The book in brief: what you get

• An intriguing, thoughtful introduction.
• A translation that blends the received version of the Zhouyi with emendations taken from the Mawangdui (MWD)manuscript. (With just one exception, she doesn’t tell you which is which – but she does give you page references to Wilhelm/Baynes, Lynn and Shaughnessy’s Mawangdui translation for each hexagram, and the Chinese text she’s using in an appendix.)
• A translation of the Image. (Oh, except for hexagram 36, where it’s replaced by an excerpt from the Tuanzhuan. Odd.)
• Commentary on just eight of the line texts – but there are occasional interpolated glosses throughout offering a starting point for interpretation, like ‘matters affecting many people’ for ‘king’s business’ or ‘eliminating all your defences’ for the walls collapsing into the moat.
• An original, helpful commentary on each hexagram as a whole, based largely on the trigram imagery, blended with natural imagery from the Zhouyi and insights into Chinese thought and history.

Issues…

To be clear – I do like this book very much; I’ve been enjoying reading it, and I fully expect to be using it in readings. But there are a couple of issues that could get in the way of both enjoyment and use for you, so let me get those out of the way before I move on to the good stuff…

It’s described on the front cover as ‘The Original I Ching’ and on the back cover as ‘based on the core text created during the first centuries of the Zhou dynasty.’ Only there’s a basic problem with going looking for an ‘original I Ching’: it’s not like researching the work of a single modern author, where if you go far enough back the variant texts will resolve themselves into a single original. Travel far enough back through Yi’s history, and you will find not a single source, but multiple tributaries. Where is the ‘original’, and how are you to know when you’ve found it?

Margaret has chosen to use a blend of the Mawangdui (MWD) manuscript, which is the most complete but not the oldest of the early versions we have, with the received text, creating a truly ‘original I Ching’. There’s nothing wrong with that, nor with choosing the MWD as a source and deciding not to look at the more fragmentary, earlier texts discovered more recently. Learning and discoveries never stop with the Yi, so if anything is ever going to get into print there has to come a point where the translator says ‘enough’.

What I don’t like, though, is that she only mentions these earlier texts in a little footnote in the introduction, and then in her commentary on hexagram 18 implies that the received meaning of corruption and the ancestral curse is altogether superseded by the ‘earlier’ MWD meaning of ‘branching out’. So all the richness of imagery that comes with the ancestral curse is lost, while she pretends that it never meant more than ‘saving insect-infested food’!

Argh, somewhat. I like working with hexagram 18 – it’s one that speaks particularly clearly and eloquently and works inner magic for people. (By the way, it seems the oldest manuscript does have it as the gu curse.) And in general, I’d rather have Margaret’s translation of the whole of the received version – partly so I could more easily compare like with like, putting her work alongside other translators’, and partly because the received version is what I use in readings, and it just isn’t practical suddenly to switch to a whole different text and turn 18 into ‘Branching Out’ or 19 into ‘The Forest’.

The second issue is also a good thing, in a way. Margaret has that essential scholar’s honesty that refuses to invent meanings to fill in gaps: she even says in her introduction that her book ‘aims to be as clear or as vague as the text itself.’ The unpretentiousness of her translation is appealing – ‘You should’ for the junzi of the Image, for instance, or ‘crossing the great river will work out’ or ‘impeded’/'on foot’ for 39. She offers lucid, intelligent explanations of recurrent phrases (like crossing the great river and yuan heng, li zhen) in her introduction.

However, when she comes to something unclear, it remains quite authentically unclear. 37.3, for instance, she translates,

‘The family goes “shyow-shyow”. Remorse and danger, but good fortune. Wife and children go “shee-shee”. In the end, distress.’

and adds a footnote,

‘It is unclear which emotions were associated with these sounds. The first may indicate anger or joy; the second may be happy.’

This is refreshingly open and completely without that irritating ‘I know what this means and I’ll make it mean it, damn it!’ translator’s attitude. However, it does often leave the reader without much of a starting point.

There’s next to no interpretation offered of line texts in general – some italicised commentary on eight of the 384, the occasional gloss in parentheses – so that often you’re left on your own to work with something like,

‘Sincerity. In peeling, danger.’ (58.5)

That’s fair enough. But at times it seems there is just no attempt to make sense in the translation itself:

‘Reversing the jaws. Gnashing at the warp at the north. Going on a campaign would bring misfortune.’ (27.2)

‘Jaws reversed: good fortune. The tiger gazes “dan-dan” (his eyes down], his face “didi” (flute-like). No blame.’ (27.4)

And for 29.4, here is all you get:

‘Six in the fourth place: (this line has to do with the bronze containers used in sacrificial rituals, replacing them with earthenware pots, and with either a wine ladle or angelica coming from a window. The one clear statement is: ) In the end, no danger [or blame].’

I can sympathise absolutely with the feeling behind this kind of note. It arises after a few weeks or years spent looking at every meaning, usage and variant of every character in a line, parsing it every which way, maybe looking at a small mountain of sample readings and consulting the Yi to ask it what it means for good measure, and still being all at sea. (Come to think of it, hexagram 29 is an apt place for that to happen, isn’t it?) But seeing this note in place of a translation still makes me feel as though an early draft went to the printers by mistake. I feel the same way about flute-like tiger faces – oh, and the standard of proof-reading, which is really not good at all.

Good things

Let me move on to the things I particularly like about the book.

The introduction makes interesting reading. It’s permeated by an awareness that this is and has always been an oracle, not just a foundational philosophical/metaphysical text. So towards the beginning she says,

‘Over the centuries, many have found that consulting the Changes can encourage thoughtful decision-makers to see aspects of situations to which they had been blind. The natural images in the Changes, when considered as analogous to recurring human situations, can provide fruitful images for meditation as people search for ways through – or out of – their particular dilemmas.’

and

‘It is best used as part of a thoughtful process involving repeated meditation, journaling, and the advice of others. It was not intended to replace moral dicta but to assist those determined to act responsibly. It can prod us toward a deeper, more informed view of the world and our actions within it.’

And towards the end, when she offers two example readings, one is modern and the other dates from the second century – a fact she doesn’t mention until after walking you through the reading. So the reader is left with a sense of Yi’s powerful history as an oracle – which is good.

I also especially like her advice on how to divine, something she regards as being part of a process of decision-making that includes information-gathering and talking to people. (Since a classic and painful mistake is for people to use divination as an alternative to these things, this is a Good Thing.)

