Institutional History

January 1987

Ra Uru Hu (Alan Robert Krakower) receives the transmission of the Human Design System during an eight-day experience in Ibiza, Spain. He describes encountering a “Voice” that dictated the foundations of the system. In his own words, published by Jovian Archive:

“I was literally suspended, in a sense, within that environment, a very closed environment where I did not eat, I did not sleep, and I did not take any liquids in for 8 days.”

— Ra Uru Hu, “The Voice,” Jovian Archive

Source: Ra Uru Hu, “The Voice,” Jovian Archive (jovianarchive.com/blogs/human-design-history-legacy/the-voice, recorded date not specified, published November 21, 2023).

March 1987

Ra Uru Hu gives the first Human Design reading.

1989

Ra Uru Hu writes the Rave I’Ching, the line-by-line interpretive text underlying the 64 gates of the Human Design System.

Summer 1991

Ra Uru Hu conducts the first Design Analyst training.

February 1992

Ra’s first public lecture, Sant Miquel, Ibiza. The Rave I’Ching is published. A small Design Network newsletter begins circulating in Germany and Austria.

Source: ZENO manuscript, Chapter Zero; humandesignsystem.de/History.asp

April 1992

The Rave I’Ching is published.

1992

Ra begins public teaching of the Human Design System. Jürgen Saupe translates Ra’s foundational text — the black book, “Das Human Design System” — into German, the first translation of HD material into any language. Saupe founds New Sun Services as the European publishing and distribution vehicle for Human Design materials. He holds the image rights to the Rave BodyGraph from this point.

Source: humandesignsystem.de/History.asp; humandesign.at/hds/entwicklung/; humandesignsystem.de/Nachruf_Saupe.asp

September 1992

Ra Uru Hu undertakes the first European teaching tour.

April 9, 1993

Martin Grassinger receives the first official Human Design analyst license globally. He has been meeting with Ra privately on Ibiza since 1991 — before Human Design went public.

Source: martin-grassinger.com/en/about-me/

November 1993

Ra arrives in Taos, New Mexico, in November 1993. Zeno and Chaitanyo pay for his ticket; Chaitanyo picks him up at Albuquerque airport. Ra stays for six weeks. After the first six-week visit, Ra drafts a contract at the kitchen table and signs it in his own hand. The contract names Zeno and Chaitanyo his exclusive U.S. representatives and establishes New Sun Services America as the entity. The first American analysts are certified by end of 1993.

Source: Chaitanyo Taschler, humandesignsystem.com/about/; ZENO manuscript, Chapter One

December 1993

The first American cohort of Human Design analysts is certified.

1994–1995

Martin Grassinger and Jürgen Saupe become the first two teachers offering complete Human Design analyst training in the German-speaking countries. Ilse Sendler becomes a certified Human Design analyst (1995).

Source: martin-grassinger.com/en/about-me/; humandesignsystem.info

End of 1994

Ra conducts his first formal teachers training in Ibiza. Chaitanyo Taschler scores 198 out of 200 and is awarded a life-long teaching license by Ra. Zeno Dickson scores 199 out of 200.

Source: humandesignsystem.com/about/; humandesignsystem.com/archive/newsletters/

January 1996

Ra’s first formal IHDS teachers training — San Juan Bautista, California. Ra later describes this as the first generation of teachers in his 2005 address to the third generation. Named participants include Martin Grassinger and Alokanand Díaz.

Source: Ra Uru Hu, 2005 Teachers Training Address (transcript within IHDS curriculum).

1997

Chaitanyo Taschler builds the first Human Design website worldwide at humandesignsystem.com. Ra introduces the Four Types framework with Strategy and Authority as absolutes. Zeno Dickson and Chaitanyo Taschler’s alarm bells “went off loudly” — in Chaitanyo’s own words — because these terms covered up the underlying mechanics and introduced rules for behavior that had not previously been part of the transmission. This marks the beginning of the doctrinal split that would be completed by the end of 2000.

