If you’ve studied Stephen Karcher’s Total I Ching or listened to How to make Change a working part of your life, you’ll be familiar with the idea that the I Ching’s hexagrams come in Pairs, and that these Pairs are units of meaning in themselves. If you receive Hexagram 6, Dispute, in an answer, he would say that you’d received the ‘Arguing’ aspect of ‘Attending-Dispute’, Hexagrams 5 and 6. The traditional Sequence of the I Ching is arranged straightforwardly in Pairs: 1-2, 3-4, and so on, each odd-numbered hexagram pairing with the even-numbered one that follows.
The more common kind of Pair is created simply by inverting a hexagram. Hexagram 5 upside-down is Hexagram 6; Hexagram 7 upside-down is Hexagram 8, and so on.
The not-so-common kind is found where a hexagram is the same when inverted – like Hexagram 61:
Then its Pair will be its opposite, or complement (two ways of describing the same relationship): every whole line replaced with a broken one, and vice versa. So Hexagram 62 follows:
(This is actually something of an over-simplification. There is a third kind of Pair, where the hexagrams are both complementary and inverted. 17 and 18, for example:
)
The ‘usual’, inverted Pairs each consist of just one pattern of six lines. The easy way to describe this is to say that the pattern is inverted; a maybe more helpful way, for readings, is to say that our perspective or direction has changed. It’s like a landscape –
– our experience of it depends on where we’re coming from.
So when you approach this abstract landscape –
– from one direction, you find Hexagram 37, People in the Home. Turn yourself around and approach it the other way (travelling from right to left), and you are moving through Hexagram 38, Diverging.
This is one of those places where the angle of view makes an extreme difference. There’s a group of people who share a home and a world-view, but the view from the outside is altogether different from that on the inside.
The contrast in perspective in this kind of Pair can be very helpful in readings. Sometimes it’s just a matter of being aware of both sides of the coin; sometimes it’s a more pointed reminder to concentrate on the view you’ve been given. For instance, I received Hexagram 5, Attending, just recently about something I was much more inclined to Dispute – arguing with myself, taking myself to task, rather than paying Attention. So the gentle advice from Yi might be something like,
‘Yes, disputing and thrashing this out with yourself might be one way of approaching it – but try a little patience and attention as well…’
The four complementary Pairs can’t be seen in the same way. Hexagrams 61 and 62 aren’t the same pattern approached from different directions: they are absolutely different from one another. In Yijing Wondering and Wandering by Schorre and Dunne, Carrin Dunne calls these opposite/complementary Pairs Dragon Gates, after hexagrams 1 and 2. (She contrasts these with the opposite-and-inverted Pairs, which she calls River Crossings.) As she explains:
“The gate is the dragon’s maw, which both swallows us down and spits us forth transformed. They are Dragon Gates because there is something irrevocable and incomprehensible about passing through them.”
For far more in-depth insight into the nature of the different kinds of Pair, I can recommend this book very highly.
For a visual impression of the complete, pathless gap within a complementary Pair, have a look at the Rubin illusion (link opens in a new window – close it to come back). Is that a vase, or a pair of faces? You can see the picture one way or the other, you can make yourself giddy alternating between the two at speed, but you can’t see both at once. It’s something like going through a ‘Dragon Gate’: a perceptual leap. (Another, harder visual leap: how old is this woman?)
Is this optical illusion idea an anachronism? Maybe. Look into the eyes of the voracious taotie that gaze out at you from the centre of this vessel, or from this one. Are you seeing one monster, or two?
I Ching, YiJing, hexagrams
Well I couldn’t get any of them.
But I poured some wine from my “wine capacity (vessel) ” and now I feel better about every-ting.
As the Russians say, “One must drink vodka to understand it.”
And about that guy who somehow equated the I-Ching with paranoia,
conspiracy theories, and demonology:
Obviously he’s IN ON IT!
