Primal correlation - ?

[hilary]

Hi Peter,
You have got me baffled. (Hopefully now I've admitted that someone will come and rescue us.)

Going solely by the examples you give, the complement is the opposing hexagram, created by turning each line into its opposite. It's the mirror image - that is, it's the opposite, but can also have a similar feeling to its reflection. The exact meaning needs working out for every pair: with 56 and 60, I think it's to do with the way people relate... 60 sets up shared limits and rules; the wanderer's code is quite different from that of the people he's with, so he must adapt, like learning the language. (And so on...)

Now to what you really asked about - this is where I get lost. The examples you gave at the end (55-56, 59-60) are just inversions - turning the hexagram upside down. This creates more of a contrasting pair, but the two often seem to form one unit of meaning: complementary, rather than opposing. But this doesn't apply to most of the other pairs you gave - 1-2, 14-28, 34-50. Here I am stumped - I can't see any constant structural relationship between them all. Do you know of one?!?

Hoping that someone else will help here...

[hilary]

[This is Peter's original message from 21st June, overwritten by the script for reasons of its own when I posted the reply below, and restored afterwards. Sorry about this...
H]

[from Peter, Thursday 21st June]

Hi all! I look through Inet for some time to find an answer on my question: what is the meaning of "primal correlation"? Firstly I've seen this term in a work of Dr. Andreas Shoter (that I'd downloaded from the page of I Ching resources), then in the pocket issue of "I Ching" by Thomas Cleary. This correlation is one of two correlations in the round diagram of Fu Xi: complement can be made by linking hexagrams through center (opposing hex-s), and primal correlation - by linking hexagrams that opposite through the "Qian-Kun" axis (so we have "Guai"-"Gou", "Da You"-"Da Guo", "Da Zhuang"-"Ding" etc. pairs, and 32nd (or the very first) pair is "Qian"-"Kun"). And these two correlations are linked: EG, complement to "Huan" (59) is "Feng" (55), and primarily correlated to "Huan" is "Jie" (60), so complement to "Jie" is "Luy" (56), which is primarily correlated to "Feng". I suspict that primal correlation means some kind of alliance, affinity, but I'm not sure.

[peter]

Thank you, Hilary, for your reply, but the only structural relationship I've seen in those works of Dr. Andreas Schoter (your link "I Ching on the Net": http://www.pacificcoast.net/~wh/, there was a link to two his works - "Correctness and Correspondence" and "Boolean Algebra and the Yi Jing", link named "I Ching Algebra"): there are 4 rules - 1. For "Qian" primal correlation is "Kun"; 2. For "Kun" p.c. is "Qian"; 3. If the first line of hexagram N is "yang", then p.c.-ed hexagram is N-31, where N is number of hexagram in FU-XI sequence (!), and it is counted like binary code: "yang" is 1, "yin" is 0, the 1st line has faxtor 32, 2nd - 16, 3rd - 8, 4th - 4, 5th - 2 and the upper - 1; so for "Qian" we receive 63, for "Guai" - 62, for "Gou" - 31 etc. 4. If the first line of hexagram N is "yin", then p.c.-ed hexagram is N+31 (N - in Fu-Xi).

This complex calculations have very simple reference to Fu-Xi round chart, that I've mentioned in my previous message.

[peter]

I want to add two quotes from T.Cleary's book:
1. "For enhanced perspective on a given reading, moreover, each hexagram may also be paired with two others, a primal correlate and a structural complement. (In a few cases the primal correlate and structural complement are the same.)"
2. "Reference to the primal correlate and the structural complement of the hexagram in question enlarges the perspective and adds depth and dimension to the reflection fostered by the reading."
But it seems to me (if nobody know anything about this matter) that I would find Thomas Cleary himself...

[hilary]

I would love to know what these people say about the actual meaning of these hexagrams in divination. (If anything?) If you could let me know what you find, that would be great.
BTW, which of Cleary's books is this in?

[peter]

Okay, when (or if?) I find something on this stuff.
These quotes are from "I Ching: the Book of Change" by Shambhala Pocket Classics, 1992.