THREE STEPS · EIGHTEEN TOSSES · ONE READING
Ask. Shake. Read.
One question, six lines, eight birth characters. This page is the whole method: how the coins build a hexagram, and what is actually inside the BaZi report you receive.
The whole ritual
Three steps, in order
Nothing is hidden behind an account, a tutorial, or a loading screen. This is the entire sequence, and it takes about four minutes.
Ask
Name the question in one sentence. Not "what does my future hold" — something with edges: whether to take the offer, whether to keep waiting, whether this year is the year to move.
The wording matters more than people expect, because the reading answers the question you wrote, not the one you meant. Write it as a sentence you would say to a friend at midnight, then read it back once before you shake.
Shake
Six tosses, three coins each — eighteen falls in all. Each trio builds one line, starting from the bottom. Two heads and a tail give a solid line; two tails and a head give a broken one; three of a kind give a changing line.
You do the shaking. The randomness is drawn fresh for your reading and your six lines are recorded with the report, so the same question asked twice does not quietly return the same answer.
Read
You get two things. The hexagram you cast, read line by line against your question — plus the hexagram your changing lines turn into, which is where the movement shows. And a BaZi report from your birth data: your pillars, your day master, your wealth and partnership stars, and the twelve months ahead.
All of it in plain English, with the judgements stated rather than draped in atmosphere. If something is a bad idea this year, the report says so.
The casting, in detail
Three tosses make a line. Six lines make a hexagram.
The I Ching is not drawn, it is built — one line at a time, from the ground up. Here is an actual cast, tossed top-down as it would be printed.
Two changing lines in this cast — the reading covers both hexagrams and the movement between them.
Three coins fall. Two heads and one tail make a yang line, solid. Two tails and one head make a yin line, broken. When all three land the same way you get a changing line: an old yang that is about to become yin, or an old yin about to become yang. Those are the lines that carry the news. A hexagram with no changing lines describes a situation sitting still; one with two or three describes a situation in motion, and the second hexagram is the one you are walking towards.
Six lines, tossed from the bottom up, is the whole hexagram — one of sixty-four, each with its own name, image, and judgement. The bottom line is where the situation starts; the top line is what it becomes. Reading only the hexagram's summary and skipping the lines is like reading a letter's first sentence and then quoting it at length, which is why our readings work line by line.
We use coins rather than the older yarrow-stalk method because coins are reproducible for the reader: eighteen binary falls instead of a fifty-stalk division ritual. The probabilities differ slightly from yarrow — changing lines come up more often with coins — and after a few thousand castings we prefer that, because more movement means more to read. If you want the yarrow method, throw it yourself with real stalks and enter the six lines by hand; the reading engine takes them the same way.
One more thing worth stating plainly: we do not re-cast a question we do not like. Whatever the tube gives is what gets read.
What arrives
Inside the BaZi report
Seven sections, every time, in this order. Long enough to be specific, short enough to read on a train.
- 01The four pillars
Your year, month, day and hour of birth, each turned into a stem and a branch — eight characters in total. This is the spine of the report, and it is printed in full before anything is interpreted.
- 02Your day master
The one character that stands for you. Fire in a cold month reads differently from Fire in summer, and almost everything else in the report is measured from here.
- 03The ten gods
A vocabulary, not a pantheon. It names how the other characters relate to your day master: what feeds it, what drains it, what competes, what it produces. Translated into plain English, at length.
- 04Wealth and work
Your Direct and Indirect Wealth stars, whether they are supported or starved in your chart, and what that suggests about asking for money, moving jobs, or waiting.
- 05Love and partnership
Your spouse star and its position: where partnership sits in your chart, what it wants, and which habits of yours tend to close doors it has already opened.
- 06Your people
Parents, siblings, partners, children, rivals and benefactors — which positions in the chart they occupy, and what that has looked like so far.
- 07The twelve months
One page per month for the year ahead, written against your chart rather than against the calendar in general. This is the part people come back to in July.
Every report is written from your chart, not from a template with your name in the blanks.
The twelve-month axis
Your year, month by month
This is the part of the report people actually use. Each month is judged against your four pillars — when the year's element supports your day master, when it drains it, and when your wealth or partnership stars take the throne.
Wood at its weakest. Nothing to launch; use it to prepare the ask you make in February.
A window opens on the wealth side. Ask for the number rather than hinting at it.
Strong for money, thin for partnership — the month where your two readings disagree.
The clearest month of the year. Cast first, decide once, do not re-open the question.
Benefactor star active. Help arrives from someone senior if you let them know what you need.
Rivals at the year's edge. Say less in meetings than you normally would.
A holding month. Hold cash, hold your position, sign nothing new before the 20th.
Movement returns. Good for travel, relocation questions, and renegotiating anything stuck.
The third strong month. What you built in April is either paying now or was never built.
A testing month for the day master. Keep decisions reversible where you can.
The second door on the love side. Conversations you postponed in April come back around.
Close the year's business deliberately: pay what you owe, answer what you have been ignoring.
Sample months from one chart, abridged. In the bundle, love, money and fortune sit on the same row for each month.
That is the method
Six tosses, eighteen falls, one question
Nothing else is required of you: no account, no birth certificate, no belief. If the reading misses, fourteen days is enough to get your money back — see the FAQ.