An 'Empirical' Method of Divination, Zi Wei Dou Shu

I recently discovered Zi Wei Dou Shu, the literal translation: the "Purple Star Constellation Calculation" method or marginally more common known names are the Purple Star astrology, the Empyrean Matrix.

As is common to many who feel they have discovered a great secret, I felt the need to share with anyone who cared enough to listen (or read), hence this post.

The purple star alluded to is the Emperor star, the North star, Pole star, Polaris, of the Big Dipper constellation.
And as I discovered, this method was originally formed by a Taoist some 1400 years ago during the times of the ancient Chinese Tang Dynasty, around 618 AD. It was used exclusively by imperial astronomers to create incredibly detailed readings for the Emperor of China and him only, which kind of makes sense given that his destiny can be said to be tied to the destiny of a nation.

Astrologers had noticed that amongst the countless stars, there was only one that was seemingly stationary and was the brightest, with other stars revolving around it and hence named this celestial equivalent the 'Emperor' star. The method was later adapted during the Ming dynasty some 1000 years later to its present day form.

And yes, yes, I'm in no position to say that its an 'empirical' method, I'm just playing on the two words of 'Empirical' and 'Emperor'.

What led me to dive a bit deeper into it - apart having some time to invest in myself as a result of my recent diagnosis, was my piqued curiosity. I wanted to know what was so special about it that it could only be used by one man and subsequently spent many (many, many, MANY) hours searching for articles and reference materials in English.

Being a 3rd generation Chinese born abroad, I'm illiterate in my 'native' tongue and am now very grateful for google translate ... I found that there's a total of about 10 books written in English on this topic - world-wide, I know because I spent many hours scouring online for them - oh, and only about 3 of them are any good by the way, again - this is said with many hours of research and reading behind it.

I believe I read somewhere that this method had become somewhat a lost art, only recently having been revived (recent being the 1980's) amongst the Chinese community that uses Chinese and even more recently (in the 2000's) that some materials were made available in English. You can understand why, I mean, even in its present day you find original text that stems from 1400 years ago when the language was even more poetic, subtle and nuanced - four words could equal a whole sentence and said sentence tells a whole story, evokes and provokes imagery to story. Did I mention my gratitude to google translate? and to other Chinese to English websites too, that helped translate many of these ancient adages and quotes for me.

Well, having notched up a goodly tranche of deep reading and cross-referencing hours into studying this, I can indeed say it is a ridiculously intricate method.

I'll try to describe the complexity in brief (a juxtaposed attempt yes): it uses not only an individuals date of birth but also the hour and minutes they were born, creating around 520,000 possible blueprints, or base templates of different 'types' of lives.

Other notable but far from exhaustive highlights are:

• the calculation of the interactions between 108 stars, or 'energies' that each star represents,
• each star having their own characteristics, personalities - both positives and negatives and their level of brightness determines whether positive or negative traits are brought forth,
• the stars interactions play out in the particular aspect of an individuals life,
• the stars interacting with the 'palace' or aspect of the individuals life the stars are sitting in - be it parents, siblings, partner, career, travel etc,

... I won't go to the next level of detail where all of the above each having an element of yin (female) or yang (male) and earth, fire, metal, water, wood attached to it and how this plays out ....

Like other astrology methods, you can read from the charts an individuals personality but I like that in this method, the characteristics are more detailed and specific, you can also see the broad inclinations and direction of ones life or 'destiny' ('destiny' is perhaps the wrong word as nothing is set in stone, just what you're likely to be inclined to do). You can also see the overarching 'luck' or (mix of positive vs negative energies, as well as likely lack or abundance in opportunities or 'luck') governing a particular decade to ones life, as well dive into a particular year, or even a particular month or day if you so fancied it...

Naturally, having invested so many hours of researching this, I wasn't going to let the fruits of my learning journey go to waste and spent even more time in drafting up charts as well as readings for myself.

I feel the verdict is that I'm a mixed bag, that's not the technical term by the way just my own personal nomenclature. I can say with relief that I'm not destined for great power, wealth and an out-of-this world love partner who'll sweep me off my feet to ride off into the sunset with. The relief comes from the fact that the readings would have just been too vague, too superficially sugar-coated with artificial e-numbers to have been believable.
No, I've a size-able chunk of adversity scattered across my life 'destiny', in some decades, and in specific years too. The specificity I found in the aspects and time periods which I dived into the detail of was, well ... accurate.

So ... hurrah for the discovery of useful hidden secrets? yes from me. I like being able to see the big picture, see the measure of accuracy and to take advantage of any positives or opportunities and avoid or turn around negatives or aspects which are lacking.

My next step obviously to put this knowledge to good use, refine and hone - that, and to find and connect with others who are interested so I've a buddy or a mentor to study with - looking for 'luck' on this next phase of the journey ...