Her ideas for questions are reasonable, if weirdly limited – why only decision-making and no asking for advice or insight? – and she seems stuck on the idea that second hexagram equals future results (not that that’s unusual). But then she suggests that you write down your response to the reading, journal before bed, sleep on it, write more the following morning, talk with a friend for advice, keep coming back to your reading for a few days and meditate on the Image. That’s far, far more true-to-life than your average, ‘cast coins, add up values, look up hexagram, get answer’ kind of account. ‘Expect to find wisdom though not clarity,’ she says. ‘If the answer seems clear, be sure to read all sections again, carefully.’

You can tell this is the voice of someone who has consulted the oracle, not just treated it as the object of study. She even mentions in passing, in the Acknowledgements, having introduced students to the oracle and had them write essays about their reading experiences. Hooray!

There’s also intriguing insight here into Margaret’s approach to translation. She explains how the concepts of yin and yang were introduced long after the Zhouyi was written. Instead of merely mentioning this, though, she has taken care to avoid the casual conflation of solid lines with yang and open with yin (I only have to look at my own book’s introduction for a handy example of that ), remove this conceptual layer from her thinking about the text, and explore what is revealed behind it. (And she includes a lovely interpretation in passing of 61.2 and its mention of ‘yin’.) And there’s a good account here of her take on Hexagram 44 – the accounts of 44 in Karcher’s Total I Ching and my book both owe a lot to her original article on this.

The commentary on each hexagram is original, sometimes surprising (24 as an earthquake?) and often insightful. It’s mostly based on the Image, and you can tell that, as she says in the Introduction, this arises from personal daily reflections:

‘I have lived with these words for many years, writing down the characters in the morning and carrying them throughout the day, memorising them, and writing the characters over and over when I could…’

(And I do very much like the fact that she’s included the Image because it speaks to her, and never mind historical authenticity.)

She uses her background knowledge of ancient Chinese life and thought to provide a context that makes things more accessible. There are little references to Confucius and Mencius; there’s an explanation of the setting-right of the calendar in 49 and this at the end of Hexagram 56:

‘A further note: In early China, fire was used to clear mountainous land and prepare it for cultivation or easier access by humans. So for them it was a civilizing, fructifying act, not one of long-term destruction. In th same way, in being wanderers (or pilgrims), we must leave behind many ties and almost all physical possessions. But by acceding to this emptiness and vulnerability, we open ourselves to new worlds, some of which may be far more fruitful for us than our current homes.’

Margaret writes in a plain, direct style that encourages you simply to contemplate the natural imagery – the scenery of the trigrams (had you thought of 26 as ‘the skies that lie among mountain peaks’?) and also the imagery of the original. Here is the bamboo in the name of Hexagram 60:

‘Bamboo is a rapidly growing grass with hollow stems. Each hollow tube terminates in a woody membrane that blocks the hollow. These solid portions have two functions: they give strength to the plant and they are the loci for branching and other growth. Without the joints, bamboo would collapse easily, and never grow into sturdy tree-tall plants.’

She goes on to compare this to a university course being just a term long to support the development of skills and the making of better long-term choices, and to simple, frugal living. We might already know all this about bamboo plants, but I find that to have it presented to me explicitly like this keeps me from skimming past the imagery and encourages the kind of slowing down and contemplating that makes for readings that work. Without being plunged into a sea of imagery and associations (no mythic or legendary dimension here), you’re nonetheless quietly guided into a meditative approach. And this is why I expect to be picking this book up quite often, to see if it can take me back to beginner’s mind again and out of my ‘I-know-what-this-one’s-about’-ism.

Who it’s for

I don’t think this is a beginner’s book, or not on its own, because of that lack of interpretation I mentioned, and the way it sometimes extends into the translation. But alongside a book that’s more inclined to ‘tell you what it means’ line by line, this would be a good addition: an alternative perspective, a common sense approach without moralising, and a reminder that the more prolix commentator didn’t really know what it meant, either.

I think it’ll be especially useful for non-beginners who have a store of their own ideas and could do with coming back to basics. And it would also appeal to anyone who’s averse to over-complication and drawn to the natural imagery of the trigrams.

You’ll find it at Amazon.com, and in Canada and the UK.

To my mind, there’s not a huge lot of point in using a computer to cast a reading. My button-clicking mindset is all about hurrying and getting through things quickly, which is really not a good fit for divination. Picking up the beads to run through my fingers is actually quicker and easier than opening a program, but it shifts me to a different, quieter mentality.

However, using a computer to store readings is a whole other kettle of fish; it can be tremendously useful. Firstly because there’s more to learn from a reading than I can absorb in one go, and storing it on a computer rather than in my illegible handwriting hugely increases my chances of finding it again. And also because there are vast amounts to learn from a series of readings: how imagery and trigrams and hexagrams (all the hexagrams, primary and relating and nuclear and paired and complementary and steps of change and so on…) recur and evolve and create contrasts and point out changes and tell stories…

There’s simply no way I can possibly follow all this in my readings (let alone my clients’ readings) if I just rely on my colander-like memory.

Well… a handwritten journal is better than the back of an envelope, and a word-processing document is better than a handwritten journal (as at least you can search it). Software made for the purpose, though – provided it’s easy and natural to use – beats all other options by a mile.

(If you particularly like keeping a handwritten journal – and I agree there’s something to pen and paper that pixels and screen will never have – then I’d still recommend software to keep a quick record of questions and answers. It’ll make your handwritten journal infinitely more useful.)

I reckon the basic requirement for I Ching software is that it not get in the way. It needs to make it easy to

1. enter your readings (so you’ll actually do it)
2. store and access information about the reading (so you have the essentials in one place)
3. find your readings again
4. find patterns in a series of readings

Oh, and if you change your mind and want to stop using the software, it should of course make it easy to extract your readings. You don’t want to find your readings held to ransom by an obstreperous database.

Here’s a short review of Justin Farrell’s I Ching Journal software: it does all the above.

A longer one – it does all the above, and other very, very useful things, too.

Remember I have a hibernating brain? I’m not about to attempt a comprehensive feature list for the software; you can read a full, clear ‘guided tour’ at the website.

This is pure journal software, so it doesn’t cast your reading for you. You do that, click the ‘enter new reading’ button, type in your question, enter your primary hexagram and check boxes to identify the changing lines. The software will do the rest: give you your relating hexagram, and also nuclear, contrasting, opposite and steps and patterns of change. No more embarrassing sessions spent looking at the wrong relating hexagram because of brain failure. (I know I’m not the only person who does that…)

(Yes, I know not everyone wants to look at all those hexagrams of context. Probably that’s why there used not to be any software that would show them to you. Then I emailed Justin my ‘wish list’ for some imaginary ideal Yi journal software – and the next thing I knew, it existed. Magic!)

