Dispelling Bazi Myths: Redefining Fortune Telling With Statistics And Psychology
Learn how I transmute Chinese wisdom through the lens of modern science
Has there been a moment in your life when a prediction changed the entire trajectory of your life? Or when you read horoscopes to know about your personality, past or future?
These notion of fate and destiny gets tossed around frequently when discussing BaZi, a Chinese metaphysics modality that has posed a constant fascination and an array of assumptions.
But are all these claims to be believed? Or is it time to shatter the myths and misconceptions about what Bazi can really do?
Well, let's explore together how BaZi intertwines the facets of Chinese philosophy, astronomy, and mathematics, uncovering the truth behind concepts like Heaven, Earth and People (天地人), and stripping away the baseless claims.
Does BaZi cure illnesses? Can it predict your health issues? Or perhaps perceive your life through the annual Chinese New Year animal reading?
And what about the intimidating terminologies like the "10 Gods" (十神) and "Eating God"(食神)? Are there really Gods at play?
Join me, as we debunk these myths and try to follow Bazi's essence as a tool for self-improvement and understanding, rather than a portal for fortune-telling.
BaZi: Not a Fortune-Telling Crutch
"Your Bazi chart can't be rich."
"Your Bazi chart should find business partners to do business."
"Your Bazi chart can't get married."
Really?
As I've studied Bazi, I've always retained a critical lens to processing information from this realm as the nature of this domain lends itself to un-scientifc claims, since they are shrouded in woo-woo, miracles or anecdotal stories.
Being an ancient art that traces back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), where the Chinese culture back then was to write in poetic but vague ways, clear understanding (from a scientific perpective) has always been elusive.
During certain periods of Chinese history, notably during political upheavals, there were book burnings that destroyed information passed down from forefathers. These factors add to the mystery of the subject.
Being a stats-trained computer scientist, I've seen Bazi as old-school AI model training, where people have over hundreds of generations, labelled constellation patterns with events like floods, uprisings and famines.
Over time, we have a dataset that correlates stars with events on Earth, and humans manually come up with rules to explain observable phenomena. When I teach Machine Learning for Google ExploreML, these are called rule-based AI models.
From a statistics perspective, the key word here is correlation, not causation.
Bazi can produce probabilities of things likely to happen, but saying that it will definitely happen is another thing altogether. There's a lot of sweeping judgement in most Bazi circles I've seen, and it's causing the layman to encounter self-fulfilling prophecies. Psychology calls this the expectancy effect.
For example, if a Bazi reading suggests that a person will face challenges in their career this year, they may become more cautious or anxious at work, which could inadvertently lead to mistakes or missed opportunities.
More seriously, if a reading says someone "won't be successful", there's a nagging voice in their minds every time they face setback, saying "Master was right, I can't be successful." which can build up into negative mental patterns over time.
As I dived deeper into Bazi readings by different Masters, I encountered predictions that could be considered damning or overly negative. This behaviour stems from various factors, including their life philosophy, interpretations of Bazi principles, how contextualised to modern society their recommendations are.
Some are even fear-mongering marketing strategies to attract clients to listen and pay for consultations and ornaments.
Finding the right Master who can converse Bazi to you in a productive and positive way, is an art in itself.
Decoding the Heaven, Earth, and People Concept: The Cornerstone of Chinese Philosophy
The concept of self-fulfilling prophecy in BaZi is closely tied to the principles of Heaven, Earth, and People (天地人). This concept emphasizes the interplay between destiny (Heaven), environment (Earth), and human agency (People).
"Your Bazi chart can't get married."
If you walked down the street and asked the next girl to marry you, you can likely find some willing to sign the marriage papers eventually. Furthermore, Bazi does not know what is marriage, that's a concept humans invented.
Bazi recognises the energy pattern of relationships we describe as a marriage.
Here's another common prediction theme: death.
"Your Bazi chart says you will die at 100."
If you chose to end your life now, the Master's prediction would be instantly wrong. (Please don't actually do this, your life has more value than what anyone can judge).
Point is, you have a choice to partake in, your personal agency. This is why I value frameworks, habits and information that works for me vs being right or wrong.
