There are mainly 3 schools of theories about the birth hour using in Chinese Astrology – Four Pillars of Destiny.
First school, local watch hour to be used.
Second school, the birth hour must be coverted to Beijing time.
Third school, the birth hour is not important, whatever birth hour is given just use it.
Each of the school has their own explanation. The followings are the general ideas of each school’s point.
The first school’s reason is that it is the time for a particular place. wherever you are born you bond or connect with that place. So that the local time to be used.
The second school’s theory is that the Chinese Astrology – Four Pillars of Destiny was invented in China. So that, wherever you were born, the birth hour must be converted to Beijing time. For example, a person was born in Sydeny at noon. By converting to Beijing time, we need to deducted 2 hours, (at present no Daylight saving), Sydeny is 2 hours ahead of Beijing, to the birth time. As a result, the birth time should be 10am in the morning (Beijing Time) to be used in the Four Pillars Natal Chart.
The third school’s argument is that Chinese Astrology is just a Metaphysics. Metaphysics does not base on the physical evidences. For Metaphysics, just anything grabs from the air can be used. So whatever time is given, just use it.
In my practice, I found that in Chinese Astrology – Four Pillars of Destiny and Zi wei Dau Shu, the birth time is very important in realtion to calculate the luck, especially when calculating the pregnant for a female since the Hour Pillar is the Children’s House.
The birth time I use in my readings are different from all of the above three schools.
I use Solar Time in my reading.
The birth hour is known as Time. And Solar Time should be used in Chinese Astrology – Four Pillars of Destiny.
In Chinese Astrology there is a saying: “If the birth hour is faked, the destiny or luck calculted is incorrect.”
Time in Chinese character written as “
”, It is formed by three different Chinese characters.
1. The Sun. (
)
2. The earth or land. (
)
3. the inch. (
)
Imagine the picture gives to “Time” in Chinese Characters are the Sun, the Land and the Inch. So that Time which has a meaning of: “The Sun shines on every inch of the land”.
The word Solar come from the word Sun. It implies the Solar Time.
In my practice, I use Local Solar Time for my Natal Chart. It is much more accurate to use Local Solar Time.
What is Solar time?
As the SUN and The Earth is rotating. The Time is changing. However for adminstrative purpose, the day and night are divided into 24 hours. Each hour has 15 degree of longitudes. 1 degree equal 4 minutes.
To work out the Local Solar Time, we need to know what longltude we are using for a place. For example, Sydney and Melbourne time are both using 150E longitude. Both Cities using the same watch time(GMT + 10). However the Local Solar Time for the two cities are not the same. Sydney is fall on longitude 151”E and Melbourne is on longitude 144.58”E.
In the morning from 9am – 11am is Snake hour. From 11am – 1pm is Horse hour. If a person born in Melbourne at 11:10am in the morning, it is the Horse hour. However, we need to work out the Local Solar Time for Four Pillars Natal Chart.
We need to take 20 minutes {(150-145) x 4min = 20minutes} away from the watch time he was born. As a result, 11:10am – 20 min = 10:50am in the morning. It becomes the Snake hour.
Copy Right 2009 Edgar Lok Tin Yung