You can type in notes on your reading: there are mini-tabs for background, thoughts and developments, which is encouragement in itself to revisit your readings and learn from good old Prof. Hindsight. (Tip, though: store developments in the ‘thoughts’ tab instead if you want them to be searchable.)

You can also click ‘read hexagram’ to open a new tab and access hexagram and line texts. Initially you’ll find the James Legge translation, but you’ll also find you can type/ paste in translations and notes of your own. That’s notes on the hexagram or line, in addition to your notes on the individual reading, which means the journal software doubles as a place to store your own ideas and insights on each hexagram. (I can’t seem to find a button to bring up the index of hexagrams independently of a reading, but if you click ‘read hexagram’ on any reading, this opens a tab that allows you to browse hexagrams.)

So – storing and accessing readings and information about them: nice and easy, with the added bonus of creating your own translations-and-notes database if you’re so inclined. Then comes finding readings: click the ‘search’ button, and enter I Ching diviner Disneyland.

You can search on keywords in your notes, and/or you can search on Chinese characters or pinyin. You can specify a date range and which hexagrams to search in. Find all the readings about X in the past 6 months that mentioned misfortune in the primary hexagram, for instance.

You can search by question (all the readings about X… or how about all ‘how to’ readings?). You can search by hexagram (choose whether or not to include all the hexagrams of context), or by hexagram plus keyword, or by trigram, or trigram plus keyword.

So when it comes to finding patterns among your readings, you’re all set. I find Yi really does use the relationships between readings – sometimes over months and years – to point out patterns in my reactions, changes (and failures to change when it would be a really good idea) and shifting circumstances. And it does this with a combination of themes, trigrams, words and hexagram structures, so having the means to track all these things is fantastic.

This is the moment in the review when I should be comparing the software to other options and giving a recommendation.

*Sigh*

For pretty much the first time ever, we’re actually spoiled for choice. The main ‘competition’ would be Ewald Berkers’ software with journal, which I’ve recommended before, which is super-intuitive and natural to use. It doesn’t have as many search options, though it does allow you to search by change pattern alone – eg find all readings with lines 1 and 6 changing in any hexagram – which can’t be done in Justin’s software. It also includes the means to cast a hexagram within the software as well as entering one you cast yourself. However, since it’s basically intended as a vehicle for Ewald’s own  translation, you don’t have the option of adding your chosen texts and hexagram notes.

Both are really good and thoroughly usable. I can’t decide which I prefer.

However… Justin’s comes with a free 30 day trial. At the end of your trial, the program does not shut like a trap with your readings inside: they’re still viewable, editable and exportable, which is great. Also, it defaults after the trial to a free version that still allows you to enter new readings – ie that’s still actually useful. (You pay a stupidly low fee to keep using all the search functions, or both search and translation database.) So I’d definitely recommend downloading, installing and experimenting. (Oh, and sending Justin feedback. You may find your requests get incorporated in the next version.)

It’s a colourful book with a clear, open layout that uses colour to reinforce the associations between hexagrams and trigrams. It also includes small illustrations for each hexagram, drawn from Stephen’s ‘Paper Horses’ work.

(Aside: the book itself simply describes these as ‘an image that gives you a feeling tone,’ intended to deepen your intuitive sense of the hexagram. But for more background on them, thoughts on the workings of images, and characterisation of the trigrams, download the pdf from here. Whether you get the book or not, this is abundantly worth reading for its description of the inner and outer landscape where divination takes place.)

What’s unique

What’s new in I Ching – the Symbolic Life is the seamless blend of imagery from the text with imagery from the hexagrams’ structural relationships. There’s no translation set apart from the rest of the text; instead, there are excerpts and improvisations on the translation woven into the interpretation of the structures.

The joy of discovering structural relationships within the Yijing is the way they can deepen and enrich readings, so you often find that all the answers you seek are already contained within a single answer; there’s no need to muddy the waters with a flurry of extra readings. It gives you a powerful sense of the way divination connects all areas of life and all layers of experience.

And the snag of discovering these relationships is that it generates a huge volume of technical stuff to bear in mind, and a huge range of connected hexagrams. There’s the paired hexagram, the Sequence, the nuclear hexagram, the family of hexagrams that surround that nuclear hexagram, the complementary hexagram, the hexagram created by reversing the trigrams, the Early Heaven hexagram, the Shadow Site… that’s anything up to ten other hexagrams to consider – before you even change any lines. The message of the reading can get very, very lost in a blur of information overload.

To access the richness of these connections without getting completely lost, you could absorb them all into your awareness of each hexagram – this may take quite a few years. You could also use this book.

The connections show up here as they might do in a reading from a diviner who has all these things deeply integrated into his sense of the hexagram. Naturally, he’d let this awareness percolate through into his interpretation without overwhelming the person he was reading for by enumerating all his sources. And in the same way, in the book, some sources are explained and some aren’t.

Similarly, the use of the translation reflects what a diviner might do in practice, maybe after reading out the words of the oracle. What you get here, instead of a complete word-for-word translation, is something like an improvisation on the text. It’s generally very close to it – the oracle of Hexagram 47, for instance, originally says,

‘Confined, creating success.
Constancy of a great person, good fortune.
Not a mistake.
There are words, no trust.’

- and the first passage on Hexagram 47 begins,

“You are cut off, oppressed and exhausted. Collect the energy to get out of this prison and re-establish communication. Be great and master the situation from within. Find what is truly important. Seek those who can help and advise you. The situation is not your fault but words are not to be trusted now. Do not believe what others are telling you to do…”

So this talks about every part of the text, but also (as I suppose is inevitable with any commentary) pushes some possible meanings to the margins – for instance, that ‘words, no trust’ might indicate that the reasoning of your own inner voice is hollow and inauthentic.

The text continues without break:

“Let Confining be your inner guide. It will turn self containment into the ability to manage the flow and flux of events.”

This is no longer drawn from the translation, but from the weaving of trigrams through the Pair. The intention must be that the reader will take and use all these ideas without worrying about where they came from. Also, she has a chance to absorb the relationships without consciously charting them, as both hexagrams and trigrams are consistently evoked using the same simple image-formula of words – a powerful way for ideas to put down roots and become familiar.

