Didja Ever Feel Like Someone's Trying to Tell You Something....?

No ignorance to excuse; it's a big world and there's no way for everyone to know everything. The I Ching (sometimes called "The Book of Changes" or "Yijing") is a divination book and one of (if not "the") oldest examples of classic Chinese literature, dating back more than two millenia. Ironically, I first learned about it while reading a copy of The Whole Earth Catalog a few lifetimes ago, and it's since taken on more personal meaning because my niece was born in China. I'm simplifying the description here (I'm still learning!) but hopefully it'll be enough to give you an idea of whether or not you're interested. The meat of the book is 64 short commentaries, each directly associated with a hexagram; each hexagram is a group of 6 parallel horizontal lines, some solid and some with a gap in the middle.

To consult the I Ching, you first build a hexagram by tossing three coins. Heads have a value of 3, tails have a value of 2; each time you toss the coins you add the total and draw one line of the hexagram (starting at the bottom); 9 is a "changing" solid line (usually drawn with a circle in the middle), 8 is a broken line, 7 is a solid line, and 6 is a "changing" broken line (usually drawn with an X in the middle). Concentrating on your (hopefully relatively simple) question, you toss the coins, do the math, and draw the corresponding line until you've built the entire hexagram. If there are no "changing" lines, it means the situation in question is relatively static with no major changes, while the presence of even one "changing" line means... well, there is change afoot (thus the name, "Book of Changes"). You then redraw the hexagram with any "changing" solid lines drawn as a broken line and any "changing" broken lines drawn as a solid line. Now comes the more interesting part: find your one (or two!) hexagrams in the book -- yes, you need a copy of the book and all copies have a chart showing all possible hexagrams -- note the number of each hexagram, then read that number commentary. There are no simple "yea or nay" statements; much like the much younger Western Tarot, one must interpret the words of each commentary while keeping in mind the presence or absence of "changing" lines, all while concentrating on one's question. Also as with Tarot cards, the imagery of each commentary has specific meanings, as well as specific Yin/Yang associations, to color one's interpretation.

What's funny is that it all looks a lot more complicated when I write it out than when I try to do it via the classic method. I like to use an app simply because there's less to keep track of (pencil, paper, coins, space to toss the coins, and the book). Some folks use just one coin and toss it 3 times per line... some folks literally build hexagrams by drawing painted or carved sticks from a container and laying them on a table... I once read of somebody assigning values to colors and creating a hexagram based on the color of the first 6 cars that passed his house... when a divination system is this old, there's a lot of adaptation that can happen! What's amazing is that the commentaries & basic designs have remained for all intents & purposes unchanged for over 2,500 years (that blows my mind) and the I Ching remains a useful tool in modern times. For example -- and one of the things that piqued my interest -- was that I've read at least three different histories of World War II that stated high-ranking Japanese military officers frequently consulted the I Ching before putting major plans into motion, but then stopped doing so because it seemed superstitious -- whereupon the Allies began to effectively counter their plans and push them out of the territories they'd conquered.

Anyway, this is a lot wordier than I thought it would be (it's what happens when I can't sleep and it's oh dark thirty o'clock)... I hope it's helpful...!