www.stars-n-dice.com from Dr. Frank R. Kegan now online

[fkegan]

Greetings ALL,

My work on the Flux Tome interpretation of the I Ching from the line places and line values (which places have the yang lines since the yin lines are background in the overall gua matrix) has finally become a real live website on the world wide web.

My new venture the www.stars-n-dice.com website is up and running over 30 pages rewritten and edited a few times but still in process of growing and developing.

Included is a page on how to cast oracles in general and the Yi in particular by thinking of 2 natural numbers 1-64.

The website covers many things, but of most interest to I Ching aficianados would be 1)the Taoist I Ching pages about my interpretation of Tao, Taoism and Tao Te Ching and my work with Gia-Fu Feng on his Taoist Translation of the I Ching (Flux Tome) as a true Taoist alternative to the German Protestant Confucian perspective of Wilhelm and God know what real perspective of Cleary's Taoist, Buddhist, etc I Ching.

and 2) the actual introduction of the Flux Tome Perspective including the newly rewritten page with all the Flux Tome Hexagram names and interpretation slogans for the line pairs and line places. This includes a sample oracle interpretation from just the two hexagram numbers, the names and line pairs.

Stars And Dice was a book I published in 1984 upon my initial insight that the signs (and everything else) in astrology could be explained by the dot-patterns on the Dice Cube.

Then I noticed that the line places of the I Ching hexagrams were also in the same patterns of the dice cube--environment line pair (1 & 6), Will line pair (2 & 5) and heart line pair (3 & 4) each pair adding to 7 like dice numbers. I have written on this site of the connection between the King Wen Sequence and the sets of 10 hexagrams and the Pythagorean sets of the tetraktys.

Other details include the explanation of astrology (and I Ching [Flux Tome]) from the timing analogs connected to the Big Bang of current astronomy through the cycles and tides of angular momentum in our Solar System--and not Newtonian gravity or Relitivity rubber sheet space-time based on doubletalk about a 19th century geometry that has never been proven consistent.

Check it out, I look forward to any comments or reactions from the Yi Community. There are several links to intriguing other sites, such as an illustration of how the shadow of an 8 ft stick will trace out a Taiji over the year and a site where you can enter hexagram numbers or line values and get the oracle lines and an Yi interpretation.
I welcome anyone linking to my site from theirs for an alternative perspective on the Yi etc.
Science IS Magic!

Dr. Frank R. Kegan, A.B, Psy.D.

Click here: Science Is Magic LEARN ASTROLOGY AND THE I CHING
THROUGH STARS-N-DICE PATTERNS
www.stars-n-dice.com

[sparhawk]

That's one cool site, Frank! Congratulations! I'll buy the Taoist I Ching once available for download.

Regards,

[trojan]

Luis i have a spider phobia, can't the dragon come back :D

[fkegan]

Thank you for the kind words, Luis.
I also must agree I prefer the dragon to the bug.

I am working on what to do next as I am upon a plateau with lots of ways to go next and general counsel that selling anything belongs to another entire phase.
I am eager to put some of the discussion from here about the King Wen Sequence on a page from my Flux Tome since it fits in nicely with the overall theme of timing analogs based upon the interaction of Sunshine and Planet Earth topography.

I also want to put up something of the difference between the Wilhelm line judgments and the Sabian Symbols which indicate the underlying structure and meaning of the Yi. When I originally did my correspondence I was just surprised at how much the Wilhelm and the Rudhyar poetry differed for for a single line equivalent.

Then I threw in the line place slogans and Flux Tome names and I found that the three triangulated to a solid core. But there remained this stark difference. The Wilhelm would say terrible humiliation and misfortune and the Rudhyar version of the Sabian Symbols as an American I Ching, New Age Mandala would say great opportunity for personal innovation.

Finally it hit me they were saying the same thing just from their different contexts. The Tao of Wilhelm's translation is the Confucian advice to government bureaucrats in any system--CYA and any point of personal responsibility is a terrible thing. The Tao of Rudhyar's mid 1970's translation was to glory in the possibilities if you cut loose of the old and fly on your own.

