Disney+'s Korean reality show "Battle of Fates" 《天机试炼场》

Intro:  The post below is taken from from my Bazi discussion group to show that I am still alive.  Current year of fire horse affects almost every earth citizen under the sun.  I hibernated for a few months.

********

This is a "Survivor" version reality show for fortune-tellers covering Tarot Cards, 4P, face/ foot/ bone reading, mediumship, psychic, shaman, name-reading, Yi-Jing, .... etc; with 49 fortune-tellers competing (like Japan's "Iron Chef" 20+ years ago) for supreme.  This show is hot, especially in SE Asia.  Copycat shows with localized contents are produced in many Asian countries.

You can check reviews in YouTube by searching :  "Battle of Fates".  But English reviews are  briefer than Chinese (Mandarin) versions.  Chinese versions have episode by episode coverage in summary (so you don't need to subscribe to Disney+ or wasting too much time watching the whole series).

This link below is in Mandarin which provides a lot of details:
火爆韩综！四十九位通灵大师斗法，现场被死者附身召唤亡魂！一口气看完《天机试炼场》！

Below is a 4P chart of someone who hit the lottery jackpot in one of the episodes.

The show's explanation for hitting lottery is:  "Because this chart has may peer stars which symbolize wealth and also has both + and -wealth stars (Zheng-cai and pian-cai)".   Do you agree?  (Wu-earth DM here).

For "Wealth Bazi" members:  Do you think this DM can keep his lottery winning? 
For "Sickness Bazi" members:  What are the potential illnesses for this DM?

Some online discussions think this show is fake or highly manipulated like other reality shows, like edited out inaccurate predictions and only showing the accurate ones.

Many of these "destiny workers" or fortune-tellers have gone through bitter sufferings/ life experience or have a major void (e.g., missing a major family member, sickness, disability) in life.  This is quite common for practitioners whose work altering people's destinies.

With the world economy messed up by a few dictators, it is not surprising shows like "Battle of Fates" getting popular.  It satisfies people's need to find some methods for predicting their future.

 Ken Lai

© 2026 Ken Lai, all rights reserved.

Video Correspondence Courses: (click for details)

“Visual Bazi: Wealth Secrets and Maximization” w/ 18 hr. HD video
“Advanced Visual Form Feng Shui”  w/23 hr. HD video
“Visual Form Feng Shui” w/13 hr. HD video
“Applied Bazi: Sickness Forecasting and Management” w/33 hr. HD video 
“Destiny/Luck Mgmt. 1: Forecasting and Decision Support” w/32 hr. HD video
“Luck Enhancement and Misfortune Mitigation with Bazi and Feng Shui” w/ 45 hrs. HD video
“Feng Shui Toolbox: Sha-qi, Health/Wealth and Career” w/ 7 hr. HD video
“Period 9 Feng Shui Bible w/ P8/ 9 Period Upgrade Advisor” w/ 14 hr. HD video
“Practical Date-Selection Methods (incl. XKDG) w/ 12 hr. video
“Practical Imperial Qi-Men-Dun-Jia 4G” w/ 12 hr. video
“Professional Imperial QMDJ 4G” w/ 21 hr. video
“EZ QMDJ series: Astrology, Date/Task Selection, Annual Luck/ FS”w/ 3 hr. HD
“EZ QMDJ Advanced Feng Shui” with 4 hr. HD video
“Daoist Talismans for Feng Shui/Blessing” w/ 24 hr video
“Practical Door Feng Shui for Wealth” w/ 3 hr. video
“4-Pillars Forecasting Bootcamp+ ″ w/ 18 hr. video 

http://www.kenlaifengshui.com

"How To Predict Chapter" 命理何知章

"Meng-li how to predict chapter 命理何知章" is a poem recited by street fortune-tellers in traditional China.  It has 30 topics and covers popular FAQ from clients.  There are 60 sentences and 420 Chinese characters in the chapter.  It could easily take two or more hours of live class to cover the topics involved.

