I am a male, born on December 17, 1957, at 7.15am. My birth month should be a rat month, whilst your online report says it's Pig month. Because yours says mine is pig month, the whole 8 pillars are not the same as what I've learned. I've also double checked with 100 years chinese calendar. It is also states clearly that it's a rat month. Therefore, it would be greatly appreciated if you could explain to me upon this matter.

Let me put it this way (Ignore the hour pillar):-

Solar Calendar : Year (1957), Month (12), Day (17)
Xia Calendar : Year (1957) - ding you, Month (11) - ren zi , Day (20) - ren shen
Lunar Calendar : Year (1957) ding you, Month (10) - gui hai, Day (26) - gui hai
Lunar Calendar for Xia Date : Year (1957) - ding you, Month (11) - ren zi, Day (6) - ren shen

I believe you are using Xia month for your deduction, am I right?

This means that what you have gotten is Year (Lunar 1957) - ding you, Month (Xia 11) ren zi, and Day (Lunar 26) - gui hai, am I right?

Look at the date yourself, how can you use Year and Day using Lunar Calendar, and Month using Xia calendar? Is this a correct date format?

If you want to use Xia calendar and your have deduced the Lunar Calendar for Xia Date as Year (1957) - ding you, Month (11) - ren zi, Day (6) - ren shen, I will still agree with you this is also acceptable, but is not the authentic tradtional method for calculating the 4 Pillars.

Why? Dates in the Lunar Calendar follows the 12 x 10 cycles forming 120 different signs for each year, month, day and hour. So long as your chart is consistent and follow a single conversion, no matter how different the day and month pillar, they still follow the proper Heavenly Stem, and Earthly Branches movement in the dates.

If you use Year (Lunar 1957) ding you, Month (Xia 11) - ren zi, Day (Lunar 26) - gui hai? Then what kind of calendar date are you following? It is just like saying I will take Year (Lunar 1957), Month (Solar 12) - gui chou, Day (Lunar 26) - gui hai. Ask yourself is this correct?

What I have showed you is based on months of research. Furthermore, we have found that in the traditional method used by many masters from Taiwan who uses traditional method, also uses full lunar for deduction and is able to predict accurately due to the fact that they use a consistent calendar date format. In which the yearly, monthly, daily, hourily combinations for the heavenly stem and earthly branches move along with the Lunar Date.

Another issue which was discovered was that it is very hard to calculate Lunar Date, but Xia date is easy to determine as it is almost similar to Solar Date, which does not provide a true chinese lunar combination of heavenly stem and earthly branches which is based on the lunar day.

I will let you decide for yourself which is right and which is incorrect. All I can say is that the version which we are using is academically correct and due to it, all the users who had used our chart, has told us the luck pillars truely accurately states the they are truly having a good or bad period.

I like to point out about a true point, my grandfather did a full (30-50 pages) Pillars of Destiny for my father when he was young. Under that, I noticed that the Master did a calculation for him based on like Month using Xia. Which was one month off the lunar calendar, and do you know what?

I was impressed with the 30-50 pages deduction of my father luck period. But my father says it never happened as predicted in the book. Instead, by then when I came up with the version 2.40 of the Pillars, my father told me that my prediction done by the program, was even more accurate. Do you know why? the month I took was based on the Lunar month, which follows the proper calendar type. And since then, I have tested it on many other people, and friends. And even used the report to help many users not in Singapore. They all told me that the luck period was very accurate:)

It is not proper to compare Apples with Oranges.

Robert Lee

Center for Feng Shui Research

After note:-

Dear Robert Lee:

Thank you very much for your time and prompt response, which I greatly appreciated. I am new to this Feng Shui science. Having studied the book wrote by Raymond Lo's and follow the method of calculating the pillars using the three languages 100 years Chinese calendar. I use this particular calendar to calculate several people's birth dates and they were all match in result with yours, except for mine. Based on your answer, I then recheck the calendar and found that it was only the 1957 year that was misprinted. I will contact the translator accordingly. Who would have guess that there will be a misprint in this kind of reference/manual? Thanks to you.

To your guide, the elements in my pillar rule different period/age. So, the divination were different according to that. I check the new period with what happen in the past, and they were different. Since I'm new to this science, I would like to learn from your divination. Therefore, it will be greatly appreciated if you could supply me with your mailing address so that I can send my international draft to.

Thank you very much once again for your attention and shared wisdom.

Best regards,

Udomsin La-ongsuwan