Tojeong Oracle
Korea's classic yearly oracle — one of 144 hexagrams drawn from your lunar birthday.
Tojeong Bigyeol is a Korean New Year oracle named after the Joseon scholar Tojeong Yi Ji-ham. Your lunar birthday and the year's stem-branch combine into a three-digit number that selects one of 144 hexagrams, read as the year's overall fortune, its flow, and the key attitude to hold. Tojeong Yi Ji-ham was a sixteenth-century figure remembered as an eccentric who cared more for ordinary people’s livelihoods than for office, and whether the book is truly his work is uncertain. It was read widely as part of the custom of taking the measure of the coming year at New Year. Whether the hexagram is favourable or not, the verses hold that how the year is lived rests with the reader.
How it works
Your birth date sets the pillar of the year, and three numbers — upper, middle, and lower — are drawn to find your Tojeong hexagram. Everything is calculated on the lunar calendar, and this year and next sit side by side.
What you'll get
The yearly hexagram reading comes first, then ratings for six areas — money, love, health, work, study and moving — your lucky direction, colour and number, and the shape of the year, followed by a paragraph naming the key to this year. The months that stand out as good and the ones to treat with care are picked out, and the month-by-month flow follows in lunar months. If you enter the hour you were born, one more section is added — the inner half of your year, read from the hour pillar.
The verses are read as images
Tojeong verses come in an old idiom of images, such as "the east wind loosens the ice". They do not mean that a literal event is coming; they paint the grain of a year as a picture. If ice is loosening, something that was stuck begins to move, and where that happens differs with each person circumstances. Call the picture to mind first, then hold it against your own situation, and it reads much more easily.
When an unfavourable verse comes up
A verse that reads badly does not settle your year. The Tojeong verses are closer to words of caution than to prophecy. If a line tells you to take care, keep that one line in mind; there is no need to abandon something you were about to start because of it. In fact people often pass through a year of poor verses without trouble precisely because they looked ahead, which is closer to what the custom was for than any attempt at prediction.
When the year verse and the months disagree
Sometimes the verse for the whole year reads well while a particular month reads low, or the other way around. They are not contradicting each other; they are measured on different scales. The year verse is the grain of the whole year and the monthly flow is the undulation inside it, so a good year still has months for catching your breath and a hard year has months that open up. Lay the two over each other and when to do what becomes clearer.
How to use the six area readings
The stars for wealth, love, health, work, study and movement are not absolute grades but relative weights within a single year. Few stars in an area does not mean it is bad; read it as a sign that this year you will either give it less attention or need to watch it more. Start with the areas that scored well and avoid straining the ones that did not, and you have your year sensibly divided.
What not to settle with Tojeong
Do not decide a move, a change of job or anything involving a large sum on a single verse. Tojeong is an old custom for gauging the grain of a year, not a device that makes decisions for you. Launching something unprepared because the verse was good, and postponing everything because it was poor, are both misuses. How you live the year rests with you in the end, which is what the verses say again and again.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is Tojeong Secret traditionally read?
It is read at the start of the year to see the year ahead. Here you can view this year and next side by side in tabs.
How is it different from Saju?
Saju reads the chart you were born with; Tojeong reads this year through its pillar, giving a yearly hexagram and a month-by-month flow. They look from different angles, so they pair well.
Does the result change once the year turns?
Yes. The hexagram is drawn from that year’s stem and branch, and your counted age moves up by one as well, so two things change at once and a different hexagram comes out. It is not a reading carried over from the year before.
How do the 144 hexagrams come about?
Your birth date and the year's pillar produce an upper, middle and lower number, and that combination selects one of 144. The three numbers span eight, six and three values, which multiply to 144.
Should I enter my birth time as well?
You do not have to. The Tojeong reading is drawn from your age and the month and day you were born, so the hexagram itself does not change if you add the hour (adding it would alter the count of one hundred and forty-four and no longer match the books). Enter it, though, and one more reading appears: how this year's cycle relates to your hour pillar — that is where you part ways with someone born on the same day.