Hilary Barrett, I Ching

I love the way the I Ching finds its way into the heart of the modern world. I’m just deeply tickled to see our beloved 3,000-year-old oracle appearing as the I Ching for iPhone, or the Oracle watch. Whoever thought of calling this the ‘Book of Changes’ was really onto something. (Though it’s sort-of funny that the iPhone app, that acme of modernity, uses a translation from 1882.)

I like these two because they let people take the oracle with them, right at the heart of their ordinary, everyday experience. There’s something especially apt about the I Ching watch, giving you qualitative as well as quantitative answers to, ‘What time is it?’

Of course, most people, most of the time are going to regard these things as a gimmick, pay them no particular attention, and get the results you’d expect. But once in a while, someone is going to shake the virtual coins or click the ‘button of the passing to the predicting regime’ and have that moment of realisation I had with three coins and a disintegrating second-hand Legge translation: this is speaking to me.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 11:37 pm and is filed under I Ching. 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.