Oftentimes, when contemplate a response from Yi , ask myself "Am I reading what is there or my belief obscure my understanding' . If there is a wrong belief or assumption and fail to see it , and if a negative response affirm a pessimistic view, then I might lose another perspective , might fail in the trap of self-fulfilling prophecy and additionally my previous believe not only may be strengthen but they may also bias my overall understanding about a line or a hex.

Merton, coined the term and defines it as :

The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come true. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning

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The ambiguity of some lines or hexes, imo, its a fertile soil for such "mis-understandings".

Thomas theorem , that is said inspired Merton for his theory , states :

"If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences"

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Sorry for giving definitions, its not an attempt to make it formal, its more handy ... We don't need to be theorists to recognize it in our real life. In a discussion I had the other day with a relative was about it . Me and another individual tried to make them see that "if you believe that X can't happen you behave in such a way that you'll prove it, but with such behavior you dig your 'grave' "... anyway , kind of irrelevant but was the main reason I though to post those thoughts now plus, a 'conclusion" I read the other day regarding a reading. Its not the first time I have encounter that, and to be honest, each time it scares me and makes me think how vulnerable we are in such influences coming for within ( believes, precepts) or from without.

We say " there is not a Sage inhabit in Yi, its a Book" , yet IMHO, its not that simple. Was reading about right brain- to - right brain communication for some personal projects and all the time was seen the "sage", the Yi personified . Its a human tendency, I know, seems we need that , but the influence is real. ( that's another subject I wish to bring in the forum in the future) Once asked what to do with a relationship , have said that before, because closeness was difficult for me and wanted to go ; Yi said 61>12 inner truth- my gut says No relationship. Ahhh I said , Green Flag.. leave him... yet it turn out that I had to depart from certain thoughts of mine that friends I trust had pointed to me and took sometime to realize it. I have a good list with such readings, and i'm sure there will be others that I'll never be able to understand I read it wrong - Wrongly right

Have you thought about wrong interpretations and their consequences ? ; about Yi's 'power' on us ? about the mistakes we do ?; about the need to "do the appropriate thing" ; About our 'right' to make mistakes? Have you ever thought that there is a pressure for the "right-thing" that reduce our 'freedom' in some ways ? I read in some lines, or at least its my interpretation.. a loose " do whatever you feel like doing" Hex 40 is , in some ways, close to that . Have you thought when get 40, why is so difficult to 'hear the advise' ? And ... how all those matters influence us, our beliefs , perception, reaction... and how we end up, sometimes , to lead our self straight to the self-fulfilling prophecy's pit ?

self-deception

I discovered this thread only now and I’m glad you started it. That is a thought I had buzzing in my mind since long time. Odd that no one continued the discussion here… but actually that is the greatest danger every time a prophecy or an oracle is concerned. I’m leaving in a couple of hours and I’ll be off from home for the whole end of the week so I don’t have time now to express everything I’d like to.

Just one small idea. I’m convinced that in order to get a meaningful response from I-Ching, both at the moment of casting the coins and when reading the response a kind of meditative state of mind is required. The more we are empty of thoughts and emotions (which anyhow are connected with thoughts) the more objective the response will be.

This implies that when we are biased or have a prevalent attitude and an obsessive thought about something the response we get or what we understand of it will inevitably confirm that biased thought we already had. I.e. when we are confused or too emotionally involved in the problem it’s better not to consult the book ourselves but leave the task to a more detached (and possibly expert) interpreter.

I remember I had discussed this last issue with Hilary long ago and she had dissented completely with this opinion of mine, saying (more or less – hope my memory is not faulty) that it’s just in moments of confusion and of strong mental turmoil that the I-Ching is needed to find a way out of that situation. I must say that Clarity’s argument is quite strong and logic and at that time I accepted it, but recently I happened to re-read or better to re-examine carefully a series of responses I had received 10 years ago in a moment of great stress and great uncertainty. It concerned the opportunity of buying a thing which I desired strongly but which involved risks and a too demanding financial investment on my part. I had interpreted the response I had got from I-Ching as positive and encouraging but actually the purchase revealed itself as a failure and a wrong one.

For many years I carried with me the feeling that I-Ching had betrayed me. Now a very careful reading of the responses, consulting other translations which I didn’t have at the time, brought out a completely different scenario: actually the I-Ching had warned me of the risks and dangers involved in the purchase and had suggested to clear up the situation before deciding the purchase. I’m sure it was impossible on my part to grasp that meaning at the time both for the ambiguity of the responses and the strong desire I had to acquire that thing.

This is not exactly a self-fulfilling prophecy in the strict sense but however shows a very similar working of our psyche which can be crucial when dealing with I-Ching.

Will wait to hear more

Then again, you needn't see the Yijing's advice as prophesy at all.
Just advice on what tools or attitudes to have ready.

anemos said:

Will wait to hear more

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I'm just back home after three days at the seaside... need time to order my thoughts...
I would have expected though to find even a brief comment from you about my ideas... -)

Prophecy or not prophecy? That is the question.

bradford said:

Then again, you needn't see the Yijing's advice as prophesy at all.
Just advice on what tools or attitudes to have ready.

