WEAVEN supports BaZi (Four Pillars) and tropical Western astrology as calculated systems, treats the I Ching as a cast to be read, and treats palm and face reading as cultural traditions with strict limits. Zi Wei Dou Shu and several Western techniques are not supported and are labelled as such.
Calculated facts versus interpretation
A chart is two different kinds of statement stacked on top of each other. The first kind is arithmetic: the Sun was at a certain longitude, the day pillar of a date is a certain stem and branch, the solar term 立春 fell on a certain instant. These are calculable, checkable and either right or wrong. The second kind is interpretation: a tradition's account of what a placement tends to mean. That is cultural knowledge, not measurement, and different schools disagree.
WEAVEN keeps the two apart. Calculation happens in deterministic code on the server, with the method, warnings and confidence recorded next to every result. Interpretation happens in the conversation, framed as tendency and reflection, and the reply must say which is which. Where the input is uncertain (an unknown birth time, a missing time zone, a disagreement between engines) the affected facts are withheld or flagged rather than estimated.
BaZi 八字 (Four Pillars)
BaZi describes a birth as four pairs of heavenly stem and earthly branch: year, month, day and hour. WEAVEN calculates them from the solar-term calendar (the month changes at each 节气, and the year at 立春, not at Lunar New Year), which is the mainstream approach in classical practice; when the popular Lunar-New-Year rule would give a different zodiac animal, both are shown.
- Hidden stems and Ten Gods. Each branch carries hidden stems; the Ten Gods describe every stem's relationship to the Day Master. Both are computed and counted.
- Day Master and seasonal state. The day stem is you in the chart; its strength in the birth month (旺相休囚死) is reported.
- Five-element balance. Counted from visible characters and again weighted with hidden stems, so you can see both views.
- Luck cycles 大运. Ten-year cycles whose direction depends on gender and year polarity; withheld when gender is not given. The start age is approximate without a birth time.
- Current cycles. The annual 流年 and monthly 流月 pillars for today, used by timing readings as planning prompts.
- True solar time. When coordinates are known, the hour pillar uses true solar time; the chart says when this shifts the hour or the day.
Every BaZi result is cross-checked against a second, independently written engine inside WEAVEN. When they disagree for a date, the chart is marked low confidence and says so.
Western astrology
WEAVEN uses the tropical zodiac, in which 0° Aries is defined by the March equinox, and computes positions with a published astronomical library: the Sun through Pluto and the mean lunar nodes, retrograde motion, the Ascendant and Midheaven, Placidus houses with a Whole Sign fallback at latitudes where Placidus is undefined, the major aspects (conjunction, sextile, square, trine, opposition) with stated orbs, the chart ruler, element and modality balance, and transits to the natal chart for the current date. Synastry between two charts is available to compatibility readings.
Angles and houses need a birth time and place. With a time range WEAVEN uses the midpoint and warns that the Ascendant can change sign at either end. With no time it withholds them and, when the Moon changed sign that day, says the Moon sign is uncertain.
The I Ching 易经
The I Ching in WEAVEN is a cast, not a calculation from birth data. Three coins are thrown six times on the server to build a hexagram from the King Wen sequence, with changing lines and the transformed hexagram. The reply reports your question, the original hexagram, the changing lines, the transformed hexagram, the central lesson and a practical recommendation, and it reads only the cast you received.
Palm and face traditions, and their limits
Palmistry and physiognomy are old traditions with rich symbolic vocabularies, and WEAVEN presents them as exactly that. They are not evidence about a person. Every palm or face reply has four labelled parts: neutral visible observations, the traditional symbolic meaning, what cannot be concluded, and a practical reflection.
A never-infer list is enforced both in the instructions and by a validator that rewrites any reply that breaks it. From a photo WEAVEN will not infer character, intelligence, honesty, trustworthiness, criminality, sexual orientation, wealth, health, illness, mood disorders or worth. It will not diagnose, will not judge attractiveness and will not compare people. Photos are checked for quality, stripped of metadata, processed once and deleted unless you ask to keep them.
What is not supported
| System or technique | Status in WEAVEN |
|---|---|
| Zi Wei Dou Shu 紫微斗数 | Not calculated. Reported as unavailable; the advisor may explain the tradition but never produces a chart. |
| Chiron, asteroids | Not calculated. |
| Secondary progressions, solar returns, composite charts | Not calculated. |
| Sidereal zodiac, other house systems | Not offered; the chart states "tropical" and the house system used. |
| External geocoding | Not used; birthplaces come from a bundled city list or your own coordinates. |
| Numerology, tarot | Not part of the app. |
Review status
The calculation engines are tested against reference dates (equinoxes, solstices, 立春 instants), eclipse geometry and an independent BaZi implementation. They have not been reviewed by an independent practitioner, and WEAVEN says so beside every chart. Interpretive rules follow the app's advisor brief and are versioned; the current prompt version is shown to administrators.
To compare the two systems in more depth, read BaZi and Western astrology compared.