Source: humandesignsystem.com/about/ (Chaitanyo Taschler, About page, retrieved June 2026).

Spring 1998

Zeno Dickson and Chaitanyo Taschler complete The Course in Human Design — the only comprehensive presentation of the system Ra had taught before the Four Types overlay. Chaitanyo designs it himself, illustrates it in full color, covering definition types, centers, gates, channels, planets, ephemeris calculation, and composite chart. Ra wants it for the international curriculum without crediting Chaitanyo’s design work. Chaitanyo refuses. The confrontation over the book accelerates the break.

Source: ZENO manuscript, Chapter Three; Chaitanyo Taschler, humandesignsystem.com/about/

January 6, 1999

The domain jovianarchive.com is registered.

1999 — Jovian Archive Founded; Eleanor Haspel-Portner Commissioned

Jovian Archive founded by Ra Uru Hu and his family. Ra formally commissions Eleanor Haspel-Portner Ph.D. and her husband Marvin Portner M.D. to validate the Human Design System scientifically, working independently of the general Human Design community. Haspel-Portner begins statistical research on 30,000 matched sample cases.

Source: jovianarchive.com/pages/about-jovian-archive; bodygraphchart.com/reader/dr-eleanor-haspel-portner-ph-d/

Early 1999 — The Final Break with Ra

Zeno and Chaitanyo break with Ra. In early 1999 during their final confrontation Ra shouts at them and runs out of the house, slamming the door. Neither Zeno nor Chaitanyo ever sees him again. Ra establishes Jovian Archive Corporation in Sedona, Arizona, and begins what Chaitanyo later describes as a systematic undermining of the people who had built his American school.

Source: Chaitanyo Taschler, humandesignsystem.com/about/; ZENO manuscript, Chapter Three

2000

The national organization network forms. In Ilse Sendler’s words, published 2017:

“In 2000, that group of supporting students was invited to establish national Human Design organizations — Germany, UK, USA, Italy, Spain, Japan, and Austria. This is how the IHDS was born — although slightly different, we are International Human Design Schools — SCHOOLS — plural. Lynda didn’t even know where she was at that time.”

— Ilse Sendler, founding director of Human Design Austria, 2017 (source: medium.com/humandesignhistory/human-design-ilse-sendler-85c50c16b158)

The structure established is a network of national schools, not a single centralized institution. Zeno Dickson and Chaitanyo Taschler complete their departure from Ra’s institutional structure by the end of 2000. Ra’s second generation teachers training is held in Vienna — “the first with a universal principal” per Ra’s 2005 account. Ilse Sendler becomes a certified Human Design teacher.

Source: Ilse Sendler, 2017 Facebook post (medium.com/humandesignhistory/human-design-ilse-sendler-85c50c16b158); humandesignsystem.com/archive/newsletters/

November 16, 2000

The Rave Window software is released.

2001

Ilse Sendler becomes CEO of Human Design Austria. The domain ihdschool.com is not yet registered — it will not be registered until June 16, 2010. Chaitanyo and Zeno’s humandesignsystem.com is removed from the Jovian Archive national organizations listing, per Internet Archive captures of jovianarchive.com/hdsblinks.html.

Source: humandesignsystem.info; web.archive.org (captures of jovianarchive.com/hdsblinks.html, January 2001)

2000–2002

Eleanor Haspel-Portner and Ra co-author 13 books published by Rave Life Sciences under the Monographs on Human Design and Health series. Her statistical research finds Human Design Type holds up as a highly significant differentiating variable at far beyond the 99% confidence level — the only statistically documented validation of any Human Design construct against a general population sample. Her broader research across 30,000 matched sample cases leads her to conclude the system is “incomplete, faulty, and disempowering” as a comprehensive system.

Source: humandesignsystem.de/news/RLS/prelim(1).htm; southcarolinavoyager.com/interview/conversations-with-eleanor-haspel-portner/

July 13, 2002

Jürgen Saupe dies in Munich at approximately 11:30. Born May 3, 1940, Berlin. The bodygraph image rights he held from 1992 pass to the Saupe family on his death — not to Jovian Archive.

