Sources and methods

Each fortune stick, omikuji lot, tarot card and hexagram has its own record. The record names the editions we read and the date we read them, and the page shows them.

The public-domain books we use most are kept in full in our library: the Zhou Yi and A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot.

The Guan Yin verses are temple texts with no known author and no single original edition, so we compare printings and name the one we follow. Omikuji verses are read from two scanned printings: a 1684 edition at Tohoku University Main Library and an 1813 recut at Kyoto University Library.

The Wong Tai Sin and Guan Di verses are read from named web transcriptions, not from printings we have examined. We compare them lot by lot and record where they differ, but we could not establish whether they are independent of one another.

Grades, wording and methods differ between temples, schools and printings. When they do, the page tells you what differs and which version it follows.

The English on this site is our own, and each page gives the original text where there is one to give. We read sources only from sites whose robots rules allow it.

The tarot images are Pamela Colman Smith's 1909 drawings, taken from public-domain scans on Wikimedia Commons.

Four Pillars and the almanac run on our own calendar code, which is tested against the open-source tyme4ts library. Zi Wei Dou Shu uses iztro, and planet positions use astronomy-engine. The calculators run in your browser, so your birth details stay on your device.

Fortune sticks, omikuji, tarot, I Ching and moon blocks are drawn on our server with cryptographic random numbers. Your account, your history and how often you draw have no effect on what comes up.

A page marked as a draft has been written and sourced, and is still waiting for its final check. The notice comes off once the page has been checked against its sources and the review date is recorded.

If you know a better edition or spot an error, write to support@castandchart.com and name the page.