Chetan & Carola: Evolutionary Human Design (MYSTICAL SYSTEMS)
Human Design has a wild origin story—and so does Chetan Parkyn, who studied with Osho in India and read palms and faces before coming to Human Design, which he’s been working with for three decades. His partner, Carola Eastwood, came to Human Design through Astrology and counseling after her own dark night of the soul. The duo are steeped in the system, having performed thousands of readings and written multiple books, including Human Design: Discover the Person You Were Born to Be, The Book of Lines, and The Book of Destinies. If you’re new to Human Design, it’s a fascinating and complex system—I’d recommend going to their site, Evolutionary Human Design and quickly generating a free chart. You’ll need your birth date and time. If you’re familiar, these two will turn new pages for you. Let’s get to our conversation now.
MORE FROM CHETAN & CAROLA:
Human Design: Discover the Person You Were Born to Be
The Book of Destinies: Discover the Life You Were Born to Live
Get Your Human Design Report
Further Listening on Pulling the Thread:
PART 1, ENNEAGRAM: Courtney Smith “The Practical Magic of the Enneagram”
PART 2, ASTERIAN ASTROLOGY: Jade Luna “The Secret Astrological System”
PART 3, TAROT + KABBALAH: Mark Horn
ASTROLOGY: Jennifer Freed “A Map To Your Soul”
ENNEAGRAM: Susan Olesek “The Power of the Enneagram”
TRANSCRIPT:
(Edited slightly for clarity.)
ELISE LOEHNEN: Before you joined, we were just talking about this strange moment that we find ourselves in and I don't know if we want to start there for theories or ideas about what's happening to our collective or whether we build there. What do you guys think?
CHETAN: Well, you know, every year we do a program that we call Energies and Opportunities and Carol and I, this last week, were sitting down scratching our heads together and every year we give the year ahead a title, we give it a name. So our year coming up, 2024, is the year of Lightspeed Innovation at the Dawn of a Global Awakening.
ELISE: Say more.
CAROLA: Indeed, we live in interesting times. So, you know, our perspective on it, having worked both with human design and with astrology and with other change technologies over the past 35 or more years, that does date us a bit, And watching the evolution, you know, all the way back from the late 60s, early 70s, when we were protesting Vietnam War, you know, all the changes that went with the sexual revolution, et cetera, up until this time today, I must say that if we look at before that, like a hundred years before then, before 1960, say, the movement and changes in consciousness happened a lot more slowly, and then there's been an acceleration in those changes, and it just keeps accelerating.
So, we feel that we're in the dawn of an awakening in which humanity as a whole is going to have the opportunity, not that we'll necessarily do it because we have free will so it's up to us, but we'll have the opportunity to begin actually cooperating and collaborating as a one world community, which is what needs to happen if we're going to truly preserve this planet and keep it as a place where souls can come, have incarnations have lifetimes in which they get experiences and continue to grow from those experiences. So we looked at the energies of the year coming up and we saw that this is a really pivotal year in those changes that humanity is going through. So 2024, 2025, 2026, very important times that we're in, in terms of the possible massive global awakening.
ELISE: Are you optimistic?
CAROLA: Well, I am.
CHETAN: I am too.
CAROLA: I am, definitely. I believe in humanity. I believe that we do find the good within us and we do tend to rise to the occasion sometimes at the last minute, but we do.
CHETAN: So looking at the kind of background of human history, we've gone through an age where we would call it a tribal age. You know, where we had kings and queens and bosses and landlords and, you know, people that had the last say on things. And these days, you know, there's still a few dictators around doing that thing where everyone has to kowtow and do whatever they ask. We kind of shifted out of that as a whole into the age of democracy, into the age of the collective, where a 51 percent majority is enough to, you know, get the rules in place and the 49%, you know, they have to deal with it. So that used to work as long as there was open conversation. What is happening for the moment energetically for humanity, is we're moving into the age of the individual. And when I say individual, I'm really talking about the responsible individual, the one that basically knows themselves very well, knows how to be appropriate in their life, knows how to engage lovingly in their life, and basically stands in the majority of one. Right? There's no duplicates in the whole of this universe. And, There it is, it's like we all have that opportunity to be true to our own nature, and that's very much the work that Carol and I do is reminding people of their uniqueness through these various systems that we work with. And we are, we're literally moving very, very quickly into this age of the individual.
CAROLA: The way we work with evolutionary human design is to support people to come into alignment with the essence of their true nature to rediscover their true nature, like all of us knew when we were babies, to rediscover that true nature and to learn to live it more fully because when we do that, we're more satisfied, we're more fulfilled and we're more successful.
ELISE: So we'll move to explaining human design and its origin and how you guys read it. In your specific way next, but when you see this, the energy moving through the collective, do you feel like it's this spiral dynamic, like this pushing up, or according to some sort of physical law? Or do you think that there's something on the other side that we're trying to break through to? Obviously, we're in various crises around the globe, an environmental crisis that's looming. How do you see it? It doesn't really matter what you call it, this is what's happening, or do you think we're pushing towards something that is more, I guess you'd call it, quote unquote, inclusive of all.