Source: humandesignsystem.de/Nachruf_Saupe.asp

2002

Eleanor Haspel-Portner departs Ra’s organization. She subsequently develops Noble Sciences and Beyond Human Design. Ilse Sendler becomes Head of German-speaking Human Design education (Austria, Germany, Switzerland).

Source: southcarolinavoyager.com/interview/conversations-with-eleanor-haspel-portner/; humandesignsystem.info

July 25, 2003

Ra Uru Hu sends the “Misrepresentation” letter to every certified Human Design practitioner worldwide. The letter names Zeno Dickson, Chaitanyo Taschler, and Eleanor Haspel-Portner, calls their organizations fraudulent, and sets a September 1, 2003 deadline: practitioners publicly listed with their organizations must disassociate or be removed from the IHDS professional register. Most of the names Zeno and Chaitanyo had trained go with Ra. The letter refers to the institution as “International Human Design Schools” — plural — the last significant institutional document to do so.

Source: Ra Uru Hu, “Misrepresentation” letter, July 25, 2003 (preserved in Chaitanyo Taschler’s archive); ZENO manuscript, Chapter Four; see /record Section 9

October 15, 2004 — The First U.S. Trademark Filings

The earliest attempts to register the Human Design System with the United States Patent and Trademark Office date to 2004 — six years before the IHDS was licensed to Lynda Bunnell. On October 15, 2004, Jovian Archive Media, Inc. (Toronto) files the design mark on the system’s central mandala image (serial 78500739); it registers on July 17, 2007 as Registration 3264277. The earliest application to register the words “The Human Design System” as a U.S. word mark — serial 78500640, owned by Jovian Archive Corporation — is abandoned in 2006. The image and the words diverge at the outset: the image is secured, the words are not.

Source: USPTO TSDR, serials 78500739 (Registration 3264277) and 78500640 (retrieved June 2026); see /record/trademark and /can-human-design-be-owned.

2005

Ra addresses the third generation of teachers. His stated goal for IHDS professional training:

“to create highly skilled professional analysts who can easily take their place in a global professional class using a standard training method that allows for uniqueness in both learning styles and analytic methods while simultaneously training all students to a uniform quantifiable level of excellence.”

— Ra Uru Hu, 2005 Teachers Training Address (transcript within IHDS curriculum)

Source: Ra Uru Hu, 2005 Teachers Training Address

2006

Lynda Bunnell becomes Dean of the IHDS.

May 2008

Ra Uru Hu sends an email to Human Design professionals in which he writes: “The IHDS spent most of its existence as me. In the last years this has begun to change and September mutates the IHDS into you.” This statement, preserved in the Human Design Austria archive, establishes that as of 2008 the IHDS did not exist as a separable organized institution — it was Ra’s teaching, applied to a designation.

Source: Ra Uru Hu email, May 2008 (preserved in Human Design Austria archive, ra.uru.hu/hd-background/); see /record Section 3

June 16, 2010

The domain ihdschool.com is registered. In the same year, per IHDS’s own published statement: “according to Jovian Archive’s legal rights, the International Human Design School was licensed to Lynda Bunnell, Director.” The network of International Human Design Schools — plural, as Ilse Sendler documented — becomes a single centralized institution under a single director.

Source: WHOIS records; ihdschool.com/about-us (retrieved June 2026)

July 2010

Ra Uru Hu asks Lynda Bunnell to take over the IHDS. Per Bunnell’s own written account preserved in the Human Design Austria archive: “He asked me to take over the IHDS in July 2010 and gave me the authority to continue his work and run these programs… He entrusted his school to me and gave me complete authority.” The transfer is oral; no public written instrument has been documented.

