Fequently  Asked Questions

What is the difference between our element analysis vs Luck Pillars?

Basically, the 4 pillars of destiny report contains TWO PARTS:-

Part One as an analysis of a person's Year, Month, Day and Time of birth.

In ancient China and even today, whenever a child is born,  a parent would consult on their child's 8 characters derived from the 4 pillars i.e. his Year, Month, Day and Time.

This is to ultimately derive as accurately a person's exact element and compare this in relation to the `season' he is born.

The  first purpose of the report is to determine if a person is lacking any elements. For instance, when my brother was  born his 8 characters was not balanced and he lacked water.

In this situation, what was necessary was to include a water  element in his name. If you follow this, it means that you have 4 yin and 4 yang and in such a situation, your OVERALL  pillars are balanced. Based on such practices, you do not lack any elements.

I  give you another example, when i was born, my grandfather consulted and found that like you , I have 4 yin and 4 yang.  and thus I am also considered balanced. I was thus given  a name with `Tiong' or in hokkien means `centre'.

In addition to this, there are more uses to your element. For example if you are a person with weak wood in the FIRST  PART OF THE ANALYSIS (I am still at the first part and not  on the Luck Pillars)

As in the above example, we know that a person has weak wood, and if say he buys a house. Each house will have a central  element. If say the house element is wood, then it means  that the house is auspicious to him. Therefore, Feng Shui Masters also use the element derived from a person using  the Pillars of Destiny to COMPARE this with his home.

In normal situations, some Feng Shui practioners merely look  at a person's year of birth for example and then come to the conclusion that since a person is borth in the year  of the Water-Rabbit, his element is Water. However, as mentioned, the 4 pillars analyses all the 8 elements plus their yin  and yang element and come out with the most accurate element  of the person e.g. weak water, neutral water, strong water.

Here,  from the report you then understand that a person is of the Water element and then use the information such as:

1. Best colour : Blue, grey or black for person with Water  element.
2. Design of company logo e.g. wavy shapes.
3. More include, type of rings etc.
I hope you have a rough idea by now what the 4 pillars of  analysis is about and why you are analysed as 4 yin and  4 yang as balanced.

Luck pillars are different from the earlier 4 pillars analysis?

What it does is not to find out whether you have 4 balanced yin or yang but INSTEAD, compare your 10 year periods with the  actual 10 year periods.

For  example, it compares the luck period of every 10 years, in relation to the period you were born and comparing the  two to find out the good or even bad periods one should be cautious about during the various periods of life.

To clarify, one intresting reading are books written by Raymond Lo of Hong Kong. He looks at famous personalities and relate each of the 10 year periods with the ups and downs of such  personalities.

You  should take note that the first part of the report i.e. deriving your 4 yin and 4 yang SERVE another purpose and  as I mentioned, it is actually to find out whether how `balanced' are we and it is used for many purposes e.g.
1. for a child, to Find a `good' name
2. Use it to analyse a home and if there is a need for a cure or neutralising element, it is essential to know as accurate what a person's exact element is.
3. Other related `links' e.g. best colour, even best occupation, best logos etc.
4. Other more specialized use include best plants etc.

Contrast the above with the LUCK PILLARS. The luck pillars are used for looking at a person's life and luck in relation to the  period. It is more to look at one's health, prosperity and  luck.

Is the name important in the Pillars of Destiny calculation?

No,  the name keyed in is not used in the Pillars of Destiny calculation. The Pillars of Destiny calculation is based on the birthdate i.e. (Year, Month, Day and Time of birth).

What happens if I do not know the time of birth?

Ideally, it is best to know the time of birth but this is not compulsory  as we understand that some of us do not have this information.  A pillars of destiny Expert can by looking at a person's luck pillars and compare this with his/her personal life experience `work backwards' and accurately predict his time of birth. The most important information are a person's YEAR, MONTH and DAY of birth. With these three information,  an accurate prediction can still be made and this has been done by many Feng Shui Masters. Our software program currently requires you to input the TIME field, this would be revised  in the next version to cater to those who do not know this  information.

For  the calculations of Eight Characters of Birth Chart, we were asked for the time and day we are born. Question here is if we are born in different parts of the world, won't  the time and sometimes day be different due to the different  time zone around the world. So how are we supposed to put  in to ensure accurate readings?