Here I just translate the topics that do not need background concepts or historical info.  50% of this poem is translated.

何知其人离祖籍，年冲月提坐迁移。

How to predict one leaving hometown-- year pillar clashing month branch
何知其人成功名，三奇得地用神灵。

How to predict one succeeds in getting high official post--
何知其人是富豪，三合财局运气高。

How to predict one is a wealthy person-- 3-unities wealth combination in his/ her chart
何知其人富又富，财逢长生又遇库。

How to predict one is an uber rich--
何知其人喜花酒，桃花带水见癸酉。

How to predict one likes booze and prostitutes--  peach-blossom with water and gui-you in chart
何知其人爱小妾，正财旁落偏财坐。

How to predict one likes his concubine more--  pian-cai (-wealth) sits in spouse palace and zheng-cai (+wealth) in elsewhere
何知其人贵无比，杀刃相济龙德临。

How to predict one with high status in military--
何知其人贱且淫，命坐伤官色中滚。

How to predict one is deprecatory and lustful--  daymaster sits on shang-guan (+output)
何知其人贫又贫，比肩叠叠克财神。

How to predict one is uber poor--  numerous peer stars controlling wealth elements
何知其人没有钱，财星偏偏逢比肩。

How to predict one has no (or cannot keep) money--  wealth star/s running into peer stars
何知其人寿元高，三命生旺难不招。

How to predict one living a long life--
何知其人命早夭，命星死绝运也消。

How to predict one dies prematurely (short life expectancy)-- 
何知其人运不通，五行颠倒八字中。

How to predict one lacking good luck--
何知其人运气来，长生沐浴一路排。

How to predict one has good fortune coming--
何知其人吉带凶，八字暗藏一煞星。

How to predict one has an auspicious life but also with misfortune--
何知其人凶带吉，官杀争混有印医。

How to predict one has an inauspicious life but also good fortune--
何知其人富后贫，先遇财星后劫神。

How to predict one getting rich and then poor--  running into wealth luck and then -peer luck
何知其人贫后富，食神化劫生财路。

How to predict one being poor and then rich-- 
何知其人发科甲，官格逢印人人夸。

How to predict one excels in academic examinations--  

何知其人怀技艺，食伤得用且有气。

How to predict one has special talents or craftsmanship--  output elements are favorable with support
何知其人得贤妻，正财得位助夫基。

How to predict one getting a good wife-- +wealth (zheng-cai) sits in spouse palace
何知其人妻不贤，坐下偏官不安然。

How to predict one getting a wicked wife--  -power (qi-sha) sits in spouse palace
何知其人出身微，年遇凶神父母亏。

How to predict one has a humble origin--  year pillar elements are unfavorable
何知其人兄弟殃，月逢七杀又见伤。

How to predict one has sibling/s died prematurely--  qi-sha (-power) in month pillar and shang-guan (+output) in the chart
何知其人婚不顺，日犯差错受困顿。

How to predict one has marital problems--
何知其人子忤逆，时上无情又无义。

How to predict one has rebellious children--  hour pillar elements are unfavorable
何知其人儿女孝，福神入命把恩报。

How to predict one has filial children--
何知其人琴瑟和，财官相生婚宫谐。

How to predict one has a harmonious marriage--  +wealth and +power stars nurture each other with no clash or combination in spouse palace 
何知其人性好嫖，酒色猖狂妻财摇。

How to predict one indulging in paid sex--
何知其人爱赌钱，太阴偏财两结缘。

How to predict one likes gambling--

Like any other poems or "trick songs" in Chinese metaphysics, this poem does NOT specify the conditions or context to apply any of the poem contents.  You need to read the whole Bazi chart to determine if the contents here can be applied or not.

If you are interested to know more about Bazi, you may want to consider:

“4-Pillars Forecasting Bootcamp+ 2021 edition” with 18 hr. video

Ken Lai

© 2021 Ken Lai, all rights reserved.

