Stars, gates and spirits
A Qi Men Dun Jia plate is cast for a moment rather than for a person. It divides that moment into nine palaces, and each palace carries a star, a gate and a spirit. These are the 25 components those three layers are drawn from.
The three layers
Computed · 3 familiesThe nine stars 九星
9 entriesThe eight gates 八門
8 entriesThe eight spirits 八神
8 entriesHow a plate is built
Nine palaces, laid out in the classical square. Each one takes a star, a gate and a spirit, plus the stems that sit on it. The centre palace is the exception: it carries no gate, which is why there are nine stars and only eight gates.
The stars and gates each belong to a home palace and carry that palace's element. The spirits belong to none, and turn with the Chief on every cast. That difference is most of what separates the three layers.
Every cast carries all of them
A plate is a permutation, not a selection. Every one of these 25 components is present on every plate ever cast, so nothing here is rare and nothing is a find.
What a reading looks at is arrangement: which component landed on the palace the question is being read from, and what is sitting with it. That is also why several of these names are dramatic and none of them is a verdict. A component name is a fixed structural label; the line beside it describes ground, and is written never to address the reader.
What a plate is actually asked
Tier A · 元靈經 占 chaptersQi Men Dun Jia is not a general life reading and it is not about your character. It answers one ordinary question at a time, about something already in motion, and it is at its most useful when the question is small and specific. The classical manuals are organised the same way: 奇門遁甲元靈經 gives each kind of question its own chapter. These five are the ones this practice reads.
An opportunity already in front of you: a job offer, a deal, a client, a price. Whether the timing supports going after it, and what the going looks like.
- Should I take the offer, or hold out?
- Is this the right week to put the price up?
Something submitted and now out of your hands. Whether the answer comes quickly or slowly, and whether chasing it moves anything.
- Has my application actually gone anywhere?
- Do I follow up now, or leave it?
A person expected, travelling or overdue. Whether they arrive, and what the hold-up is made of if they do not.
- Is the contractor going to show on Thursday?
- Will they get back to me, or has this gone quiet for good?
Something mislaid or owed and not coming back on its own. Whether it returns, and which direction it went.
- Is the deposit ever coming back?
- Did I lose it, or did it go somewhere?
A commitment being formed or considered. Read for the quality of the timing around it, never for a verdict on the other person.
- Is now a sensible time to make it official?
- Why does this keep stalling at the same point?
The classical manuals also cover date selection, choosing a window for a wedding or an opening rather than reading one already chosen. 奇門遁甲秘笈大全 carries those 用事 chapters. This practice has the plate engine for it and has not shipped a date-selection reading, because the method is still being validated against an independent reference.
Four kinds of question are refused outright, before a plate is even cast: anything about illness or recovery, anything about death or how long someone has, anything about pregnancy or conception, and anything about a legal case or settlement. That screen runs on the raw wording of the question, and it is not a matter of taste. Those are decisions that belong with a doctor, a lawyer or a person, and a diagram is not a second opinion on any of them.
A plate cast for your own question
Draw your four pillars free →These pages describe the components. A reading casts the plate for the moment you asked, places you on it by your own birth element, and reads the palace you are standing in rather than handing you a diagram.
Still working out which system answers your question? How Qi Men Dun Jia works
Method and sources
Every component on these pages is computed from the same tables the readings use, and each meaning is the line a delivered document prints for that component, so the vocabulary here and the vocabulary in a reading are the same. The correspondences follow the classical sources listed below.
Read against the classical plate, gate and star correspondences:
- 奇門遁甲秘笈大全 Qimen Dunjia Miji Daquan The Complete Secret Manual of Qi Men Dun Jia, the 八門, 九星 and 八神 correspondences
- 奇門遁甲元靈經 Qimen Dunjia Yuanlingjing The Original Spirit Classic
- 遁甲演義 Dunjia Yanyi An Exposition of Dunjia
- 煙波釣叟歌 Yanbo Diaosou Ge Song of the Old Fisherman