Qimen Casting Time: Which Moment Builds the Hour Chart?
The casting moment is the wall-clock instant chosen for one operational question. It may be the moment the question is clearly formed or a separately declared…
Overview
The casting moment is the wall-clock instant chosen for one operational question. It may be the moment the question is clearly formed or a separately declared action moment; the choice must be made before seeing the chart and stored with the result. Store local date, local hour and minute, exact fixed UTC offset, locale, question topic, and method version. The same displayed clock with a different offset is a different instant and can cross pillar or solar-term boundaries.
At a glance
- Page role
- Reproducible calculation rule
- Terms covered
- question moment · Qimen hour chart time
- Verification focus
- Store local date, local hour and minute, exact fixed UTC offset, locale, question topic, and method version. The same displayed clock with a different offset is a different instant and can cross pillar or solar-term boundaries.
- Stop rule
- Do not backdate, round, or switch moments after viewing the answer. If the original time is unknown, state the uncertainty rather than inventing precision.
Direct answer and scope
The casting moment is the wall-clock instant chosen for one operational question. It may be the moment the question is clearly formed or a separately declared action moment; the choice must be made before seeing the chart and stored with the result.
- Names and related terms: question moment
- Names and related terms: Qimen hour chart time
How the rule is formed or checked
Store local date, local hour and minute, exact fixed UTC offset, locale, question topic, and method version. The same displayed clock with a different offset is a different instant and can cross pillar or solar-term boundaries.
Keep the cast moment, UTC offset, method version, palace, and interacting symbols visible before adopting an interpretation.
How to use this in a reading
Use one moment per question and recast only when the decision situation materially changes. Repeatedly casting until a preferred board appears destroys the audit trail and encourages confirmation bias.
- Name the visible chart fact before assigning symbolic meaning.
- Compare the asker and matter anchors with every layer in their palaces.
- Record at least one supporting condition and one counter-signal.
- End with a reversible action and an observable review point.
Worked contrast
A question clarified at 10:42 and a meeting scheduled for 15:00 are two valid but different anchors. Labeling the second as if it were the first makes later comparison impossible even if both charts calculate correctly.
Common mistake and limit
Do not backdate, round, or switch moments after viewing the answer. If the original time is unknown, state the uncertainty rather than inventing precision.
Sources and editorial basis
- OpenFate Qimen hour-chart methodOpenFate docs/QIMEN_SYSTEM.md, “Professional calculation contract,” “Interpretation and evidence contract,” and “Rule-source map,” source-reviewed 2026-09-12.Product-specific reference for OpenFate’s fixed-offset civil-time, hour-Qimen, rotating-plate, Chaibu implementation and its deterministic chart fields. A source review on 2026-09-12 does not prove live deployment, other schools, or predictive validity.
- NCC-T06 奇門遁甲專業版操作手冊NCC-T06 manual setting and board-field sections: configurable plate, center, bureau, deity, and day-boundary axes; used as evidence of modern method variation only.A modern professional-software manual used to document that plate, center, bureau, deity, and day-boundary settings vary. It is evidence of configurable practice, not an independent historical authority or accuracy study.