CHETAN: Well, we're definitely moving towards the possibility of a higher frequency. You know, there are still people that operate on a very low frequency, and you know, they're encouraged by the media, they're encouraged by the lowest common denominator, they're compromised by foolish government situations where people are much more interested in maintaining their place in government than they are in actually serving the people. So, I'm not saying there has to be another revolution, particularly in America, like there was 250 years ago when the British kind of screwed up. But, you know, something of that nature. I have a great trust in America, for instance, and I really do see this consciousness evolution taking place here. I had somebody do a scan the other day on the number of people in America that heard about human design. It was 50 million people. What does it mean? And it's like, somehow or other, we got exposed to this system very early on. We've been working with it for many, many years and we see this thing actually works. And so as a consciousness evolution, you know, 50 million people is not a small number in America, of people that are actually looking to see the needs to be an uptick in my life or my life experience.
ELISE: Or to understand
CAROLA: Looking for answers. Yeah, yeah.
ELISE: Yeah. It is an amazing system and it has one of the weirdest origin stories of any of them. And I know you guys have walked in some wild ways too on your paths to it. Do you mind sharing the origin story? Because it's wild.
CHETAN: well, a little bit. I was living with Osho in India in 1979, and he used to answer people's questions every day. And I was incredibly shy in those days. So he said, Look, you know, if you really have a bunch of questions, you don't want to ask me, there's a man living in Bombay, which is now Mumbai, go and talk to him. He'll tell you everything. You'll never need to ask me another question. So I went and visited this man. He was a shadow reader, a Chai Shastri, and he basically had his son measure the length of my shadow with a funny looking stick. I was not really paying attention to what was happening, but from the measurement on the stick at a various point in time in the day, from the information of my birth, like date, time, and place of birth, and from my name, the numerology for my name, he had three calculations. From those three calculations, he was happy that he could open a book, he'd got hundreds of books behind his desk, he'd pulled one of these books out, put it on his desk, and opened to a page, and it was my page. And it was a page that was written down several thousand years ago for this lifetime. Anyway, very mysterious stuff they do in India.
ELISE: Was he doing an Akashic? Or is it different?
CAROLA: Somewhat similar. Somewhat similar.
CHETAN: Who knows? But, you know, was just written there years ago. So, the conclusion of the reading was, he asked me to come and work with him, because he said I knew how to do that kind of work. And I sat with him, you know, 30 seconds racing around in my head, what's he talking about? I'm supposed to go and work with him. And I turned him down. And he cracked up laughing. He thought that was one of the funniest things he'd ever heard. Because all of us, every now and again in our lives, we get a fork in the road. We get an opportunity to do something completely outside of our norm, right, a different avenue of himself.
I turned him down. So when he finished laughing, he said, it doesn't matter, you're going to do this work anyhow, because there's a new system going to come into the world. You're going to write books about it. You're going to take it all over the world. And my advice to you is get ready. Learn about esoteric systems. Learn. You've got the gift of telling people about things about themselves. Remind yourself how to do that. And sure enough, you know, nine years later, the human design system is downloaded by this Canadian fellow, Robert Alan Krakower, who lately became RAA. And you know, he had no idea what he'd been given. He was literally forced into downloading this system. And he says he was forced into it. I mean, that's his report. Anyway, he was very, very humble about it in those early days. He said it was a very, very intense experience and sure enough, you know, an old friend of mine was going to host him in Taos, New Mexico, she sent me a copy of my chart and said, I'm hosting this guy. He's got this new system. You might be interested. Well, this was 1993 when I received a copy of my chart. I looked at one look at the chart and I knew this is what the man in India told me about. so I did three until now. And then Carol and I got together presently after that and that's what we've been working with ever since.
CAROLA: The other thing about the origin is that Ra, his background was he was an advertising salesman in Canada. So he had no esoteric background whatsoever at all. He wasn't a spiritual person. He wasn't particularly religious person. He was a business person. He was doing quite well. And he had a midlife crisis and didn't go through that well, I think, and ended up leaving his wife and children and leaving America and pursuing a completely different path. And then over time had this experience, this phenomenal experience like this light coming in and he described it as kind of taking him over like he had no choice and this voice just came in and the voice just gave him all this information, compelled him to sit down and write and he just stayed there writing for days taking in this information. That was the human design system, along with some other information about the universe and beyond.
CHETAN: No fun being a prophet.
ELISE: No.
CAROLA: I mean, that's what's funny about it, is he wasn't even into anything like this, you know, astrology, nothing.
ELISE: Yeah, no, it is no fun to be a prophet that wiser words never spoken. I think it's funny to how much attention our sacred texts pay to prophets and then it sort of disappears right and now the prophets that we speak of our you know tech disruptors and people who can see the future in terms of economics and global expansion. And for whatever reason, we've moved away from thinking that people can see other types of future as well. So human design, I was introduced to it maybe 10 years ago, as another system of interest. And the thing, as you guys know, more than anyone, people love to know about themselves. Right? and it's an amazing system. I'm trying to think I have multiple books. I have your book and I have the Jovian, maybe the Jovian Archive book. I can't remember. But it was so overwhelming to try to understand all my channels and when you guys send out your reports. You send a comprehensive chart and you can read about every single gate, and I think a lot of people who are listening who maybe have never had their chart done, which you can do for free on your website, might know whether they're a manifesting generator or generator or projector, I mean, obviously it's primary. Is that just the most accessible?
