Charting Tools

Chinese metaphysics charting tools and classical source texts

• BaZi Chart CalculatorBaZi, also called the Four Pillars of Destiny, assigns a pair of Chinese sexagenary characters to the year, month, day and hour of birth. Eight characters in total. This page explains how those eight characters are derived, what each pillar represents, and the mistakes that most often produce a wrong chart.
• Zi Wei Dou Shu ChartZi Wei Dou Shu describes a person through a chart of twelve palaces. It takes the same moment of birth as BaZi but converts it differently: BaZi uses the solar-term calendar, Zi Wei uses the lunar calendar. This page explains how the chart is constructed.
• Liu Yao Divination ChartLiu Yao casts a hexagram about one specific matter and reads its structure. Unlike BaZi or Zi Wei, which describe a person, Liu Yao describes how a situation stands at a particular moment. This page walks through the full process from casting to attribution.
• Qi Men Dun Jia ChartQi Men Dun Jia expands a single moment in time into a grid of nine palaces, each carrying four stacked layers of information. Its casting rules are the most involved of any Chinese metaphysical system, but every step is fully determined. This page follows the casting order.
• Chinese AlmanacEvery column in a Chinese almanac is derived from a specific rule rather than chosen freely. This page explains where each one comes from, and what the suitable and unsuitable lists actually meant in their original context.
• Chinese Perpetual CalendarThree calendars are in simultaneous use in Chinese contexts: the Gregorian calendar, the lunisolar calendar, and the solar-term calendar. Their years and months begin at different points, and mixing them is the root of most date conversion errors.