This is a contentious topic. Whenever people talk about destiny, they always link destiny fortune telling with superstition or religion. The possible reason is that within the profession, some people do not study good enough or bother about the logic and theory behind. These charlatan sophisticate the complex knowledge with a set of special technique to treat those gullible persons. They induce and convince people to trust their sayings by supporting their assertions with religion or idol, and try to increase their income by selling blessed decoration etc. With the veil of religion , the destiny fortune telling has become something mysterious and complicated. Unveiling the mysterious cover, destiny fortune telling can be treated as a branch of science classified under metaphysics. The theory undergoes a series of calculation to find out person's destiny on main events happened throughout the person's life, such as illness, marriage, prosperity, longevity and disaster etc. Therefore destiny fortune telling is a type of mathematics, which based on the coupling effects of the 5 elements (water, fire, wood, metal and earth) to determine destiny. The theory exists and can be testified with people's lives. People should not allege that destiny fortune telling is superstition simply because they are misled. For instance, people disputed on Galileo's pronouncement that the shape of earth is round before they knew the truth.

Destiny fortune telling occupies an important role in the Chinese civilization, it does not concern much with ghostliness. The complexity of the knowledge derives from a lot of methodologies, such as iron abacus ( ), Zi Wei ( ) and Zi Ping four pillars destiny ( ) etc. Even within the single methodology, different techniques are used to determine their assertion. For instance, in Zi Ping four pillars destiny some may use simplified one to one coupling method while others take into accounts of all elements' mutual relations and reactions, some people may handle the elements with melody encoder. As compared with Zi Wei, Zi Ping four pillar destiny composes of much more combinations and looks more precise (four pillars destiny with 12,960,000 models; Zi Wei with only about 500,000 models).

Zi Ping four pillars destiny take into consideration the stem and root elements of lunar birth year, month, day and hour. It studies on the stem elements mutual vitalization, restraint and merge properties and effects, then supplemented with the root elements' mutual reactions on dash, harm, torture, merge, sublimate, vitalize, restrain and damage. Together with the seasonal factor, the person can then be classified into strong and weak models. His/her preference or modulating elements are then sorted out and with reference to the after birth ten yearly fortune pillars, the reactions of all these elements tell a lot of phenomena such as pile up of wealth, lose money, marriage, divorce and sickness. And surprisingly, just with some modification in terms of interpretation, the theory with 4,000 years' history, still precisely and effectively tells the destiny of modern people. Even if different person using the same principles, they will arrive at the same result.

Someone may say: "if destiny is fixed and can be calculated, what's the fun for life?" The way how your perceive the question depends on your attitude towards life. Although person's fate is determined and effected from the date of birth, he/she may also be influenced by the heavenly fate, geographical fate and the human group's fate. In a plane crush, all passengers on board were dead. Don't you believe they possessed the same bad luck? The answer is "no", right? Two persons with the same birthday and time, one was borne in Singapore while the other was borne in Gong Zhou in Mainland China. They will be affected by different geographical and human group's fate and have different life. An old man who is also an expert in the four pillar destiny calculation, foresaw his fatal health problem, kept on checking with different doctors and finally discovered the heart problem and saved himself. If the proper cure was delayed, the ending was death.

People diligently study, learn and work hard. All they want is to control their life with their effort and will. Four pillar destiny is a tangible knowledge which can be learned and manipulated. Knowing the forecast technique, can help a person to decide on the best time to act or the possibility of success. If your race is Chinese, you are born to have your positive edges to learn this Chinese ancient knowledge to optimize your fate. If you are not a Chinese, possess the knowledge would certainly benefit you and improve your confidence towards life. Knowing the theory and technique you can avoid the problem of asymmetric information when you seek advice from fortune tellers.

To illustrate the relationship between born fate and after birth destiny, one can refer to two famous great men in recent Chinese history. Mr. Chiang Chung Chian (the former president of Taiwan) and Mr. Mao C. T. (the deceased Chairman of Mainland China). They both possessed a rare and excellent four pillars, during the 1930s and 1940s, they were the leaders of millions of people and competed for the control of Mainland China. Although with well equipped military force and a million soldiers, Mr. Chiang could not destroy the hundred thousand communist troop and capture Mr. Mao. Failure to grasp the chances during his golden period, Mr. Chiang was destined to give up the sovereignty of Mainland China to the communist party. These two leaders both preferred fire element in their born four pillars. However, Mr. Chiang faced adverse elements afterwards in his coming ten yearly fortune pillars, while Mr. Mao's favorite fire elements came into place in his second half life which brightened his life and exhausted his outstanding subordinates. His favorite element was also demonstrated by how he named his army as "THE RED AMY" and the color used for the country's logo and national flag (Red belongs to Fire). Do you feel interesting that the main color used in the national flag of People's Republic of China and Republic of China are both red?