CHETAN: This is a great start off point to realize there are these five completely distinctive different types of design, three of what we call energy types, the manifesting generator, the generator, and the manifester. These are the ones that, you know, just have this ability to move energy. And then the other two, the projectors and the reflectors, are the ones that are very much involved in guiding energy and, helping it be used in a good way, if I can say it like that. So just, you know, even understanding your own type, it's a massive revelation for people. To suddenly realize, oh, my goodness, you know, yes, there are certain people that operate the same way like I do, but there's a lot of people don't, you know, there's a lot of people operate in a very, very different way. And once this is all worked out, yeah, that's the first major revelation with human design is the type.
Manifestors, everyone thinks, oh, well, you know, I'm here on this planet to do whatever I want, whenever I want, and only about 8 or 9 percent of people actually have a manifestor design. The simplest way of looking at a manifestor design is they are self catalyzers. They don't really need an awful lot of input to get things going. They don't necessarily look for a lot of assistance for other people. In actual fact, they get rather annoyed when people get in their way, typically, you know? And we say to a manifestor, look, just let everybody know, need to know basis, little bit of information about what is going to happen next. You know, you're not going to turn their world inside out. You're just going to go and talk with somebody or you're going to the store or something or other. The generators are the ones that have a defined sacral center, the sex center, the center of life force energy, and they're generating life force energy 24 hours a day. And so the great thing for a generator is to know they have this extraordinary reserve of generating energy, cross pollinating energy, life begets more life, it's one of the universal laws. And they're also always in this position to be able to put this energy into something that can be creative or uplifting or expansive. The difficulty for them is nobody's ever told them how to use the energy. And so that's one of the things, when you understand your type and how it works, immediately there's this whole clue of what are the things that actually relate to you to be done, and what are the things, enough of that, don't bother with it, leave it alone. And then there are people we call manifesting generators.
And I think they're the majority altogether of the designs. Manifesting generators, they're very keen on the manifesting part. Oh, let me just get it done, you know, leave me alone, I'll get on with it. And they are amazing when they latch onto something that's really worth doing, for them. I'm not saying wholesale. I'm just saying when they tune into what it is that relates to them and they get involved in it. They're absolutely amazing. But the difficulty again for them is knowing what it is that really calls to their attention. What is it they're really here to get involved with? And so typically, manifesting generators will get involved in something, they'll get halfway through it, or all of a sudden they lose interest in it, and then they drop it. And everyone's saying, Hey, I thought you were going to do this. We're all relying on you. We're expecting you to do this. And they just say, Well, no, I lost my interest in this. So again, there's that whole process of going through understanding exactly what it is that's calling for them to fulfill and complete all the way. Then there are the projectors. I think we're about 20%. I'm a projector in my design. I should have said Carol is a generator in her design, you know.
ELISE: I'm a manifesting generator.
CAROLA: I thought so.
CHETAN: So you'll know the thing about getting involved in things and, you know, getting halfway through and finding out all of a sudden the air goes out of it. It's not interesting anymore. And then everyone said, Hey, what's the problem? We were expecting you to do this. So projectors, we're here as the guides. And as guides we're naturally outsiders, we have to stand on the edge and watch what's going on. And more than any other type, projectors have to know exactly what it is that's actually turned on and running in their design, what it is they're projecting out, what it is the kind of guidance they're able to offer to people. And there's so many different varieties of projectors. But the thing is, we're not part of the mainstream, we're not part of the generators, manifestors, manifesting generators, we're outsiders, and we have to remain on the outside until we get called on to give guidance.
So we get called into something. So, we think, oh, the world's passing us by, everybody's getting on with stuff, everybody's getting on with each other, and here am I, sitting on the edge of things, it's like, what am I supposed to do here? And if we jump into traffic, we get run over right away. You know, if we just include ourselves without the necessary resonance, you know, of being called into something, then we get flattened in life, get very upset. And then there's about 1 percent of the world's population that have this reflector charm, which is completely open. Theirs is a lifetime of pure trust, trust in the universe, trust in God, trust in existence, because it's almost like they're a cork on the ocean. The ocean will blow them this way, the ocean will blow them that way, they're bouncing around in everybody else's energy. And so they have to be in this process of being able to let things go very easily. And in my experience, and I know many Reflectors now, these are some of the wisest people on the planet, incredible, if they're given their space and resources to be able to just check into things and find out what it is that's really going on here.
ELISE: Mm. So, I know you, Carola, that you counsel people and work and coach people, and I know you do a lot of group work. Is there a general rule where as a manifesting generator, I need to sort of be paying attention to projectors and a manifester needs to be with a generator in order for any work to come into the world? No.
CHETAN: No formulas like that. Everybody needs to pay attention to projectors.
ELISE: Clearly.
CAROLA: No, I think it's such a temptation. And it's often we get questions like that. Like, is there some sort of formula we can reduce this to but it's not like that because even though there are five types and there are six different authorities, which I think would be important to go into that a bit, too, because that's a really important key, there are so many other factors in the design that each person really ends up being a very unique expression in human form. So, we can't say that, oh, a projector needs to be with a generator, or needs manifestor. It's not that simple.
ELISE: Will you take us through the types?
CHETAN: The authorities.
ELISE: The authorities. Sorry.
