Taoist face, palm, mole, body and bone reading.
Continuing the commentary on the Rhapsody That Startles the Spirits, this part explains its last eighteen sections—green-eyed immortals, the dragon's gait, the Yintang, the Heavenly Court and Earthly Pavilion, spirit and complexion, women's faces, lines, lips, hands, and whiskers—with further reading on why Li Guang was never ennobled.
The Rhapsody That Startles the Spirits, a classic of face reading said to come from Chen Tuan of the Song and collected in the Ming Complete Compendium of Divine Physiognomy. This part explains its first ten sections, from the marvelous features of ancient sages to the Three Sections, Five Peaks, and other key methods.
The Twelve Palaces method divides the face into twelve areas, such as the Life, Siblings, Spouse, Wealth, and Career Palaces, each tied to an area of life. This article gives each palace's location and meaning, its auspicious and inauspicious signs, and the principle that the Life Palace leads and the palaces are read together.
How face reading applies the Five Phases to the body: their correspondence with the forehead, eyes, nose, cheekbones, and chin and the directions behind it; the build, face, character, and health of the Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water types; and what ideal and abnormal complexions signify for each.
Face reading holds that changes in complexion outwardly show whether the Five Phases are in balance. This article explains the generating and overcoming cycles and their excesses, the fortune and health signaled by the five colors of complexion, and the complexions of mixed body types.
The Five Eyes method uses the length of one eye to divide the width of the face into five equal parts. This article explains the divisions, what the Yintang, the temples, and the eyes themselves govern, balanced and unbalanced proportions, and combined readings with the Three Sections, the Five Peaks, and face shape.
Continuing the Five Peaks and Four Rivers method, this article covers atypical patterns: leaning-auspicious ones such as a lone strong Eastern Peak, leaning-inauspicious ones such as a lone sunken Central Peak, special variants such as skewed peaks or hairs on the cheekbones, and key points for practical use.
The Five Peaks and Four Rivers method likens the face to a landscape of five great mountains and four great rivers. This article explains its core logic, details the auspicious and inauspicious signs of each part, and introduces three typical patterns, from peaks paying court to imbalance.
In face reading, the Five Features are the eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. This article reads each in turn by form, complexion, and position, explaining the character, health, and fortune they indicate, and stresses that the features must be read together and in dynamic balance.
An overview of four key frameworks of face reading: the Five Features (five “officers”), the Six Treasuries (the sides of the forehead, cheekbones, and jaw), the Four Rivers (ears, eyes, mouth, and nose), and the Five Peaks (forehead, chin, cheekbones, and nose), with their signs and how they combine in judgment.
The Three Sections method divides the face vertically into upper, middle, and lower sections for fortune in early life, middle age, and old age. This article covers their divisions and signs, their link to the Five Peaks, balanced and unbalanced sections, and how to read them with face shape.
A comparison of the schools of face reading: their shared belief that the Three Sections set life's broad fortune, the five features set the details, and no feature is read alone; the Jianghu school's quick verdicts; and the Scholar school's theories drawn from The Ice Mirror and Mayi Physiognomy.
The main schools of ancient Chinese face reading: the practical, quick-judging Jianghu school and the theory-minded Scholar school; the regional schools of Anhui, Guangdong, Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Shandong; and how core classics such as Mayi Physiognomy, Liuzhuang Physiognomy, and The Ice Mirror relate to them.
An overview of traditional Eastern face reading: its beginnings in the ancient saying that Yao chose people by their appearance, its theoretical development from the Han dynasty onward, its spread among ordinary people, its basic frameworks—the Three Sections and Five Eyes, the Twelve Palaces, and the Five Features—and its cultural value and limits.