Video Correspondence Courses: (click for details)
“Visual Bazi: Wealth Secrets and Maximization” w/ 18 hr. HD video
“Advanced Visual Form Feng Shui” 2021 w/23 hr. HD video
“Visual Form Feng Shui” w/13 hr. HD video
“Applied Bazi: Sickness Forecasting and Management” w/33 hr. HD video 
“Destiny/Luck Mgmt. 1: Forecasting and Decision Support” w/32 hr. HD video
“Destiny/Luck Mgmt. 2: Basic Bazi Therapy w/18 hr. HD video
“Destiny/Luck Mgmt. 3 w/ Advanced Bazi Therapy w/18 hr. HD video
“Feng Shui Toolbox: Sha-qi, Health/Wealth and Career” w/ 7 hr. HD video
“Period 7/8 FS Toolkit w/ Advanced Flying Star techniques” w/ 6 hr. HD video
“Practical Date-Selection Methods 2021 (incl. XKDG) w/ 12 hr. video
“Practical Imperial Qi-Men-Dun-Jia 4G” w/ 12 hr. video
“Professional Imperial QMDJ 4G” w/ 21 hr. video
“EZ QMDJ series: Astrology, Date/Task Selection, Annual Luck/ FS”w/ 3 hr. HD
“EZ QMDJ Advanced Feng Shui” with 4 hr. HD video
“Daoist Talismans for Feng Shui/Blessing” w/ 24 hr video
“Practical Door Feng Shui for Wealth” w/ 3 hr. video
“4-Pillars Forecasting Bootcamp+ 2021 edition” with 18 hr. video

http://www.kenlaifengshui.com

Do you want a free reading?

In traditional China, if a fortune-teller did not charge a customer, the customer likely would cry.  It was not tears of joy.  It was tears of fear.

Practitioners in the Chinese fortune-telling circle think they are in the business of "leaking heaven's secrets".   They have set up some business norms or code of ethics on how to charge, who should not be charged and who should be denied service.

RULES FOR FEE CHARGING 算命收费行规

1. Charge the rich and famous more 富贵者多收
 -- because people in these social levels have more influence on society.  "Leaking heaven's secrets" to them will create more unintended influence on the society. 
2. Charge the poor less 贫穷者少收
-- the influence of this group of people is less than the rich.  "Leaking heaven's secrets" to them will create much less influence on society. 
3. Reading cannot be free  算命不能不收钱
-- according to fortune-telling business norms, free reading is like giving away one's life to the customer. The fortune-teller may pick up customer's karma debt for "leaking heaven's secret" without compensation. This becomes interfering with others' destiny for no reason.  It is also inauspicious to the customer who will owe a karma debt to the reader.  This karma entanglement may cause unnecessary reincarnations to repay debts.

RULES FOR FREE READING  此类命不收费

1. People whose life is about to end 阳寿将尽者不收
-- because fortune-telling norm does not collect money from dead people (or soon-to-be-dead). 
2. People who are facing unavoidable major disaster 大祸临身不可避者不收
-- major disaster refers to major injury that may cause death or whole family may perish. 
3. People who will not have good luck for remaining of their lives 再无好运者不收
-- their lives will get worse and worse.  So no charge.

RULES FOR REFUSING READING  “四不算”

1. No forecasting of other people's private matter/ privacy 不测他人的隐私
-- this is to avoid exploitation and prosecution of people unknown to the reader
2. No forecasting of baby gender for pregnant women 不测孕妇怀胎性别
-- with modern ultra-sound technology, this taboo is no longer relevant.  The original intention is to prevent abortion of female fetus.
3. No forecasting for gangsters  不测凶徒
-- the fortune-teller may get beaten up or killed if not careful when servicing these people.  Other than doing persuasion indirectly, it is not smart to "leak heaven's secret" to these people.
4. No service for insincere people 心不誠者不測

心不誠者不測

心不誠者不測

-- some people treat fortune-telling as a joke or for entertainment only.  Stay away from these people and not waste your time.

