting Generator, Projector, Reflector.
• Strategy: the correct way for your type to engage with life.
• Authority: the bodily decision-making mechanism determined by your defined centers.
• Signature: the feeling that indicates you are living correctly — peace, satisfaction, success, or surprise.
• Not-self theme: the feeling that indicates resistance — anger, frustration, bitterness, or disappointment.
• Profile: two numbers from the lines of your Sun and Earth describing how you learn and relate.
• Definition: how your defined centers connect — single, split, triple split, or quadruple split.
• Conditioning: the influence of other people's defined energy on your open centers.
• Deconditioning: the multi-year process of unwinding decisions made from open centers.
• Incarnation Cross: the four gates of your Sun and Earth at birth and 88 days before, describing life theme.
• Variable: the four arrows on a chart describing brain and body orientation, digestion, environment, and perspective.
• Transit: the current planetary activations colouring the collective mood day to day.
• Electromagnetics: what happens when your hanging gate meets someone else's, forming a channel between you.

Using the glossary

You do not need all of this to start. Type, strategy, authority, and not-self theme are enough for the first year. Everything else is detail you can pick up as questions arise.

Most-read Human Design guides

Two follow-up reads that answer the questions people ask most before and after running a chart.

• Is there a Human Design test? What it actually measures
• Are Projectors rare? The real percentage

See this in your own chart

Reading about the mechanics is one thing — seeing them mapped onto your own bodygraph is what makes it click. Your free Human Design chart shows your type, strategy, authority, profile, defined centers, channels and gates in under a minute.

Get your free Human Design chart · Explore the HD Flow Academy