How the Nine Palaces of Qi Men Dun Jia Are Laid Out: Heaven, Spirits and Earth in One Chart
The first time I opened a Qi Men chart, my reaction was: how many layers are there on this thing?
The dense little squares were stuffed with stars, gates, spirits and stems, the characters as small as print on a receipt.
My teacher said only one thing: learn to see the nine palaces first; everything else is just stacked on top of them.
The Base Chart of Qi Men Dun Jia
Qi Men Dun Jia is named together with Da Liu Ren and Tai Yi Shen Shu as the Three Styles. It reasons from the path of the Luo Shu, the nine palaces and eight trigrams, and the generation and control among the five phases (Source 1).
So the foundation is the nine palaces — three squares across and three down, nine positions in all. Every piece of information hangs on those nine squares; to read Qi Men while leaving the nine palaces aside is like discussing roads without a map.
Three Layers Stacked on the Nine Palaces
The first layer is the heaven plate. The nine stars are arranged on it: Tian Peng, Tian Ren, Tian Chong, Tian Fu, Tian Ying, Tian Rui, Tian Zhu, Tian Xin and Tian Qin (Source 1). Each of these nine stars has its own name and its own corresponding qualities.
The second layer is the spirit plate. Eight spirits are arranged on it (there is also a nine-spirit arrangement): Zhi Fu, Teng She, Tai Yin, Liu He, Bai Hu or Gou Chen, Xuan Wu or Zhu Que, Jiu Di and Jiu Tian (Source 1). For the same palace, the palace-arranging method and the flying-palace method do not give exactly the same spirit names; that is a difference between systems, not someone getting the calculation wrong.
The third layer is the earth plate. The trigram directions on the earth plate are fixed as Qian, Kan, Gen, Zhen, Xun, Li, Kun and Dui (Source 1); it is the coordinate system that does not move.
There are also the six instruments (Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren and Gui). In the traditional mnemonic, the principle of concealment runs "Jia Zi together with the sixth Wu, Jia Xu together with the sixth Ji" and on in that way down the list (Source 1).
Where to Start on a First Reading
My suggestion is to go the other way round: learn the squares first, then the layers.
One: memorise the directions of the nine squares. Which square is due north and which is south-east — draw it out first.
Two: take one layer at a time. On the first pass, look only at the nine stars of the heaven plate and learn their names and positions; once those are familiar, look at the spirit plate.
Three: only then look at combinations. When star, spirit and stem sit stacked in the same square, that is information accumulating, not cancelling itself out.
The most common mistake I have seen is to ask about one matter with one chart, then pick one statement out of each different layer and patch unrelated conclusions together into a paragraph. The chart is right; the reading is what has scattered it.
There is also a long-standing distinction, in the old texts and in practice alike, between mathematical Qi Men and ritual Qi Men, the latter involving Daoist procedures such as setting up an altar and performing rites (Source 1). The two are not the same thing; when you hear someone talk about Qi Men, first work out which branch they are talking about, and a good deal of confusion disappears.
Tools on this site (for entertainment)
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This article was last checked on 19 September 2026. Traditional divination has many schools and a long history, and their formulas and versions do not fully agree; the text relies on publicly verifiable sources, and for dates and calendars please refer to the latest official publication.
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Sources
- "Qi Men Dun Jia" (《奇门遁甲》) — Wikipedia: https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/奇门遁甲 (accessed 19 September 2026)
- Method page on this site: Qi Men Dun Jia: https://zhanbumizhi.top/en/methods/qimen (accessed 19 September 2026)