Bronze I Ching coins, yarrow stalks and a carved Bagua plate

03 — Chinese Divination

Four Pillars. Read properly.

BaZi works from the year, month, day and hour you were born — the four pillars your chart is built on. Enter them below, leave your email, and your practitioner will write the reading back to you. No appointment to arrange first.

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Enter your details

Date, hour and place of birth, plus your gender — the luck pillars turn on it.
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That is where the reading goes. Nothing is published, sold or shared.
Receive the reading

The four pillars, the element balance, and the decade-by-decade outlook, in writing.

Birth details

Build my four pillars

Fields marked with * are required. The hour is what separates three pillars from four, so give it if you can — a birth record is the best source.

Full name *

Email address *

Date of birth *

Hour of birth I don't know my hour of birth

Place of birth *

Gender, for the luck pillars *

What should the reading look at? (optional)

I understand that FateHalo readings are provided for entertainment and self-reflection, and are not medical, legal, financial or psychological advice. *

Your reading is written by a person, not generated.

Thank you, there — your birth details are ready to send.

This site is served as static files, so nothing is uploaded to a server. A pre-filled message has been prepared for support@fatehalo.com — press send in your mail app and your practitioner will start on the pillars. If nothing opened, open the message here or write to support@fatehalo.com and paste your details in.

What you need

Date of birth — this gives the year, month and day pillars.
Hour of birth — the fourth pillar. Chinese double-hours are two hours wide, so approximate is often enough.
Place of birth — used for the true solar time correction.
Gender — the luck pillars run forwards or backwards depending on it.

What arrives

A written reading by email: the four pillars, which of the five elements carry the chart and which are missing, the ten-year luck cycles, and one follow-up question included.

Compare with the Western chart

The four pillars

Year, month, day, hour

Each pillar is a pair: one of ten heavenly stems above, one of twelve earthly branches below. Together they describe the element structure a life is built on.

年

Year pillar

Ancestry, early environment and the background you inherit. It changes at Li Chun, not at New Year.

月

Month pillar

The strongest pillar in most charts: parents, career field, and the season the chart was born into.

日

Day pillar

The day stem is you — your own nature. The day branch describes the marriage palace and your closest bond.

时

Hour pillar

Children, later life and what you are building towards. This is the pillar that needs your hour of birth.

Before you start

Chinese divination questions

New Year tables use the lunar New Year; BaZi uses Li Chun, the start of spring, which falls around 4 February. If you were born between those two dates the pillar is the previous year's. Our preliminary readout already applies that rule.

We read three pillars instead of four. A great deal is still legible — the element balance, the season, the day master — but the hour pillar and part of the later-life picture stay open. Chinese double-hours are two hours wide, so an approximate memory is often enough.

The ten-year luck cycles run forwards from the month pillar for one gender and backwards for the other — classical practice, not a judgement about you. Without it the timing of the cycles cannot be placed.

Yes — mention it in the question box when you send your details, or write to the studio directly. The method is chosen to fit the question rather than the other way round.

See the other two traditions