Section 1 of 6 · 24 articles
Foundations of Yixue
Trigrams, yin-yang, the five phases, Qimen
Everything else here rests on this section. Before a chart can be read or a site judged, the system needs a vocabulary — and this school's vocabulary is not the one the popular books use. The ten stems and twelve branches are not mystical symbols. They are counters derived from astronomical observation, and they mark time and direction before they mark anything else. The five phases (wuxing, 五行) are not five substances but five states of movement, which is why a translation like “five elements” keeps producing nonsense.
Read in order, the first seven essays rebuild the stems and branches from their origin in sky observation. The next three take the five phases apart, including the question of whether the generating cycle is a theorem or something the tradition simply assumed. The middle block covers the two divination systems this school actually uses — Liuyao and Shenbing Qimen. The last essays are about the business of studying at all: what the school claims, what it refuses to claim, and why students of the Yijing keep getting cheated.
If you only read three: The Physical Nature of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, Is the Five-Element Sequence a Theorem or an Axiom?, and What Can Feng Shui and the Yijing Actually Predict?
The ten stems and twelve branches
Where they came from, what they count, and why they are not symbols.
- What Exactly Are the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches? (Part 1)
- What Exactly Are the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches? (Part 2)
- What Exactly Are the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches? (Part 3)
- What Is the Astronomical Origin of the Ten Heavenly Stems?
- What Is the Astronomical Origin of the Twelve Earthly Branches?
- What Is the Real Meaning of Yin and Yang in the Stems and Branches?
- How the Stems and Branches Generate and Control One Another
The five phases
Five states of movement — and the weak point in the generating cycle.
- Is the Sequence of the Five Elements a Theorem or an Axiom?
- What Do the Twelve Zodiac Animals Have to Do with the Earthly Branches?
- The Five-Element Properties of the Twenty-Four Compass Directions
Liuyao and Qimen
The two divination systems used here, and what makes one of them real.
- Why Do Students of the Yijing Keep Getting Cheated by the Masters?
- What Is the Physical Nature of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches?
- How Do You Read a Chart With Only One or Two Elements?
- How Do You Choose the "Yongshen" in Liuyao Divination?
- What Are the Movement Laws of the Harmonized Yin–Yang Qi in Feng Shui?
- Where Is the Truth in "Liuyao Prediction Theory"?
- Where Is the Real Theory of Liuyao Prediction?
- Shenbing Qimen Is the Real Qimen Dunjia — Every Other School Is a Jianghu Fake
- Is Qimen Dunjia the Feng Shui Master's Third Eye?
- Shenbing Qimen in Practice: Three Cases
Yin, yang and the taiji halo
The geometry behind the classic diagram, read from the ground up.
- What Exactly Is the "Taiji Halo"?
- Yin Dragons, Yang Dragons, the Open Face and the Taiji Halo
- What Can Feng Shui and the Yijing Actually Predict?
Studying the school
What this school is, and what it costs a student to learn it.