CAROLA: Yes. Well, first, what is authority? And I don't love that word. I wish it was a different word, but that's what it is. Basically, what it means is it's our key, our inner way of making decisions that are always going to be the right decisions for us every time. And this is so important, even I think more important than type, although type is important because when we honor our type, we don't fritter away our energy. We use our energy effectively and well. But authority is so important because when we make bad decisions in life, they often cost us. And they can cost us dearly. They can cost us years of our life. You know, marrying the wrong person, the wrong career, going to college for a, you know, eight year degree in medicine, and then discovering that, you know, I don't want to be a doctor.
These kinds of situations, we've seen over the past 33 years where people have feel like they've sort of wasted 10 years or more of their life in an unproductive marriage or an unproductive path or direction in life because they didn't know how to make a decision that was really going to be right for them because they followed what they're taught in society, which is, well, if you have a decision to make you, you make a list of pros and cons and you weigh it all up and then you take the best one. In other words, you use your mind, you make a mental decision.
ELISE: Right.
CAROLA: What's the brilliant thing about human design is that it teaches us that the mind is not meant to make life decisions. It doesn't contain wisdom, it contains intelligence, but not wisdom. So where do we go to make decisions? We go to the place within us that accesses our wisdom, which is in human design, what we call authority. So there are six different authorities. Now that we think there's a seventh one, but we won't get into that today, but breaking news. I know different main authorities, and each of them has a very unique way of making decisions. When we learn how to make decisions that are always going to be the right decision for us, then we really streamline our life. So, that said, the most complex of all the decision making processes is emotional, from the solar plexus. So if somebody has a defined solar plexus center, yes, us too, then they need to feel their way through a decision until they arrive at a place of clarity and what clarity feels like, it's like this crystal clear, it's like being out on a boat on a calm lake with barely a ripple in the water and just smooth sailing. It's just, yes, it's right, and that rightness doesn't waver depending on our moods. Because our moods are changing all the time. Sometimes we feel great, sometimes we feel down, a little low, but no matter what our mood is, That clarity doesn't change, it's unwavering. When we reach that clarity, what we've reached is the voice of our soul saying, this is what's right for us. Then we know that's the direction for us or that's the right choice for us. Then there are several other authorities. I don't know if you want us to go through how each one works, but I think we could do that quickly if you want.
ELISE: Yeah. I think it's interesting for people who have maybe only ever consulted a book to hear you guys do it. Yeah.
CAROLA: Okay. So, sacral authority would be the next one, and these are people who are generators. They have the sacral center defined, or they could be a manifesting generator. But they don't have the emotion center defined, the solar plexus. So in the absence of the solar plexus being defined, the sacral center, that red square center towards the bottom of the chart, is defined. That's about 70 something, almost 80 percent of the population.
CHETAN: Most people.
CAROLA: Yeah, of the population. It's very simple and the reason it's difficult for people To learn is that it's so simple. It's simply paying attention to one's sacral response, gut response, the lower belly, uh huh, that lower belly rises up towards something, uh huh, yes, or it doesn't, it just is flat, or it even contracts in a bit, no. It's that simple. And because it's so simple, and because we've been taught that making life decisions is a really complex process, it can be difficult for a generator, manifesting generator, to learn about honoring their sacral authority. But once they get it, it's really powerful. It's simply, uh huh. The life force moving towards something means, I've got energy for this. I've got life force for this. And in the absence of the emotional center being defined, then that's your go, that's your green light. Go. Do it.
ELISE: Hmm.
CAROLA: Or not. Or not. And then there's the splenic authority, which would be the next one, so in the absence of emotional definition.
CHETAN: When we say definition, that means that we're talking about a center that's turned on in the chart. It's active 24 seven.
CAROLA: Thank you. It's colored in. Yeah. So if the motion center isn't active, it isn't colored in and the sacral center is not colored in, not active, but the spleen center is, then that person has splendid authority. So the way they make decisions split second in a second, intuitive, just like a flash. It's like a flash. They just know, they're the quickest person in the room, they just know. And again, it can be easy to miss it. Because if we're taught, well, we've got to think it through, got to weigh it up, then we're going to miss that signal. But when people get it, people with splenic authority really get that, get it, and they get that signal, and they start paying attention to it. Wow, is their life changing quickly. And they can be really the quickest person in the world.
CHETAN: And then they have to learn a lot of patience, you know, while everybody else catches up. The next, what we call willpower authority, and these are all manifestors by design, and there's a connection between the willpower center, the heart center, and the throat center, and there's a really simple phrase for people with this willpower authority. It's what they want is what needs to happen. And you might say, well that sounds terribly selfish, what about everybody else? And so, you know, it behoves them to come to that place where they're so clear about what the universe is trying to tell them has value. Where to put value, because if they're accurate in this and they put the value in the right things, it naturally serves everybody around them. So it's a win win for everybody. So, you know, it's a little tricky, I've had to tell people over and over again, you know, trust this thing of finding out what's in your heart of hearts that really calls to you in terms of value, what really needs to happen, and then you can make it happen, and sure enough, everyone's going to benefit from that, and we have a lot of case studies for people with this particular design. Then there's another design where we have just the self center. That's the diamond center. Some people call it the G center, the G as in the Nautilus spiral, the perfect geometry. That's the diamond center in the middle of the chart. And we are connected into perfect geometry in this universe through that center. And we see it as the center of identity. And People that have the emotion center, not colored in the sacral center, not colored in the spleen center, not colored in the willpower center, not colored in, but they have this self center. They're a natural born leader because the only channels that connect from there go to the throat. And there there are four of them, there are four leadership channels. So they are naturally projectors, right? 'cause they don't have the defined sacral center and they're natural leaders. So in a sense, somebody with that design, wherever they go, they walk in a room with somebody, somewhere, and everyone turns to them and says, Hey, great, you're here, what should we do now?