I guess I would feel a lot more convinced about all this structural analysis if we were sure the King Wen sequence was the received order used by the original editors. Right now, like or not, evidence is against that assumption. The fact is our oldest Yijing from Mawangdui follows a different order. The “pairs” are the same, but they are not contiguous – and that is the only argument Karcher and others can offer to find special meaning in them.
Bob, John, Hilary,
pairing has NOTHING to do with Karcher etc etc it is a property of recursion of ANY dichotomy – IOW this is not an ‘idea’, it is a FACT of METHODOLOGY.
In the traditional sequence the pairing INDICATES the use of recursion, be it intentional or not, – see the diagrams/comments in the old page
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond/cracked.html
These sorts of mappings are a dime a dozen as DERIVED sequences from one NATURAL sequence, that being the recursion of yin/yang that gives us the binary sequence and its pairings that are easier, more universal, to deal with than the local ‘variations’ on the theme. IF you guys spent more time focusing on the natural sequence you would learn a lot more than trying to wrestle with the ‘small world network’ of the traditional material.
For the work on the binary sequence see the current ICPlus format that is ordered in that sequence and shows the relationships of many pairs etc etc etc for each hexagram.
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/IChingPlus
For many of the ‘dime a dozen’ sequences see:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/icmatrix.html
Chris.
BTW the Mawangdui order appears to be derived by the forcing of the doubled trigram hexagram to the front of the list for each row and as such an ‘artificial’ ordering that is restored to a more natural order by replacing the leading hexagram into its ‘natural’ place. We also note that for each octet it is the top trigram that is common across the set and when we put the ‘correct’ order in these form into pairs based on structural opposite of the base trigrams with a common top trigram. E.g.
basic mawangui -> ‘restored’ mawangui
01 12 33 10 06 12 25 44 -> 01 12, 33 10, 06 12, 25 44
52 26 23 41 04 22 27 18 -> 26 23, 52 41, 04 22, 27 18
29 05 08 39 60 63 03 48 -> 05 08, 39 60, 29 63, 03 48
etc
etc
We can also rotate each set to get an octet reflecting the binary ordering (common BOTTOM trigram) of:
heaven
thunder
water
mountain
earth
wind
fire
lake
Chris.
Hilary wrote re wondering and wandering:
“For far more in-depth insight into the nature of the different kinds of Pair, I can recommend this book very highly” – from a universal IC perspective I disagree – it is ‘weak’ in that it tries to stay in the ‘traditional’ box and in so doing misses a LOT re methodology etc – all of these texts you mention cover pairs, quartets, octets etc in a ‘waving of hands’ manner since they try to maintain the dogma of the ‘traditional’ I Ching material and so reflect being stuck in 10th century BC perspectives.
How you can try and maintain that thinking given what we have achieved in understanding of brain etc etc is at times laughable (or sad but lets keep humor over depression!) As I wrote to Karcher on your list some time ago, he will not be able to cover the “TOTAL” I Ching until he goes through work such as mine or equivalent; just because someone is published Hilary does not mean they are ‘right’ 😉 – and then fiction gets published every day.
This is the 21st century AD and you cannot ignore 3000+ years of research unless you treate the traditional IC as people treat the Bible – as some sort of solely religious document – It isnt. – it is one of MANY local expressions of a set of universal qualities and it is to those universals that we need to focus our attention to bring the IC into the present in its ‘fullest’ glory.
Chris.
Chris, didn’t know you’d read Wondering and Wandering? But I wouldn’t expect you to like it.
There’s no way of knowing what the original sequence may have been (not that the sequence has anything to do with the existence and relevance of pairs, which is clear enough from the text). And I’m not particularly bothered about what is either the earliest or the latest thing in sequencing or pairing. What interests me is what proves to work well in divination.