Now I use the original Marc E. Jones mimeo version of the Sabian Symbols and aim for a closer to middle path--it is great in specific instances where the Oracle advice changes from "good" or "difficult" to an actual description of the process going on. 360 symbols in long lines of poetry in two versions with commentary is a lot to HTML code even.

But I keep working on things. Just recently I figured out that I ought to have a quick explanation of the I Ching Oracle and how to interpret a basic pair of hexagrams as an oracle, so I rewrote the opening of my Flux Tome page and linked to it from the first part of my home page.

Doing a website is certainly a hex 44 experience, but as they say the Law is a jealous mistress, I am enjoying being entangled with this strong Lady Luck.

Again thank you for your appreciation. Sign up for the Ezine on the Kegan Consulting Page and fill in the form with what you would like to hear about next.

Frank

[hollis]

Frank Kegan, your site is fantastic! I have sent the link to a few friends hoping they like it too. One thing, I cannot think of a number between 1 and 64 with any neutrality. Too many years with the YJ. Your work is a tonic, and I am really on board with the sunshine stuff.

hollis.

[fkegan]

Thanks Holis for your supportive comments and actions.

The choosing two numbers works best for those to whom that are just numbers. Once you are familiar with the Yi there is no difference between hexagram numbers and line patterns. I often find myself imagining what hexagram may be forming as I throw coins which is a peculiar trip too.

The point of the 2 natural number technique is give someone unfamiliar with the oracle process the opportunity to watch an oracle form in their own mind just by thinking of numbers rather than just seeing some outside entity like coins pour out a response to them that has no connection to them inside.

I have taken up the question of watching an oracle form in your mind for those of us for whom the numbers and the hexagrams are well-known. There is also now a re-written Flux Tome page with this question put to the Oracle with the reply of hexagram 19.2 >> 24. I have a general sense of the message, but I left further interpretation as an exercise to the reader.

More than that, I took the interest here as a goad to scan several pages of Flux Tome Interpretation Sketches and put them up as a page through the Flux Tome Page. I hadn't looked at this material for many years-- it was nice to find it again and put it up on the Web.

Having an oracle connection limits that original sense of seeing or feeling the process happen live, though more experience also makes that entre into the metaphysical more subtle. When I first was shown the Oracle and handed the Wilhelm to read my hexagram and line I did not have any sense of reading a book at all. I heard a spirit speaking to me.

That lasted awhile and then I was hooked. Now I don't have that sense though I do get Oracles that are clearly mischievous as well as insightful sometimes at the same time. Lately I have been particularly impressed at the ability of the Oracle to choose hexagram patterns that exactly fit the situation--not just in the answer but also even in the available texts and also in making personal comments as an old friend as well.

The notion of randomness is just too silly. It arises from the assumption that everything is known so if you can't determine exactly what is going to happen next then it must be because of randomness and that must be fully contained in simple probability calculations. Just strange. I put a page on that onto my website today as a link from the home page to science fallacies.

The power of sunshine as an integrating metaphor continues to amaze me. Hillary mentioned that she believes the ideogram for Yi is an illustration of the sun coming out from behind a cloud. That is also the Sufi term for enlightenment--al Tajali-- the sun suddenly burning through the cloud cover to shine brilliantly.

I also suspect that is the real meaning of Ibn Gabirol's Fons Vitae usually translated Source of Life or at best Fountain of Life but from the text I prefer Living Fountain which would also be al Tajali or the Yi too.

In that metaphor the hexagrams tumble in pairs like dice in their King Wen Sequence starting off as the description of the water cycle in the first set of 10 and then getting more abstract to the final four being pure inside, outside, completing, beginning (61-64).

Again, Thanks for the interest and appreciation.
Frank

[pakua]

The notion of randomness is just too silly. It arises from the assumption that everything is known so if you can't determine exactly what is going to happen next then it must be because of randomness and that must be fully contained in simple probability calculations. Just strange. I put a page on that onto my website today as a link from the home page to science fallacies.

Frank,

Could you show me where this page is... I couldn't find it.

I was trying to reconcile the two phrases "everything is known" and "randomness". It seems they are mutually contradictory, so I don't follow how you came to your conclusion.