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Of course you may be quite right. Yet I cannot be sure whether that can be said for ALL questions.
I am the last person here in this site to have or to state conclusive opinions about I-Ching, and probably what I'm going to say it has been already said by other people in a much better way in this forum. Many, many times I have asked myself if really one can have a glimpse of the future, to know whether something is going to happens for sure and I could never arrive at a unique answer.

Once that question was asked to a spiritual teacher and he replied that if you are on top of a hill overhanging a river or a canal where two approaching boats are coming from opposite directions you can know pretty well where they will meet. That is: if you have a broader vision of the present situation you can foretell what will happen in the future. This could be one of the function of I-Ching. After all the book is crammed with "fortune-tellers" expressions and historically the book was conceived and used for predicting the future, primary for the rulers and then for the common people. The fact the in the book there are different layers which point more in the direction of acquiring wisdom, reflecting on our own role and attitudes, and so learning the way to create our own future (when possible) does not necessarily exclude the other function.

Actually the structure of the book, conceived as a sequence of developing states or "times", makes one think that the universe is a mechanical device where something is bound to happen (which more or less is what modern science says too). We have a certain freedom to choose our future and if we have enough "virtue" (or ki) we can actively create it. The wisdom is to discern when nothing can be done and so we must accept and adapt to circumstances and when on the contrary our actions can change the course of the events.

In the context of the I-Ching this means to understand when the response is a real prophecy, i.e. something which is bound to happen anyway, or when it is only giving us an advice. Honestly I don't find that easy just because of the ambiguity of the text and the various interpretations or commentaries. I actually received several times real prophecies which dealt with people or facts external to me and so could not be affected by the self-fulfilling phenomenon.

As I have said in my first reply to anemos, I think that to have a quiet mind before asking the question and casting might help a lot to solve this problem.

Thanks for your contribution,
Donato

OK Anemos, I’ll add a few more ideas to what I have already said about this topic.
Actually I’ve read again your post and there is very little I can add to something which looks quite clear and well said.

“The ambiguity of some lines or hexes, imo, its a fertile soil for such "mis-understandings".”

I quite agree here. Ambiguity is needed, IMO, for I-Ching must encompass a variety of situations, so the problem is to be able to select the ideas which are really relevant to our question. The changing lines should be helpful in theory but often they are too obscure. I wonder if it is a good practice to ask the same question in a different way when one is not sure of the received response… thinking of it now I realized that I have a resistance to do so due to my initial experience with I-Ching: in fact I have received more than once N° 4 with no changing lines when I ventured to ask twice for the same question and I was intimidated by the statement:

“At the first oracle I inform him.
If he asks two or three times, it is importunity.
If he importunes, I give him no information.”

What is your experience about that?

“Have you thought about wrong interpretations and their consequences ? ; about Yi's 'power' on us ? about the mistakes we do ?; about the need to "do the appropriate thing" ; About our 'right' to make mistakes? Have you ever thought that there is a pressure for the "right-thing" that reduce our 'freedom' in some ways ?”

I’ve had the same kind of reflections and each time I decided to stay away from I-Ching for a while and live my life as a responsible individual. The problem with us is that we don’t like the idea to make mistakes, to make the wrong choice and so to suffer. We apply to I-Ching to avoid all the nuisances and risks that life brings to us… an illusory hope, so the only thing that the sage behind I-Ching (which could well be just a part of ourselves) can do is to remind us of the necessity of taking the responsibility of our decisions and at the same time see their limitations.
We sometimes take I-Ching as our accomplice in order to avoid the lessons which life has prepared for us, i.e. our problems, and when that doesn’t work we feel betrayed! The truth is that we learn from life and not from I-Ching, so if we are not receptive to what life is telling us in a given moment we will be bound to misinterpret the I-Ching responses.

donato said:

I'm just back home after three days at the seaside... need time to order my thoughts...
I would have expected though to find even a brief comment from you about my ideas... -)

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Lucky you.

Didn't say anything because I thought to needed first to collect your thoughts , so was not ignoring your post but giving the time, I thought , you asked.

You talked about wisdom and that caught my attention, because when I talk about predictions, I Dont see them as prophesies. Actually , I'm of the opinion that wisdom and predictions are interwoven. We predict all the time, and wisely try to avoid harmful things and pursue ones that might benefit us. It requires to attend to things around us, perceive them , evaluate them and makes our judgements. Now, if we are immune of any biases or aware of all of them, then good for us. If not impossible, I think is very rare, tho.

Yes, in the book , many lines are predictions, estimations , or what is the word that doesn't stir that aversion. And some reading could be seen as predictions too. Somewhere in the book there is that phrase : to know the seed. ...


Thanks for sharing your thoughts.