“What proves to work well in divination” — yes, that interests me too. I guess I’m wondering how you know what works well? How do you know how accurate and useful what you do really is? Oh, sure. The clients are happy, they praise your skill. But anyone can accomplish that much by playing artfully on the twin pillars of divination: fear and hope. Did Delphi ever have a dissatisfied customer? No, I don’t think so. “It may be as good as you hoped, it may be as bad as you feared” — that’s all that is necessary to keep the clients happy. You know that by now. What I’m wondering (since you appear to be sincere) is what standards you apply to your own efforts to know whether they are working or not. Why do you think this pairing business is valid? Certainly you said nothing in your initial post to support it beyond a lot of suggestive language? What are you promising us, Hilary? Maybe promise is too strong a word, but what exactly are you selling here?
By the way, Chris, you really are very impressive. If only the Yi were an intellectual problem….
Hilary, Re the originators of the trad IC etc THEY DID NOT KNOW WHAT THEY WERE DEALING WITH. PERIOD. The ancients had an intuition of ‘something’ but lacked knowledge and so precision in understanding other than that intuition. If you know anything about the development of intuition then you would know that some are born with ‘good’ intuition but most have to develop it over time and so from experience. LOCAL experiences are not enough when dealing with universals – one has to ‘get out more’ 😉 – go wide and so sum all of those ‘small world’ networks to bring out the universal patterns (see diagram of this in:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/wavedicho.html )
Going wide then allows for the summing of all of those ‘differences’ to extract the common, universal, elements that make up the IC metaphor.
The ‘traditional’ sequence is a derived, LOCAL, format from what the brain does naturally – oscillate across the differentiate(yang)/integrate(yin) dichotomy and in doing so elicits a set of qualities usable to describe reality (where the focusing of attention sets a boundary within which develops a FINITE set of qualities usable to describe a potentially INFINITE number of states/events – and so the qualities serve as sources of analogy/metaphor – “condition X is LIKE the qualities associated with hexagram 23”, and so event X aids in describing hexagram 23 etc)
The traditional descriptions, being LOCAL, and the original users unaware of the formal structure of ‘in here’, will be rich in metaphor/analogy in attempts to describe ‘all there is’. As Marshell demonstrates, the focus was on making links to LOCAL history/mythology to try and describe the expressions of these archetypes, universal forms – that was all they could do in that they could not directly reference the archetype qualities, they had no Science that allowed for that, they had to ‘beat around the bush’ to flush meaning out — and so associations to local contexts that aided in customising the universals IC into a local, ancient Chinese, IC.
We now know more, we know have access to the universals that those metephors/analogies reference and as such can directly reference the ‘regular’ network that is the Universal IC where all is linked together as potentials and LOCAL CONTEXT will then customise things – the regular network interacts with a ‘random’ aka ‘unpredictable’ local network to give us a small world network – In the IC this being the traditional sequence.
In the realm of divination, knowing the regular network and how ‘small world’ networks develop from it, so we can extract probabilities of events (as covered in the proact IC material where we ask general questions about a situation/person etc to elicit a general indicator of what is going on etc:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/lofting/icplusProact.html
Here we use our unconscious, our species-nature to give us a ‘vibe’ that we then list in order from general to particular (which is how the brain does it) and so get a better ‘fit’ to the situation than coin tossing etc IOW we use our species-nature AND our consciousness-nature as we move from general to particular.
TO understand the FULL SPECTRUM of the IC you need to understand the METHODOLOGY behind the creation of hexagrams and so a focus on STRUCTURE. In that analysis one discovers the PAIR nature of hexagrams (and their formation into quartets, octets etc) in that the LAST ROW of the recursion, the row we decide to ‘stop’ recursing, will always be an ordering of PAIRS – one element is the unconditional expression, the other the conditional expression of the cell in the previous level from which the pair has emerged – see, REFLECT UPON, the diagram:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/btree.png
This focus takes us WAY beyond pithy ‘interpretations’ of hexagrams for people in that we have access to DEPTH not covered in the more ‘traditional’ texts. (and that includes the XOR material giving one both properties and methods of each hexagram described by analogy to all other hexagrams)
IN working with the binary etc, as an interpreter for someone you can give far richer, ‘closer to the truth’ readings since each reading is itself the formation of a ‘small world’ network (or more so a ‘smaller’ world network – a particular from the general); the pairings allow for the use of comparisons of the derived hexagram to its ‘mate’ – all as part of the task of explanation by analogy/metaphor, which is what the IC is about. THus getting 23 for some event allows for reference to its pair of 02/23 an the unconditional nature of 02 re devotion (or darkness depending on which approach you use, cooperative or competitive) compared ot thre conditional nature of 23 etc etc etc These are properties of the UNIVERSAL IC where formation of LOCAL sequences then customise, particularise pairs etc.
