What is Authority in Human Design?

The seven authorities

Human Design names seven kinds of Authority. Each one is a different place your clarity comes from. You get one, and your chart says which.

How each one really decides

Emotional Authority decides through feeling, and feelings move in waves. So the advice is to sleep on it, sometimes more than once. The classic mistake? Saying yes on a high and meeting the rest of the feeling later.

Sacral Authority is a gut response, often a sound or a sensation, that says yes or no before you have a reason. The tradition’s warning: don’t talk yourself out of it just because it isn’t logical.

Splenic Authority is a quiet, instant knowing that only counts in the moment it shows up. It doesn’t repeat itself. Act while it’s there, not after you’ve reasoned it to death.

Ego (Heart) Authority comes down to what you actually want and will stand behind. The catch is telling real commitment apart from pride.

Self-Projected Authority finds the answer out loud. Talk it through, more than once and from different angles, and listen to yourself. The other person’s opinion isn’t the point. Your own voice is.

Mental or Environmental Authority has no inner compass in the usual sense. Clarity comes from outside: hearing a few trusted people out, in a place that feels right, and noticing which take lands.

Lunar Authority belongs to Reflectors. Human Design says give a big decision a full lunar cycle, about a month, and notice how it feels as the weeks roll by.

Test-drive yours

Start small. Notice how your good decisions felt when you made them. Authority is meant to be tried on ordinary choices, like lunch or a Tuesday plan, not taken on faith.

Read it with your Type. Your Type’s Strategy is how you get into a situation. Your Authority is how you know whether to stay.

The tradition: Authority is part of the standard Human Design chart, worked out the usual way from your birth date, time and place.

Authority in your Manual

Authority is how your decisions settle, so it shows up where your Manual talks about trusting what you know, and about your energy. We read it next to your other charts, each one a different lens on the same you. How we weigh them stays our little secret.

• Knowledge & Wisdom
• Health & Identity

Sources

• The Human Design tradition’s seven authorities: The standard teaching, in our words. The descriptions are the tradition’s, not ours.
• Your own chart: The free Human Design calculator shows the Authority your chart resolves to, from the same engine the Manual uses.
• How Soul Cartography reads Human Design: What the Manual computes, and what Human Design speaks to.

Find your Authority

Your free Human Design chart names your Type, Strategy, Authority and Profile.

Calculate my free chart (no account needed)

Keep reading

• The five Types in Human Design
• The nine centres
• Human Design, in Soul Cartography
• Human Design vs Gene Keys
• All the traditions

Common questions

Can my Authority change?

Not in the standard chart: it comes from your birth data. If your birth time is uncertain, check whether it changes across the range.

Does my Type matter too?

Yes. Type and Authority are read together. Your Type describes your strategy; Authority describes where decisions settle.

Is Authority the same as intuition?

Only for Splenic Authority. Others work through emotion, response, will or conversation.

Where do I find mine?

In your free Human Design chart, or the Human Design section of your Incarnation Manual.