How Do You Choose the "Yongshen" in Liuyao Divination?

Translator's note. In liuyao (six-line divination), the yongshen — the “useful god,” the line that carries the answer — is the single most consequential choice a reader makes. This piece argues that the choice is not dictated by the subject (“a question about money”) but by the exact point of inquiry (“will I get this debt back from this particular person”). The two long enumerations in the original are reproduced here as a table; the remaining four of the Six Relations (Parents, Siblings, Offspring, and the Subject/Object lines) run the same way and the author defers them to other essays. The tone in the middle section is his usual: he does not soften it, and neither have we.

This question may surprise many students of the Yijing. But here is the objective fact: in practice, at least 40% of wrong hexagram readings are wrong because the yongshen was chosen incorrectly. Fewer than 10% fail because the reading theory itself is defective or the reasoning went astray.

Which means: whatever school of liuyao you have studied, if you can choose the yongshen correctly 100% of the time, your error rate drops by at least half, immediately.

Choosing the yongshen in divination is the same as a doctor locating the lesion. If you have located the wrong lesion, the most advanced medical technology in the world is wasted.

So how do you choose it?

1. First, fix what each of the Six Relations means in each kind of inquiry

The matter asked about	Wife–Wealth (qicai) represents	Officer–Ghost (guangui) represents
Borrowing, debt collection, trade	Money	Officials, organisations, superiors
Working for wages, earning with no capital	Money	The job; the customer
A man asking about marriage	A woman he has already been intimate with	—
A woman asking about marriage	—	A man she has already been intimate with
Lawsuits and litigation	The merits of the case; also money	The merits; also law enforcement
A job	Wages and benefits	The position itself
Official career	Whether others will extort money from you	Officialdom, the post, superiors
School admission	Not studying hard; weak ability	The school; people with power
An examination	Mistakes	Ability
Travel	Funds	Mishap, inauspiciousness, hardship
Signing a contract	Whether there is financial resistance	Traps, schemes, officialdom
Imprisonment	Whether money is being used to trade	Prison, punishment, the police and courts

The other four — Parents, Siblings, Offspring, and the Subject and Object lines — work the same way; the author treats them in other essays.

Only once you know what each of the Six Relations means in each specific type of inquiry can you analyse a hexagram against a clearly defined question — and only then can you deliver the verdict on the spot (tiekou zhiduan, literally “iron mouth, direct judgement”: the old term for an answer given without hedging).

Work only from the stock meanings listed in traditional liuyao textbooks, and you will never get there.

2. Second, determine the yongshen from the querent's actual point of inquiry

When someone comes to you, you must establish what they are actually asking. Only a clearly defined point of inquiry lets you choose the right yongshen, and only the right yongshen lets you read accurately.

Take a student who has just sat the university entrance exam and asks whether he will get in this year. If you fail to establish his point of inquiry and simply take Officer–Ghost, Parents and the Subject line as the yongshen, your accuracy on that reading is about 30%.

Why?

Case one: he is a weak student. With Officer–Ghost, Parents and Subject, you have about a 50% chance of being right. Why only 50%? Because this student is in fact planning to pay his way into a private university — any university at all, as long as he can get in by paying. Under that point of inquiry, your accuracy is 100%. But if he has already decided he will pay his way into one specific university and will go nowhere else, then under that point of inquiry your accuracy is 50% — because what he is actually asking is “can I buy my way into this university,” and under that reading the yongshen is primarily the Subject line and the Object line. Officer–Ghost and Parents have lost their function as yongshen entirely.

Under that point of inquiry, once you have worked out the relationship between Subject and Object against the month pillar, day pillar, moving lines and transformed lines, the conclusion — in or out — is unambiguous. And so is the reason for it, derived from those same relationships read through the meanings of the Six Relations.

Case two: he is an outstanding student. Now taking Officer–Ghost, Parents and Subject as yongshen is pure fabrication. Why? Because for this student, getting into a university was never in question. The question is which one. He appears to ask “will I get in”; he is actually asking “will I get into this particular university.” Under that point of inquiry you need only Subject and Object. There is no reason whatever to take Officer–Ghost and Parents.

At this point some “master” will ask, with what he imagines is devastating logic: so when you read for someone, do you have to interrogate them about their point of inquiry first?

If you are the sort of person who asks that question, the answer is that you are not worth discussing and your thinking is pitiful. Because you never need to ask. What you do is tell the querent: “If what you are asking is 'any university, as long as I get in,' then this hexagram says yes (or no). If what you are asking is 'this one specific university,' then this hexagram says yes (or no).” You hand over both readings. It costs you one extra pass over the hexagram. As for the student, he knows what he was thinking when he shook the coins. You never have to ask him.

To do that, of course, the reader must know how many distinct points of inquiry exist within each kind of matter — otherwise accurate reading is impossible.

Take money. Someone asks about their finances. The possible points of inquiry: Can I collect that debt from that person? Can I earn by taking a job? Can I get this loan approved? Can I get rich gambling or buying lottery tickets? Can I make money partnering with someone in business? And so on.

If the querent does not tell you which, you have to run the hexagram through each point of inquiry in turn — different point, different yongshen — and then report each result.

And even when he has told you “I'm going to ask for a loan, or collect a debt,” there is still the question of from whom — a parent, a sibling, a child, a financial institution, an official body. Borrowing from an elder makes Parents a yongshen too. Borrowing from a bank makes Officer–Ghost one. Borrowing from a junior makes Offspring one.

Even “I'm going out to work for wages” splits: has he already fixed on a particular place and employer (in which case the Object line is a major yongshen), or is he merely going out with no destination yet (in which case the Object line is irrelevant)?

Liuyao divination is therefore a precise science — a science of tight reasoning, and a science that requires the reader to understand how human affairs actually work.

Choose the yongshen by knowing what the Six Relations mean in each kind of inquiry, and by holding tightly to the actual point of inquiry. Grasp those two things and you will choose the yongshen correctly every time, raise your accuracy sharply, and reach the on-the-spot verdict quickly.