Two Reasons a Correct Reading Gets Rejected

Translator's note. Perhaps the most practical essay in the Bazi corpus, and the one that explains a paradox every reader knows: a reading that is theoretically correct is denied by the client, while a reading that is obviously wrong is accepted. The cause is vocabulary. Nine terms are defined here — what “making money” actually means, what counts as “loss,” what “imprisonment” covers — so that reader and client are talking about the same thing. The anecdote about the woman master who promised a prefectural bureau chief a promotion to county magistrate is worth the whole essay.

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Chinese bazi has a long history and, through reform and correction, has developed a fairly complete body of predictive theory; its accuracy has reached a certain height. Yet in practice many students report a strange phenomenon: the theory is right, the derivation is sound, the prediction is accurate — and the client says it is wrong. The theory is wrong, the derivation is wrong, the reader himself feels it is inaccurate — and the client says it is right. The masters cannot understand this.

Survey the whole of fate theory and you find that every predictive art is concerned only with the precision of technique, and every master polishes only technique. Almost nobody examines the most basic thing of all: the intension and extension of the terms. Still less does anyone examine, from the core nature of prediction, what those terms essentially mean as predictive information. Fail to understand that, and it damages not only our thinking about theory but directly obstructs communication between reader and client.

So, and in thanks for more than ten years of support, I will set out in full what these terms essentially mean in fate studies. Once you understand it — whether you use the Lü-school bazi or traditional bazi — your accuracy will rise substantially.

1. Making money. In fate studies this means, within a given period, income exceeding expenditure. It includes borrowing money and collecting old debts: so long as less goes out than comes in, that is information of making money. Ordinary people do not think borrowing or collecting old debts counts as making money; they think only profit, winnings and gifts do. And they do not know the principle that within a period, income greater than expenditure is making money. In fact even the top masters at home and abroad do not understand this. Their books and courses play guerrilla warfare with students, exploiting precisely this divergence in what a term means. So any master who writes or teaches without first making clear the essential meaning of these terms is open to the charge of deception; any reader who predicts without first making clear what a term means is open to the same charge. Make it clear before you give the result, and if your theory is right you will be a hundred per cent accurate; if your theory is wrong, you will not.

2. Losing money. In fate studies this means, within a given period, expenditure exceeding income. It includes benign loss — lending money to others, buying a house or land, buying a car, investing, marriage expenses, schooling, money earned but not collected because the debtor wrote an IOU, donations, business investment — and malignant loss: fire, flood, burial, injury or illness expenses, theft, fraud, economic loss of animals or crops, compensation paid to others. So long as more money goes out than comes in within the period, that is information of loss. But ordinary people do not count benign loss as loss; they count only malignant loss. And they certainly do not understand that real loss means expenditure exceeding income. That gap is exactly what gives masters and readers their chance to deceive. When they misread information of making money as loss, the student or client says: “Quite right, I lost a chicken last year, and three apple trees died” — while his income for the year was thirty thousand yuan. What do you make of such a reading? Objectively, that is “he suffered a loss last year,” not “he lost money.” Read it as loss and every major enterprise, every big boss, every great merchant is losing money every year and never makes any, because who among those who do big things is not extorted from, or forced to spend tens of thousands, millions, even tens of millions, every month and every year? Is that not the same as the ordinary man's chicken and three trees? Real loss in fate studies means expenditure exceeding income. “Losing money” and “having suffered a loss” are essentially different. Masters must stop using the latter to deceive people.

3. Promotion. In fate studies this means advancement in post and development in career. It includes promotion in professional title, career development, a student's progress, success in examinations, winning awards, taking up a post, entering work, expansion of the scope of one's authority, a transfer without change of rank from a small or poor unit in a small place to a big or good unit in a big place, from countryside to city; a change of post for a career man whose life is otherwise unremarkable; ordinary progress at work — a driver trading an old car for a good one, a teacher moved from teaching to logistics, a teacher moved from a lower grade or a minor subject to a higher grade or a main subject, a teacher moving from being undervalued to being valued. Anything the ordinary public recognises as “getting better” in work or career is information of promotion.

