Can Liu Yao Divination Work with Purely Machine-Generated Hexagrams?

You open your phone's app store, search "Liu Yao," and dozens of apps appear. Tap one, shake your phone, or just hit "random hexagram" — and there it is: the primary hexagram, the transformed hexagram, the host and guest lines, the Six Relatives, all laid out neatly.

Convenient? Absolutely. But once the convenience fades, a nagging feeling sets in: did I really cast this hexagram? If a machine cast it for me, does it even count?

This question shows up in my inbox all the time. Let's settle it today.

What "Randomness" Really Means in Liu Yao

To judge whether a machine-cast hexagram is valid, we first need to understand what Liu Yao divination is actually doing.

The traditional method uses three copper coins, shaken six times. Each shake records which faces land up. Heads (yang) or tails (yin), six times over — that gives you six lines, stacked from bottom to top, forming a hexagram.

The key word here is "random" — each shake is theoretically uncertain and unpredictable.

Why did the ancients use copper coins? Because the size, weight, throwing angle, and landing force vary slightly every time. Those small differences compound into an unpredictable result.

The ancients called this "ji" (机) — the opportune moment, the subtle movement of fate. What looks like chance is actually the product of your inner "field" and your intention converging at that instant.

So what about machine-generated randomness?

A computer's random number generator is, at its core, an algorithm. When you press the button, the program calculates a result according to a preset rule. The outcome is random — at least from your perspective as a user, you cannot predict it.

But here is the crux: a machine's "randomness" is mathematical randomness; a person's "randomness" is energetic randomness.

What Machine Casting Leaves Out

At this point, many people might think: if both results are random, what is the difference between a machine cast and a hand cast?

The difference is not in the result. It is in the process.

There is a core concept in Liu Yao divination called "gan er sui tong" (感而遂通) — resonance leading to understanding. What does this mean? When you have a concern, a question, something weighing on your mind, that thought itself is a form of energy. As you shake the coins, your intention, your emotions, your very breath are all poured into those six throws.

Each time the coins land, they carry your present-moment "field."

Experienced diviners will tell you: the same question cast by two different people produces different hexagrams; the same person casting in two different states of mind also produces different hexagrams. A hexagram reflects not just "how will this turn out" but also "what is your relationship to this situation right now."

That is exactly where machine casting falls short — a machine has no intention, no emotion, no field. The result it generates is clean, sterile, and carries no additional information.

Put another way, a machine-cast hexagram is missing the most essential ingredient: the connection between you and the hexagram.

So Is Machine Casting Completely Useless?

Not quite.

Whether machine casting works depends on how you use it and in what context.

Situation one: pure practice and learning — fine to use.

If you are just starting to learn Liu Yao and are not yet fluent with the hexagram structure, the host/guest lines, or the Six Relatives, using machine-generated hexagrams for practice is perfectly reasonable. In fact, because apps lay out the chart quickly and accurately, they can be more suitable for beginners than manual casting.

In this case the machine hexagram is a "textbook" — you are learning the method, the theory, the logic. Where the hexagram came from is irrelevant; what matters is whether you know how to interpret it.

Situation two: you have a real concern and want a serious reading — question marks apply.

For something you genuinely care about, a real decision you cannot make, a moment when you want heaven to point you in a direction — in these cases, machine casting is not recommended.

Not because it is "inaccurate" exactly, but because it is "insufficient." That layer of resonance has not been established. The hexagram and you are only loosely connected. When you read the line texts, it is hard to feel that gut-punch recognition of "yes — that is exactly my situation."

It is like a conversation where every word the other person says is technically correct, but something is missing. What is missing is warmth.

Situation three: your intention is extremely strong — machine casting can actually work.

This sounds paradoxical, but anyone who has been there will understand. You have something on your mind so consuming that your whole attention is swallowed by it. You open the app, tap "random hexagram," and what comes up stops you cold.

Why? Because your intention was already strong enough that it did not need copper coins as a medium. The moment you opened the app, your entire focus had already poured into it. The machine's random number simply gave that intention a specific hexagram to land on.

In this situation, machine casting works.

Does Using an English-Language Casting Tool Abroad Make a Difference?

Some readers have asked about this — they are overseas and the Liu Yao apps they find have English interfaces. Does that affect the reading?

Not at all.

The hexagram system itself is a symbolic language — yin and yang, the eight trigrams, the sixty-four hexagrams all transcend spoken language. Whether the interface is in English or Chinese has no effect on how the random numbers are generated. It is like saying that typing in English would change what you mean in your heart.

What you should actually watch for is not the language, but whether the app's charting logic is correct. Some apps and websites have errors in their rules — for instance, reversing the criteria for shao yang (少阳) and shao yin (少阴), or handling the transformed hexagram incorrectly. That matters far more than language.

If you are not yet familiar with Liu Yao charting rules, compare two different apps using the same random input and see whether they produce the same hexagram. Once you confirm the tool is sound, you can use it with confidence.

At the End of the Day, Liu Yao Is About the Person, Not the Instrument

This discussion ultimately raises a more fundamental question: what is Liu Yao divination actually using?

Many people assume it is "using copper coins," which is why they get caught up in whether the coins are genuine, whether Qianlong-era coins are better than ordinary ones, whether hands or machines should do the shaking.

But Liu Yao truly uses your heart — your question, your concern, your reaching out to heaven and earth for guidance. The coins are only a tool. The machine is only a tool. Tools can be swapped out; but that spirit of inquiry cannot be absent.

So when you ask whether machine casting is valid, my answer is:

If you are practicing or studying, use whatever you like. If you have a real concern and want direction, casting by hand is better. If you truly have no way to cast by hand but still want to use a hexagram to hold a conversation with yourself — that is not impossible, but after the casting, give yourself a little quiet time to sit with the hexagram and feel what ties it to you.

With that connection, even a machine-cast hexagram can speak. Without it, even coins struck in the Qianlong reign produce an empty reading.

What Liu Yao feeds on is the human element — not the copper.