IF you read through the above link on deriving meaning from waves, so you will find the nature of the IC is as a WHOLE, an unconscious filter, through which we then particularise, bring to the fore, let our mediation-oriented consciousness do its job.
Using random methods just gives you one of the 64 aspects of the IC being expressed at EACH MOMENT. What that means is ALL hexagrams are applicable to any moment and the random process selects one. BUT LOCAL context can order those 64 into best-fit/worst-fit and our consciousness only focus on what it thinks is the ‘best fit’. Using questions gives us a better perspective, a better chance of selecting the ‘best fit’ consistantly.
The second-best fit, in these mappings, is the other element of the PAIR that the best fit belongs to. In language terms, fit A is ‘noun like’ and fit A-1 is more ‘verb like’ or visa versa.
Bob – the I Ching is a metaphor derived from the drawing out from our unconscious, qualities usable in describing reality. There is no intellect at the core level, it is all neuron/emotion rooted, immediate, organic, holistic, parallel. BUT being so is also ‘vague’, to communicate it, since we cannot share the same spacetime position, we have to move into the serial, the DELAYED, the mechanistic, the partial.
The ‘problem’ here is that one can get attracted by the partial and so forget to complete the development of ‘knowing’ – the development of an instinct/habit with which to interact with reality. Consciousness as such is not originating, it is derived, it is a PART of the whole of our being where it serves as an agent of mediation for stimulus/response dynamics. The SUCCESS of that activity means it will try and perpetuate itself through structuring context to have a mediation-bias!
Chris.
Bob – a good example of this completion of learning is in martial arts where one learns to react in a precise, well structured, holistic, way to a stimulus without thought – the learning of good habits makes these habits immediate. Consciousness allows us to call upon it when the instincts/habits dont appear to be working, we need to ‘refine’ the instinct or replace it or move on.
The qualities associated with the IC are GENERAL but hard-coded into all of us as neuron-dependent life forms. Their particularisation aids in refining these qualities and using them ‘instinctively’ in a context and so conserve energy over the long term but not having to waste energy on thinking in general (but may be called to think in particular)
Chris.
Hi Bob,
As often as not, this blog is a place for working out ideas, so ‘suggestive language’ may be the best you get at times.
How I know whether it works – good question. The answer is quite straightforward: querents’ responses and experiences after the reading.
I take your point about customers tending to be happy anyway – not because of fear or hope, though, but simply because they’ve had my undivided attention. But if I interpreted a reading as encouraging some course of action that in fact led to emotional or practical disasters, I’d know I’d got something wrong. Of course, hearing back from people who are doing well after a reading is not such strong proof I got it right (they might have done just as well whatever they chose), but there’s an implication over time, all the same.
Then there are the ‘aha!’ moments people have during readings. Not so easy to quantify, but unmistakable, and inspiring. Interestingly enough, a lot of these come from the use of Pairs and ‘crosslines’, aka line pathways. Basically what these techniques promise are better readings: more complete understanding of alternatives, more insight into what goes on under the surface, a better picture of aims and motivations. But when looking at a particular pattern, I may not know to start with how (or whether) this is going to be useful in readings. I still think it worthwhile to explore the pattern and share it for other people to experiment with.
Hilary, you say: “But if I interpreted a reading as encouraging some course of action that in fact led to emotional or practical disasters, I’d know I’d got something wrong.”