4. Demotion. In fate studies this means decline in post, setback in career. It includes failing to obtain a title, failing an examination, falling behind in study, a transfer without change of rank from a big or good unit in a big place to a small or bad unit in a small place, leaving or being removed from a post, going from being valued to being ignored, transfer from city to countryside without change of rank, a career man moving from a good position to a poor one, criticism by a superior and regression at work. Anything the public recognises as “getting worse” in work is information of demotion.

5. Injury, illness and disaster. In fate studies this means bodily injury and illness, and psychological injury and illness. Most masters and most ordinary people think only bodily injury and illness count. But the information includes psychological trauma. The clearest proof: mental illness is injury and illness. If a child develops cancer, the psychological blow to the parents is also information of injury and illness in the parents' charts. Any scar left on the body, whatever its size, and any remembered grief, is information of injury and illness. An ordinary cold is not; but a cold that drags on and will not clear, or that brings on other illness, is. The sudden relapse or worsening of a chronic disease that has long resisted treatment is also information of injury and illness. For example, a man with chronic bronchitis that did not suddenly worsen in the previous period had, in that period, no information of injury and illness; if it suddenly worsens in the next period, then that period contains the information. Because in fate studies we can only determine that there is such information, and cannot quantify how great it is, we very often read correctly and are told we are wrong. That happens because the essential meaning of the term was never explained before the result was given.

6. Lawsuits and disputes. In fate studies this means litigation, quarrels and rows, blows and brawls, being attacked by others' rumours, being criticised and censured by a superior, being exposed by the media.

7. Imprisonment. In fate studies this means being sentenced, arrested, detained, held hostage, bedridden by paralysis, under residential surveillance, released on bail pending trial, staying at home for a long time voluntarily or involuntarily without going out of the gate (which is also one method of averting disaster), and so on. Most masters and clients think imprisonment means only arrest, sentence or detention. But the information also covers the voluntary or involuntary loss of physical freedom, and the voluntary or involuntary loss of psychological freedom — a criminal who flees to escape punishment may still be physically free, but psychologically he has already lost his freedom. That is why, from a fugitive's chart, we can accurately determine when he committed the crime: from that moment his mind lost its freedom. In adolescence and old age it also means being closed in on oneself and not communicating with others. So before giving the result you must make clear what imprisonment essentially means, or you will have the situation where you read correctly and the client says you did not.

8. Information of marriage. In fate studies this means marriage, cohabitation, the appearance of a lover, a marital relation suddenly improving from bad, or reunion and cohabitation after a long separation. In adolescence or old age it also means obtaining a beloved pet or toy.

9. Information of marital disaster. In fate studies this means divorce, separation, long separation for work or other reasons, breaking up with a lover, a marital relation suddenly deteriorating from good, or the death of a spouse. In adolescence or old age it also means losing a beloved pet or toy.

Beyond all this there is one further and especially important reason for inaccuracy: the failure to join predictive theory tightly to the actual circumstances of the matter the client is asking about. Not knowing the human and practical logic of the matter, the reader may be theoretically accurate and still say the wrong thing.

A friend of mine took a woman master from Hebei, now practising professionally in Beijing, to Lüliang in Shanxi to read the official fortune of a bureau chief in a prefectural unit. The master determined that the leader would be promoted next year. The leader asked: promoted to what? The master said: to county magistrate. The leader said nothing more, and my friend was half dead with rage. Why? Because a bureau chief in a prefectural unit is, in the ladder of promotion, at least three grades above a county magistrate — a county party secretary who moves back to a prefectural bureau generally gets only a deputy bureau post. Not knowing how the official system works made the reading a total failure.

From which we should understand: however high and accurate your technique, if you do not understand the logic of human affairs in real life, your reading will not only fail to win the client's acceptance but may produce an absurdity like this one.

In study, in research, in practice — never follow blindly the masters' advertising and classroom talk, delivered off the top of their heads. Have some thoughts of your own. Ask a few more whys. Ask whether the human logic of real life matches the masters' boasting. If you do not think for yourself, being taken in is only a matter of time. And once you understand the essential meaning of these terms, the answers to “what kind of bazi theory is scientific and survives practice” and “whether a school that never studies basic theory can survive practice” become self-evident.