FAQ: Pillars of Destiny

Pillars of Destiny is also known as Eight Characters of Birth (Ba Zi) & Four Pillars (Si Zhu).

What is Pillars of Destiny?

It is an accurate fortune telling tool which is able to predict whether you are born with a fortunately life (living comfortably) or a poor and hard life. It uses your Date of Birth and Hour of Birth to generate a 8 characters using 4 heavenly stem (tian zhu) and 4 earthly branches (di zhu). With the 8 different characters many different readings can be performed to check for wealth, marriage etc.

Version 7 vs Version 8 report

There are currently two versions of the report on this site. The version 7 and version 8 version.

All free and limited reports only gain access to the limited report provided by version 7. Only paid users can access the version 8 reports.

What's the differences in the two version?

There are lots of difference in the two version. The version 7 is considered a basic reading of only 8 characters which consist only of 4 pillars. Each 1 pillar is made up of a Heavenly Stem and an Earthly Branch. This gives you a total of 8 pillars and a total of 8 elements.

The version 8 is the latest version of the Pillars of Destiny report which have two additional pillars called the house of conception and house of life. Two of the ancient pillars out of 4-6 more pillars (which such as death pillar etc.) However, many of the additional pillars are more towards yin feng shui (feng shui for the dead) or are no longer useful in modern days, so only the two pillars house of conception and house of life are used in our modern times.

This means that with the additional 2 pillars, there is now a total of 6 pillars giving you 12 characters 6 heavenly stem, and 6 earthly branch. This means that the your analysis will now be more accurate as there are now more chances of three element or two element combinations and clashes to take place. These combination and clashes often form new elements which can greatly change your element's birth strength.

In addition, due to improved analysis component, the system also is able to take detailed notes of not only combinations and clashes (found in version 7), but it is now able to take a full detailed combinations, joins, clashes, harms, punishment, and self punishments. Each of which has a different meaning and interpretation.

Differences in version 7 and version 8 element anlaysis

Version 7 element analysis is not wrong if it differs from the version 8, just that it is less accurate due to only 8 characters to analysis the details. So if there are difference in the element strength, we advise all users to take the version 8 element as the most accurate.

What has fortune telling have to do with Feng Shui?

Nothing at all. Fortune Telling is the art of predicting from some details the characteristics of a person, how many children he or she has etc. These has nothing to do with Feng Shui

So why is Pillars of Destiny still so important for Feng Shui

This is because Pillars of Destiny has TWO components. One is the fortune telling aspect (telling you about predictions) and the more important aspect of Personal Heavenly luck.

Feng Shui is has several luck factors, Heavenly Luck, Earthly Luck. The only tool that can provide the Heavenly Luck is the Pillars of Destiny, other tools such as Flying Star.

Everyone is supposed to be born with a specific heavenly luck that cannot be changed in anyway.

Thus, the Pillars of Destiny is to chart the heavenly luck of person, so that this information can be used to help you in Feng Shui analysis.

What does this mean?

This means that in order to relate to Feng Shui, every object (eg a house have to use the flying star theory to determine the various influence, a person have to use the  pillars of destiny theory to determine the various influence.)

Thus, the key factor which we are interested in for the Pillars of Destiny report is the heavenly influence of a person. Which is also the changing luck period of a person during different stages in his life.

So this is why our report DOES NOT focus on Fortune telling aspect but more on the changing influence in your life. And it is due to knowing these changing influence, that you can try to get the best of your life.

So we do not predict such thing as (number of children or age to get married.) Why? Simply because with the advances of Medical Science, even without if the chart predicts that a person will not have children, they can have it from a test tube baby etc. Even for marriage, if a person is determined to get a wife in say age of 30, but he rarely goes out, how is he to meet his future wife?

Lunar Calculation vs Seasonal (Xia) Calculation

There are two different methods of calculating the Pillars of Destiny. That is by using either the Lunar or Seasonal Calendar.

Geomancy.Net uses the Lunar method rather than the Seasonal Calendar. We DO NOT intend to support the use of the Seasonal Calendar even though we have already a Xia calculation module.

Why not? The answer is very simple. Most of the calculation or analysis done my many practitioner who have been greatly influence by the Hong Kong practitioners uses ONLY the Xia calendar. This calendar is used by them, because they often reference it for their daily calendar. And it is also easy to chart out the chart for the Xia only calendar as it is fixed to as close as the Solar Calendar (Western calendar). Every 30 days is considered one  month.

The lunar calendar however, it different as it uses the actual moon location to determine the month. Furthermore, the key difference in the two version lies mainly in the month pillar only. This means that the main difference lies with the actual date of birth being considered as one or one month forward.

By right, the Pillars of Destiny chart should consist of the actual month (lunar month) character rather then the brought forwarded month (xia month) character. Often, the difference in Lunar and Xia month days are considered missing dates which Xia month completely ignores.