Tell us what to do. Right? They're natural leaders, and they have to really understand, yes, they've got this gift of leadership, but they're not here to contribute to everybody's being lost. You know, they've got to be really, really clear. So their authority is something I describe as living in their sternum. In the middle of their chest here. And what I tell people with this authority is, what is your favorite flower, right? So presume maybe it's a rose, right? So then I say a rose exists in two very different forms. One is a bud and the other is completely wide open where it's fragrant and extraordinary to look at. So, I say to somebody with this authority, imagine you've got this little bud in the middle of your chest here, in your sternum, and life is looking to you to give guidance, give leadership to people, one way or another, but the rosebud is waiting for the right circumstances, where it's a resonant situation. Somebody's coming along and they've got the right energy there. appealing directly, I need your help. I need your guidance. And if they're hitting the right notes in a way, if they're actually relating directly to this person that has this self authority, then sure enough, that rose is going to open up. Or their chest is going to open up and there's their sense of, yes, I can engage you. I can give you really good pointed guidance here. So it's a sensitivity thing. It's a very personal thing, but that is a particular form of guidance. What we call self authority.
Then there's the seventh authority, which we call environmental authority, and these are the people that just have the mind connected or the mind connected to the throat. And their way is literally about discussing things with people. They talk a lot. They have to interact with a lot of people to find their place in the world around them, we can say because beneath the throat, all the centers beneath the throat are colored in white. These are people that are naturally empathic, right? They're very sensitive to their environment. And so by a lot of discussion and interaction, they can start placing themselves in the environment that's around them. And of course, you know, the great thing in life is to make sure you have right people around you, so you have right life experiences. So they're looking for people that are really well informed, that are good in terms of being connected, and can relay to them or reflect back to them things that make sense to them or things where they can pull together where they are in their own life. And then the last of the authorities, not least, is the reflector design, where all the centers are colored white. There's no consistent definition. There's no centers colored in, in the chart. And what we say to reflectors is, in the first place, thank you for being here. Because this is the less than 1% of the world's population that are reflecting us back to ourselves. So I always say to people, you need two people in your life. One's a manifestor when you need to get stuff done, you know, see if you can get them on board with you. And the other is a reflector to see if you're going about things in a right way, because they reflect back this perfect reflection to you of who you are and how you're going about in your life.
So we say to reflectors, look, you're a great ally in life, apart from nature is the moon. The moon 29 days does a complete loop. It goes through every one of the 64 gates in a month in 29 days, and for about 10 hours at a time, it goes through each gate in constant sequence, just like a clock. So every month is a consistent pattern for a reflector just between the reflector and the moon. The reflector goes in gateways, makes up particular connections in the chart, and so they can start recognizing what it is that's playing out in their life. And as I say, in the end, they become some of the wisest people.
ELISE: Hmm. I know you guys have probably have access to a fair number of charts from people building charts through you. Do you see a shift? Do you see anything moving over time where we're starting to see children who are slightly different or moving in a different tendency? Or is it static?
CHETAN: It's a little bit more of a generational thing, in a way. Carola can probably relate to this better than I can, in terms of how the generations shift.
CAROLA: Well, each generation has, has a different set of energetics. And so, because the generations have to do with the slower moving planets, that we re in place from seven years to 14 years or 21 years, then many of us all born around the same time, 14, 15 years of each other, we'll have some similar energetic. So it gives us a kind of similarity in terms of a generational kind of identity, but in terms of it changing. I think that, you know, consciousness is evolving. So the thing that's actually different about the way that we approach human design of why we call our work and our website Evolutionary Human Design, is that we approach it as an evolutionary tool, in other words, a tool for self growth and self evolution. So the more true we are to our design, the more powerful we become, the more fulfilled we become. The more we have access to all of our talents and our abilities, so the more effective we become, so we teach it as a tool for self growth. So in that sense, yes, there's a whole nother conversation out there in the community, the larger community about new kind of beings coming in the 21st century that are perhaps... what's the common thinking about?
CHETAN: They're emotionally aware, yeah, they're coming with emotional consciousness,
CAROLA: Born with wisdom, already inherent wisdom. And ideally, the thought about that is that it's those children that are going to take us into the next iteration of humanity, which is ideally going to be a better iteration.
CHETAN: Well, the Homo sapiens has done what it can do. You know we're on that, we're on that tipping point now, but this new species that's coming in, and it is a new species, will have a different design. And, we can call them Homo Novus, the new man. And they're actually quite close by right now. Well, there's been some twists in the human DNA. You know, there's a little bit of shake up there with the COVID and the experimental vaccines that everyone was having. Who knows how it's all going to happen? But we can tell there's a trend at the moment that consciousness is shifting on this planet. And maybe we're just holding the door open for these kids to come in and start shifting things around. Because we cannot manage to have war anymore on this planet. I mean, this is totally out of date. You know, disease, it's like high time we worked out how to deal with this stuff.
