I-Ching for Beginners by Mark McElroy

My first response when Mark kindly sent me a review copy of I Ching for Beginners was, sadly, a rant. In turning the oracle into a version for beginners, he’s denuded it of imagery, and I really don’t think that’s the best idea.

In fact, reading in more detail, I find the occasional image creeps back in. He doesn’t attempt to describe Hexagram 48 without mentioning wells, for instance, or 56 without mentioning travels. (And he does find images of his own. While Yi, in 7.5, warns against having the elder son lead the army while the younger carts corpses, Mark advises:
“When rabbits are gobbling up the garden, fixing the fence can be more effective than butchering bunnies.”…?)

I feel somewhat penitent about my initial rant, because I like Mark, and I admire his tarot-related work. He generously sent me a copy of his What’s in the cards for you?: I’m not qualified to review it, but I do like his open, playful, experimental and unintimidating approach. I imagine he must be responsible for drawing a lot of people to divination who would never otherwise have ventured in. (In other words, he’s actually doing something that I’m still only talking about.)

The I Ching for Beginners is really quite honest about what it is: the subtitle says it’s ‘a modern interpretation of the ancient oracle’; the appendix says it’s ‘an extremely simplified oracle inspired by the Book of Changes’. This isn’t the I Ching, for beginners or anyone else; it’s a commentary on it. And as commentary, it’s worth having, with some original insights (not just rehashed Wilhelm, unlike many) and clear, easy to understand language.

The introduction is simple, welcoming, and talks good sense. For instance:

‘While you can tell fortunes with the I Ching, doing so is a bit like using a fancy plasma screen television as a doorstop – it works, but you aren’t really getting what you paid for.’

And then for each hexagram, he provides

• a new title (not a translation of the name)
• a summary (imitating the Daxiang but not very related to it. For instance, for Hexagram 9: ‘The empowered person knows light breezes steer mighty clouds’)
• ‘encourages’ and ‘warns against’ sections. These are sometimes in tune with the hexagram, sometimes less so, and naturally a bit repetitive (‘encourages joining a group… warns against isolating yourself’) – not that that is necessarily a bad thing
• Thought Questions. A great idea.
• General commentary on the hexagram
• ‘love and relationships’ commentary
• ‘work and projects’ commentary
• comments for each moving line

The ‘thought questions’ are my favourite part. I’m always glad of any recognition that Yi asks questions as well as answering them. Understanding divination as an ongoing conversation in this way helps to get past the mechanistic, ‘questions in, answers out’ mindset. Some of Mark’s proposed questions are excellent – on Hexagram 31, for instance, they range from ‘How open am I to good advice?’ through to ‘To what extent might someone be manipulating me in this situation?’ Some seem to digress a little into executive-speak (‘How can I most effectively get “buy in” from others?’). But I hope he has set a precedent here, and that more commentators will start including lists of questions that Yi might be asking.

What I don’t like so much are the many comments and interpretations that limit or distort the original. As often as not, Mark’s version provides a perfectly good suggestion for something a line or hexagram can sometimes be about, but isn’t an adequate summary of its real scope. Hexagram 34, for example, is Great Vigour. Mark calls it ‘Restraining Impulsiveness’. And sometimes that can be what this is about; at other times, people simply need to become aware of their own strength. Hexagram 7 is ‘The Army’; Mark makes it into ‘Rallying Others’. Which, again, it sometimes is – but you’re at least as likely to need to use this model to organise and discipline your own individual efforts.

There are more examples I could give, but the pattern is the same. Mark brings out one aspect well, but excludes so many possibilities that the ‘beginners’ this book is meant to be for could be seriously misled. I suppose this is a natural consequence of removing and replacing imagery. Ironically, that would also be the best reason for getting hold of this book: every commentary is liable to bring out some aspect of an image while omitting others, so it’s good to have a range of commentaries to browse through while you become more familiar with the imagery.

Sometimes this book seems to me to miss the point (for instance when looking at Hexagram 38 and asking ‘What can be blended together?’); sometimes it seems to bring it out beautifully. In Hexagram 23, for example, he proposes the ‘thought questions’:
‘To what extent am I being guided by outdated notions of profit or appropriateness?’
‘How willing am I to release the past and be open to new ideas?’
‘What are the signs that it’s time to cut my losses and move on?’
‘What needs to be shattered so that I can make progress?’

Hexagram 14 he dubs ‘Having what it takes’, which I feel hits the nail squarely on the head. Great Possession is about what power and personal greatness you can muster; in divination, it can also point up how having what it takes and doing what it takes are two different things. I think Mark brings out both the scope and the limits of this one very well.

To sum up – there are flashes of insight to be had here, and some real help with readings. The book isn’t the I Ching, nor yet a substitute for the real thing. If you want to get someone a simple, introductory I Ching this Christmas, get them Stephen Karcher’s excellent I Ching Plain and Simple – or if you want something still simpler and more introductory, the Sorrells’ I Ching Made Easy is surprisingly good. But if you can make a small space on your I Ching bookshelf, then I Ching for Beginners is worth squeezing in for its down-to-earth attitude and original perspectives.