Similar belief about fee payment also extends to Feng Shui, date-selection and other divination methods.  The practitioners believe in the exchange of energies-- advice for compensation.  Without the exchange means:
1.  A karma debt is created which is negative to both parties. 
2.  The practitioner is interfering with other being's business.

The amount of payment is not important but the flow and exchange of energies is.  Symbolic payment inside a red envelop is common if a practitioner does not want to charge a poor customer or close friend.

Some practitioners also believe that non-paying consultation will enrage customer's karma creditors (ghosts/ spirits) for interfering with their karma debt collection (by inflicting pain and misfortune, but are stopped by the reader).  These karma creditors will collect their debts from the practitioner instead of the customer.  The practitioner will pick up customer's the bad luck and misfortune.


Ken Lai

© 2016 Ken Lai, all rights reserved.
Video Correspondence Courses: (click for details)   
“Applied Bazi: Sickness Forecasting and Management” w/33 hr. HD video 
“Destiny/Luck Mgmt. 1: Forecasting and Decision Support” w/32 hr. HD video
“Destiny/Luck Mgmt. 2: Basic Bazi Therapy w/18 hr. HD video
“Destiny/Luck Mgmt. 3 w/ Advanced Bazi Therapy w/18 hr. HD video
“Feng Shui Toolbox: Sha-qi, Health/Wealth and Career” w/ 7 hr. HD video
“Period 7/8 FS Toolkit w/ Advanced Flying Star techniques” w/ 6 hr. HD video
“Practical Date-Selection Methods (incl. XKDG) w/ 12 hr. video
“Practical Imperial Qi-Men-Dun-Jia 4G” w/ 12 hr. video
“Professional Imperial QMDJ 4G” w/ 21 hr. video
“EZ QMDJ series: Astrology, Date/Task Selection, Annual Luck/ FS”w/ 3 hr. HD
“EZ QMDJ Advanced Feng Shui” with 4 hr. HD video
“Daoist Talismans for Feng Shui/Blessing” w/ 24 hr video
“Practical Door Feng Shui for Wealth” w/ 3 hr. video
“4-Pillars Forecasting Bootcamp+ 2017 edition” with 18 hr. video
“Advanced Visual Form Feng Shui” w/23 hr. HD video
“Visual Form Feng Shui” w/13 hr. HD video

http://www.kenlaifengshui.com

Yin-yang Teachers' "5 detriments and 3-shortages"

The main theory for Chinese metaphysics is yin-yang theory.  Hence, ordinary people called practitioners of Feng Shui, Bazi, fortune-telling, divination, QMDJ, ZWDS and the like "yin-yang teachers".

According to ancient observations of life histories of yin-yang teachers, they had found this people do not enjoy the "complete" life of ordinary people.   It is attributed to these metaphysics people have "leaked" too many "heaven's secrets天机".  Heaven in turn punishes them in some aspects of their life. 

Below are common ways that yin-yang teachers suffer in life:

5-DETRIMENTS

1. Widower 鳏 --  man with no wife or wife passed prematurely; or simply live alone
2. Widow 寡 --  woman's husband had passed and never remarried
3. Orphan 孤 --  a person's father died early or both parents passed
4. Childless 独 -- childless or no children during old age
5. Handicap 残  -- certain disability in the body

3-SHORTAGES

1. Money 钱 -- person lives in poverty
2. Life expectancy 命-- person does not live long
3. Power 权 -- person does not have power.

Some metaphysics works are more "dangerous" than others.  Techniques like Fa-QMDJ (Magical QMDJ) and talismans that involves deities and ghosts are risky.  It is a taboo to use deities to make money.  

Fa/ magic-related Daoist studies usually are very strict and selective on enrollment.  They will not take you simply because you give them $20k.  The teachers worries about the karma retribution of teaching the "fa" to the wrong person.  They care more about the integrity and character of the candidate.

It is not unusual for some schools to require the potential student to take a "poison vow" to make sure s/he will not use the "fa" for money-grabs or betraying their teachers.  The vow usually consists of 3 choice of consequence: 

1. Handicap 残
2. Poverty
3. Widower 鳏 / Widow 寡

Modern response to these detriments are doing charity work and donate a certain percentage of metaphysics income to charity.