I’ve thought about this for many years. I don’t think any longer that this is the right criterion. All you can aspire to be correct on is your interpretation of the Yijing. If that leads to a disaster in the short-term how can we know whether that disaster might then lead onto great good fortune in the long-term? See the story of “the old man at the frontier who lost his horse”.
Sometimes the route to our destiny takes us through disturbing terrain that is only disturbing because of how we see it. We can’t second-guess how people will react. When I was a Samaritan volunteer time and time again I noticed people would ring in with situations they considered to be disasters, but a similar thing was happening to me at the time and I did not consider it to be a disaster for myself, essentially because I had greater inner strength than they did, and if they had such strength they too would see their situation differently. So really I think all any diviner can do is be sure they know the oracle and have certainty in themselves they are interpreting it correctly. One cannot second-guess how people will react to events.
Yes, good point.
Still, it’s quite possible to learn from hindsight that you’ve got it wrong. Predictions, obviously. Advice, less clear-cut, I agree. But a nasty outcome is at the very least a cue to re-examine the interpretation – has been for me, at least.
A bad outcome when one was not apparent from one’s interpretation of the oracle of course should prompt re-examination. Here are some possible reasons:
1) You were wrong in your interpretation.
2) The person is misinterpreting what has happened and the change has not fully unfolded yet.
3) The oracle ignored us and we didn’t realise and so were just embroidering on nothing.
4) The question was unclear or involved assumption. Garbage in garbage out.
5) The oracle was wrong.
There is the point of view that it doesn’t matter whether the oracle is right or wrong, so long as through the use of it we are able to overcome lack of decisiveness. Note King Wu’s strategist Tai Gong, who knew that to disregard the oracle’s advice was for the best if the omens led to a dangerous indecision. At the end of the day, we must be our own oracle, and the Yijing is simply an aid to that.
Every day people ask the Yijing questions that they can answer themselves. They use it as a crutch and bother it with trivialities. It is an assumption that the Yi operates according to our ideas. We also have little idea of the timescale of unfolding. And our questions are far from clear. If we ask whether we are going to be a success at something, and the oracle implies that we are, then why should we think it wrong if the first thing that happens is an apparent misfortune in following that path? Does that mean we are only willing to be a success so long as there is no misfortune along the way? We asked whether we would be successful. In the end we are. Then the misfortune seems like nothing. So was the oracle right or wrong?
The more I discover about the nature of fate, the more I must admit it seems quite pointless to consult an oracle to draw a map of the future, since everything reverses, and all I am seeking is a little help in the moment to take a decisive step. Or to wait a little while longer. Or to abandon a plan. Things are always changing and there is nowhere to draw a line and say this is the point in time the oracle was actually referring to. Because the day we do that could turn out to be the day before it all collapses.
If we don’t realise this, we have no business consulting oracles.
That said, it is the Yijing that taught me this.
Each quality represented in the IC has a ‘preferred’, inevitable outcome given the conditions to enable the reaching of that outcome. The universal IC identifies all of the POTENTIALS where exposure to LOCAL dynamics elicits a path of actualisations of those potentials.
In the Poverty of Historicism Karl Popper attempted to make the point re there being no such outcomes, no such ‘destiny’, where the main emphasis was on attacking Marx’s “Historical Materialism” concept as well as other ‘determine-biased’ perspectives.
Recent work in networks dynamics shows in fact that given a ‘start’ eventually the ‘finish’ is reached BUT this spans generations and a statistical dynamic – an individual destined for X may fail, be distracted, die, etc but like individuals will continue and some will reach the ‘preferred’ outcome or their offspring will.
The exposure of archetypes to time, and so allowing for ‘interference’ to the path of development of that archetype, reflects the exposure of genetics, the complete program of a life form, to that environment and so ‘risk’ in completing its ‘path’. If you live off mindless stimulus/response so you can surrender yourself to ‘what is’, but knowing the archetypes and their paths allows you to put yourself on that ‘right’ path or more so the collective in that many in the group wont make it – we are talking time spans of generations here, not just one’s personal life span.