What's "right" in the chart can be disproved "wrong" when positive predictions don't happen (people with good charts that expect success as a free lunch).
What's "wrong" in the chart can be made "right" with other modalities. (personal practices can significantly mitigate negatives in a chart).
The Yin and Yang principle of Taiji, a fundamental concept in Chinese philosophy, represents the dualistic nature of reality, where opposites coexist and are interconnected. This principle is linked to the idea that what is right can be wrong, and wrong can be right, as it emphasizes the relative nature of concepts and the existence of multiple perspectives. The line between the 2 can be very grey.
In the context of Bazi, the Yin and Yang principle of Taiji can be seen in a chart interpretation. What may seem unfavorable or 'wrong', such as a clash or penalty, can actually bring about necessary changes or growth, thus becoming 'right' in a broader perspective. Similarly, an element that appears beneficial or 'right' may lead to complacency or stagnation, thus becoming 'wrong' in the long run.
While Bazi can provide indications about one's fate by showing the likely trajectory (格局) of your life, the right mindset acknowledges the role of personal effort (人) and environmental factors (地) in shaping outcomes.
"Bazi is the hand of cards the Universe has dealt. How you play it is up to you."
- Tony Tong
The Intersection of BaZi and Probability: Bridging the Gap Between Astrology and Statistics
Astrology is one of the earliest attempts made by man to find the order hidden behind or within the confusing and apparent chaos that exists in the world.
- Karen Hamaker-Zondag
What Bazi is really good at, is describing energy patterns and what is likely to manifest. In other words, it is amazing at mapping probabilties to outcomes.
This is similar to how science uses personality to predict career performance.
According to a meta-analysis by Barrick and Mount (1991), there is a significant correlation between certain Big Five traits and job performance across different occupations. For instance, conscientiousness was found to have a correlation of 0.31 with job performance, indicating that individuals who score high in this trait are more likely to be diligent, careful, and hardworking, thereby performing better at their jobs.
Neuroticism, which reflects a person's emotional stability, has been found to negatively correlate with job performance. A meta-analysis by Salgado (2002) found a correlation of -0.24 between Neuroticism and job performance, indicating that individuals with high Neuroticism tend to perform poorly in their jobs due to their tendency to experience negative emotions.
Quantum physics shares this focus on probabilities. The superposition principle doesn't allow for precise predictions of a particle's position, but rather provides a range of possible positions.
In quantum physics, the act of observing or measuring a particle is what causes it to 'collapse' from a state of superposition into a single position. This is akin to observing a Bazi reading and making a sweeping judgement as a prediction.
For example, a common Bazi prediction "someone who has high indirect wealth is an entrepreneur". Among many things, high indirect wealth is also correlated to:
Great eye for arbitrage, opportunities
Adapatable and resourcefulness
Your girlfriend (for guys)
You mother-in-law (for women)
If the context is talking about career, the first 2 points make much more sense to predict skillsets and aptitude. If it's about family, the last 2 points are more relevant.
Even for the career prediction, having this chart does not mean you must be an entrepreneur.
These are 3 examples of jobs that thrive on exactly the same skills:
Venture Capitalist: This role involves identifying promising startups and investing in them. It requires a keen eye for spotting opportunities and the ability to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of the startup ecosystem.
Business Consultant: As a consultant, one needs to be adaptable and resourceful to provide solutions to a variety of business problems. They also need to identify opportunities for growth and improvement.
Product Manager: This role involves overseeing the development of a product from conception to launch. It requires adaptability, as the product manager needs to adjust the product based on feedback, and resourcefulness, as they need to find ways to make the product better.
However, if you took all the entrepreneurs and checked their indirect wealth, it is very likely their scores are above the average population.
Bad Bazi Predictions Come From Cognitive Biases
Why are most people using Bazi wrong?
It is very easy to fall into cognitive biases without the usual guardrails of science.
Let's look at the Bazi prediction "someone who has high indirect wealth is an entrepreneur".
Let's say the base rate of entrepreneurship in the population is 10%. Therefore, even if individuals with a particular personality type are overrepresented among entrepreneurs, it's essential to consider that the majority of the population (90%) are not entrepreneurs.