Ken Lai
© 2016 Ken Lai, all rights reserved.

Video Correspondence Courses: (click for details)   
“Applied Bazi: Sickness Forecasting and Management” w/33 hr. HD video 
“Destiny/Luck Mgmt. 1: Forecasting and Decision Support” w/32 hr. HD video
“Destiny/Luck Mgmt. 2: Basic Bazi Therapy w/18 hr. HD video
“Destiny/Luck Mgmt. 3 w/ Advanced Bazi Therapy w/18 hr. HD video
“Feng Shui Toolbox: Sha-qi, Health/Wealth and Career” w/ 7 hr. HD video
“Period 7/8 FS Toolkit w/ Advanced Flying Star techniques” w/ 6 hr. HD video
“Practical Date-Selection Methods (incl. XKDG) w/ 12 hr. video
“Practical Imperial Qi-Men-Dun-Jia 4G” w/ 12 hr. video
“Professional Imperial QMDJ 4G” w/ 21 hr. video
“EZ QMDJ series: Astrology, Date/Task Selection, Annual Luck/ FS”w/ 3 hr. HD
“EZ QMDJ Advanced Feng Shui” with 4 hr. HD video
“Daoist Talismans for Feng Shui/Blessing” w/ 24 hr video
“Practical Door Feng Shui for Wealth” w/ 3 hr. video
“4-Pillars Forecasting Bootcamp+ 2017 edition” with 18 hr. video
“Advanced Visual Form Feng Shui” w/23 hr. HD video
“Visual Form Feng Shui” w/13 hr. HD video

http://www.kenlaifengshui.com

Approaches to handle the "missing" birth hour problem

A major problem affecting the accuracy of Bazi or most astrological methods is the "missing" or inaccurate birth hour reported.  

Astrological method like Zi-Wei-Dou-Shu is more birth hour sensitive than Bazi.  An incorrectly reported birth hour will affect the final reading drastically.  Bazi is more day-pillar focused, but sometimes incorrect hour will turn the reading upside-down!

The followings are some approaches to estimate the hour data using client's (DM):

1.  personality to estimate the hour
2.  birth order
3.  hair-ring on the head
4.  sleeping posture
5.  face shape
6.  length comparisons of certain fingers
7.  year moved, immigrated, major travel, career change

"Ken, which method do you use?"

"I plug in the 12 possible Chinese hours into the chart and see which hour fits the life experience of the client better."

"This takes a lot of time!"

"Not really when you use a 4P chart plotting program.  There is one such program that you can use in my website for free.  I can run through 12 possible hours in less than 10 minutes." 

Not everyone can use computer to do 4P charts, so the most common approach is doing 3 different charts-- one according to the hour reported, one "minus one hour" from the reported hour and one "plus one" hour.

When everything fails, my last resort is pulling out my cell phone.

"Call your friend or .......?"

This is my lineage secret.  You have to come to my class to get it.


Ken Lai

Video Correspondence Courses: (click for details)   
“Applied Bazi: Sickness Forecasting and Management” w/33 hr. HD video 
“Destiny/Luck Mgmt. 1: Forecasting and Decision Support” w/32 hr. HD video
“Destiny/Luck Mgmt. 2: Basic Bazi Therapy w/18 hr. HD video
“Destiny/Luck Mgmt. 3 w/ Advanced Bazi Therapy w/18 hr. HD video
“Feng Shui Toolbox: Sha-qi, Health/Wealth and Career” w/ 7 hr. HD video
“Period 7/8 FS Toolkit w/ Advanced Flying Star techniques” w/ 6 hr. HD video
“Practical Date-Selection Methods (incl. XKDG) w/ 12 hr. video
“Practical Imperial Qi-Men-Dun-Jia 4G” w/ 12 hr. video
“Professional Imperial QMDJ 4G” w/ 21 hr. video
“EZ QMDJ series: Astrology, Date/Task Selection, Annual Luck/ FS”w/ 3 hr. HD
“EZ QMDJ Advanced Feng Shui” with 4 hr. HD video
“Daoist Talismans for Feng Shui/Blessing” w/ 24 hr video
“Practical Door Feng Shui for Wealth” w/ 3 hr. video
“4-Pillars Forecasting Bootcamp+ 2017 edition” with 18 hr. video
“Advanced Visual Form Feng Shui” w/23 hr. HD video
“Visual Form Feng Shui” w/13 hr. HD video