[fkegan]

Hello pakua,

First, if you go to my homepage www.stars-n-dice.com all these other pages are links from there. The question of Randomness comes through a link saying ---Dice are truly precise scientific instruments. Link--Are Dice Random? Or directly the link is http://www.stars-n-dice.com/random.html

My second insight that led me away from academic science was exactly this question of randomness. All that can be exactly stated is that you don't know the algorithm to determine the next number in a "random" sequence. If you assume everything is Divinely Ordered, then the reason for this is that it is known only to metaphysically superior Divine knowledge. If you assume Science Knows Everything, then the reason is that there is a pure randomness involved which science knows is described by probability equations.

If you assume Nothing in the Taoist or Buddhist manner, then the reason is simply one's Ignorance of what comes next and further study is in order.

In order to assume something is random, which implies there is no order to it at all in any way, one must first assume that you know all the ways things can be ordered and this particular example must fit into one of them. Randomness is a judgment that implies you know what is causing the situation which in an apparently random situation is a bold and peculiar claim.

In all probability equations, the assumption is that since there are X possible outcomes the next outcome must be equally likely to be any one of them. However, there is no logical justification for that.

If one were to imagine a dozen more possibilities each of them would be equally likely as well. Consider compass directions we could say a wind may blow from East, West, North or South. Another person might say, "How about NNE?" adding several more petals to the compass rose or even give the wind a designation from 360 degrees.

A North wind is either a one in four or a one in 360 possibilty changing as your imagination chooses. Ultimately, wind direction is a matter of Sunshine interacting with the Planet Earth topography and only appears ever random due to a lack of proper study of Solar Flux and topographical detail.

What probability equations actually give you is a way to respond in math to any possibility so you can continue to claim your formula knows every outcome when actually it is all just sleight of hand.

To be more to the point--consider an Oracle of the I Ching or Flux Tome cast by throwing coins. Is the result Random? What caused the coins to fall the way they do and to give meaning to the Oracle result?

I once had occaision to watch a friend cast pennies for an oracle. She used a different set of rules than I did (she gave tails the yang and cast her lines from the top down). Her question yielded a pattern that gave her a meaningful oracle. I took the same results, interpreted them in my way and got a different oracle that was meaningful to me as an answer to the stated question and described her as well.

Many times Yi Oracles manage to find hexagrams and lines that are uniquely insightful and appropos for the time and question. Is that a Random quirk, a timing poignancy, the mystical power of the Spirit of the Yi?

Random is a name folks call things. It only makes sense if you think you know how things are ordered and thus can judge them "random" or "ordered." It is a loaded term and has many subjective implications--but they are all false. Randomness is in the prejudiced eye of the beholder only.

You might try some of the other links from my home page debunking science fallacies as well. It is a question of seeing the Tao of the academic rather than just accepting it for what it claims to be. There are many logical steps missing which must be overlooked to accept any of the academic positions and views.

Best of Luck,
Dr. Kegan

[pakua]

Hi Frank,

Thanks for the directions...

There are lots of interesting ideas on that page, but I'll just start with one for now...

3)Your personal energy and will go into your throw and that interacts with everything else around to express the total situation. If your will is focused sharply you will get the roll your will demands.

The concept of being able to change your cast has been discussed many times here, and usually the consensus is that we don't influence the outcome. Yi will operate independently ie whether we wish or fear a particular outcome, we needn't worry about somehow influencing the cast. (But just to be sure, I try to still myself anyway :) )

But of course, everything is based upon the will, and if the will is strong enough, one can do most anything. You seem to be saying, your will will change the throw, but I'm wondering... if your will is strong enough to shape the situation, perhaps the throw only reflects the direction of the situation. Are you implying that you change the throw, and then you change the situation to agree with the throw?

You mention further down:

Finding those currents of non-equal, non-random dice rolls is what the seasoned craps player is all about

That seems to be different than willing the dice... it's tuning in and riding the currents.

I'm questioning that physical matter can be manipulated by the average person to such an extent by tossing coins or dice.

[fkegan]

Hi Pagua,
You have your own interesting way to filter what you read. The page on my website you refer to is on the question of Are DICE random? It is not at all about Yi Oracles.