CAROLA: Or starvation, famine. I mean, not in an awakened society. Yeah. Everybody gets to eat, gets water, gets...
CHETAN: Health care. Yes. And gets a life, you know? That's the American Constitution is so beautiful. You know, the pursuit of happiness. I mean, fancy that instead of the slave to the work situation.
ELISE: Yeah. So what do you see beyond watching humanity evolve in the news? Like what radio station are you tuned to in terms of what you think is coming?
CHETAN: Well, we're coming into this age I call the age of the individual, you know, we're done with the tribal thing, you know, the collective thing is literally collapsing around us, we're watching that whole thing, you know, there's the American Congress cannot find any point to agree on. It's ridiculous. And so we're moving into this age, I say the responsible individual, and to be a responsible individual, you have to know what makes you tick. And so human design is this extraordinary gift that has come in this time to help people really work out what makes them tick. What is their frequency? Everybody has a unique frequency. And what we've been talking about, type and authority, and the many other things we can talk about, human designers, is how to recognize our unique frequency. Where do we fit in? What is it that's calling to us? Who are we here to relate with? And it's so simple when you start recognizing your design and just seeing it. All of this becomes very, very clear.
ELISE: Yeah. Do you, as people who read charts and read people, when you meet someone, can you pretty quickly imagine what you think their chart might look like? Or is it always a surprise when you actually see it and see what's colored and filled in?
CAROLA: Well, you know, in terms of which centers are coloring filled, and that's maybe a bit beyond my pay grade right now, but I often can tell the type.
ELISE: You don't need a mapping. You can just do it by hand.
CAROLA: I felt like you were manifesting generator, for instance, there's an energy, the frequency that, because I've coached so many people, you know, gosh, thousands probably all the years that I've read for and coached and taught, you begin to recognize some basics, you know, and often I can tell when somebody is a projector, I really can spot a manifesting generator quite easily, manifestors.
ELISE: What about people's profile? I mean, that's a little bit more complex.
Guests: Pretty easy too, if you get into conversation with them, or you can observe them in social interaction, because that's where the profile really comes out. And it's fairly easy to make a good guess for me about profile.
CHETAN: The difficult part is, you know, you've got a chart and there is somebody there and maybe you're picking up on what is operational in that chart, but the difficult thing is working out what level of consciousness that they are, that takes years of practice and, you know, a lot of patience and just being open to see where are they going to meet us in terms of looking at their chart.
ELISE: Right. Because this doesn't suggest where someone might be emotionally or spiritually or psychologically. It's more a map of potential. Is that accurate?
CAROLA: It's a map of the actual vehicle that the soul has taken to experience the lifetime, the vehicle itself, and how that vehicle works. And that's essentially what it is, but the consciousness of the being that's come in to use that vehicle, that's beyond human design. That's a soul. That comes from the spirit realm. And seeing people like, for instance, very evolved souls. Projectors who are amazing leaders. Barack Obama was one, one channel in his design. You know, you wouldn't call powerful design, and yet look how much power he actually did have. John Kennedy, same thing. Others we can probably think of, but, one channel. And with that one channel and being a projector, which you think, well often projectors come to us and say I wish I was a manifestor, a manifesting generator, we say, don't wish that it's perfect. It's perfect what you are. So everyone has the potential to live to their highest capacity, their highest potential. And again, that's what evolutionary human design is about is finding that frequency that is that highest frequency and using that, in terms of your expression and your way of moving through life.
ELISE: It's interesting too, similar to Enneagram or any of these esoteric systems, I was just having lunch with a friend, I told her I was going to speak to you and she said, oh, my profile is 4 1, do you know what that means? And I was like, no, and I went home and Looked it up in your book, and I was like, oh, I see. I understand now her single mindedness, her focus, her relentless sort of pursuit of a very specific, I would call it a spiritual worldview. But it's a fun system in the sense, I'm a 6'2 and when I read my profile, it's like, check, check, check. Very affirming to read these things about yourself.
CHETAN: I mean, the trouble for the six two is you're always having to clean up after everybody else.
ELISE: Oh, God, tell me about it.
CAROLA: Yes.
ELISE: That's a 6'2 joke.
CHETAN: It's like, really? You guys can't manage?
ELISE: But it's interesting. And I have a friend who does human design with astrology, and I'm trying to remember why he brings them together, but I think it's because he feels like human design is a perfect articulation of sort of a internal structure and then Astrology gives it a little bit of dynamism in terms of what's happening in the collective. Are there other particular systems that you see as being really complementary or do they all have a place or do you just think human design or bust?
CAROLA: No, no, it's not that. I mean, the other system, I've been a professional astrologer since the mid seventies. I was by Glenn Oken, so I have a lot of experience with astrology, and I love it. And it does, if you really know astrology, and you know it well and deeply, it can illuminate so much about the person's internal makeup. It can be such a valuable tool in counseling and healing. What's different about human design from any of the other systems like astrology, Enneagram, numerology, is it not only maps the conscious self, it also maps the unconscious inherited tendencies back several generations. So, it's the only system, which is why we call it a 21st century system, it's the only system that does that. So it gives us that capacity to see what we've inherited, what we've brought through and from our ancestors, or you could say from past lives, both, and what it is we're really here to evolve within ourself. And in that sense, human design stands apart from the other systems, don't know that I would say it's necessarily better, it's just a current tool that's meant for these times, the times we're living in now. With every client I work with, I use astrology and human design, because they do show us two different things.
