The Ten Gods, one by one: Direct Wealth, Officer, Expression and the rest

One question, five answers, two polarities

Every Ten God is the answer to a single question asked of one character: how does it stand toward my Day Master? The five elements allow exactly five answers — it is the same element as me, I produce it, I control it, it controls me, or it produces me. Each answer then splits in two by polarity: if the character shares my yin or yang, it takes the “indirect” seat; if the polarity is opposite, the “direct” one. Five relationships times two polarities gives ten, and there is nothing else to it.

The engine behind our readings applies that rule to every stem in your chart and to the main element of every branch — deterministic arithmetic, which is why a correctly cast chart matters more than any interpretation laid on top. The names below are the ones our English reports and the free calculator use.

The ten names

Grouped in their five pairs — the same-polarity seat first, then the opposite-polarity one. In quotes: the classic renderings you will see on other sites.

• Companion (비견 · “Friend”) — same element, same polarity: self-reliance, standing on your own feet, a peer who is like you
• Rival (겁재 · “Rob Wealth”) — same element, opposite polarity: competitive drive, sharing and contesting resources with equals
• Output (식신 · “Eating God”) — what you produce, same polarity: appetite, craft, easy expression, the pleasure of making
• Expression (상관 · “Hurting Officer”) — what you produce, opposite polarity: wit, performance, the urge to say the unsanctioned thing
• Indirect Wealth (편재) — what you control, same polarity: money in motion, deals, opportunity, the wider material world
• Direct Wealth (정재) — what you control, opposite polarity: earned income, assets kept, the reliable and the countable
• Authority (편관 · “Seven Killings”) — what controls you, same polarity: pressure, challenge, standards you took on yourself
• Officer (정관 · “Direct Officer”) — what controls you, opposite polarity: duty, rules, position, the standards you answer to
• Indirect Resource (편인 · also “Owl”) — what produces you, same polarity: intuition, unconventional learning, solitary study
• Resource (정인 · “Direct Resource”) — what produces you, opposite polarity: care, formal learning, the support that feeds you

Why the same character is a different god for everyone

Take 丙, Yang Fire — the sun. For a Yang Wood Day Master (甲), wood produces fire and the polarities match, so 丙 is Output. For Yin Wood (乙) it is the same relationship with opposite polarity, so it becomes Expression. For Yang Metal (庚), fire controls metal, so the very same 丙 is Authority; for Yin Metal (辛) it is Officer. For Yang Earth (戊) it is Indirect Resource, and for Yang Water (壬), which controls fire, it is Indirect Wealth. For another 丙 it is simply Companion.

That is the whole reason a saju chart cannot be read from a table of characters. A character has no fixed meaning; it has a meaning relative to you. Two people can share seven characters out of eight and, if their Day Masters differ, read every one of those characters differently.

What a reading does with them

The first thing a reading does is count. Our engine tallies how many characters fall into each of the five families — Peers, Output, Wealth, Authority, Resource — and which family leads. A chart heavy in Output and light in Authority reads very differently from the reverse, and a family that is missing entirely is as informative as one that dominates.

The second thing is to notice where each god sits. A Direct Wealth in the month pillar, the seat of career and daily work, says something different from the same god in the hour pillar, the seat of later life and private hopes. Ten Gods also give a moving year its role: the year stem is measured against your Day Master in exactly the same way, which is why the same year is a Wealth year for one chart and a Resource year for another.

What they are not

They are not deities, and they are not omens. “God” is an old rendering of 神 that means something closer to “agent” or “role”; the classic names — Seven Killings, Hurting Officer — carry a menace the mechanics do not. Authority is pressure, which can forge or exhaust depending on the rest of the chart. Expression is unruly output, which reads as talent and as friction with rules, and often both.

We write each of the ten as a tendency and its cost, never as a verdict. If the reading tells you your chart leans hard on Authority, that is information you can act on — not a sentence about how your life will go.