Selection Methods
Last updated 5/21/2026
Most questions choose a target through the Six Relative categories. Father points to Parent. Money points to Wealth. Promotion points to Officer.
But not every question is a Six Relative question.
What if the subject is the querent themselves? What if it is an unfamiliar opponent? What if the right relative is missing from the visible chart? What if the question is too broad to reduce to one line?
This module names the six selection methods.
The subject belongs to Parent, Officer, Sibling, Wealth, or Child.
The subject is the querent: body, self, own action, own condition.
The subject is an unfamiliar other, external place, opponent, counterparty, or destination.
A Six Relative target is required, but that relative is absent from the visible chart.
A rare case where the subject is the line a moving line transforms into.
The question is too broad or composite to honestly reduce to one target line.
Source basis: Zengshan Buyi, Yong Shen chapter and life-fate chapter; Bushi Zhengzong target classification rules. Source-language catalogues are kept in the reference layer so this module can function as a practical intake guide.
Choose from the question first
The chart does not decide the method. The question does.
Name the thing being asked about before looking for dramatic chart features.
Relative category, World, Response, hidden target, transformed carrier, or split.
Only after the method is chosen do we search the chart for the line.
There is one exception to that order: hidden target. You begin with a Six Relative target, then discover the matching relative is absent from the visible chart. The target type stays the same; the location changes.
The six methods
1. Six Relative
Use this when the subject belongs to one of the five working categories:
Example: "Will my father recover?" The target type is Parent.
Example: "Will I be promoted?" The target type is Officer.
Example: "Will the loan come through?" The target type is Wealth.
Example: "Will the medicine help?" The target type may be Child.
Example: "What about my brother's situation?" The target type is Sibling.
This is the most common method. Multiple visible candidates become the next module’s problem. An absent visible candidate becomes a hidden-target problem.
2. World line
Use this when the subject is the querent.
The patient is the querent, so the World line carries the subject.
The question is about the querent's own decision and action.
The performance belongs to the querent, so World is the anchor.
World is always the querent’s seat. It becomes the target only when the question is about the querent.
3. Response line
Use this when the subject is an unfamiliar other, an external place, or the other side of the situation.
There is no "opponent" relative. The unfamiliar other is read through Response.
The external place can be read through Response, while the traveler may be World.
If the person is outside the relative categories, Response is the clean method.
Do not force an unfamiliar other into Parent, Officer, Wealth, Child, or Sibling just because one category feels close.
4. Hidden target
Use this when the question clearly needs a Six Relative target, but the visible chart does not contain that relative.
A career-rank question still wants Officer. A wealth question still wants Wealth.
No matching line appears among the six visible primary lines.
The target is found through the palace structure. That rule gets its own module in 4.6.
The target does not change. Only the way we locate it changes.
5. Transformed carrier
Use this sparingly.
Most targets are chosen from the primary chart. But in narrow source-clean cases, the subject is the transformed state that a moving line becomes. Those belong to the moving-line system in Act 6.
Do not reach into the changed hexagram just because the changed line looks useful.
Only use transformed carrier when the question and source pattern point to the transformed line as the subject.
6. Split the question
Use this when the question is too broad to be one target.
“How will the rest of my life go?” is not one line. It contains health, family, career, wealth, partnership, children, lifespan, and more. Classical practice treats that kind of question by splitting it into narrower readings.
A broad-life question produces contradictory target needs if collapsed into one line.
Ask about career, wealth, health, partnership, or family as separate subjects.
This is not avoidance. It is precision. A clean question gives the chart a clean target.
Two traps
If the subject is an unfamiliar opponent, do not hunt for the "closest" relative. Use Response.
Romance, health, law, travel, and career are domains. They still need a specific target method.
The question decides the method. The chart only shows where the selected target is located.
What this module establishes
There are six selection methods:
- Six Relative
- World line
- Response line
- Hidden target
- Transformed carrier
- Split the question
Most readings use the first one. The next module handles the most common complication inside it: two or more visible lines match the same target type.