ELISE: Yeah. Say more about the unconscious, and would that be equivalent to a Carl Jung like personal shadow that we're carrying, is that the work? Is that the work that we each have to do in terms of what parts of ourselves need to be realized or seen or shown love?
CHETAN: Well, I call the unconscious the autopilot. So this is all put in place three months before we're born. The autopilot, it's a genetic inheritance, it's all these characteristics, hair color, you know, eye color, all this kind of stuff gets put in place. What I see with it, and I'm working more and more with it these days, in terms of getting people to recognize there are certain patterns that are instilled in their genetic coding that can be very quickly related to a grandparent or a great grandparent or going back, you know, four generations. We've been able to trace it back through families to see the influences that show up and down the road. The unconscious is basically, you know, how you can drive a car and be twiddling with the music system at the same time, and you don't go off the road. The autopilot just keeps us together, keeps the body working, keeps everything happening, we can eat while we're reading the paper or something or other, you know, and it just keeps going. And the thing of it is, if we start recognizing this, and we start not just seeing it's there, but we start accepting it, right, whether we liked our grandparents or anything, once we start accepting our design and accept, recognizing and accepting the unconscious traits that we have with us, this autopilot that just takes us, then we can start bridging between the conscious and the unconscious. Our whole thing is making human design extraordinarily simple. What are the simplest keys within human design? My great friend has called the human design chart a karma chart. So how do we arrive here? You know, what's the backdrop? Is this the first time around? Have we been in other consciousnesses, in other systems, in other places in this universe, or even other universes, you know? And the Karma chart, or the human design chart, is basically a match to your unique particular frequency, whether it's partially ancestral, whether it's partly what you've come to live out consciously in this lifetime. But it's there. It's all on a page. It's all on a chart. And you start recognizing how this chart works and you start going along with your type and your authority and you recognize your profile and who you naturally attract and get along with so easily and how other people see you. And all these things just can't start getting more and more distilled in your life. Describing it as a karma chart, things that have to be resolved, you start living true to your design, then all of these things just go click, click, click.
CAROLA: You start attracting the situations or the people the opportunities to resolve those things.
CHETAN: And you're not in resistance. You're in acceptance to life.
ELISE: When you say you've been able to go back five generations, is that seeing themes and charts through family members, the same channels, is that what you mean?
CAROLA: Yes, it is. Yes. Doing charts of the children, then the parents, the grandparents, the great grandparents, sometimes we can go one generation further. There's echoes. You'll see the patterns, especially in the unconscious activations, which is about the genetic inheritance.
ELISE: Interesting. I have two little boys, I've done their charts and now I need to go back and look at them under that. I always assumed it was just a distinct fate and that I shouldn't project myself onto their chart but I'm gonna go and give it another look see.
CHETAN: Well, you know, when you look at that, let's just look at the whole concept of love. You know, who is it that we're really drawn to in this lifetime and where's the ease of interaction there in love? And so you might say, well, my kids have got something from me in that terms of how they behave with other people. But actually, it skips a generation. It goes back to their maternal grandmother. So your mother will actually more likely have an effect on how your kids get to live out experience giving and receiving love in this lifetime. And there are various keys looking down that unconscious column. And, yeah, it's fascinating thing to see. Oh, yeah, my granny was like this. And, you know, maybe she didn't have the possibility of such a great expression in her life. And that is something I have to resolve in my lifetime to be totally at home and giving and receiving love. So it's fascinating.
ELISE: It is. I love these systems too. I mean so many of them, Enneagram in particular has been sort of flattened into instagram memes, and obviously astrology, but when you really go deep into them and how dynamic and animated they are and I can see how you've been doing this for decades.
CHETAN: It doesn't get old. It doesn't get old. That's the amazing thing about it. Every chart is a new story.
ELISE: Yeah. And when you work with people, and I'm sure people, one, want to understand themselves deeper and, or maybe what is unconsciously driving them, or is it primarily so that they can understand creative opportunities and professional life? Or is it for working out relationships? Or is it curiosity? Or do you find that you're doing like deeper soul work in many ways?
CHETAN: It's a bit of both really. I cut my teeth on reading people's hands and faces, things like this. And, I used to do it in a bookshop and, you know, half a day a week. And I get the same questions all the time. This is getting used to giving and receiving what it is that I could see in somebody. And it, you know, it was very accurate and very interesting, but I kept getting the same question, what's my purpose here? What am I supposed to do here? What am I here for this life? I'd say, well, you've got this going on. You've got this going on. And, you know, all these things are marking in the ads. And then it just occurred to me. You come here to be you. That's it. That's the purpose of this lifetime. You come here to be you. Everything else that happens in your life is all a plus. You know, getting a job, getting married, having children, all this stuff is a potential plus. But the bottom line is you come here to be you. And in being you, the whole trick of being you is to be fulfilled being you. So how do you do that? You pay attention to what your design is telling you and go with it.
