The mistake of Ren Tieqiao

In this previous blog, http://hhftn.blogspot.ca/2016/03/the-history-of-fortune-telling.html, I said Ren Tieqiao brought the last revolution of fortune telling theory. In another word, his book still represents the highest level of fortune telling theory. He opposed the custom of inventing new structures to explain things. He presented the point that all life codes follow the same principle.

Before him, the basic idea of fortune telling theory was: Judge, Guardian, Gourmet and Collector are good characters; Slaughter, Pirate, Rebel and Gambler are bad characters. And Ren presented the balancing principle: if the self code is weak, even good characters like Judge and Collector serve as foe; if the self code is strong, even bad characters like Gambler and Slaughter serve as favor.

The book he wrote is The Comment of The Leaking Essence of Heaven, The Leaking Essence of Heaven is an ancient short book written in riddle, pretty much like Nostradamus’s poem, there are more than one ways to explain it. Ren’s comment is hundred times longer than the original book, and the more valuable thing is: he recorded 500 examples to prove his point.

However, no one is perfect. In his book, one mistake is pretty major. Gambler represents father, Guardian represents mother; Money represents wife, Authority represents husband; Talent represents children, Authority represents children for men. These principles are coming from generations of practice and experience.

As far as I understand, Guardian represents mother because Guardian is the thing that generates me with love, such as mother. Money represents father because father is the husband (Authority) of mother. Talent represents children because Talent is what the self code generates; I give birth to children just like self code generates Talent. Authority represents children for men because children are what wife born, the Talent of Money = Authority.

Ren didn’t like these theories. He said: Money as father is like offending your superior, Authority as children also against the sacred order of father and son. In ancient China, the order of seniority was very important, because it was the only thing in Chinese mortality that made sense. So he corrected: Guardian should represent father, Talent should represent children.

Even himself couldn’t insist his theory, because he also said: for overall strong, Money represents children, for overall weak, Shield represents children. Oh man, you just say Talent represents children, do you remember? This is not all. After a few examples, he concluded: "children are represented by favor, if someone’s favor is Fire, he must have children in Wood-Fire fortune, or Wood-Fire years, or his children have heavy Wood and Fire, otherwise, his children's lives will be bad. In my practice, it always works."

Obviously, “it always worked” because it is too vague and wide. Talent represents children, Shield represents children, Money represents children, and favor represents children … Whatever happened, you can say you are right. And if none of those worked, you can say the children will be bad. Oh man, that is just wrong.

Even with a theory that wide, you can still disprove it. Chiang Kai-shek’s life code was: 4(12), 7(11), 6(6), 10(10). Fortune: 6(10), 5(9), 4(8), 3(7), 2(6), 1(5), 10(4), 9(3), 8(2). He had too much Talent, so Shield served as favor. For self code Earth, Fire served as Shield. Since 1925, Chiang walked in the pure Fire fortune 3(7), therefore he became the leader of China. 2(6) fortune was still good, 1(5) was Wood fortune, it constructed an infamous bad structure that represents trouble: Rebel vs. Judge, so fortune teller warned Chiang to retire after 1945 (the fortune teller published this case in 1935). Well, Chiang didn’t retired, he lost China.

Let’s just look at his relatives. No dispute about Chiang’s favor, it was Shield. When Chiang was 9, the year was (8). (6)(7)(8) gathered and became Shield. If Chiang’s father was represented by favor, he should be OK, but Chiang’s father died in this year. Why? Because father is represented by Money, when Shield becomes too strong, Money lost the ground to live.

So if children are represented by favor, Chiang should have children in the Fire fortune and years. However, he had his son in the 7(11) year of the (9) fortune. Both fortune and year were Metal, not Fire. Why? Because the fortune (9) broke (12) and let the Slaughter out, the year (11) merged the children’s position (7). His son’s life code: 7(11), 7(5), 9(11) didn’t contain lots of Fire. Was the son bad? I don’t think so. Chiang Ching-kuo was the president of PRC, he rejected authoritarianism and made Taiwan a rich and open place.

People may ask: what about the examples Ren listed in his book? Are those just coincidences? Exactly. Let’s see.