With dice, one is generally trying to get them to roll to a certain number that you know about at the time you throw the dice. The dice are tumbling and their outcome will very much be determined by the energy, etc with which you roll them. The line of mine you quote has to do with how the dice, as Pythagorean Computer, will take your willing a certain number into the overall situation of everything else to result in their final outcome.

That the dice game or craps tends to be a game of will is standard lore in that game. I was simply adding that the dice were an exact instrument to indicate the overall situation wherever they are rolled.

As to human will moving physical matter--that is a silly misinterpretation of the context. The dice are being physically moved by the tumbling roll, all that is open to influence is where they stop rolling which can be any of the 11 possible positions which may as well be influenced by your will as anything else.

Leaving the dice a moment to return to the Yi. The question of affecting the outcome of an oracle cast by one's will is a doubly peculiar question. First, the whole idea with an oracle is to create an open space to let the Yi speak to you, not to try to get the coins or whatever to fall to your will. Personally, I find the opposite effect, that is as throwing coins and seeing the lines begin to fall into place, I start imagining what oracle might result and hoping/fearing it will be this one good one or that tough one. I see that as a personal problem not a matter of will affecting or interfering with the throw of the coins.

The major idea is that "randomness" is a prejudice without logical support. The most that can objectively be stated is that one may create a situation or medium which is fair, where any of a number of outcomes could result. What controls what does result is then a matter of personal choice or belief. In playing dice, one wishes very much to have the dice roll to a winning number and avoid losing. In casting the Yi the whole point is to calm down and create an open space and let an oracle form without interference by one's will, hopes, fears, or anything else personal. If you have a hexagram you really, really want to read, just turn to it and enjoy.

Not at all clear to me what you are trying to say, however, I do realize that it is most painful for an academic type to face the notion that the academic is more of the cloistered medieval perspective than anything scientific or even rational.

Randomness is a fascinating concept, though as I mentioned originally it is impossible to demonstrate objectively. It is a subjective judgment one makes either as a scientist seeking to use the term as a modest way to invoke the Divine or as one insisting upon absolute metaphysical order to refer to what other folks mistakenly believe.

Ultimately, the reality will always come back to basic Buddhist (or Taoist) causation--first there is human ignorance which is the great mystery from which everything we notice arises. Then there is human fear that reacts to its own ignorance by trying to make various defenses and that causes everyting else.

Again, good luck on your journey, putting one foot in front of the other is the best way to proceed even if you are going the wrong way at first.
Dr. Kegan :bows:

[pakua]

Hi Frank,

Ok, let me try to clarify what I meant...

You mention in several places that the will has a strong influence on affecting the outcome of a dice throw, in fact you go so far as to say, "the game is an act of will".

Throwing coins is not that different from throwing dice. If will affects throwing dice, it should also affect throwing coins. Of course, throwing coins for an oracle has different requirements, insofar as one should be open and receptive etc. but we're human, with hopes and fears. We want (will) certain outcomes. Sometimes we can't disassociate what we want from the throw itself (and perhaps we shouldn't?).

Hence my question: do we in fact affect the throwing of the coins with our will, no matter how much we try to be still? It's been discussed here before, does our hope or fear affect the outcome? Our hopes and fears certainly affect the outcome as far as the situation we're enquiring about is concerned, but does that also include the actual toss?

And from that follows my doubt, if you think we do affect the toss, how do we manipulate the coins in order to do that? Manipulating physical matter would seem to be required to cause the coins to fall in a certain way.


Just to muddy the water a bit, you also mention that in dice games, the best players "find the currents of non-equal, non-random dice rolls". This is confusing to me, as it seems to contradict the earlier ideas ie the outcomes are not determined by their wills but they have learned to "ride the currents". Or maybe a combination of the two?


I'll leave the rest for now :)

[fkegan]

Hi Pagua,
I understood your issue the first two times you asked the same question and I answered you both times. I will also try again, though you have already shown me a whole new side of the judgment of hexagram 4.

You insist upon seeing things in terms of Western objective physics and thinking you can evade your subjective responsibilities. You have some awareness, your signature seems to indicate an awareness of the postmodern--Yes, the future isn't as it used to be The Future can no longer be seen as the projection of our fantasies while we spew out the exhaust of our conquests. So let's deal with what is Here & NOW--OK?