See comments/references in the history section of the “Language of the Vague” pdf file:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/Vague.pdf
… or the page just on hstory:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/history.html
Note that the universal IC can NEVER be wrong since it maps ‘all there is’ but as POTENTIALS – IOW one’s experiences will be ‘like’ the qualities covered in the universal IC.
Using the random/miracle methods in deriving meaning for a particular will give you one of the potentials of the whole and your consciousness will believe that that hexagrams is the ‘best fit’ – but this need not, usually is not, so – ALL hexagrams are ‘meaningful’ for any universal moment but the local conditions will sort the hexagrams into best-fit/worst-fit order (and so an order based on probabilities which is what our brains do at the level of the particular) and we can see this at work in our use of attention etc as we extract parts from the whole and treat those parts as if the whole. (see the comments of foreground/background dynamics in:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/wavedicho.html where the ‘background’ here is the WHOLE of the IC )
The issue overall is of the vanity of consciousness that acts to ignore all else other than direct experience. As such, it is consciousness that is the orginator of paradox in that its mediation realm is one step removed from reality ‘as is’ (and so the ‘surprise’ of consciousness when it hits on ‘wave/particle’ duality and the non-local nature of reality – see comments etc in:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/paradox.html )
There is a LOT of filtering going on where our instincts can deal with a situation such that there is no need for awareness – consciousness is an agent of mediation and so a PART of our being BUT is also a ‘mutation’ in that it can be proactive, it can create its own context (as our species has done) rather than adapt to the existing.
Not understanding the dynamics involved her acts to distort our perceptions of what is going on – and so the emphasis of IC+ on the use of generic questions to set down a mapping of the context in which we are operating and so allow for consciousness to then analyse, mediate, and make the ‘best fit’ choice.
Over time, there is no need for the book etc in that all can be done in one’s head where we have ‘internalised’ the understanding of the qualities and work off our intuition as a guide.
BTW – by being able to identify, IN GENERAL, the nature of one’s genetic expression (as in phenotypes – ‘persona’ types etc), using the XOR material one can map out the full spectrum of that expression and so see how a context can ‘push’ a button and so influence one’s ‘determined’ nature. Through that understanding we have the skill with our consciousness to mediate that dynamic, to turn ourselves from being reactive to being proactive (if the context requires it ;-))
There is a LOT of work to be done in these areas but it is work that brings the IC into the 21st century AD and makes it REALLY useful for psychotherapy etc etc etc — THEN comes the ‘game theory’ aspects in the form of cooperative/competitive dynamics 😉 (and so the ‘small world’ IC focused on these dynamics)
Chris.
To understand the interactions of ‘archetypes’ etc just preview the dynamics of genetics and the genotype/phenotype dichotomy. Genetics does not just program properties, it also programs methodologies where there is a definite GOAL for that method. Exposure to time and so local context etc will ‘distort’ the passage to the goal and we may never reach it, BUT through conscoiousness we can improve our chances of reaching outcomes that satisfy our ‘natural’ bent…. and that takes us into the realm of competitive/cooperative dynamics where others may have the same goals, seek the same outcomes.
I have done divination quite a few times.
Often it helps me see the bigger picture
involved in a problem.
I have a dream ledger and I sometimes
ask what a certain dream meant.
The answer doesn’t always explain the
dream but it tells the process that is going on.
It might be like saying – this stream or river
exists – you are by it and affected by it – you need
to behave and act this way to not be swept away
or endangered. It doesn’t say why it will work – I
just trust.
Lately I have been asking, what time is it?
Sometimes I have trouble understanding the
pairing. I just put this to my not knowing enough
and that I need to think about it more.
Nelson
Nelson wrote: “Often it helps me see the bigger picture involved in a problem.” – thats right. For ANY problem/moment the WHOLE of the IC is applicable with EACH aspect generating meaning. The LOCAL context will sort that meaning into ‘best fit’/’worst fit’ order such that for each moment there is a sequence of 64 hexagrams applicable and so usable in revealing the ‘big picture’ that is more than often outside of our immediate awareness.
