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The convoluted process of obtaining the birth symbol
This site deliberately foregoes any attempt to describe or reproduce the approximately 70 pages of tables and instructions leading up to the production of a so-called birth hexagram. The beginning stages are very similar to the erection of a traditional Chinese horoscope according to the Four Pillars method, only here a solar calendar is used instead of the lunar calendar, meaning the year begins a little earlier, at the winter solstice the preceding year. For the solstice symbolism, see hexagram 24 in the Book of Changes whose omens this system uses in the additional stage not to be found in the Four Pillars method. After obtaining one symbolic representation for the "heavenly force" and another for the "earthly force" obtaining during the birth hour in question, the matter of locating the position within the resulting sum total of the same birth hour still remains. The below tables may well give you an idea of why I did not bother to present every step in the calculation. The 12 Chinese hours of the day are here mapped to letter designations and then the distribution of "Yang lines" and "Yin lines" in the symbol decides which of seven different scenarios must be applied. Case 1 and 3 are given here as an example:
Note that the Yang phase of the day commences at 11 pm, just before midnight, while the "day value" in this system's implementation of the Four Pillars method changes at midnight, when the numerical day value is added by one. Just one of those many strange details making this system so difficult to come to grips with.
Although no detailed explanations are known to have ever existed, a close scrutiny of this system reveals there certainly is a logic behind the apparent mess! For example, note how in case 1 a birth symbol consisting of only one Yang line this singleton represents all births occurring just when the Yang phase commences shortly before midnight (letter symbol "a"), and also obtains for a while in the new day (letter symbol "b"). Now check the Yin phase of the same case and birth symbol. At 11 am, just before lunch, the day goes into its quieter and assimilative Yin mode. This is represented by the letter "g." Then follow the alphabetical upward climb of the letter designations and note that the final "l" is reserved for the single Yang line wherever in the symbol it is placed. This letter, then, corresponds to the last Chinese hour in the day next to the rebirth of the next day's Yang phase. There surely is a hidden logic going on behind this arrangements! But, as said, no explanation has survived. I suppose the original anonymous author(s) adhered to the demanding Confucian dictum that says a good pupil should only need one corner to figure out the remaining three! Phew! I am happy I didn't attend school in that day and age (or perhaps I did, in an earlier life)...
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