I Ching (and other Oracles)

It revolves around the Book of Changes, a 3000 year old Chinese text. It's a way of "divining" a bit like tarot or rune casting. It relates to yin and yang, and combinations of both which make up six-line "hexagrams". Each hexagram has a meaning, so depending on the combination you get, you'll get a different hexagram. One way to read the I Ching is to flip a coin six times (or more commonly 3 coins, twice - building up two "trigrams"). You then need to look up the result.. or speak to your local ancient Chinese sage

You can find out more about it here .

Welcome, by the way!

oh, neat

I use oracles like Tarot, Norse Runes and Ogham for meditation and divination. I have thought of adding the I, Ching to my other oracles. I find there is a lot of synchronicity between the cards and runes that I draw and what is happening with me or the world around me. Fascinating.

I sort of use it... :huh: So I present the unofficial jedI-Ching;


NB: Point of view is from (not at) 'Heaven'

A central vertical axis with two points represents the principles of Heaven and Earth. Placed around Earth are the remaining principles. Basically putting Heaven at the top of a tetrahedron shape, with all points connected to it. That placement though tends to become a centre point on that axis when/if using multiple casting's of connected Ground planes.

I enter the 'process' at some determination of my 'connection' along that vertical axis. This sounds vague because its just a type of contemplative tool for meditating. Then I try to assess iterations of relationships (permutations) between principles on that ground plane.... to determine any perturbations/influences. What that might reflect probably has more to do with my health or focus, then any divination, but its just another something.

Edit: the possible iterations of a single casting can be found as the Fano Plane Steiner system.

In middle school I became proficient in runes, in high school it was the I ching and tarot, while I still have the tools I rarely ever use them any more...I've advanced beyond needing any physical tools to journey inward to the inner world, sometimes called the spiritual realm...the process is sometimes called "crossing the hedge" and in many wiccan/pagan/shaman cultures those that do it are often called "hedge-riders"...

They're still fun to use and very useful for freeing/clearing the mind in order to see the answers we seek...

Connor L. wrote: It's not mystical, except where it is

I amended your quote to reflect my personal beliefs, because in my experience there are three ways divination works:

1. It's B.S. spouted to you by someone wanting to take your money or who doesn't know better
2. It's being used as a psychological tool to get you to open up about problems you may be having that the "oracles" pulled up based on happenstance
3. it's being used as a contact method for some external force in a manner consistent with what it says on the tin

It may be that not everyone believes in or has experienced the third, but it is the reason I highly suggest that people don't "dabble" in certain kinds of oracles, because they are not all created equally. For example, tarot is harmless, but everytime someone new picks up a set of runes without a teacher or a reputable book, I worry ever-so-slightly.