No,  under the Pillars of Destiny system, there is no need to  calculate based on a certain time zone. This is the accepted  practice using the Pa zhi.

This is why, it is simple yet the most effective divinity method unlike western astrology.

For  example, many caculations under the Pillars of Destiny use  only one pillar e.g. Year. Some use Month while others use  Day of birth.

The  traditional Practice uses at least three meaning: Year, Month, Day and if necessary the Hour. However, the more  variables given the more accurate it will be.

Ask  any Pillars of Destiny expert and they can by looking at  a person's luck pillar and compare this to his life experence (usually at least 3 pillars are used) and the expert can easily deduce one's Hour Pillar.

Furthermore, lots of Pillars of Destiny experts do not take into the  time zone. For example, Raymond Lo, of Hong Kong who had  already written three Pillars of Destiny books from his examples in the book he does not take into time zone calculation of famous personalities e.g. Margaret Thacher, Elton John, Ronald Reagan, Saddam Hussien. and many many more.

How  accurate is the software?

After  developing the software, we went to a book store to find  books on Pillars of Destiny. For example, we bought a book by Evelyn Lip called Personalise your Feng Shui, Publisher  Times Books International and tried a few sample  reports and found that in Page 32 of the above book, her book stated Age 48 to 57 as yin WATER ELEMENT and  Age 58 to 67 as mao WATER ELEMENT which were wrongly printed  maybe due to a typo error. Both the two elements should  instead be WOOD.

An extract of a traditional Feng Shui assessment done by
a Feng Shui Master in 1932:-

However, the results that our software program calculated and analysed  for him provided accurate preditions of his past events especially his luck pillars. " Jokingly he said that  was why the report was never accurate! How he wished there was such a program then. "

We also used the program to analyse each of our family's Luck Pillar and found that indeed it matched our past events. Wow!

The  above reasons shows that on instances, for one reason or  another there could be errors made by human beings. As for  the program, we took the extra effort to go through the  source code line by line and countless hours were spent by several friends to separately verify the information. We also did extensive test calculations. The reason is because  for the Pillars of Destiny COMPUTATION  MUST BE DONE CORRECTLY. If the computation and analysis (especiallythe computation) was not done correctly, the  basis of the analyses undertaken will be flawed as shown by above two examples-.

Furthermore, some Feng Shui practioners only analyse the DAY Pillar and HOUR Pillar or the YEAR Pillar only. Some analyse all three pillars in relation to the stem of the DAY pillar or due to human nature forgot to compare certain pillars. The software  was designed to compare all EIGHT CHARACTERS in relation to the main DAY stem making it the most powerful program available.

How  often do I need to generate a Pillars of Destiny Report?

For  everyone of us, we only need to generate one report for LIFE!

The  EIGHT CHARACTERS alone is the most important fundamental  report as it forms the basis to interpret a person's entire life. In addition to this, the LUCK PILLARS is another report that comes with this. Don't be deceived by the COMPACTNESS of the whole report. Ask any Feng Shui practioner skilled in Pillars of Destiny and they can't give you more than  what is shown for both the Eight Characters and Luck Pillars.

Q. I'm puzzled as I've always thought & been told I am a  Water Rabbit, based on my YEAR Pillar. Can you explain? Also, I have lots of wood furniture, except my metal bed, plus some bronze figurines, some pottery and lots of books and mags. Would this be bad for my EARTH?

A. The best way to understand this is to quote Dr. Evelyn Lip's Book Personalise Your Feng Shui, Times Books International,  on Page 22, She wrote:-

"Some  geomancers treat the element of the essence of the binominal  as the principal factor assessing a person's horoscope. Others analyse only the and hour of birth, or only the year.  However, the traditional and most accurate way is to treat  the stem of the day of birth and the branches of the year, month and hour of birth as the principal factors."

In your full report, the purpose of the Pillars of Destiny  is to look at all Eight elements of a person: TWO elements in his Year of birth, TWO elements in his Month of birth,  TWO elements of his Day of birth and TWO elements in his Time of birth. The elements refered to are Water, Earth, Wood, Metal and Fire. This is to find out if a person has  too much of any one of the elements or too little or a good  balance. The philosophy behind Pillars of Destiny is harmony and balance of all the 5elements.

Therefore, taking only your year pillar and calling yourself a Water  Rabbit is not as accurate as using the Pillars of Destiny to compare all your eight elements combined to find your  true element i.e. NEUTRAL EARTH. Neutral earth simply means that all your elements are in balance and you do not `lack'  any other elements.