Source: Lynda Bunnell letter to Werner Lessmann, circa late 2015/early 2016, preserved at ra.uru.hu/hd-background/; see /record Section 3

Summer 2010 — The Online License Crisis

Lynda Bunnell, in her new role as IHDS director, circulates a contract to all Human Design professionals worldwide requiring payment of $500 per year as a precondition of conducting any Human Design activity online — chart readings via Skype, webinar classes, email consultations. Ilse Sendler organizes a coalition of national directors who write an open letter challenging the legal basis of the “online rights” claim. Within hours of the open letter’s circulation, Bunnell rescinds the fee requirement. Hours later, Ilse Sendler and Human Design Austria are deleted from all IHDS records and professional listings — while their underlying contracts with Jovian Archive remain in force. Jacqueline Riley, then President of Jovian, confirms in writing: “your contract has not ended — that would mean your license was revoked, which is not the case.”

Source: Ilse Sendler, video testimony, YouTube (identifier VlaZHtEVJZQ); Lynda Bunnell rescission letter, August 5, 2010 (preserved in Human Design Austria archive); Jacqueline Riley correspondence, quoted in Sendler “Abschließende Erklärung” (ra.uru.hu/hd-background/); see /record Sections 3 and 9

March 12, 2011

Ra Uru Hu dies in Ibiza, Spain, at 5:40 AM. He is 62 years old — or 63, per the Montreal Gazette death notice discrepancy documented in /record Section 5. The Human Design System continues under the IHDS, Jovian Archive, and the network of national organizations and independent teachers Ra trained.

Source: jovianarchive.com; Montreal Gazette, March 18, 2011

November 16, 2016

Jovian Archive Media Pte. Ltd. is incorporated in Singapore as the new intellectual-property holding entity for the Human Design System.

February 23, 2018 — The Mandala Design Mark Lapses, Then Returns

The 2007 registration of the mandala design mark (serial 78500739) is cancelled on February 23, 2018, after the registrant does not file the required declaration of continued use. Jovian Archive Media Ltd. re-files the same image four months later — serial 88009411, filed June 21, 2018 — and it registers on July 9, 2019 as Registration 5797541, which remains live. The image at the center of the system briefly passes out of U.S. trademark protection and is then recovered; the words “Human Design” are never registrable on their own.

Source: USPTO TSDR, serials 78500739 and 88009411 (Registration 5797541) (retrieved June 2026); see /record/trademark.

June 2019 — The Italian Book

Terra Nuova publishes Chetan Parkyn’s “Human Design – Scopri la Tua Vera Natura” in Italy. Human Design Italia seeks to enjoin the book, and the dispute is filed before the Tribunale di Firenze as case R.G. 2756/2020 — the proceeding that will produce the June 3, 2020 ruling that no copyright subsists over the Human Design System as a set of ideas and methods.

Source: Chetan Parkyn, “Human Design – Scopri la Tua Vera Natura” (Terra Nuova, June 2019); see /record/florence-ruling.

March 25, 2020

Zeno Dickson (Karen Cox) dies in Taos, New Mexico, aged sixty-seven. She had been teaching from a wheelchair since at least 2013, recording classes via video as her hands became too unsteady for keyboard work. She taught the original mechanics of Human Design without interpretive overlay until the end. Her teaching archive remains publicly accessible at humandesignsystem.com.

Source: ZENO manuscript, Chronology; humandesignsystem.com

June 3, 2020

The Tribunale di Firenze (Florence Civil Court, Italy) issues its ruling in case R.G. 2756/2020: no copyright subsists over the Human Design System as a set of ideas and methods. The ideas and methods of the Human Design System are freely discussable.

Source: MCHA.nl, “Human Design Goes to Court,” July 20, 2020 (mcha.nl/2020/07/20/human-design-goes-to-court/)

September 14, 2020

The Tonal Cognition video series, co-developed by John Martin and Theresa Blanding, is published.

2021

Richard Rudd republishes his Human Design period books — Human Design: The Revelation and Human Design: Circuitry — through Gene Keys Publishing, after years out of print. These are the first major republications of founding-era Human Design teaching materials by a Gen 1 teacher operating independently of the IHDS.