Statistically speaking, it's more likely to find people with high indirect wealth as Venture Capitalists, Business Consultants or Product Managers instead of an entrepreneur.
Thus, attributing entrepreneurship solely to a specific personality type without considering the base rate can lead to a fallacious conclusion.
Psychology calls this the "base rate fallacy." This fallacy occurs when the base rate or prior probability of an event is ignored or underweighted in favor of specific information or characteristics.
Instead of:
Number of entrepreneurs / People with high indirect wealth
It should be:
Number of entrepreneurs with high indirect wealth / Number of entrepreneurs
I call this "flipping the fraction" to keep my sanity studying Bazi.
Subconscious Wisdom: What Bazi means by "Gods"
It doesn't help that Bazi uses terminology that suggests "Gods", which can deter religons from treating the subject more like a science.
The image painted by Bazi terms such as “10 Gods” (十神) and “Eating God” (食神) undoubtedly feed into misconceptions. While at first glance these might seem overwhelming or even superstitious, they are in fact metaphors and symbols used to represent certain characteristics. These aren't mythical, spiritual, or divine symbols as their names might suggest.
They actually represent the subconscious.
In the context of BaZi, the subconscious represents the inherent qualities, tendencies, and potentialities that are encoded in a person's birth chart.
These are aspects of the individual's personality and life potential that may not be immediately apparent or consciously recognized, but can be revealed through the systematic analysis of the BaZi chart.
For instance, the "10 Gods" (十神) in Bazi, amongst other elements, represent the proportion of the five fundamental elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. Since there are 5 elements and 2 polarities (Yin and Yang), there are total of 5x2=10 symbols in the subconscious.
The distribution of these 10 symbols are used as groups to process information. Think of them like buckets which categorise our world.
In psychology, this is equivalent to the traits that make up a personality test, like the 5 traits in Big 5 (OCEAN), or the 16 in MBTI. Indirect Wealth is one of the 10 Gods that represents a set of personality traits out of 10 possible buckets.
In health, each symbol can represent a body part or organ. For example, Yin fire represents heart, Yang fire represents small intestine.
In family systems, each symbol can represent members of your extended family. As shared earlier for guys, Indirect Wealth represents your girlfriend or father.
I've shown just 3 examples here. The powerful thing about Bazi is that these symbols can be transformed across different domains depending on the asker's question, making it a very practical and universal tool.
The term “Eating God” (食神) is another example. This is another 1 of the 10 Gods that represents a set of personality traits.
For those with high Eating God in their charts, here's a summary of their likely noticable traits:
Strengths:
Great strategists, can see things from 360 point of view
Classy and refined, superior appreciation of asethetics. Enjoy the novelty, exoticism and uniqueness of their possessions instead of materialism
Proud and snobbish on some levels, have an air of superiority
Open-minded, artistic and creative
Romantic/ poetic, emotionally in tune with their inner feelings, able to express them in written and spoken words
When someone has too little or too much Eating God, the negatives can manifest through personality weaknesses:
Weaknesses:
Score keepers who like to pick on small things, pedantic
Peter Pan syndrome (the person who does not want to face reality and look at the real world)
Over-thinkers and prone to over-complicating
Prone to over consumption (e.g. gluttony and alcoholism)
Keep their burdens and problems to themselves
Not 100% of these traits will apply to each person, but across the board, each person will find this approximately 60-70% accurate.
Some of these traits apply to the other 10 Gods as well. Personality observations becomes more obvious when multiple 10 Gods with similar traits overlap in the same person.
That's how good Bazi practioners get confident in their predictions too - when multiple "independent" readings point to the same conclusion.
Bazi & Woo-Woo: Channeling, Astral Projection and Spiritual Downloads
In my personal journey with Bazi, I've met reputable Masters who seemed to be giving advice outside of Bazi textbooks. They would make predictions that I wouldn't find online or any books.
"Your chart can't have fulfilling relationships as in your past life, you were not loyal."
"You are still far away from the definition of a virtuous male."
I would eat with them at a restaurant, and they said there's some negative karma in the noodles I'm eating, that's it's not the right ingredients for my Bazi chart, and chant some ritual to clear it.
