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More cards for casting I Ching hexagrams

remod

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Some days ago I finally received the package I was waiting for.
It contained three decks for casting I Ching lines that I had devised long ago but never made public.
I finally decided to print them using an online print shop and I thought to share a picture with you:

1620768441140.png

Should anyone be interested let me know, I'll be happy to describe how they work.
You can also get more details about them here and here.
Any feedback is welcome!
 

remod

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I guess there are very few interested in using cards. However, just in case, I'll post here my latest design for 8 cards that are able to generate hexagrams one trigram at the time and provide moving lines with the same probability of the yarrow stalks method.
The images are from famous Japanese painters (late 1800s, early 1900).
The last card is the back of card 1, the circle in the middle is what it's used to generate moving lines.
Probably the cards for "Heaven" and "Earth" needs an explanation. But maybe not ...

Feel free to comment (or just tell me to stop pestering you :) )

1.png 2.png 3.png 4.png 5.png 6.png 7.png 8.png 1-back.png
 

surnevs

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I love creativity, You should know. Wauuuuu, good design. Luck whit your project.
 

remod

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Thanks for the encouragement!
I doubt I'll ever print those cards but I wanted to let the world know that they exist :)
 

remod

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Ok, I promise this is the last post on this topic from my side. From now on I will only talk about these cards if someone will ask :)

The illustrations on this new version have been designed by a very good Russian artists. She faithfully captured what I had in mind and put on paper (well, on pixels). You can see more of her work on her instagram page.

Here is the front and the back of each card:

Dragon_small.png
Tiger_small.png

and here is how the cards appear after you casted your hexagram:

index2.png

Any comment and feedback is more than welcome.
 
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dfreed

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Do feel free to keep posting about these. I don’t quite get what they’re about, but others might, and the art is cool!

I don't know if it's the same or similar to what you're doing, but I came up with a casting method using eight cards. (I used eight tarot cards, but any cards - playing cards, 3x5 file cards, etc. will do.)

Each card represents one of the eight trigrams. I suffle my deck of 8 cards, and then select one, and then do this a total of four times (each time placing the card back in the deck so I'm always starting with 8 cards):

* the 1st shuffle and card selection: gives me the bottomn half of the my primary hexagram

*the 2nd selection: gives me the upper half of the primary hexagram.

* the 3rd and 4th shuffles and selections give me the lower and upper halves of the resulting hexagram ....

* and now that I have both hexagrams for my reading, I can also see which lines are moving or not.

Generally I find that this method tends to give me more moving lines than using three coins (or yarrow stalks) - it's a math / probability thing I assume.

I also have developed a casting method using 42 pebbles, loosely based on a Tibetan divination system using 42 small stones - though I doubt my method is anywhere near the Tibetans! And this - along with using coins - are my preferred methods right now.

Best, D
 
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ZeroPoint

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Ok, I promise this is the last post on this topic from my side. From now on I will only talk about these cards if someone will ask :)

The illustrions on this new version have been designed by a very good Russian artists. She faithfully captured what I had in mind and put on paper (well, on pixels). You can see more of her work on her instagram page.

Here is the front and the back of each card:

View attachment 3798
View attachment 3799

and here is how the cards appear after you casted your hexagram:

View attachment 3797

Any comment and feedback is more than welcome.
Are you trying to sell them? This feels a bit like a sales pitch: repeated entreaties, offers to teach... showing more cards, claiming ownership of design, cross-promotion of another artist.

What's your intent?
 

remod

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Hi ZeroPoint.

No, I'm not selling any of them. Nor I do sell consultancy or lessons of any kind.

For long time I research different methods of casting I Ching hexagram and I share them with others in the hope they'll find them useful or, at least, interesting. All has been made public on my site which has not even ads on it.

As for promoting the artist, it's just because I really liked what she did and wanted to give a proper acknowledgement.

As for "claiming ownership", I can ensure you that all this has been thought/designed by me except for those parts where I specified the source (the Japanese painting and the Russian artist, to be precise). If you had a look at my site you would have noticed that I clearly marked the methods that I have devised from the ones I have just found on the 'Net.
Yes, there are others inventing alternative I Ching methods but probably no one as crazy as me :) .

Thanks for asking, I hope this clarifies things a bit!
 
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remod

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Do feel free to keep posting about these. I don’t quite get what they’re about, but others might, and the art is cool!

I don't know if it's the same or similar to what you're doing, but I came up with a casting method using eight cards. (I used eight tarot cards, but any cards - playing cards, 3x5 file cards, etc. will do.)
Hi Dfreed, thanks for the encouragement.