This use of structure means that every word of the book has its source: the shortest of short phrases might have an essay’s-worth of theory – and no doubt countless hours of divination experience – behind it. Here’s a very short example, drawn from the trigram-based section of Hexagram 45; I’ve added the source for each part in square brackets:

‘The Spirit Helpers

Lake above Earth [trigrams]. The Joyous Dancer and the Dark Animal Goddess [trigrams personified as spirit helpers – with the help of the Shuogua, I think]. This is Metal over Earth, an inner field that sustains outer stimulation [trigrams mapped to Five Elements]. Inner devotion now lets you express the spirit in the human community [trigram actions]. Take precautions and eliminate the causes of conflict [Daxiang text]. Do not accumulate great things for yourself [Complementary hexagram, 26, Great Taming/ Great Accumulating]. If you reaffirm common human needs and strengths [the Early Heaven hexagram, the ‘ideal’, Hexagram 48], the new spirit will reveal itself [the ‘Shadow Site’, Hexagram 20].’

And for the background to just one of these concepts, see the article at GreatVessel on Ideal and Shadow, in the amusingly-named ‘I Ching Basics’ section.

For each hexagram, there’s plenty of this kind of concentrated, distilled text that bears a lot of ‘unpacking’:

• A heading summarising the hexagram’s advice, based on the Judgement text and the movement between trigrams in the Pair
• Circle of Meanings – thesaurus-like – with reference to the ancient Chinese name of the hexagram
• Spirit Helpers – trigrams (and complement, and Ideal and Shadow)
• Heart Theme – the nuclear hexagram – and ‘Cycle of Seasons’ through the nuclear hexagram family, which he suggests ‘shows how this process plays out through time and the energies you can use to bring the action to completion and find the seed of new growth.’
• ‘Myths for Change’ section, which begins by describing the Pair
  • and then the Sequence text, translated/elaborated as ‘Charge to the Inquirer’
  • and a description of the hexagram (only subtly changed since Total I Ching)
  • and its position within the pair, decade, and probably some other relationships I’ve yet to identify
  • Hidden Exchange – swapping the trigrams to show how one hexagram ‘enables’ and develops another.
  • Direct interpretation and suggestions for action: immediate future, personal development, working with others, working with organizations, relationships.
• Transforming Lines. For each line (and I’m not altogether sure this is a comprehensive list of what’s being used):
  • Description of that position in the hexagram (in terms of the complementary pair of change patterns it creates – 24 and 44 for line 1, 7 and 13 for line 2, etc
  • Translation-elaboration-improvisation on the text
  • Instruction based on the new trigram created by the line change.
  • Advice based on line pathway, travelling through paired line and fan yao.
  • Advice based on nuclear hexagram of relating hexagram and its nuclear hexagram.

So for instance for 45.1:

‘Line 1 Beginnings: return of the spirit that brings the entrance of a new fate.

You are connected to a deep source of energy but the connection with others is unclear. One moment you are joyous, the next moment confused. Call out! One grasp of the hand and all will laugh together. Rouse the new energy. Leave your current position and mingle with the people. Changes are coming. You can achieve something great. Serve the highest ideals. Do not pause in your efforts to eliminate inner sources of discord. Proceed step by step. Prepare a decisive new move.’

Also, there’s an appendix at the back, ‘The Pairs in the Loom of Change’ describing how both trigrams and individual lines weave through each pair.

Who’s the book for?

I think it’s for fairly experienced users: people who already have a translation or twenty to hand and would like a way in to explore the meaning of the structures in the Yijing. (An interesting comparison would be with Nigel Richmond’s Language of the Lines.) I wouldn’t suggest this to a beginner as a sole source, because of the lack of clearly-differentiated translation – though it’d be interesting to read a review from a newcomer and see how this material ‘lands’ with someone who comes to it fresh.

Maybe more importantly, it’s for users who are interested in diving deep into a reading. In the introduction, Karcher describes the I Ching as ‘1) a book; 2) a technique; and 3) a way or spiritual practice,’ and says,

‘The long term use of this technique is the foundation of a spiritual practice or discipline that can give us a symbolic mirror that “reaches the depths, grasps the seeds and penetrates the wills of all beings Under Heaven.” In working with the symbols the Change offers, we experience how the Way or Dao is working in our lives. This Symbolic Mirror teaches us about the destiny that Heaven gave us (ming) when we entered this world and helps us manifest our innate power and virtue (de) in accord with that destiny. The practice transforms the shape of our heart-mind and links us with the Way of Water or Dao, the on-going process of the real. And, according to the ancient sages, this individual change of heart can synchronistically help to renew the world and the culture we live in.’

From which you can probably tell that this is not your first port of call for predicting election outcomes or diagnosing computer problems. But I’ve found it very helpful already with a reading about the subtle forces shaping my relationship with a group, and one about incipient depression.

Though this is clearly meant as a way into the depths, it’s meant as a simple way in. For instance, the only method of consulting suggested is one that always generates a single moving line (never more or less). This is the same method that Alfred Huang calls ‘Eight Coin Magic’ in his Complete I Ching: laying out eight tokens around a ring of trigrams. (The trigram-ring – another ‘Paper Horse’ painting – is provided at the back.) So this deliberately excludes all the subtleties that are created in readings by the interaction of different changing lines, or their absence.

Of course I’ll try using the book at least once with the casting method suggested – but I’ll be keeping it close to hand for all readings, for the insights it offers into the meanings created by hexagram and trigram relationships. I think that’s the particular gift of this book: tapping into the full, multidimensional ‘you are here’ capacity of these structural relationships and making them eloquent – something that belongs in a reading, not just in an interesting reference chart somewhere. I’ve only used the book for a couple of readings so far, but its words are already turning out to have that ‘jumping off the page and talking to you’ quality about them.

I wouldn’t necessarily suggest buying this one if what you most want is somewhere to store readings and keep a searchable journal. It’s easy enough to use and has some nice features (like adding your own notes to each hexagram), but it does also have annoying little niggles like not being able to scroll through the full text of a reading in one window, or having to use ctrl+enter to get a new line when writing in your journal. And the journal sorting/searching doesn’t begin to compare to Ewald’s.

However, it’s worth buying to get access to Stephen Karcher’s latest Yijing. While it’s based on the text of Total I Ching, there are also several new developments. There are clarifying edits throughout; there’s a ‘key words’ section for each hexagram with lots of contexts and relationships, in particular situating the hexagram within the ‘decades’ of life. Also, there’s an exposition of the crossline omens for each line. The software comes with a 15 day trial, which is ample time to have a good look through and try it out. (And your readings aren’t ‘held captive’ if at the end of the trial you don’t want to buy the software; you can export them to a text file via the maintenance menu.)

