Learn
The tradition, explained
Four short primers on where these ideas come from and where their limits are. We treat them as a lens for understanding yourself, not a prediction tool.
BaZi What is BaZi? The Four Pillars, where they come from and where they stop BaZi, or the Four Pillars, writes your birth year, month, day and hour as four pairs of characters. Here is where it comes from, how a chart is built, and what it can and cannot tell you. 4 min read Zi Wei Dou Shu What is Zi Wei Dou Shu? Twelve palaces and fourteen main stars, explained Zi Wei Dou Shu maps a person onto twelve palaces and a set of symbolic stars. This primer covers how it differs from BaZi, how a chart is structured, and how to read it as a second lens. 3 min read Five elements What are the five elements? Why wood, fire, earth, metal and water are not materials The five elements, or Wu Xing, are better understood as five phases of change than five substances. This explainer covers the generating and controlling cycles and what the element balance means in Knowfive. 3 min read Day Master What is a Day Master? Where the ten Eastern personality types come from The Day Master is the heavenly stem of your birth day and stands for "you" in a BaZi chart. Here is what each of the ten stems evokes and why Knowfive uses them to define ten personality types. 4 min read
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