The 10 Ten Gods · 十神

The Ten Gods (十神) are not ten separate entities. They are labels for the relationship between the Day Master and every other stem in the chart. There are five possible relationships: same element, the element the Day Master generates, the element that generates it, the element it controls, and the element that controls it. Each splits by polarity, which gives ten.

This is why the same stem reads as a Direct Officer in one chart and a Seven Killings in another. Nothing about the stem changed. The Day Master it is measured against did. Read this way the Ten Gods describe function rather than fortune, and the habit of sorting them into auspicious and inauspicious does not survive contact with real charts.