This is wrong, as many advance technique to determine as this month in inauspicious for marriage for example references these missing dates. And if this is completely ignored, such analysis is completely inaccurate for people who fall within these period.

Furthermore, many of the other pillars and etc, often have another formula to convert to the Xia month for correct reference to the Seasonal influence. In the lunar method, these have to recalculated. However, in the Xia method, these are already convered. So it is easier to for the practitioners. All these are done at the expense of those who fall in the grey dates.

So due to these the key changes ends up in the Luck period analysis. We have found from our several thousands of testing, that the Lunar calendar and Xia calendar version have no difference except for those who fall in these grey periods. And for people who fall in these grey periods, the Lunar calendar method is very much more accurate then the Xia calendar.

Thus, for this purpose since our we are already using a computer to calculate the chart, we might as well make it more accurate with the complex calculation rather then using the quick and easy method. Thus, we stick by the use of Lunar rather than the Xia, and have made sure that we have completely stick to the original and traditional lunar method and rulesets.

Do we really need to take the location factor into account?

Well, it is said that if we do have the location factor, it will make it more accurate in the analysis.

However, personally, geomancy.net finds that this is absolutely not necessary.

Why? This is because if you really understand the Pillars of Destiny as we really do, there is no need to worry about the hour of birth.

Remember that most of the analysis done by the Pillars of Destiny is for 10-yearly, 5 yearly, and at most yearly. Normally, we do not recommend monthly analysis (although it is possible.)

So is there really a big difference if the chart is several hours off?

The Hour factor will help determine one of the additional pillars in the version 8. But does not have much additional effect on the version 7 report.

The hour pillars will provide 1 additional pillars to the day, hour and month. And it will to some extend have some effect on the final analysis of the strong or weak element. But that is the main key influence.

It does not influence the Month or year pillar all. And since it does not affect that two, which happens to be the deciding factor of the 10-yearly and yearly analysis. It has very little impact in terms of the final analysis, unless the element of hour pillar is determined to the change the basic element strength.

Pillars of Destiny was designed with the concept that it helps to chart your heavenly luck. And all that is really needed is the DAY, MONTH and YEAR. If these three pillars are inaccurate your entire analysis will be wrong.

The hour pillar, house of life and house of conception which is considered the additional pillars can be ignored and a basic analysis can still be done. So what these additional pillars do is to try to provide more accurate analysis, but is not 100% necessary. Thus, even if it miss a little, it will have little impact.

So should I take the GMT timezone into account?

Our answer is no. You should not take the GMT timezone (+0800) etc to adjust your date of birth. This is because due to the many simplification in the GMT timezone, it only takes into account a shift in one of the location factor in the world.

The more accurate way is to take the timezone in accordance with the moon location. However, for most cases, it is different to provide the actual location where you are born. Thus, if you provide an inaccurate location factor, you risk the chance of making the report LESS accurate thanNOT adjusting anything at all.

As mentioned, the initial pillars of destiny is already so flexible and forgiving in ignoring the hour of  birth, thus it has already put in some possibility of mistakes in the hour of birth. Thus, we feel that you can safely ignore or do not concentrate so much on this factor.

How can I use the Pillars of Destiny?

True Birth Element - The Pillars of Destiny is one of the Feng Shui Tools which can accurately determine you true birth element. This true birth element is constantly around various elements, seasons and people. When you are constantly surrounded by elements that are favourable to you, you will be in good luck.

Wealth Anlaysis - See if you are destined to be wealth or not! And also what elements in your life is considered your wealth deity. This is important as you can indirectly induce wealth into your life.

80 Year luck periods - Knowing which of the years are good for you, allows you to take advantage of it. For example, if in Period 3 (Age 30) you are in good luck, this means that if you want to start your own business, you will be able to do well etc. Or simply know when to and how to improve your life.

Yearly luck periods - Currently version 7 gives you each year's analysis of the pillars.

Clashes, Harms, Punishements in your Elements - Clashes in your elements, allow you to know in advance any disaster that may befall you and thus allowing you to do something to prevent or reduce the bad influences.

10 Deities - This allows for analysising your wealth, marriage, intelligence etc. For example, you can tell if you are wealthly or not.

More - Lots more of other uses which will be included in future versions of the Online Report.

Why is there a Computerized Report?

We know that the Pillars of Destiny contains lots of formulas and to analyse it in detail is a tedious task, so a computerized version is here to solve this problem.

Is there a free report?

Yes, there is a basic chart with limited analysis provided because this is Geomancy.Net - Centre for Feng Shui Research. It is to help those who do not know or want to analyse the charts themselves. However, it does not do a comprehensive analysis to the element strength nor does it provide an accurate analysis as compared to a full paid version.

Why is there a paid report?

It is not cheap to put up servers on the internet. So the payment will help us maintain these tools and forum for your benefit.

There are two version of the paid report a standard and a premium version.

Generate a free limited version of the report at My FengShui

© Robert Lee
Sunday, 18 Mar, 2001