One guy’s life code: 8(2), 8(2), 5(11), 10(2). This guy had 16 sons in 16 years during the Money fortunes. (Ancient Chinese man could have concubines) Ren said it proved Money could represent children. By coincidence, he was right. This guy didn’t have Authority at all, so Money represents children, because Money is the source of Authority. Donald Trump, 3(11), 1(7), 6(8), 6(6), has no Money so he has Talent to represents his wife, because Talent is the source of Money. He got married in 1977, 1993, 2005. All three years were Metal years which served him as Talent. I know a guy has similar life code and fortune as Ren’s example: 10(10), 2(2), 5(11), 5(7). Because he has Authority to represent children, he has one child only.

Another guy’s life code: 10(12), 1(1), 4(10), 10(4). This guy’s wife gave birth to 8 daughters, his concubine gave birth to 8 daughters, and still no son. Ren’s call was: having too much Authority, Shield as favor. For weak self code, Shield served as favor and represented children. He had no son because the fortune were pure Money, 7(9) and 8(10), the favor Shield was overcome.

According to Ren, all kinds of success could be determined by favor, your children, your career, your health are all depend on the favor. This guy was in fortunes so bad, how come he was still alive, “pretty rich” quoted from his book, had more than one wives and 16 daughters? Why favor represents sons, but not daughters?

Ren simply made the wrong call. This guy yield to Authority despite the Shield (4), because (4) was directly crushed by the adjacent (10). Metal served as favor for crushing Shield, therefore he became rich in the Metal fortunes. Why he had no son? The easiest way is to accord to the note.

For men who have too much Slaughter out of control, unless you yield to Slaughter completely, you don’t have a good chance to have sons. So there is an old saying, heavy Slaughter leads to no son.

The third guy: 2(8), 8(6), 5(11), 4(6). This guy had 12 children, 2 survived. According to Ren, this guy had too much Fire, the Metal Talent was attacked too much, therefore he lost a lot of children. Ren thought his Metal was weak, it actually strong for (6) and (11) merged and became Metal. The reason this guy lost lots of children is: Metal was too strong, and Authority that represents Children was attacked. He had 2 children survived because Authority 2 was sitting on its Tomb, so it can’t be overcome completely. Without the Authority Tomb, it will be worse. This guy: 2(10), 8(6), 5(11), 4(6), his Authority doesn’t have a Tomb as root, his Authority was overcome completely. He had 5 kids, 0 survived.

Guy number 4: 7(3), 3(11), 8(12), 8(4). This guy had 3 sons, 0 survived, 12 daughters, 3 survived. Ren said the Talent (12) represents children, it was weak and merged by (3), therefore he had bad luck about children. In fact this guy was strong because (11) is the Blade of 8, therefore Authority served as favor. The fortune was 6(2), strengthened Metal and weakened Authority; therefore he lost so many children during the time. Luckily 3 the Judge that represents daughter had a Tomb to hide, so some of them survived.

Guy number 5: 8(4), 8(4), 1(5), 4(4). This guy couldn’t have children in Money fortune, had 5 children in Talent fortune. His career also prevailed. This guy had super strong Strength and weak Talent and Authority. Talent and Authority are both weakening, but they are natural enemies, you need to pick one of them as favor. This guy’s Authority was too weak to attack Strength; Talent is a gentle way to weaken the life code and won’t crush with Strength directly. With Talent as favor, Authority served as foe. Foe acts its good side when being controlled. Therefore, this guy prevailed and had children in Talent fortunes.

If you be careless, you may see Ren’s method as the other perspective, it also explains. If you be careful, you’ll see Ren’s method was a totally confused set of instructions. For women, Ran said: favor represents husband. It is the same mistake as the one we discussed today. Favor can’t represents success in every aspect: we know someone’s rich but issueless, someone’s poor but having lots of children, someone’s rich but not healthy, someone’s rich but not having the preferred spouse… A simple “favor” can’t be in charge of everything.

In conclusion, knowledge comes from practice. You can't deny a theory because it doesn’t look good to you. Ren’s method can make some right predictions by coincidence. That doesn’t mean his method works. If you are not a beginner, you should not focus on: it worked sometimes. Instead, you should focus on: why doesn’t my way work for that particular case. Everything can be improved, but you should only present new theory when it works universally.