If you’re using Windows, I’d recommend you download and try it.

The book’s first few short chapters are introductory material. In a nutshell, this contains much insight into divination, interspersed with the occasional factual muddle (like the I Ching being consulted with tortoise shells, or the water of kan being yin). She offers a good description of how the I Ching can help writers (or anyone), with ‘counsel’, ‘peace of mind’ and ‘confidence’. Her chapter on trigrams gives a strongly individual sense of each one as an elemental influence acting within people. Chapter four offers general advice for writers, and then comes her advice for divination – what, why, and how – which is possibly my favourite part of the book.

“The I Ching is for people who are proactive, interested in shaping their own destiny. It helps you to observe patterns in your life and know yourself better, as well as avoid danger, affirm a direction or act on an opportunity.”

All good stuff.

Then we enter into the main body of the book, the hexagram commentary, which takes up most of its 224 text-packed pages. And after an introduction that spoke so strongly of the value of archetypal stories and the layers of meaning in symbol, I feel let down. There is no translation here, and no moving lines. No tigers, no horses, no dragons taking flight: no voice of Change. Instead, for each hexagram you get a quotation about writing, a mention for the component trigrams, general outline, and advice for each of three kinds of enquiry: questions about writing fiction, about writing non-fiction, and ‘the writer’s path’ in general.

Consulting with the Writer’s I Ching is simply a matter of selecting a single hexagram. You tear out the 16 perforated sheets of cards from the back of the book (it’s possible to keep them intact if you’re careful), divide them up into a deck of 64 cards, and shuffle away.

In other words, you will find neither the words nor the structures of the I Ching here. The ‘Writer’s I Ching’ is writerly, but not the I Ching.

It does come with 64 attractive hexagram cards, though. The card is just strong enough for shuffling, and the photos themselves are vivid, colourful and attractive. They’re also usually relevant to the hexagram in question, though in a variety of different ways. Some pick up on the name of the hexagram itself: ‘The Cauldron’ is taken literally, Hexagram 3 has an unfurling seedling, Hexagram 14 has ears of ripe wheat against the sky. (It’s called ‘Great Harvest’, following Alfred Huang – which would have been less confusing if they hadn’t called Hexagram 55 ‘Harvest’.) Some draw on the trigrams: there’s a mountain cataract for 4, a mountain reflected in a lake for 31. And a few are odd, such as the woman standing on top of a misty hillock for 25 (‘Appropriateness’), or the dandelion seedhead for 49.

Since a book review is something to write, I drew myself a card for the occasion. It reads ‘Hexagram 59: Easing’, with a photograph of a Buddha statue amidst sunlit trees. I’d count this as one of the ‘odd’ choices for both imagery and hexagram name. ‘Easing’ conveys some of the meaning of Dispersing, but also misses much. (That’s not an uncommon problem: calling Hexagram 54 ‘Subordinate Role’, for instance, captures the marrying maiden’s immediate experience, but doesn’t so much as hint at her future potential.)

So I look up Hexagram 59 in the book. First, the quotation, from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet:

“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.”

Which is a wonderful quotation, but not very connected with Dispersing, or even with Easing. (Perhaps it would sit well with Hexagram 43.)

Then the overview, which begins,

“The wind is blowing over the soft waters, creating turbulence and shaking things up for the good of all. In long-ago China this hexagram was illustrated by the emperor entering the ancestral hall to offer respect and prayers, asking for protection for his people. This gesture brought luck and good omens.

Under the auspices of Hexagram 59, it’s a powerful time to start new projects and overcome writer’s block. Jump in with a strong sense of purpose and focus on the big picture. Pay homage to ancient wisdom, myths and symbols, and notice how they inspire you and others. Remember your responsibility to society at large.”

Then comes advice to resolve disagreements and restore harmony.

The ‘Fiction Question’ section follows, offering advice on storytelling: learn to write with a beginning, middle and end; include descriptive detail, but not just for the sake of it; don’t write plots with coincidences; beware needless flashbacks; don’t include nameless or needless characters; don’t end with a car chase or earthquake unless you’re writing a thriller, but “instead, write an ending that the reader cannot see coming, but at the same time is the perfect wrap-up for the story.”

Now the ‘Nonfiction Question’, which – like most of these non-fiction sections in the book – is basically about autobiography. For ‘Easing’ it suggests reading through your personal journals in search of larger patterns and themes. Finally, ‘The Writer’s Path’ warns against perfectionism.

There’s no bad advice here, but nor do I get any sense at all of a pervasive theme. Parts, like the warning against perfectionism, fit the hexagram well; parts, like the hugely long string of stringent imperatives under ‘Fiction Question’, really don’t.

Actually, having looked through the rest of the book, I think that I unfortunately drew the card for one of its weakest moments. Most of it’s better than this. For instance, for Hexagram 50 the ‘fiction’ section talks about the ‘crucible’ within which you contain your characters and heat up their situation, and the non-fiction talks about a writer’s branding, which is an interesting take on the Vessel that contains and transforms. Likewise, many of the substitute hexagram names aren’t bad: 41 and 42 as ‘Low Tide’ and ‘High Tide’, for instance, or 44 as ‘Making Contact’. It’s apparent that Jessica Morrell has done considerable I Ching homework: there isn’t a bibliography, but I can see traces of reading in Huang and Karcher as well as Wilhelm.

Hexagram 38, for instance -

“The original translation of this hexagram was ‘eyes do not look at each other.’ Since fire extends upwards and the lake descends downwards, situations can deteriorate. People see things differently, and while this causes difficulty it also adds diversity to a situation. Opposition and contradictions can take many forms now.”

That’s a good summary, I think, that goes to the core of the thing. And the fiction question goes on talk about visiting both external and internal conflict on your characters, which is fair enough. (Though in her place I might just have quoted Eluard, ‘The world is blue like an orange,’ and left it at that. Now he could see differently!)

In sum, I’d describe this as a book of 64 essays on writing, written by an expert on the subject who also has a good relationship with the I Ching, and prompted by her associations with each hexagram. As such, it no doubt provides many useful rules and reminders for the fledgling author. But does that make it the best ‘Writer’s I Ching’?

I’m not a writer, just a lover of words and stories, so I’m not particularly qualified to answer that. As I said, this book isn’t the I Ching: all the structure, all the poetry, all the stories and almost all the imagery have been taken away. This is something often done out of a desire (wrong-headed, in my view) to create a ‘simplified version’. But a writer’s version? Are writers incapable of responding to myth and poetry? (I thought they were meant to like that kind of thing?)