Do individual's affect the physical motion of tumbling objects by their will? A point requiring objective experiment not my speculation. How do folks affect the outcome of their fair or "random" throws of tumbling objects? They do it by focusing their will within themselves so that they adjust the Tao of the local horizon upon the scale of themselves, their tumbling objects and the surface they use to collect their throw.

How does the Tao of a local horizon control the outcome of a tumbling set of physical objects? That is what a Tao is, in my Flux Tome (I Ching) terms it is the Trail along which the tumbling objects move through the air and bounce or not upon the local surface which all interacts to determine which orientation shows UP as the result of the throw. It is also the Trail of the Spirit of the Yi and/or Lady Luck (hexagram 44 in Flux Tome) which runs through the Cosmos and through our consciousness and influences outcomes.

Do YOU, pagua interfere with your pennies on their way to glorious oracles by your will or other imperfections? That is your internal issue. Mostly those problems affect your ability to interpret an oracle, but surely, your will crying out to the Divine to give you Oracle X and please not Oracle Y will definitely be part of the local situation to be taken into account by the Tao, the Spirit of the Yi and Lady Luck. In my personal experience it is more from the mischievous side of the Yi spirit that such affects arise--not by my will moving the outcome, but by the Yi spirit taking my imperfection and playing with it (more of a hexagram 21 and hexagram 4 act of justice or education).

Both the craps shooter and the Yi caster want to get themselves as clear and objective as they can with their subjectivity as open to Tao of the local horizon as they can. The craps shooter wants this to feel the local currents of timing that are being objectively measured and reported by the Pythagorean computer which is also the pair of dice being thrown.

If you join this current and become part its rhythm then the dice are no longer random at all and the odds shift mightily in your favor. You can then judge what are the available outcomes most often coming along. Are follks about the table making a vibe that encourages the universal Divine to manifest (7's more likely) or are they making things very scattered local detail (the field numbers and craps more likely). Or are the vibes balanced towards the success of human endeavor (the 6 and 8 without a 7 for a long time) more likely. You watch the dice outcome and notice what the feel of the past 20 rolls have been like to judge the Tao of the table.

With Yi Casting coins, the goal must always be to be calm, open minded and showing the least possible expression or interference of will upon the local horizon and thus upon the field from which the Tao and the Yi Spirit takes its context in the manifestation of the outcome of YOUR toss of the pennies. If your will or fear or hope is clouding your mind, then declare a break, calm down and clear the problem IN YOU.

No, Pagua, mental states do not particularly reach out and grab tumbling objects. Mental states most directly affect how folks interpret the casts they make. Next, mental states affect the general situation in the local environment which has its primary impact upon the way and the energy and other momentum factors in how you throw objects in your palm upon the local topography surface chosen to receive them.

Only upon the subtlest third order level and metaphysical dimension is your will interacting with the currents of timing which we may (if we chose that metaphor) experience as the Yi Spirit dancing with Lady Luck in their own happy tryst-- to also take into account what might be appropriate, educational for us or at least amusing for them--to produce in our casting and resultant Oracle that we must interpret for ourselves in our own minds.

Much easier to get your willful mind to misread the cast then to move the coins from rest positions. The subtle influences, currents and momenta that affect the final resting position of tumbling small objects are complex enough to reflect and express the timing cycles remaining from the original solar system nebula condensing to form the Planet Earth. Each of us is a conscious hunk of the surface material of the Earth given a local form and consciousness that expressed its take reality with our first birth cry. Why wouldn't the interaction of one hunk of timing imbued molecules with several other hunks of other molecules not express those overall currents include your feelings of YOUR Will?

I would suggest you try the BE YOUR OWN PSYCHIC page, the Taoist I Ching Page and the Flux Tome page on my website--at least to calm yourself down from your hang up on dice and randomness. It is a small bump in the topography of it all. Relax. Or take the traditional route-try 7 years of sitting meditation and then see if you can even remember this issue that so exercises you now.

Still, Good luck to you, keep putting on foot in front of the other along YOUR Trail, even if the next step is a long sitting meditation,

Dr. Frank R. Kegan :bows: