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Bushi Zhengzong · The Orthodox Tradition of Divination
Distinguishing Fixed Six-Line Assignments
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Distinguishing Errors in Using the Six Lines for Various Divinations
The Rhapsody of Heaven's Mystery fixes examples for the various divinations by the six lines. Only three are somewhat near to reason: for affairs of state, the fifth line is the ruler's position; for a household, the second is the dwelling and the fifth the person; for a grave, the fifth and sixth are positions where qi ends. Yet these too should be judged by the Useful Spirit's generation, control, restraint and transformation.
For weather, childbearing, travelers, crops, undertakings, illness, trade, litigation, robbers, fighting, silkworms and mulberry, the six kinds of domestic animals, journeys, ghosts and spirits, and all the other fixed assignments, it never infers from that principle of the Useful Spirit. It decides good or ill solely from fixed examples, greatly losing the mystery of Prior Heaven.
For weather, for example, it makes the sixth line the sun and the fifth rain. Can clear or rainy weather really be decided from the fifth and sixth lines instead of Descendants and Parents? Again, it makes the first line the woman in labor and the second the pregnancy. Can their good or ill really be decided from the first and second lines, without examining the Useful Spirit for the woman or Descendants for the pregnancy?
The other errors cannot all be distinguished. I hope later students will examine them closely.
Reading note: The abbreviated 育 in the source's list is read through the childbirth and pregnancy example that follows; no additional divination category is supplied.
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