Yes the methods are similar in that they both associate a card to a trigram.
I know that the method you describe is often used with the I Ching decks that have 64 cards. It gives each line (6,7,8, and 9) the same probability (25%) to appear meaning that it's absolutely normal that you'll get more moving lines than usual.

I prefer to get hexagrams with the yarrow stalks probabilities because I believe there's a significance in the number and types of changing lines, that's why I devised those 8 cards. (And all the other cards I posted here that can cast hexagrams one line at the time).

I went too overboard with their look but one can do the same with any cards numbered from 1 to 8. To get a trigram and its moving lines, you shuffle the 8 cards, lay down the first four face up and the fifth one on top of them with the back side up, as shown below:

1624949853095.png

The first four cards form a numer: 4758 in the picture abvoe.
The fifth card tells you which trigram you received: Kūn, the Earth in the picture above.

In the circle, starting from the smallest number and moving clockwise, you look for the first number that is equal or greater than 4758 which is 5734, the trigram below is the related trigram: Kǎn, the Water.

In other words, it is like you used the yarrow stalks three times and got, in order, 8,6, and 8.

That would be the lower trigram, you put the cards back, reshuffle and do the same to get the upper trigram.

Well, it's not exactly as the yarrow stalks method but the probabilities differ for less that +/- 0.03%. Close enough :).

I understand the lookup table as circle can be hard to read. Here is the full table, in case you want to try it:

1624951226702.png

The math behind the table above is a little bit boring, just ask if you are interested. It is only needed if you want to make a different association between numbers and trigrams.

I'd love to hear your impressions if you'll give it a try.

Remo
 
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remod

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I also have developed a casting method using 42 pebbles, loosely based on a Tibetan divination system using 42 small stones - though I doubt my method is anywhere near the Tibetans! And this - along with using coins - are my preferred methods right now.

I'm very interested! Can you describe it with more details? (Maybe a new thread would be more appropriate)
 
D

diamant

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I just wanted to say that the trigram cards you've created are stunningly beautiful.
 

remod

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I just wanted to say that the trigram cards you've created are stunningly beautiful.
Thanks diamant! My only contribution to their look is having chosen great artists of the past :)
I'm happy you liked them, I'm convinced that beauty plays an important role in setting the right mood for casting hexagrams.
 
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remod

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Here am I again. This time venturing in the world of Fulu Talismans of which, I admit, I know next to nothing.
I built a card for consulting the I Ching around two of those Talismans which, according to the creator, support getting the wisdom of sorting out things (put things in order, get the proper meaning of things, ...) when the world around you seems all black and white.

1641827526342.png
Picture above shows the front and the back of the card.
As always, I offer them to your curiosity, feedback, and criticism.

Remo
 
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remod

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After the little success of Fu talisman, here are 5 cards inspired to the five elements cycle:

5cards-A.png 5cards-B.png 5cards-C.png 5cards-D.png 5cards-E.png

The get a line (with odds extremely close to the yarrow stalks/16 marbles method), you shuffle them and lay down the topmost three. Starting from the red symbol and following the lines according to the symbols on the other cards, you'll arrive at the line you got as an outcome.
The two examples below show a non-changing yin line (8) on the left and a changing moving line (6) on the right:

1642766642530.png
 
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remod

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An updated version of the eight cards which I previously made using old Japanese paintings.
This time I tried to steer an AI toward images that would capture the essence of the eight trigrams.
Here is what I managed to come out with so far. Feedback and comments are greatly welcome as always.

1-front.png 2-front.png 3-front.png 4-front.png 5-front.png 6-front.png 7-front.png 8-front.png
 

redoleander

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These cards are beautiful! I am interested in them actually. I don’t think I understand how to use them but I have hundreds of different decks and have been reading cards my whole life so the idea of having cards for this is interesting to me, at least to learn about or try. Do you have instructions for them anywhere or somewhere you post these publicly? It sounds like maybe not but I am curious.
 

remod

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Hi redoleander. Thanks for your comment.
These cards are intended to be used as shown below:

spread.png
After shuffling them, you spread the first four face up so that they form a number (7248 in the picture above) and the fifth one backside up across them.
The trigram in the center of the back card is the outcome: Kǎn, The Water and if you enlarge the image (I have some work to do on legibility :) ) you'll see that the first number in the outer circle that is equal or greater than 7248, is 7521 meaning that the trigram of the relating hexagram is Lì, The Fire.

In other words, it's the same as if you received these three lines at once: 6,9,6.

You repeat the process again to get the upper trigram.

I was considering if it was worthwhile to add what is needed to cast lines one at the time so that one can decide if casting a single line or three lines together.

