Eastern Pillars is a calculator with explanations, not a course. If you want to actually learn Chinese metaphysics — to read your own chart and someone else's — you need a teacher. The list below is short on purpose: only people whose work we have read or watched ourselves.

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Joey Yap (Mastery Academy)

If there is a single most-cited contemporary English-language teacher of BaZi, it is Joey Yap. His BaZi Mastery series and the Mastering Your Future follow-up are the most thorough English-language treatments we know of. The pricing is high (typically four figures), but it is also the only English-language program that takes the system as seriously as the classical sources do. Joey Yap's site →

Raymond Lo

Raymond Lo's introductory books — The Four Pillars of Destiny: A Profile of the Self and The Four Pillars of Destiny: Path to Prosperity — are what we hand to anyone who wants a one-volume entry into the system. Less complete than Joey Yap; gentler tone; easier first read.

Eu Wong

For Western readers, Eu Wong's writing on the Five Elements and Day Master is some of the most lucid translation work we have read. Less commercially visible than Yap or Lo, which is a feature.

The classical sources, in translation

• San Ming Tong Hui (三命通会) — Wan Min-Ying, Ming dynasty. The encyclopedic source.
• Di Tian Sui (滴天髓) — attributed to Liu Bo-Wen; the Ren Tieqiao commentary edition is the most-cited.
• Zi Ping Zhen Quan (子平真诠) — Shen Xiao-Zhan. The pattern-based reading of charts (格局) starts here.

We do not link to specific English translations because we have not found one that we trust without reservation. If you read modern Chinese, the original editions are the better path.

What's not on this list — and why

We have deliberately left off teachers whose marketing leans on fear of "broken charts," whose price tiers run into five figures for "premium" readings, or whose Western-facing copy promises specific event predictions. Those are not the corner of the field we want to point you toward.

Last reviewed 2026-06-14. We add to this list slowly and remove from it freely.