Integration channels

Meaning

Human Design gathers most of its channels into three circuit groups, each a way of sharing energy with others. The Tribal circuitry shares within a circle, the Collective circuitry with everyone, and the Individual circuitry by example. Four channels stand apart from all three. The tradition calls them the Integration channels, or the Integration circuit. Their keynote is self-empowerment.

What sets them apart is that they do not share at all, in the usual sense. The tradition reads them as the wiring of individual survival: the capacity to look after oneself, act in the moment and stay alive. Their energy is busy and self-absorbed, and that is their function, not a failing. A person strong in them influences others mostly by being visibly self-sufficient.

All four channels link the same four gates, each of which belongs to three channels:

• Gate 10, Behaviour of the Self, in the G centre.
• Gate 20, The Now, in the Throat.
• Gate 34, Power, in the Sacral.
• Gate 57, Intuitive Clarity, in the Spleen.

The four Integration channels:

• Awakening (10–20), G centre to Throat: expressing one’s own way of being in the present, and acting from conviction.
• Perfected Form (10–57), G centre to Spleen: acting true to oneself while sensing what keeps one safe and well.
• Charisma (20–34), Sacral to Throat: thought turned into immediate action.
• Power (34–57), Sacral to Spleen: strong energy guided by intuition in the moment.

The same four gates form two more channels, which the tradition places elsewhere. Exploration (10–34) belongs to the Centering circuit, and the Brain Wave (20–57) to the Knowing circuit. Some teachers count the Brain Wave among the Integration channels too. Through these links, Integration connects closely with the Individual circuitry.

In practice

• Finding it. Ulune draws the channels but does not group them by circuit. Any defined channel from the list above means Integration energy is consistent in the chart.
• Type. Charisma joins a motor directly to the Throat, so Ulune then always reads a Manifesting Generator. Power defines the Sacral too, and gives a Generator or a Manifesting Generator.
• Being busy. The tradition reads the busyness of these channels as natural. Its counsel is to aim it, through the chart’s strategy and authority, at what is truly one’s own.
• Self-absorption. People strong in Integration may seem absorbed in their own affairs. Human Design reads this kindly: looking after oneself well is their contribution, and it frees others from carrying them.
• Hanging gates. One of these gates alone is a hanging gate. Since each gate has three possible partners, many people can complete it.

Across traditions

• The I Ching. Wilhelm calls hexagram 10 Treading (Conduct) and 20 Contemplation (View). He calls 34 The Power of the Great, and 57 The Gentle (The Penetrating, Wind). Conduct, view, power and penetration together describe a self that acts on its own, though Human Design did not group the gates for that reason.

Origin and history

The Integration channels belong to Ra Uru Hu’s teaching on circuits. The Definitive Book of Human Design (Ra Uru Hu and Lynda Bunnell, 2011) describes them. Teachers differ on how to count them, as the Brain Wave shows, and on whether the Centering channels sit with them. This encyclopedia keeps the four usual channels.

Correspondences