They open a can of worms with such statements. Some of these predictions were spot-on, others were not. Most were debatable.
Later on, after more spiritual experiences I've experienced in remote healing, channeling and meditation, I got to experience the woo-woo side of spirituality, the part connecting to the Universe and beyond. Many out-of-world experiences hard to put into words.
The best explanation I had for these experiences is that, they were not using Bazi in those cases, at least in the textbook sense.
They were likely channeling from some "deity" or "spirit", or tapping into their subconscious sharing their wisdom. People into metaphysics usually have a high affinity for other spiritual or religious studies too.
At a very high level of Bazi practice, these concepts of 5 elements deal with the fundamental nature of reality itself, in our 3D world and beyond into 4D, 5D and even higher dimensions.
The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.
- Carl Sagan
I've shown how the 10 Gods, derived from the 5 elements can be mapped into 3 domains of personality, health and family. The 5 elements can theoretically represent everything in our Universe, inlcuding what we have not yet explored.
Practitioners targets a form of balance between the 5 elements, allowing energies to go through productive, controlling and weakening cycles in a dynamic equilibrium.
This idea of balance in Bazi is not about creating a static state of equilibrium, but rather about understanding and managing the dynamic interplay of forces within one's life. It's about recognising and navigating the cycles of growth and decline, expansion and contraction, activity and rest, that are inherent in life.
It's not about eliminating or suppressing certain elements or energies, but rather about acknowledging and integrating all aspects of one's self and life. It's about embracing the full spectrum of human experience and finding a way to harmonize the various elements and energies within oneself.
Anecdotally, practioners with a high degree of mastery are able to perform super-human acts, like reading into someone's future (in a more precise manner beyond most textbooks), access knowledge from a super intelligence, provide winning lottery numbers and help heal health issues doctors can't handle.
These might involve other modalities like channeling into the Akashi Records (Quantum Field) and accessing information. There can be so many factors at play here, so it's hard to fully describe what's happening, much less put it down to science.
Redefining Fortune Telling As Self-Improvement
The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude
- Oprah Winfrey
After going through many Masters and doing my own reflections over 10 years, I'm a firm believer in Bazi being a strong tool for self-improvement if we can better communicate what the stars are actually telling us, adding:
A healthy lens of statistics
Avoiding cognitive biases
Keeping an open mind to things we don't yet understand.
Apart from Bazi theory, it takes a certain strength of mindset, or "consiciousness level" as I like to call it, to succeed with Bazi.
I know friends who are decent at reading Bazi charts, but they always use the negatives to justify their bad behaviour. That's using your own intellect to give extra reasons why you won't succeed.
Why make things harder by adding more mental blocks?
Self-knowledge is the beginning of self-improvement.
- Spanish Proverb
Don't Let Predictions Be A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
No matter what problem you have, someone in the world has had it before you, and solved it countless times. The challenge is usually more about being aware of the right problem, finding the right people to tell you the right method for you to fix it.
Instead of treating fortune telling as this omnipotent presence dictating how your life will turn out, don't let any predictions become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our forefathers didn't create all this just to tell us we can't change our destiny.
It takes a certain mindset to hold negative predictions in your mind, yet act in accordance to your goals. Better yet, to avoid the traps you know will make the negative predictions more likely to come through.
I've faced this challenge before, where I would get very mentally and emotionally affected after hearing negative things from reputable Masters. In the past, I would treat every line they say as gospel and put too much importance in taking their advice literally.
I would wear clothes based on brand or colour recommendations. Haircut styles, bag brands, lifestyle activities all were tailored based on Bazi advice.
Some of these worked to varying degrees. I realise many times, these Masters were correct in their Bazi interpretation, but lacking in their recommendation.
There are 3 hoops to pass before we reach success in all aspects of life:
Diagnose the right problem out of all the wrong ones.
Diagnose the right problem, but applying the wrong solution.
Diagnose the right problem, applying the right solution.
Most Masters usually pass hoop (2), but the solution is lacking if it's not something you can sustain into a habit for a lasting fix. Eg. Buying ornaments.