I can imagine what an extraordinary inspiration the I Ching could be for writers. (And I remember that Jessica spoke of the I Ching offering counsel, peace of mind and confidence, but not inspiration.) Only think of Hexagram 59 in its original glory as advice for someone writing fiction.

‘Dispersing, creating success.
The king assumes his temple.
Harvest in crossing the great river,
Harvest in constancy.’

Dispersing is like melting. What’s frozen? In the name of the hexagram, someone is looking around sharply. How far can you see? What boundaries are in the way?

Can you enter the holy space where you connect with your ancestors and receive their blessing?

With this new strength, can you go beyond familiar territory? If there were no boundaries left, how far beyond might you go? (What if you wrote with no punctuation? No nouns?)

And you could do the same for non-fiction writers without too much difficulty, even for the reviewers of books:

‘Wind moves above the stream. Dispersing.
The ancient kings made offerings to the Highest to establish the temples.’

You imagine temples are made of rock; Yi says they’re made of wind, water and offerings. You might imagine your essay is made of introduction, exposition and conclusion, or that your writing is made of words. But what are these things made of? Where is the essential offering that makes it all real?

And come to that, I imagine that Yi is made of gua and words. What might these be made of? Ah – that would be the king entering his temple: individuals making the connection. I’m sure that Jessica Morrell has done so herself, but not so sure that her book is the best help for others to do the same.

~~~

Now that’s a review in Ewald-style: succinct, straightforward, conveying the main point with enviable clarity. But since I’m naturally a wordier animal than he is, I’ll write a little more…

The book begins with a nice, simple introduction, compressing all the necessary to get started from scratch (with three coins) into a short space. He finishes up by telling you how to reduce the texts to read when you have multiple moving lines – not to an extreme, he allows you to read all the lines if up to three are moving, but beyond that suggests ignoring them altogether. I’m not personally an enthusiast for these simplifying methods: it’s been my experience that on the rare occasions when Yi offers a dauntingly complex reading, there’s a reason for this. Still, Ewald’s seems as modest and practical as any. I’d be happier if he had presented it as an option, though, rather than as an instruction on the same level as ‘the hexagram is built from the bottom up’.

It ends with a couple of Appendices: one on forming questions, one containing the Images. Good sense is talked here about questions, particularly about when or why not to ask. Of the Images, Ewald says: “they are ‘mostly about issues relevant to rulers… they are not really texts illustrating the hexagrams, and sometimes are not even about related issues…’ . He’s clearly not that interested in them, but the translations are all the same not half bad.

Inbetween comes the meat of the book: the Zhouyi, Judgements and lines. (The only Wing represented is the Images, in that second appendix.) Each is briefly translated and commented on in a couple or four sentences – rarely more. So there’s plenty of white space on the page, plenty of room for thought.

The overall air is one of simplicity and straightforwardness, with a strong undercurrent of psychological intelligence. Though you do sometimes feel the lack of a native-English-speaking proof-reader, the writing is always lucid: there’s never any doubt as to what’s meant.

As for the contents of the translation and commentary – that ranges from bland and pedestrian, to remarkable light-bulb moments, to the downright startling. Open it to Hexagram 15, for instance…

“Line 1
Humble, humble is the noble one,
using this to cross the big river.
Good fortune.

Meaning: Being humble in order to get something done that is not easy. Things go well.

(The big river is much stronger than you. That force needs to humbly be [sic] respected in order to cross the river safely.)”

“The big river is much stronger than you” – of course. A small lightbulb goes on: I like this.

Then the next line -

“Line 2
Making humble sounds.
Persistence brings good fortune.

Meaning: showing humbleness. Persisting makes things go well.”

Well, naturally that’s what it ‘means’, it’s what it says. Perhaps there is nothing more to add – and I can see the wisdom of not spinning out great essays on simple lines. But then again, there’s a fine line between simplicity and over-simplifying, and making the oracle out to carry less meaning than it does. These, for instance, aren’t just any ‘sounds’, they’re the characteristic cries of birds and animals. There are other examples like this, where some meaning seems to have been simplified away.

But there is also a steady flow of new ideas, and enough lightbulbs going on all over the place that it starts to look like Christmas.

At line 7.5, “There are birds in the field, better stop speaking.” Why? Because you’d startle the birds and give your position away. (Why had I never thought of that?)

At 3.3, you’re close to deer without preparation. (A perfectly reasonable alternative translation to ‘forester’.) So this is a sign of seeing a real opportunity, but one you’re not prepared for, which is why pursuing it would be a bad idea. (And why on earth hadn’t I seen that?)

This is where Ewald’s work is at its best. There’s some tiny shift in translation, and it opens out a new meaning: generally something that seems tremendously obvious and unmissable, afterwards.

At 48.6, the well receives. Ewald comments:

“Someone (or something) who is providing now needs to take in. Like a teacher who now needs to listen and learn, someone who usually nurtures who now needs to be nurtured, or a giver who needs to receive.”

Another lightbulb. There are plenty more!

Tucked away in amongst this blend of brilliance and blandness come some startlingly different translations. Hexagram 12, for existence: instead of some variation on Wilhelm’s, “Evil people do not further the perseverance of the superior man,” we have:

“This is not the other not benefiting the noble one’s persistence.”

In other words, as Ewald glosses it:

“This isn’t the other going against one’s interests, actually. Blaming someone may make one feel better, but isn’t helpful at solving the problem.”

Which, in a couple of small unassuming sentences, turns the meaning neatly on its head.

Some of these novel translations seem exciting to me, some (like translating 44 as ‘Providing’) seem odd. Likewise, some of the new interpretations are undeniably brilliant, and some are – well – odd. You never know, looking things up in here, whether you’ll find bland reduction, or real new light.

I have another four examples here in my notes of unexpected translations, and (at a quick count) fifteen of insights I particularly liked. I’m going to remove them from this post now, and get some more work done instead. I suggest you make your own discoveries.

Quite. I’m sure this isn’t supposed to happen, but with the Chameleon Book, Freeman Crouch’s translation, I find it does. He reads the Yijing as a historical document, but goes beyond the relatively-familiar story of Wen and Wu, into the first generations of rulers after the conquest. He tells their story in his introduction, and connects it to the story of Yi the archer shooting down the suns (a huge eye-opener for me). And he promises that references to all these things will be found in the hexagrams.