http://www.kenlaifengshui.com

"Crystal Ox" Gazing

I am running around China and Hong Kong in the last few weeks. In Hong Kong, I see over 20 "2009 Year of Ox" fortune-telling books. Most are simply based on the 12 Chinese zodiac animals to "predict" the 2009 luck of people, though some use Immortal Wong Tai Sin, QMDJ and Plum-Flower.

Publishers of these 2009 fortune-telling books always try to be the first ones in the market to grab the market share. Those who had published before the sub-prime mortgage crisis are likely to predict "business as usual" like the global economy will be great. The ones that are published after the financial crisis is exposed are likely to predict the economy will not be "optimistic" or "challenging".

It is interesting to see most writers of these fortune-telling books will "review" and brag about their 2008 predictions. They simply ignore what they had missed and just focused on the "hits". Everyone makes tons of predictions and some will "hit" the target for sure. Very often, predictions are phrased in vague terms like "not optimistic" or "challenging", it can always be treated as a "hit" no matter what has happened.

Today is your lucky day, you can publish your own "2010 Fortune Book" with the following tips about how the predictions are made:
1. based on stars of annual or Purple White chart
2. making interpretations based on the jia-zi (binomial) of the year. For example, 2009 is ji-chou or earth-ox year. One can tell a long story based on this jia-zi.
3. based on the animal nature of the year (e.g. 2008 is year of rat, some writers will make a big fuss out of the rat's nature)
4. based on shen-sha like Grand Duke, San-sha (3-killings) and the like
5. based on the writer's own divination using Plum Flower, Yi-Jing and the like
6. based on astrological stars
7. based on QMDJ charts
8. simply based on the gut-feeling of the writer!

You may use a combinations or all of the above to write your 2010 Fortune book. Send me 10% royalty if you can! All proceed will go to charity.


Ken Lai
"Practical Date-Selection Methods (incl. XKDG)w/ 12 hr. video
"Practical Imperial Qi-men-Dun-Jia" w/ 10 hr. video
"Daoist Talismans for Feng Shui & Blessing" w/ 12 hr video
"Practical Door Feng Shui for Wealth" w/ 3 hr. video
"4-Pillars Forecasting Bootcamp" with 12 hr. video

http://www.kenlaifengshui.com/
http://kenlaifengshui.blogspot.com/ My Blog site_

The $250 Million question in forecasting (astrology)......

Lately, an old argument pops up in different discussion forums -- can astrology predict the life events (like marriage, sickness, accidents, wealth...) of a person?

This question used to be the million dollars question, but due to inflation and devaluation of U.S. dollar, it becomes a $250 million question.

There are two major perspectives on this question. First one is shared by those masters or practitioners who incline to wear the "scientific hat" in explaining things. I call them the "trendy guys".

The trendy guys said that astrological methods like 4P and ZWDS cannot really predict when someone marries, gives births, gets sick or dies and the likes. These methods just give a "trend" of someone's luck or the ups and downs of personal energy patterns.

The second camp is the "intuition guys". They will say "yes" to the question. Indeed you can predict life events of your clients to a certain extent PROVIDED the client and you (the astrological reader) have affinity or "feel" with each other. Simply put, if there is "click" between the two parties, the practitioner's intuition will make correct predictions.

"Hi Ken, which camp do you belong to? "

(Put on my "Ken Solomon" or smart-ass hat)

"I belong to both camps". When there is no "click" between me and the client, the reading becomes a "trend analysis". When there is affinity, whatever mumble jumbo I utter will fit perfectly, even when there are data errors!

