Secrets of the Compass
The luopan on our homepage is not decoration. Its three rings turn on gears, and the gears keep score. Spin them in the right order and the dial answers with a vision. Three are hidden in there. This page gives you the sequences, the meanings, and a dial you can practice on.
How the mechanism works
The compass carries three rings. The outer ring holds the 24 mountains, the 15-degree subdivisions of the compass used in classical feng shui. The middle ring holds the eight trigrams. The inner ring holds the numbers of the Lo Shu square. Grab any ring and drag it around. The gears drag the other rings along for show, but the mechanism only records the ring you actually hold.
One move means one committed turn: at least 270 degrees in a single drag, roughly three quarters of a circle. A shy half-turn counts for nothing. Clockwise and counterclockwise are different moves, and the dial keeps your last ten moves in memory. The six diamond pips below the dial show your progress: each pip that lights means your recent sequence matches the opening of one of the three recipes. Pips fall back when you stray. When a full recipe lands, the dial glows gold and a vision appears inside the disc.
Vision one: the Feitian
Recipe: outer ring clockwise three full turns, then middle ring counterclockwise three full turns. Six moves in all.
What you see: a flying figure drifts across the dial in a wash of gold, scattering petals, while the gears go soft under your hand.
What it means: the feitian (飞天) are the flying apsaras of Dunhuang, the sky dancers painted into the Buddhist cave temples on the edge of the Gobi desert. For a thousand years they have stood for blessings arriving from above. The dial treats them as its best omen, which is why their recipe is the longest.
Vision two: the Star Lodges
Recipe: middle ring clockwise, outer ring counterclockwise, alternating, five moves total (middle, outer, middle, outer, middle).
What you see: stars burst out of the hub and weave themselves into connected lines across the disc.
What it means: the 28 lunar mansions (二十八宿), the xiu. Classical Chinese astronomy divided the sky into 28 lodges that the moon visits one per night, grouped into four animals: the azure dragon, the black tortoise, the white tiger, the vermillion bird. The old luopan masters read these lodges alongside the 24 mountains when they sat a grave or placed a door.
Vision three: the Lo Shu
Recipe: inner ring counterclockwise twice, then outer ring clockwise twice. Four moves, the shortest recipe.
What you see: a 3x3 grid condenses at the hub, and the numbers light one by one along a snaking path.
What it means: the Lo Shu magic square, where every row, column, and diagonal sums to 15. Legend has it carried on the back of a turtle out of the Luo river. That snaking path the numbers light is the flight path of the nine stars: the exact route this site's calculator uses to build every chart. If you want the full story, read the Lo Shu guide.
Troubleshooting
- Nothing happens when I spin: a turn only counts past 270 degrees in one drag. Commit to the rotation.
- Wrong ring recorded: where you grab decides the ring. The outer band (past the trigrams) grabs the mountains, the middle band grabs the trigrams, the inner disc grabs the numbers.
- The sequence dropped: the dial remembers ten moves, but a vision also imposes a four-second cooldown after it fires. Wait for the gold glow to fade and start the recipe fresh.
- No sound: browsers block audio until you interact with the page. The first drag unlocks it.
On the homepage, three seals below the compass track which visions you have found. That record lives in your browser, so clearing site data resets the collection.
Practice here
The dial below runs the full mechanism: drag the rings, watch the pips, and land a recipe yourself. If you would rather skip the puzzle, the three buttons fire each vision on demand.