There are quite a few I Ching books out there that try to tell it as a story. They don’t, as a rule, have the same honest grounding in text and scholarship that this one has. Nor is this a re-hash of anything: you won’t find these ideas anywhere else.

There are vivid, evocative historical connections. On hexagram 17, Sui, for instance:”When Wu captured Great City Shang, one of his first acts was to perform a ritual called sui. It was important to do this quickly, so much so that he did it before changing from his battle dress. I believe that the sui ritual had to do with taking the succession from the Shang line.”

(And he goes on to find historical references for the ‘little boy’ and ‘grown husband’.)

- and there are, just as prominently, vivid and keen suggestions for what these might mean for a modern diviner. Many of these bring the hexagram’s themes sharply into focus. Hexagram 18, for instance – and I’ll type out most of the commentary here, so you can see how ancient history and modern divination come together:

“A Gu-curse is an ancestral curse. What could an ancestral curse be like to us moderns? Inherited problems: the sins of our parents, the mismanagement of our managers.

This is a prospective, a reading made in the Zhou capital, not long before the Jia-day on whic the army of the Zhou were set to marching. When Wu took responsibility for the government of the center, the curses of the ancestors became his responsibility.

So. You are laboring under a curse. You own these problems. Where you like it or not, they are squirming right there on your plate.

Work is the word used for the healing process: you have to work the curse. So the emphasis at a moment of Curse of the Fathers is on working out, or working through the curse that you are laboring under.”

I find this to be really good commentary, focussed and to the point. I don’t feel the same way about his take on every hexagram: there are inevitably “Why did he miss that?” moments, and “Wherever did he get that from?” moments.

I dare say this is mostly just the sign of an original translation meeting a diviner who’s getting a little set in her ways. Maybe it’s also the result of a translation that casts the spotlight on a single layer of Yi, which is an altogether multi-dimensional and multi-layered creature. Some other dimensions are bound to fade from view. Yu and Feng Fang have disappeared from Hexagram 8, for instance, and more generally the sense of the regular cyclic time of farmers has faded away in the grand teleological glare of conquest and politics. All the romance and marriage has become political allegory, too. And I’m also not convinced by his approach to the structure. The line that casts light on 4.3 for me is 3.4, not 3.3. If you draw the hexagram, mark the line and turn the piece of paper round, you can see why.

But, if I can just leave the Grouchy Diviner to mumble in her corner for a moment, the Chameleon Book is a delight. The translation is punchy and captures the free, open nature of the oracle.

(11.3:

‘No plain without a hill – no go without a return -
Hardship? Make a reading. No dishonor.

Don’t worry. You’ll probably capture something to eat.
There will be blessings.’)

I love Freeman’s approach to translation. He regards the Yijing as a work of literature, and this naturally gives him a great respect for the original. Not just respect for what he feels it means, but for the words themselves. So, for instance, he translates the same character with the same word wherever he can, because in poetry, such echoes are meaningful. (This makes me want to jump about and cheer.)

He also respects it for what it does, as an oracle. So he says he aims to translate “in such a way as to make it possible to ‘tune out’ my interpretations and still use the text to develop other lines of thinking”.

After the translation comes the appendices: one on translation, one on divination. He has some good things to say about both, especially about what to do when the oracle doesn’t appear to be ‘working’. (Quote: “Sometimes you need an oracle; sometimes you need a nap.”)

And then come the endnotes, where you will always want to have a bookmark. (I wish they could be footnotes instead – maybe in the second edition?) Notes on translation, on interpretation, on alternative readings, textual echoes and wordplay, and more. I’m a glutton for all these things.

To sum up… it’s hard to imagine this as a book for beginners (though that might be my limited imagination talking), but anyone with an interest in Yi’s sources and its inner workings, and in having new light cast on their readings, should have a copy. It’s not often you get the opportunity to pack so many new ideas into so little shelf-space. You can get it here.

(This is a review I should’ve written years ago. Better breathtakingly late than never, I hope. Sorry, Freeman.)

In his new Shuogua, Stephen Karcher treats these extraordinary miscellanies as invocations of the trigram figure. He personifies each trigram as a ‘spirit helper’ – which works as an excellent counterbalance to the somewhat mechanical, abstracted view of the trigrams as ‘forces’.

Somewhere in the mists of Chinese history, someone was inspired to put together a Yijing ordered by hexagram. The texts of Daxiang, Tuanzhuan, Zagua and Xugua for each hexagram would be gathered together under its heading. And as a result of this, we can absorb all these disparate perspectives on each hexagram together, and build a more complete idea of each one.

With this new book, Stephen Karcher has done the same for the trigrams. Texts, commentaries and associations for each one are gathered together, so readers can immerse themselves in the qualities of the trigram in a way that was hardly possible before.

For anyone interested in divining with the Yijing, this is a real gift. As I teach the I Ching course, I encounter many people who find it difficult to experience their reading through the trigrams. Standard commentaries may not take them much further than ‘this one goes up, this one goes down’, or ‘this one’s submitting to that one’. It’s hardly surprising if people skip over this. But now Stephen K is inviting them to experience the trigrams from the inside out. ‘This translation,’ he says, ‘is designed to take us into this world of the spirits, to help us enter their dance.’ I’ll be recommending it.

Calling this book ‘Shuogua’ is really a misnomer. If you want to know exactly what this Wing says, you need to go elsewhere: for instance, you could buy Rutt’s book and look at pages 445-449. Stephen, unlike Richard Rutt, belongs to the ‘assume it makes sense’ school of interpretation (as opposed to the ‘it’s primitive, of course it’s unintelligible’ school, of which I’m not a fan). However, with Stephen this tips over into a ‘make it make sense’ school of translation, which involves not just re-arranging the text, but also elaborating on it and adding to it. Thus Kun acquires an association with battle, and Xun exchanges its gift of strength in bending for a gift of ‘finding the hidden illness’. This doesn’t detract from this book’s usefulness; it just means you wouldn’t want to use it as a translation.

What’s in the book

First, there are 15 pages of introduction – to the Shuogua, to trigrams as spirits and guides, and to the historical context for the development of the bagua, its systems and arrangements. This covers the ‘Later Heaven’, King Wen arrangement (the oldest), the ‘Early Heaven’, Fuxi arrangement, and also the trigrams as family. And here is one of those many places in Stephen K’s work where I want more.