IOW when you use traditional divination methods you have access to particular aspects you may not have considered – but in fact ALL of the IC aspects apply and so you WILL find meaning no matter what aspect comes up.
The chance of getting the ‘best fit’ hexagram is 1 in 64 using a ‘fair coin’. Using yarrow sticks there is a bias to yin overall (reflecting the more reactive states of the past) – and you can turn that around to bias to yang if you like to reflect the modern social dynamics (more proactive).
We are in a position these days to use general questions to draw out the hexagram best describing the context, and that ensure a more consistent getting of the ‘best fit’ hexagram. – we rely on our intuition, our unconscious to give us a ‘vague’ sense of meaning and then allow our consciousness to mediate with the details.
If one can get the ‘best fit’ hexagram, and so the one with the most contribution to describing the situation, the one with the highest probability in prediction etc then one can go even deeper in that we can extract the full spectrum of that hexagram through XOR-ing and so undestand where, under ideal conditions, that hexagram/situation is ‘going’.
(for the XOR-ing concept, see the comments in:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/IChingPlus
– just scroll down the initial page to the XOR table and associated links)
There is a LOT of work to be done here Nelson and so we bring the IC into the 21st century and so maintain its usefulness in describing reality ‘in general’ but also organically.
Chris.
Hey Chris,
Quoting:
Any chance that every time you say this on my site, you could add the proviso ‘Hilary persists in thinking that you get the ‘best fit’ through traditional divination’? It’d save me following up like this every time 😉
Hilary,
read what I wrote carefully – there is nothing there that says you cannot get the ‘best fit’ from traditional methods. What is indicated is that you cannot get it *consistantly* when compared to alternative methods (e.g. questions)…. nore can you get the full sequence of the 64 hexagrams sorted in best to worst fit applicable to the moment – you need the best fit to do that consistantly. (and using traditional methods you can get bestfit-15 and still think you got the best fit etc)
Using traditional methods you have a focus on one hexagram derived from:
(a) a bias to yin (yarrow sticks method)
(b) a normal. aka guassian, distribution (coins)
(c) a bias to yang (reversed yarrow sticks interpretations)
A reactive bias is (a), a proactive bias is (b), the middle is (c). Which one to use depends on the context (nature of the collective etc). How we label the processes, as products of ‘randomness’ or ‘miraculous’ is local in that the random and the miraculous share the same space.
Generic questions dont have these sorts of problems – with generic questions the problem is trust in one’s assessment of the general questions but if one focuses on FEELING, and so the unconscious influence, that trust problem can be delt with and we increase the odds of getting the best fit consistantly.
Your perspective is, IMHO, ‘religious’, you believe in some ‘external’ force that one communicates with when using the IC and so any act of ‘divination’ always elicits the best fit. As such your focus comes across as being on the ‘traditional’ texts etc as is the focus of fundamentalists interpreting the Bible or Koran or Torah etc. This gets into the realm of EARTH and UNCONDITIONAL filtration – the ‘rules’ are given from the outside, from the ‘book as wrote’ and there is no questioning, no change, ever (all very hex 12 IMHO). That EARTH perspective is one of many that are covered in the Universal IC perspective.
My perspective is that such a perspective is not necessary to get the IC to ‘work’ given what we now know re neurosciences, psychology, etc etc., we can in fact map-out the universal IC where the only ‘external’ force as such is our species-nature that in turn stems from evolution and the adaptation to context – the development of instincts/habits and so archetypal forms that reflect ‘in here’ the stable forms ‘out there’, resulting from mindless growth dynamics. (and so ‘as above, so below’ ;-))
You choose to reject 3000+ years of Science just as a creationist does and so makes your perspective ‘fundamentalist’ and thats fine, but the work coming out of the IC+ perspective is, IMHO, superior to what comes out of the traditionalist perspective and as such could benefit your presenting yourself as an interpretor of the IC for others.
