Sharing the I Ching

Have you ever tried to explain your relationship with the I Ching to someone? Maybe explaining how you took a decision, solved a problem, reached an insight?

Or do you find it simpler just to avoid the subject altogether?

Naturally, I find myself mentioning the oracle more often than most: more or less every time someone asks the ‘What do you do?’ question. And then there’s usually perfect befuddlement, and then I need to try to explain – at least a little – which I always used to find quite awkward and embarrassing. I’m sure you know the feeling. But… why is that?

Of course, there’s always the chance that the person you’re talking to will hold a religious conviction that divination is the work of the devil, you are inviting in evil spirits, and so on. (More of a chance if you’re in the US, I imagine.) Then, I think, you have to respect that this person is genuinely, altruistically afraid for you – and hope to change the subject soon.

This isn’t the source of the awkwardness, though, or not for me. I think that stems from another religion, one that seems to permeate our culture more completely: scientism. Divination, it says, is obviously not real. Why not? Because it can’t be: there is no scientific explanation for how it could work, therefore it can’t. This is obvious; everyone knows.

It follows that anyone who believes otherwise is obviously nutty, totally fruitcake, several sandwiches short of a picnic. Divination is present in popular culture as a bit of a joke (headscarf, crystal ball and so on) – ‘for entertainment purposes only’ – but to admit to doing readings and taking what an oracle says seriously is tantamount to admitting that you have a whole colony of bats in the belfry.

(A few weeks ago I had the ‘what do you do?’ conversation with a new friend, and watched his face as I told him. The ‘Oh, just as I was starting to think you were intelligent’ reaction was written there clearly enough, though he hid it very politely as he changed the subject. Ah well – never mind.)

The thing is… you don’t have to be a dogmatic believer in scientism to feel its influence. Twenty-four years ago, if someone asked what I did, I was liable to respond with an embarrassed mumble – something along the lines of

‘It’sthisthingyouwon’thaveheardofandyou’llthinkit’smadwhichisnotaproblematallniceweatherwe’rehaving.’

I suppose that’s because I grew up in a world – and a family – where everyone knew divination wasn’t real. It’s taken me a while to be able simply to tell people what I do and how it helps people.

And – who knew? – it turns out some people are actually interested. I’ve found myself sitting down drawing hexagrams on the back of an envelope in a coffee shop, or asking, ‘Imagine you were asking about taking on another voluntary role and someone told you that the house’s main roof beam was bending under the strain – what would that mean?’ Maybe scientism is only a slightly brittle layer over the surface of an older knowing?

Incidentally… one of the most open, interested people I’ve talked to about this, a woman who asked excellent questions about what kinds of things people ask, and what the answers are like, and how they help, and why I value the oracle and what I believe it reveals about the nature of reality… turned out to be a vicar. (I didn’t find this out until later, when there was an opening for me to ask what she did.)

I’ve also had a couple of lovely encounters with people who know the I Ching themselves, and remember a reading that might have changed the course of their lives. The oracle, it turns out, is a big part of the reason why my local greengrocer moved to this (southwest!) part of the country. And there was this encounter I wrote about in the ‘Aha!’ answers thread back in 2008:

I’d gone into Oxford to buy something specific, and after a lot of hunting round I found what I was looking for. But for some reason I decided to walk on and look at the next shop I’d been going to visit anyway, where I happened on a pot of minute beads that I thought would make the ultimate portable set of 16.

When I took my beads to the till and explained what they were for, the shopkeeper was fascinated. She didn’t know you could consult with beads, but she had a history with the I Ching. She remembered there was a time when she ‘wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning without casting,’ and she remembered vividly how the oracle could give her a firm kick when needed.
But most of all, she remembered the time in the 70s when the oracle talked her out of carrying cocaine through customs. She’d already agreed to carry it, but still asked the I Ching for its comment. It said something about the small fox that soaks iits tail in the water and can’t complete the crossing; she changed her mind.

(You see what I mean about a reading that might have changed the course of a life!)

This hardly ever happens: most people have never heard of the I Ching. (Someone should make a website about it or something.) But you never know…

Anyway, I’d encourage you to be unafraid to share. Yes, some people might think you’re deranged, and you certainly can’t make anyone change their mind (about anything, ever, but particularly not about their religion). And if you’ve learned from a reading what to say to someone else to help them, it might help them more if you can conceal your sources. I’ve seen Hexagram 36 in this connection a few times –

‘Brightness enters the earth’s centre. Brightness Hiding.
A noble one, overseeing the crowds, uses darkness and light.’

Hexagram 36, Brightness Hiding, the Image

But by speaking up, you might have a delightful encounter with a fellow-fruitcake – and you might even spark someone’s interest and the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I Ching Community discussion