The Problem Is Not Only the System but the People Interpreting It

One thing I’ve learned is this: beware of practitioners who cling to ancient Classics without ever questioning them. The common argument is, “If the Classics were wrong, they wouldn’t have survived until today.” But longevity doesn’t automatically equal accuracy. It just means people kept copying the text.

I’m not saying the Classics are 100% wrong. I’m saying that many modern practitioners today have an accuracy rate closer to 50 to 60 percent, yet they act as if every line from thousands of years ago must be infallible.

Ancient people got many things wrong simply because they didn’t have the scientific tools we have today. For example:

• Sleep paralysis was interpreted as “a ghost sitting on your chest.” Today, we know it is a neurological phenomenon.

• Villagers getting sick was blamed on “evil spirits invading the land.” In reality, the water was contaminated with bacteria.

So if ancient people misunderstood basic health events, how much can we blindly rely on their metaphysical interpretations without applying modern critical thinking?

Some rules in BaZi are just arbitrary. Practitioners say you must marry someone who is at least three years older to mitigate bad stars. What if the person is only two years and eleven months older? Do they not qualify because they are short by a single month? How did ancient people even come up with these numbers? Did they have a meeting with the deities and ask for confirmation? People like to make it mystical, but humans thousands of years ago were the same as humans today. The only difference is that the ancients lived in a more primitive environment. If deities truly appeared to set the rules behind these systems, then deities should also be able to appear today to correct or improve them.

Every Chinese hour represents a two-hour window, for example 9 am to 11 am is si 巳 hour and 11 am to 1 pm is wu 午 hour. The idea that the exact two-hour window you were born in determines your entire chart does not make sense either. Do the energy switches on and off exactly on the hour? If you step into a different hour by a minute, your chart and life can be drastically different.

Qi is supposed to gradually transition in. This is the premise behind 流年流月逼進法. Then it is not unreasonable to think the qi at the beginning of a window resembles the previous hour, while the qi at the end of the window resembles the next one. It is like sunset. If sunset is at 6 pm, at 5:05 you still have plenty of light, and at 6:55 the environment is completely different even though both times fall within one labeled period.

Modern conception also affects accuracy. In the old days it was normal for a woman to continuously give birth to ten or more children. The emotional, financial and health consequences are completely different from today, yet the system assumes the same life for everyone.

So if these rules and assumptions are this arbitrary and inconsistent, why does no practitioner ever question them? Why do they continue to teach and sell these ideas as if they were absolute truth? The system itself has obvious gaps, yet practitioners act as though nothing is amiss. They quote rules, defend ancient texts, and insist on precision, all while never examining whether the logic makes sense or matches reality.

Another red flag is practitioners who loudly declare how “talented” they are and, in particular, say they are out to make a lot more. Some of them are already able to make far more per hour than professionals with years of education and experience, yet they are still not content. And if their main goal is making a lot more, then what does that make their clients? Walking dollar signs.

Astrology readings often reflect sampling bias. Practitioners mostly see people facing challenges, and their “accuracy” depends on correct cultural assumptions. That is why they tend to prefer clients from their own country. It is easier for them to guess correctly. They charge an extra overseas fee too, which is way beyond any reasonable foreign currency conversion cost. There is no real reason for it. I’m not completely dismissing metaphysics, but practitioners with truly high accuracy are extremely rare. There may be more accurate ones, but are they practicing or should they even be practicing? There is a saying, 天機不可泄漏 (heaven’s secrets cannot be revealed), for a reason. In Chinese metaphysics, it is said all grand masters have suffered a painful death. Example 徐子平, the creator of Zi Ping Ba Zi system, went mad. Most practitioners today are around 60 percent at best, and there are many charlatans out there.

Here’s a real example of how interpretations can go wrong.

Hour Day Month Year

壬Ren 甲Jia 丙Bing 辛 Xin

申Shen 辰Chen 申Shen 巳Si

This male has been interpreted by a practitioner as a weak Jia day master with too much power, meaning too much metal, conquering him. It is said his father dominates the mother because the element in the month stem, which represents the father in the parent palace, controls the element in the month branch, which represents the mother.

But then the month stem Bing also combines with the year stem Xin, another metal element he supposedly controls, and that is interpreted as a girlfriend. If you apply the same logic, wouldn’t Shen also be combining with Si? By that reasoning, you could even say the mother has a boyfriend outside the marriage because her position combines with an element that controls her. But of course, no one would ever interpret it that way.

Some of these interpretations are honestly just guesses. It is like reading tea leaves. You can say the leaves look like an elephant with a trunk or a tank with a cannon, and those are completely different things. Then people build a story around whichever image they think they see.

I also notice this pattern where if a chart has a lot of peer elements, practitioners will say that for a woman it means competition in love, and for a man it means he competes for money but not for love. Somehow the woman always ends up getting the short end of the stick in relationships. But whether peer elements are good or bad depends on whether the day master is strong or weak. So this is not always true.

I have also seen the opposite case. A woman had multiple power stars, including both direct officer and seven killings, which usually means she will have many partners. But she has only been with one man her entire life. Her husband, who has a very weak wealth element, is the one who is unfaithful. He doesn’t even have prominent peach blossom in his chart. His day master is strong with many peer elements, so based on textbook interpretation, he should be the one facing a lot of competition for his wealth element, which also represents his wife. Instead, his wife is loyal, and he is the one drawn to flirty women who are not loyal.

The personalities of the stems are also generalized. Not all Jia are kind, not all Bing are outgoing or have many friends, not all Wu are faithful, and not all Ji are slim and intellectual. These are stereotypes, not absolute truths.

The takeaway: the system has gaps, the interpretations can be biased, and many practitioners sell certainty where there is none. Critical thinking is essential if you want to make sense of any BaZi reading.