the practitioner's oracle
The philosopher reads the judgment; the diviner reads the board. Hold one concrete question, toss three bronze coins six times, and watch the full apparatus assemble — branch, element, kin, spirit — until the answer has a name and an hour.
Three coins · six tosses · bottom line first
| 六神Spirit | 六親Kin | 干支Branch | 卦爻Line | 世應Pos | 變爻Changes to |
|---|
Six coin-tosses give only six lines — yin, yang, and which of them are moving. Everything else is dressed on by rule. Nothing here is invented for you; it is the same machinery a street diviner runs by hand.
Each of the eight trigrams carries a fixed run of earthly branches. Read the lower trigram up the first three lines, the upper trigram up the last three — and every line inherits a 地支 and, through it, one of the five elements.
The hexagram belongs to a palace, and the palace has an element — the self. Compare each line's element to it by generation and control: same is Sibling, what feeds the self is Parent, what the self feeds is Offspring, what conquers the self is Officer, what the self conquers is Wealth.
Which of the sixty-four you hold fixes the palace and its rank — original, first-world through fifth, wandering-soul, returning-soul. The rank plants the 世 line (you, the querent) and, three lines away, the 應 (the other party, the outcome).
The day's heavenly stem sets which of the six spirits sits on the bottom line; the rest stack upward — Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, Hook, Coiling Snake, White Tiger, Black Tortoise. They colour the tone of each line's affair.
Three heads or three tails make a line old — a moving line, marked ○ or ×. Every moving line flips to its opposite, and the six lines re-read as a second hexagram: the 變卦, where the matter is heading. The moving line's changed branch is dressed on beside it.
The question chooses one kin as the 用神 — the line that answers. Read whether it is present, strong on the day, moving, and how it stands to your 世 line; that is the verdict. Its branch names the hour: a month, a day, a season when it comes ripe.
京房's arrangement files all sixty-four under eight rulers — the doubled trigrams. From each ruler, flip the lines in a fixed order and eight hexagrams unfold, ending in a wandering soul and a soul returned. The ruler's element is the self against which every kin is measured.