For  my case, based on the Pillars of Destiny, I have " NEUTRAL  WOOD " and that was why my grandfather after consulting  a Feng Shui Master gave me part of my name with " Tiong  " in it. This is a Hokkien dialect which means CENTER or  in balance.

What can we learn from this? Pillars of Destiny is one of the first report that we should have to determine our true element and whether it is in balance or out of balance e.g. excessive  Fire. This requires a controlling element such as Water when we plan our house renovations.

Is the report Free?

YES, the basic calculation for your chart is Free. However, it  does not include analysis of your Eight Characters. Most  Feng Shui practioners charge around US$68 for a report which  may or may not include the Luck pillars (10 year-by-year  report) and analysis of it.

Hi, I think program is not that accurate on the month. My birth date is 4 June 1962, time:1.38am but the month characters are wrong. It's not Ping Wu. Kindly check for me.

A. Currently there are two methods used to calculate the Pillars of Destiny:-

Method 1. Purely based on the Chinese Lunar Calendar System.

Method 2. Mixing the Xia Calendar (Month only) with Chinese Lunar New Year Calendar (Day and Year) and the Hour is derived from the Day calculation. Is like comparing an apple with an orange!

I believe what you meant by that is that you did a conversion of the month to the Xia Calender Month which should give you the month as "yi si".

 We have previously considered trying to use Method 2: Mixing the Xia Calendar (Month) with the Chinese Lunar New Year Calendar (Hour, Day and Year). But as you can notice it is like comparing an apple (Xia Month) with oranges (Lunar Hour, Day and Year)! This is flawed!

The problem with Method 2 is that when you do that is that you are using two different calendar dates standard to determine different pillars. Lunar Calender and Xia Calender are different in nature and therefore will provide you with different dates of birth. Under your Lunar Calendar your date of birth is 3 (chu san) 5 (May or wu yue) 1962. If you want to take into consideration Xia Calendar then your date of birth is 30 / 4 / 1962.

 If you were to take the way some Hong Kong Feng Shui practioners does their calculation such as taking 3 / 4 / 1962. (Lunar Day / Xia Month / Lunar Year). Do you know how many days the calendar differ? If you take Xia Month, it is 27 days and if you take Lunar Month it is 1 month apart.

 You cannot simply take two different calendar dates to perform a calculation for the Pillars of Destiny, if you do so it would result it an inaccurate calculation of the Pillars. If you want to take the Xia Calendar then you will have to Completely take the Xia Calendar calculation. However, the problem with the Xia Calendar is that it is as inaccurate as the Western Calendar in the fact that it uses a fix 30/31 days in the months. Which may at certain year fall short resulting in the existance of a Blind Year. However, the reason why it was used is Under your Lunar Calendar your date of birth is 3 (chu san) 5 (May or wu yue) 1962. If you want to take into consideration Xia Calendar then your date of birth is 30 / 4 / 1962.

We thus decide to stick purely to the Chinese Lunar Calendar System.

 Due to this, academic reasoning, the program calculated by us takes solely the use of Lunar Calendar (which is the most accurate defacto Chinese Calendar). This Calendar cannot be determined by normal calculation, which you need to refer to the Thousand Year Calendar book for the correct translation or use the calendar engine developed by Robert Lee of Geomancy-Online.com.

 Therefore, you see that under this reasoning, we have decided to stick to the Lunar Calendar results to generate the Pillars of Destiny. What matters at the end of the interpretation is that taking one set of Calendar System would result in the Elements for each Heavenly Stem and Earthly Stem to fall in sync for all the 4 Pillars. This would therefore, provide you with an interpretation that will take into account the harmony of the Balance of your Elements.

 Your month pillar is therefore "bing wu" and not "yi si". If you want to take "yi si" then your day and hour and year pillar will have to conform to the Xia Calendar. However, the Heavenly Stem and Animal Sign Symbols for the day, month, year conforms to the Lunar Calendar as such there is no conversion for the Xia Calendar, which is why we do not agree with that way of calculation which utilizes the Month Pillar or Month and Year Pillar to be calculated in Xia Calendar. Therefore Method 2 : using partial Xia and Lunar calendar is a flawed system without an academic basis. It is like comparing an apple with an orange.