As for you comment re “save me following up like this every time” – why do you think you need to? if you believe with your heart that the traditionalist way is the one ‘true’ way then what is your problem? Surely if this is so then my perspective will, over time, disappear. Tsk Tsk Hilary, you are not having doubts are you? 😉 – shock, horror, you are not starting to realise that what I offer ‘works’ and to accept that ‘fact’ means a rewrite of one’s belief systems (and so many MUST reject it to maintain their current identity – an action that is AGAINST the main focus of the IC – change (it is also a main focus of evolution, of actualisations of our potentials)).
If you want to make a business out of being an interpreter, a guide for others in dealing with the IC, then you need to open yourself to 3000+ years of research, research that goes to demonstrating the value of the IC as a metaphor for describing ‘all there is’ – IOW the IC as a “Language of the Vague”. – if you know it or not, you are witnessing in the IDM/IC+ work major contributions to our understanding of the derivation of meaning in general, and the IC in particular (the UNIVERSAL form).
So – Will you do that? open yourself to the ‘new’? Based on the above post and the past, I doubt it which is unfortunate for one thing you are good at is ‘fluffing’ – taking a sentence and making it into a chapter, adding flesh to the skeletal forms…..How is your interpretation of the IC going by the way?
I am explaining about dreams.
Last night I had four dreams that I wrote down. I believe
I understand the 1st,2nd, and 4th dreams.
The third dream was simply this:
I saw a piece of paper with the words-
“grizzly eye”on it. I forget how it was exactly written.
Anyway that is somewhat perplexing. So I asked what
it meant and received the answer # 41 with the changing
lines at line 1 and 6. I immediately understood.
See I know a very wonderful person who I am hoping
to be with. I am attending the church where she attends.
We live in different communities.
Last night I was at a football game. I live in the US.
My children play in the band that plays at the games.
Earlier this year when I was not at all seeing the
beautiful woman a new asst. band director started at our
school. She is about 30 years younger than me and I
believe I got enamoured with her in a distant sort of way.
I have never even spoken with her. But anyway this is
what the answer is about – mainly saying :
“What am I thinking about.” I have a great opportunity
and I haven’t gotten the omen fixed. I had better
straighten up or I can suffer serious injury.
This is how the oracle can help you.
Nelson
I find the idea of pairs attractive. Thats because I like to find the system, how I ching is organised. During my time with astrogogy I was dwelling a lot on the interrelation between signs – as here there, at least, seems to be a logical structure.
I find it hard to see that all of the pairs *exactly* portraits the two sides of the same coin. If they did, it would make it easier to get an overview of all the 64 hex., as then there would be 32 rather clear difined principles.
What I lack is getting the broader picture of the hexagrams, until now I find the sequense rather arbitrary. And I cant even see the rationale behind splitting IC into two: an upper and lower canon. Maybe because the ancient author(s) had a lot of “symbolic wisdom”, but were not used to categorize knowledge, as we do now a days. But I would like to know if any of you have come across attempts to categorize the hexagrams, i.e. putting them into a diagram, that explains the relation between the hexagrams?
Or maybe (to stay at the subject for this discussion) just a link to a page with keywords for the meta-themes of the 32 pairs?
Hi Ole,
Interesting thought, but I don’t know of such a page. The relations between pairs tend to emerge when you try to hold both hexagrams in mind together. Places to look for hexagrams understood in pairs: Total I Ching, Wondering and Wandering, and also LiSe’s site sometimes has links from a hexagram page to one where the pair are treated together.
The King Wen sequence seems to resist explanation; the best I’ve found is from Danny Van den Berghe, and is/was available here. (I get an error message when I try it, but hopefully that’s just a temporary problem.) There is also a lot of in-depth information with its roots in traditional Chinese understandings at Denis Mair’s Yijing site.
I can’t speak with any authority but the
nuclear hexagrams are a form of link between
hexagrams.
Nelson