Gene Keys and the Hero’s Journey
Peter Paul Rubens, ‘David Slaying Goliath’. c.1616.
Molly Hankins May 22, 2025
The hero’s journey mono-myth, as described by author Joseph Campbell, details the commonalities found in heroic stories across many cultures, and serves as both a formula for narrative creation and a metaphor for the arc of the human experience. In his most recent white paper, the philosopher and mathematician Robert Edward Grant explains his novel take on simulation theory, claiming that the hero’s journey is much more than a structure for crafting stories. The human experience, he claims, is a “blockchain-based social AI spiritual life simulation”, where participants follow the archetypal structure of the hero’s journey in order to “learn about consciousness, emotional states and the nature of authentic love.” If we accept this hypothesis, astrological tools such as the Gene Keys take on a new dimension of utility for navigating life.
Describing the hero’s journey, which entails the call to adventure, the quest and a return, Campbell identifies different character archetypes in The Hero With A Thousand Faces,. These archetypes are expanded upon in the Gene Keys to describe individual blueprints of what Kabbalah calls tikkuns, our soul’s corrections in this lifetime. Developed by author and channeler Richard Rudd, the Gene Keys combine elements of Human Design, Kabbalah, tarot and the astrological zodiac with the Chinese I Ching and the structure of the human genome sequence. The resulting system mirrors the hero’s journey in many ways, beginning with the expansion on Campbell’s concept of archetypes. There are 64 Gene Keys, matching the 64 hexagrams in the I Ching and the 64 codons of the human genetic code.
Every Gene Key sequence, based on our time and place of birth, contains a life, love and prosperity path known respectively as the Activation, Venus and Pearl Sequences. Each path, in turn, has four archetypal keys describing our tikkun by way of a shadow state we must transmute through a corresponding gift. We all have our own way of moving from the shadow to the gift frequency, represented by different lines in our profile. Each state of being is an attitude, and Rudd contends that rather than our DNA dictating how our lives unfold, our attitudes tell our DNA what kind of person we want to become. The first of the 64 Gene Key archetypes is called ‘From Entropy to Syntropy,’ and it has the shadow frequency of entropy transmuted through the gift of freshness leading to the transcendence state of beauty, which is called the siddhi.
Having this shadow as part of our tikkun can make us feel depressed or frenetic, melancholy about being human or desperate to get away from the fear of gradual decline. But the opposite of entropy is creativity. By shifting our attention towards creative imagination and an appreciation of beauty, we inject freshness into our lives. In the gift frequency of the first Gene Key, we embody the archetype described by Campbell as the ally, assisting the hero by shifting their focus to what is unique. Appreciation of beauty is also the number one factor for building resilience in the face of grief, according to author Florence Williams, who spent many years studying the science of healing from heartbreak.
“It’s impossible to know how many lifetimes it could take us to learn the specific ways of being we must correct, in order to get the best out of human experience, but as we continue to evolve so do our systems for understanding ourselves.”
Each path in the three Gene Key sequences that make up our tikkun, takes us through a challenge and breakthrough to ultimately arrive at core stability. The Activation Sequence begins with the first node of our personal profiles, our life’s work. Doing our life’s work takes us through the challenge of evolution, followed by a breakthrough that allows us to access our radiance, then bringing us to discover our life’s purpose, where we find core stability. Each stage of the Activation Sequence has a corresponding Gene Key archetype detailing what shadow frequency we must shift in order to stabilize our gifts. Shadows block our manifestations whereas gifts magnetize them, and the siddhi is a level of transcendence that describes the frequency of enlightenment. Even if many of us may not reach the siddhic level of expression in this lifetime, studying the siddhis of the Gene Keys orients us to the specific attitudes of enlightened masters so we can expand our consciousness beyond the confines of human limitation.
The hero’s journey is also embodied in the relationship that each sequence has to the others, playing out the call to adventure, the quest, and a return. This makes up what Rudd calls The Golden Path, beginning and ending with our life’s work. For instance, if you have Gene Key 55 with a first line as your life’s work, then the personal challenge that gives way to your evolution is transmuting the shadow of victimization through the gift of freedom. Each line corresponds to the six lines contained in the I Ching hexagrams, and expresses how we move from shadow to gift. If you have a first line in your life’s work then you are here to create something new. The gift of Key 55 is the same as the siddhi, and freedom is the ability to see and ultimately live beyond the cycle of human drama.
It’s impossible to know how many lifetimes it could take us to learn the specific ways of being we must correct, in order to get the best out of human experience, but as we continue to evolve so do our systems for understanding ourselves. Many Kabbalistic teachings refer to ways we can accelerate our evolution, with spiritual study being one mechanism. The Gene Keys is one such an accelerant. While the voluminous system of very specific data can be intimidating at first, particularly to those who’ve never studied any astrological systems, it’s incredibly useful even at the surface level. Any information gleaned is always immediately relevant to your personal hero’s journey.
According to Rudd, influencing our DNA through our attitude is the future of epigenetics, which is the study of how our environment and behaviors affect genetic expression. “You can only be a victim of your attitude. Every thought you think, every feeling you have, every word you utter and every action you take directly programs your genes and therefore your reality. Consequently, at the quantum level you create the environment that programs your genes,” Rudd says. “ This is the great secret the Gene Keys hold - the secret of freedom.” Embodying the hero archetype gives us the strength and boldness to shine light on our shadows and step into the gifts that allow us to freely manifest our will.
If life is, as Robert Edward Grant believes, “an emergent simulation,” then perhaps we can change the game we’re playing by changing ourselves. Nothing less than a global consciousness shift is required of us at this pivotal time in human history, and we have tools like the Gene Keys to accelerate that change by helping us face our personal and collective shadows in a readily actionable way.
Molly Hankins is an Initiate + Reality Hacker serving the Ministry of Quantum Existentialism and Builders of the Adytum.