Source: Gene Keys Publishing; see /teachers/richard-rudd and /books.

2022

Jovian Archive Media Pte. Ltd. files a USPTO trademark application for the word mark “The Human Design System” (serial 97642294). The application is subsequently abandoned. It is one of three applications to register the phrase as a U.S. word mark, all of which were abandoned.

Source: USPTO records (serial 97642294; TSDR); see /record Section 1.

2023 — June 11

John Martin, founder of Human Design Hawaii and co-developer of the Tonal Cognition framework with Theresa Blanding, dies. He had been removed from the IHDS professional register following the publication of the Tonal Cognition video series in September 2020. His teaching archive remains publicly accessible at humandesignhawaii.com.

Source: humandesignhawaii.com; see /teachers/john-martin and /erasure.

2023 — October

A further USPTO trademark application for “The Human Design System” (serial number 98217560) is filed by Jovian Archive Media Pte. Ltd. It is abandoned on October 1, 2024 for failure to respond to an Office action.

Source: USPTO records (serial 98217560; TSDR); see /record Section 1.

2024

With the abandonment of serial 98217560 (above), all three USPTO word-mark applications for “The Human Design System” are now dead; no live U.S. word-mark registration exists for the phrase.

As of June 2026, the only live U.S. marks in this group are two brand-name marks owned by Jovian Archive Media Pte. Ltd. (Singapore) — MyBodyGraph Human Design (serial 97606650, Reg. 7724676) and Jovian Archive Human Design (serial 97639098, Reg. 7892431) — each registered with a disclaimer of any exclusive right to the words “Human Design.” The separately owned BG5 marks belong to Inner Human Design Inc. (California).

Source: USPTO records (serials 97606650, 97639098; TSDR); see /record Section 1.

2025 — Eleanor Haspel-Portner Republishes Research

Eleanor Haspel-Portner, Ph.D. republishes her research through Noble Sciences, LLC under two titles: The Science of Human Design: 30,000 Statistical Cases, 15,000 Clinical Cases, One Proven Map of Your Soul and Human Design and Health: A Practitioner’s Guide to the Basics (with Ra Uru Hu and Marvin Portner M.D.). Both books include the original 1999 research paper co-authored with Ra Uru Hu, Marvin Portner M.D., Erik Memmert, and Charles Haspel as foundational content. This is the first major publication of the Rave Life Sciences research findings since the original 1999–2002 research program. See /teachers/eleanor-haspel-portner.

Source: Noble Sciences, LLC; see /sources Section 4 and /books.

2026 — June

The Science of Differentiation archive (thescienceofdifferentiation.com) launches as an independent institutional archive documenting the founding history of the Human Design System — its lineage, trademark record, corporate structure, and the teachers who built it. The archive is not an official publication of, and is not operated, sponsored, or endorsed by, Jovian Archive, the IHDS, or any Human Design organization.

The transmission

The eight-day experience on Ibiza in January 1987 that opens this timeline is examined on its own terms — what Ra Uru Hu said happened, and what can and cannot be verified — at /the-transmission. For readers new to the system, a neutral introduction to its mechanics is at /guide, and the five energy Types are set out at /types.

The ownership and copyright record

The 2010 licensing transition and the trademark filings noted above sit inside a longer legal record. The full U.S. trademark history — the lapsed word marks, the twice-registered mandala design mark, and the live composite marks — is set out at /record/trademark. The June 3, 2020 Tribunale di Firenze ruling, which held that no copyright subsists over the Human Design System as a set of ideas and methods, has its own permanent reference at /record/florence-ruling. The broader question those documents raise is examined at /can-human-design-be-owned, and the complete public record, in ten sections, is at /record.

The scientific and critical record

Eleanor Haspel-Portner’s 1999–2002 research program, referenced in Eras 2 and 4 above, is set in the context of every documented attempt to test the system at /research/validation. The documented criticism of Human Design — what its critics argue, and on what evidence — is gathered at /human-design-criticism.