Here is my $250 million to you, good enough to buy a loaf of bread in Zimbabwe.












Ken Lai

"Practical Date-Selection Methods (incl. XKDG) w/ 12 hr. video
"Practical Imperial Qi-men-Dun-Jia" w/ 10 hr. video
"Daoist Talismans for Feng Shui & Blessing" w/ 12 hr video
"Practical Door Feng Shui for Wealth" w/ 3 hr. video
"4-Pillars Forecasting Bootcamp" with 12 hr. video

4-Pillars: MORE or LESS pillars? (Pt. 2)

My last message talks about some people try to "expand" 4-Pillars to more pillars while others try to "shrink" it down to as little as "half" a pillar.


"HALF-PILLAR ASTROLOGY"
This is the most popular astrology in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan because it is easy to understand. In a way it is similar to the 12 constellations astrology that we read from newspapers.

This method simply uses the birth year animal of a person to make mostly annual and monthly predictions. So it is limited to 12 categories of luck profiles since there are only 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac.

There are variations of this method, such as adding a season to put more complexity into the prediction. This is like adding the birth season into the equation, so it raises its prediction power quite significantly.

Another variation, which is like adding another half-pillar from the back-door-- is taking into consideration of the birth year stem. For example, if one were born in ding-hai year (2007), then this person is a fire-pig. So suddenly, not all pig-persons are identical. There are water-pig, wood-pig, earth-pig, metal-pig and fire-pig. This increases the possible variations to 60!

"ONE-PILLAR ASTROLOGY"
This method drops 3 pillars out of the 4 pillars, taking only the day-pillar as center of reference. It does not look at 10-year and annual luck periods like standard 4P.

One may ask: You need to find out year and month pillar in order to get the day-pillar. Why not look at them at the same time?

There are 60 "jia-zi' or binomials in the Chinese 60-jia-zi time cycle, so there are 60 types of "variations" that can be cross-tabulated in terms of personalities, family relationships, fates and the like.

It exploits the "12 Life Stages" of 10 stems extensively.

One-Pillar astrology seems to have raise some interests in Taiwan lately.

It is not unusual to see people or teachers recycle old methods or emphasizes like 'shen-sha', 'na-yin', 'hexagrams' and the like to attract new students or buyers. It is like the fashion industry which recycles old designs after 30- 40 years.

What is hot today is likely picked up from historical garbage can and repackaged as top secrets or results from "new researches".

Well, time for a cup of tea... I will continue next time on more 4+ pillar tricks.


Ken Lai
http://www.kenlaifengshui.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10429370@N05/

4-Pillars: MORE or LESS pillars? (Pt. I)

4-Pillars astrology or Bazi (8-words) utilizes one's birth date and hour to make predictions on one's life events and fortune.

Basically 4P uses 5-elements theory, Yi-Jing and statistics to make predictions. What it tells you are just POTENTIALS, POSSIBILITIES and NOT certainties.

Some sensational teachers/ readers make 4P predictions sound as if they will happen for sure.

"You will have a serious accident next year!"

"Your husband will die next year!"

"You will never be able to conceive."

It is a questionable practice to tell clients as if disaster will strike for sure. Some street level fortune-tellers use this trick to get clients purchase more services or "fixes".

4P predictions are just "blue print" of one's life which are subject to changes due to Feng Shui, geography, individual class background, birth place imageries and individual determination and motivation.

The above may explain why there are over 100 babies born per hour in the world with identical 4P charts and yet they experience different life events and fate.

There have been attempts to expand 4-Pillars to 5-Pillars or even more.

There are also attempts to shrink 4-Pillars down to.... half a pillar!

To your surprise, "Half-pillar" actually is the most popular astrology in China.

Well, it is my nap time. I'll talk about these variations of "Pillars" next time.


Ken Lai
http://www.kenlaifengshui.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10429370@N05/