Hilary Barrett, I Ching

Yes, occasionally there are good reasons for asking Yi the same question again.

But here is what usually happens with repeated questions:

1. Querent asks question
2. Yi gives direct, truthful answer to said question
3. Querent decides this answer is ‘unclear’ or ‘unsuitable’ or ‘can’t be right’
4. Querent asks again
5. Yi tries putting it another way
6. Querent still unable to accept this, asks again
7. Yi starts approaching the subject from different angles altogether

The best-known of those ‘different angles’ is Hexagram 4, of course:

‘Not knowing, creating success.
I do not seek the young learner, the young learner seeks me.
The first consultation is clearly informative.
The second and third muddy the waters,
Confusing, and hence not informative.
Harvest in constancy.’

But actually having this so well-known as a retort can cause problems:

“I can’t have asked too often, I haven’t received hexagram 4 yet.”

Sorry, but Yi has more than one way of changing the subject. Like 40 or 43, encouraging people to make their own minds up, or 8 encouraging them to return to ‘the source of oracle-consulting’, or 20 asking them to step back and see what they’re doing. But I keep on seeing new ways, new creative strategies from Yi to get through to people.

Just to say – the above 7-step process is not just something that theoretically might happen, delivered from some quasi-religious standpoint of ‘respect for the oracle’. It’s what I have seen happen again and again, when people present me with a whole series of questions and answers. The best advice I can give them is to go back to the first answer they received.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 4th, 2005 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Divination tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.