CAROLA: You develop your true talents, you be true to yourself. And that's how you live in a life that's alive, that's fulfilling. It's extraordinary when you really recognize that we could say that we have a purpose. I mean, all my life, I had a sense of my purpose is here to serve people. And, at first as a counselor and then as a coach and a reader and. And so my entire professional career has been about that, but that's the work that I do, that's the gift that I give, that's not my overall purpose as a soul.
ELISE: It's your vehicle.
CAROLA: Yeah.
ELISE: I very much relate to that. I feel like we're speaking During a particularly tumultuous time, although you could say there are many tumultuous times and I spend too much time on social media and all I want is to not be on social media and I wonder if we're collectively we're also at a point of, and I don't want to say reflection because I don't want to bring it into human design, but that there's so much comparison. There's so much information and media crashing into who we are presenting ourselves to be, which is really what social media is about, that I almost hope that this isn't some sort of shattering or breaking of that. Like, I feel like social media is so much about the creation of illusion self, and I participate in it, sometimes quite happily, but in this quest for authenticity, which is an overused word, but an important word, I wonder if we're also getting to the point where it's like I'll never find myself out there, I'll never find myself reflected back to me in terms of likes and that maybe it will put people back into a place of, I don't like the word self help at all, but personal responsibility, personal development, and in that sense, collective responsibility too sort of, if we each take care of our own yard, and step, I guess, into our chart, into who we're supposed to be and why we're here, maybe that will help? I'm feeling not optimistic today. Normally I'm very optimistic.
CHETAN: Let me point out a couple of things here that can be very quickly construed from a chart.
ELISE: Yeah.
CHETAN: There are three, what we call circuits, three main circuits in the human design chart. One is tribal, which is very much about familial stuff, community stuff. The other is the collective. And the third one is what we call the individual, circuitry. So tribal stuff works through smell and touch. The handshake.
ELISE: We don't have much of that in our world.
CHETAN: Okay. Okay. So that's that. That is the tribal way, which is kind of diminishing in its sense. Everybody eats the same foods. Everybody smells the same. That was kind of very much the tribal thing or the background of it. The collective is visual. It's what we see. It's what we agree on and points of view. It's our belief, seeing is believing, right? It's our understandings of things, but it's shared information. We can go to libraries. We can go on Google. No limit to the information that is available, right? So it's visual, right? So you go on social media and most of it's visual, right? And you get blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, all kinds of stuff. It's fascinating. It's amazing. We are coming to the end of the age of experience. Sooner or later, we're going to have seen everything. The individual is acoustic. So we know immediately Whether something is truthful or not. Now the visual thing because it's visual, the collective thing is all comparative. So when we're talking about somebody being a unique presence here in consciousness in human form, right? There's nobody else has their vibration. Nobody else has that frequency. And so all of us, if we can move past this thing of comparing ourselves, this and that, good and bad, up, down, whatever, black, white, whatever, whatever these comparison things are, if we can move past that, and we can move into the acoustic realm, then we're naturally tuning into what it is that is truthful to us as an individual.
ELISE: Thank you for that.
CHETAN: You're welcome.
ELISE: No, that feels very resonant. Particularly I would say in the age of oncoming AI, when we will always be able to believe what we're seeing is valid or true, but I hear you. I mean, don't people say that you can explain existence through math, through music or sound, and through mythology, essentially? I don't know if that was William James, maybe, but it feels that way. And I feel like there's nothing truer than sound.
CHETAN: Yeah. And we all know what music appeals to us and what music does not appeal to us. And we also know when we're listening to somebody talking, are they telling us something that's straight or are they fixing it up with something else? Is there an agenda back there? So really, that is, you know, that is the crux of the whole thing is drop comparison. You're unique. Nobody else has got your frequency. Nobody else is living your life. Even your twin is living a different life. You know, you get over any sense of compassion, somebody's got a better deal than I have or somebody's got a better life than I have, drop that whole thing and get into your own frequency and life wants to start dancing with you.
ELISE: Beautiful. Thank you both. This was such a joy. I'm gonna go and reread this book now.
I love the idea that we’re moving into the age of the auditory, because I think that there is something about peoples voices that is either so resonant, or not. We didn't get into great depth on the profiles, we mentioned the 4:1 and I’m a 6:2, and this is what I mean when you do a human design profile and then you read a good book like theirs, this one is called Human Design: Discover the Person You Were Born to Be and this is a little bit about me: “From cradle to grave you are quite literally a natural born role model, whose wisdom, perception, and vision can be both a gift and a stabilizing force in your world, you are just one of those people that sees what needs to happen and bring all the missing pieces together to form a bigger, more coherent picture. It is a natural gift.” I mean, may that be me, that is what I am about throughout life—”you’re constantly absorbing information on an insatiable quest for knowledge and new interests.” So anyway, it goes on and on and we all have our downsides, I don’t need to enumerate all of them here, just kidding. But there’s probably a little martyr energy in all of them, I think 6:2’s often feel like, “do we really have to do everything ourselves”—he was kidding, but it’s true. Well I hope you are enjoying, I love doing these special series. I’ll be back with you Thursday with a regular episode and then a final episode it this special series on Monday.