For example, he talks about pairing the trigrams within the bagua arrangements to create hexagrams, but does this in the (to me) counter-intuitive way of reading the trigrams as though one were inverted. For instance, the central axis of the King Wen arrangement contains zhen and dui, which combine to form hexagrams 17 and 54. But Stephen opts to read straight across the axis and see hexagrams 31-32 (gen and dui, or xun and zhen) here. I’d love to know why he’s chosen to do this, and what effect he feels this bagua-based input has on the interpretation of the hexagrams. There’s some information on this in the Bagua section of the book, where he briefly mentions trigrams that work together and the hexagrams they form. I’d just like to read more.

The same goes for using the trigrams’ family relationships to understand hexagrams, and the assertion that ‘the inner square [of the Fuxi order] can be read horizontally, vertically, diagonally and through inversion, producing a list of the major architectural sites in the making of Change.’ (Stephen’s work often leaves me feeling this way – no bad thing, I think. I suspect that if we watch the articles section of greatvessel.com, we’ll find all the ‘further reading’ anyone could want.)

After the introduction comes a translation of the Shuogua‘s first part, and the opening lines of the second. Then comes the real meat of the book, the ‘Bagua’, where he gathers traditions together for each trigram. He draws on the Shuogua, but also on the Tuanzhuan for the hexagrams formed by doubling these trigrams, and on some traditions (especially medical ones) not present in the Yijing. He identifies the source for each section clearly, making it easy to refer back and forth between this and a more direct translation if you wish. Free translation alternates with personal commentary, presenting a range of ways to ‘live’ the trigrams.

I was startled to see that, when introducing the translation, Stephen makes no mention of the Daxiang. In the introduction, he passes over it in a few somewhat dismissive sentences as a text that ‘reflects the concerns of the Shuogua into the moral sphere’ and is about ‘proper behaviour’. (I think there’s rather more to it.) But I needn’t have worried; in the first commentary section for each trigram, there’s a sentence beginning, ‘The Realizing Person reflects this by…’. So the Daxiang does make an appearance.

Also in this initial commentary there’s a note on the trigram structure, insights from the hexagram formed when that trigram doubles, and commentary on the EOC character for the trigram/hexagram. (Also some really good stuff: ‘[Li] is the bird of the spirit shining in the net of our words and language’; ‘Kan/Pit brings heavy labor, dancing in the River of Ghosts’.) Then comes ‘The Scholar Speaks’, a free translation of parts of the Tuanzhuan for the hexagram. Then ‘Explanation’ and ‘Invocation’, both of them verses from the Shuogua. The ‘Invocation’ begins with the formula, ‘Through [this gua] you become…’ – which I like. And then there’s a final personal commentary, where you’ll find nuggets from Chinese medical tradition, and also some very usable information on how the trigram works in inner and outer positions
“As the inner trigram [Li] generates a warmth and inner clarity that provides spiritual guidance. As the outer trigram, she reveals the Bright omens that let you find your direction in the world.”

In a nutshell? If you want a direct, unembellished translation of the Shuogua, don’t buy this; buy Rutt, or Wu Jing Nuan, or RJ Lynn. If you want to move deeper into your readings by immersing yourself in the world of the trigrams, do buy this.

I have mixed feelings about it. For a lot of people, I know, asking ‘what do you think of Wilhelm/Baynes?’ is much the same as asking, ‘What do you think of the Bible?’ This is the edition the great majority of Yi-users grew up on; it’s basically the edition responsible for making the Yijing known in the West. If it weren’t for Wilhelm, I don’t suppose this website would exist.

So the Wilhelm/Baynes edition has been hugely influential, and many people still more or less equate the I Ching with W/B. It would be hard not to, even for people just getting to know the oracle now: the W/B is still the bestselling I Ching at Amazon.com, still likely to be the only one on the shelves at a bookstore. And I have long since stopped being surprised at people who quote Wilhelm’s commentary and firmly believe they are quoting the I Ching itself. Some people use the book for decades and never succeed in differentiating between oracle and commentary.

Is that a problem? Well, yes. The words of the oracle answer your question; the words of the commentator explain what he thinks that answer means. Now Wilhelm has the weight of a great tradition behind him – we’re not just looking at an individual’s personal opinions – but for all that, his work still has prejudices and limitations that the oracle itself does not have.

For example – at 37.2, Yi says simply
‘No direction to pursue,
Stay put in the centre and cook.
Constancy, good fortune.’
- or words to that effect.

Wilhelm (/Baynes) says:
‘She should not follow her whims.
She must attend within to the food.
Perseverance brings good fortune.’

He has quietly added ‘she’, ‘must’ and ‘should’ out of his own perceptions, and put a whole different cast on the thing as a result. And this, of course, is before we get to his commentary, which begins:
‘The wife must always be guided by the will of the master of the house, be he father, husband, or grown son. Her place is within the house.”

Again, this is not just Wilhelm’s voice, but that of a long interpretive tradition. The difficulty arises when people adopt that widespread belief that this is the I Ching: its words, its morality. It becomes more than a problem of interpretation: it’s caused many women, down the years, to discard the book altogether. ‘The I Ching’s the book that says my place is in the kitchen, firmly under my husband’s thumb. I’m an independent woman, so this book has nothing to do with me.’ It’s remarkably hard to convey the idea that although there is a book with ‘I Ching’ on the cover that says exactly this, it isn’t what the I Ching says.

Wilhelm’s work both represents a tradition and is a product of its time. Naturally, there have been discoveries made since the 1940s that affect interpretation, and someone who reads nothing but Wilhelm/Baynes will miss out on all the richness of these stories and images. Actually, someone who picks up an I Ching book at random will most likely be in much the same boat, as a huge volume of paper has been consumed by derivatives and paraphrases of Wilhelm.

I had the great good fortune to ‘grow up’ on the Eranos I Ching, which gave me the firm idea from the outset that Yi was a world of images and possibilities, not something that could be encompassed by a single perspective. And yet… even though I didn’t get a copy of Wilhelm/Baynes for some years, it’s having a pervasive influence on me. On more than one occasion, I’ve wrestled for some time before finally coming up with an interpretation I can be happy with – only to find that Wilhelm had it waiting for me all the time. And the sheer quality of the language has a staying power all its own. Which of these puts down roots in your mind?

48.3, Ritsema/Sabbadini:
‘The well oozing, not taking-in.
Activating my heart’s ache.
Permitting availing-of drawing water.’
(Erm…)

Alfred Huang:
‘Well is dredged.
No drinking.
Sorrow in my heart.
It could be used and drawn.’

Karcher:
‘This Well is turbid. They do not drink here.
“This makes my heart ache.” ’

W/B:
‘The well is cleaned, but no one drinks from it.
This is my heart’s sorrow,
For one might draw from it.’

At the time of the review, this was only available as an audio; now, you can also get a downloadable ebook for $25, or the audio and ebook together for $35. There are generous audio and text excerpts for you to review here.