Some can't even get hoop (1) as they are stuck in ancient China customs, or biased by their own beliefs of what is best for you.
It's tricky to assume some stranger has their best interests for you, or the potential they see might not be the best you see in yourself. There's no right or wrong, but it's good to be careful who you take advice from.
As much information Bazi can tell, it only deals with 33% (1/3) of 天地人. Hanging around the right environment (地), cultivating the right mindset (人) are also ways to increase odds of success in your favour.
Liao Fan's Four Lessons (了凡四训) teaches that destiny is not fixed but can be altered through personal will and actions. In the classic, Liao Fan learns that his destiny can be changed after meeting a Taoist sage who accurately predicts his life events. The sage tells him that these predictions are based on average people's behaviour, but if Liao Fan can strive to do good deeds and avoid evil ones, he can alter his destiny.
Things that helped me:
Cultivating a growth mindset
Affirmations:
I'm bigger than any Bazi prediction someone can make about me
I cultivate the willingness to transmute my Bazi reading for self-improvement
Questions that cultivate a sense of control I automate via Questmate:
How do you perceive yourself as the architect of your own destiny?
In what ways can you cultivate a sense of agency and self-determination in your daily actions?
The Paradox of Improvement: Seeing All The Pitfalls
There's a paradoxical nature to applying Bazi. The paradox lies in the fact that while it offers a glimpse into potential future scenarios, it also emphasises the importance of free will and personal decision-making.
This is where the concept of Heaven, Earth, and People (天地人) comes into play, representing the interplay between destiny, environment, and human action.
Logically, it makes sense to decide on the right action at all times, but in reality life hits us with different challenges. We might not always have the willpower, community or knowledge to do what's best for us. Our emotions play a bigger part than we like to admit.
A study published in the journal 'Nature Neuroscience' found that even when we believe we are making decisions based on logical reasoning, our emotions can still influence our choices without us realizing it. The researchers found that emotional reactions to options often occur before we consciously evaluate those options.
While Bazi Practioners are able to "see the roads ahead" so to speak, it also comes with the added tempations and sabotaging behaviour as we know where exactly the pitfalls are. I call this the curse of knowledge.
A study by Rozin and Royzman (2001) found that negative stimuli are processed more thoroughly than positive ones. This means that we tend to dwell more on negative experiences and remember them more vividly. The researchers also found that negative information tends to influence our evaluations more than positive information.
Bazi Predictions Can Be Wrong In A Good Way
This is where self-awareness is important in helping un-ravel subconscious thoughts and behaviours that don't serve us.
The reason why some people say Bazi predictions are so accurate is precisely because subconscious patterns are hard to change. If a person is 20 years old, they have less life experiences to see themselves clearly, hence run more on autopilot - what the Bazi chart is designed to explain.
But when they reach 40, they would have encountered more challenges to see blind spots to adapt to weaknesses in their personality or chart. Ideally, the longer you live, you would want your chart to be less predictive as it demonstrates you have "lived above your chart" (改命).
In other words, when you are 40, your Bazi chart is 40 years outdated. It has not changed while you were experiencing life. Surely in 40 years, there is enough time to make the changes to not be subjected to the whims of something you don't have control over?
In Liao Fan's 4 Lessons, there was a prediction the sage eventually got wrong, after Liao Fan was much older. He achieved this as he cultivated good karma to change his destiny.
Summary
This article debunked various common misconceptions about Bazi, aiming to shed light on its true nature and utility. Emphasizing that Bazi is not a crystal ball for predicting fate, but a profound system that offers insight for personal growth and decision-making, we cleared the myth about Bazi being superstitious and unscientific.
Notions like the "Heaven, Earth, and People" reflect the cornerstone of Chinese philosophy and should be tempered with principles in probability and psychology for a modern, global audience.
By dissecting the true meanings of misleading terms in Bazi, such as “Gods,” it became clear that these are metaphoric representations masking deeper principles that are Universal across space and time.
The ultimate goal in my Bazi practice is to achieve a state of equilibrium where the 5 elements are in balance, as it is believed that this balance leads to health, prosperity, and overall wellbeing. This holistic approach to understanding and living life is a key aspect of Bazi and Chinese philosophy.