If you like them I'll be happy to send you the hi-res files ready to be printed by a print-on-demand service (I can also help you set up the service, I've done it many times :) for myself).

The probabilities are practically the same as the yarrow stalk method.
 
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remod

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I've created a, hopefully, more readable version of the eight cards above (including an "instructions card") and made the hi-res files available (25MB) to anyone interested.

The cards are ready to be printed as "tarot" cards ( 2.75x4.75 inches or 7x12 cm) on Printer-on-Demand services (I used Printerstudio, MPC, and GameCrafter but there might be others cheaper/better depending on where you live). Of course, you can print them on your own printer (I once used photographic cards to create a set). Just be sure to correctly pair the front and the back of each card.

The cards are released under the terms of the CC-BY-SA license, meaning that you can do everything you like with them (including selling them) as long as you give me some attribution credit for their creation.

Should anyone be so daring to test them, I'd love to hear their impression.

P.S. I also made available the set with the Fu talisman on it (only 4MB).
 
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remod

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Just got the printed cards from Game Crafter. They are thinner than the cards I printed on MPC but still great. The good point is that they are cheaper (around 7 € for the same number of cards).
 

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remod

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I'll probably never stop ...

This is the design (front/back) for an I Ching card. You use four of them to cast a line with yarrow stalks probabilities.

enso-4-cards.png
The "zen image" has been created by my new friend Dall-e! (After a few tries we agreed on what I wanted him to draw :) ).

To cast a line, you:
  • mix, shuffle, rotate, and swap the four cards at will;
  • stack the first three cards one on top of the other horizontally so that the black dot (if present) is visible;
  • place the fourth card vertically across the first three, with the yin/yang line at the bottom;
  • the line you see is the line you got;
  • if, on the left of the cards, the number of black dots is equal to the number of red dots, it's a moving line.
For example, these are all yang moving lines because there are exactly two black dots and two red dots on the left:
1659268784444.png

These are all non-moving lines because there is a different number of black and red dots:

1659269148373.png

This is the only case of a moving yin line (three black dots and three red dots):

1659269226357.png

You may have noticed how simple is to create these cards. They could be made just using blank cards and two markers (one black, one red). You can then decorate the center according to what would be more meaningful to you.

I would really love to get feedbacks from anyone willing to make and try them.
 
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remod

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A new version of the 8 cards set. This time I've removed the possibility to cast three lines at once.
You can cast a single line following this process:
  • shuffle the eight cards
  • pick one of them (without turning it)
  • rotate it at will (again, without looking at the card's face) so to lose track of its orientation
  • turn the card and look at the top left corner
  • add 5 to the number of red dots you see there. You'll get 6, 7, 8, or 9 with yarrow stalks probability.
However, I believe their better use is for meditation (if you feel inclined to do so).

This time the images are from my AI friend Midjourney; it took some time to agree on a style but after some drawing and redrawing I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Here are the cards (hi-res picture for printing are available here, 23MB).

0.png 1.png 2.png 3.png 4.png 5.png 6.png 7.png B.png
 
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remod

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About the future of these cards (just to avoid opening a new thread).

I understand that using specifically designed cards to cast I Ching hexagrams is a rather niche topic.
I'm sure that very few (if any) tried to print/draw any set of cards that I described in the earlier posts.

As I said, I'm not planning to make any profit out of them and I'll make the hi-res, ready-to-print file available to anyone wanting to print them. I'm doing this just for the pleasure of sharing what I had devised.

But I also understand that not everybody is familiar with print-on-demand services, and this could be an obstacle.

So, here is what I might do:
  • Prepare a booklet with a detailed explanation of each set of cards (at least these 8 cards, the 7 cards, and the 4 cards sets)
  • Set up some POD services (at least MPC, Gamecrafter, and Printerstudio) with a deck containing the cards described in the booklet.
  • Place the deck on sale on their marketplace at the nominal production costs (or just some cents more, if their rules forbid selling at cost).
This could, hopefully, ease the path for those curious to try the cards I designed.

What do you think? Is it worthwhile to do it? And should I aim at keeping the cost as low as possible or should I aim at something more like "a product" (i.e. with a box, printed booklet, etc etc)? Any price range that would be "reasonable" (this might drive the number of sets/cards I'll include in the deck)?

I'll be happy to get any feedback you might want to share.

R.
 
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remod

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I could change the mechanism for casting a line by removing the dots and colouring some of the top lines of the trigrams in read so that the procedure would be:
  • Shuffle the cards
  • pick card
  • rotate it at will
  • turn the card
  • look at the top line, that's the outcome (Yin/Yang line)
  • If it's red is a moving line.
Would it be better? Simpler? ...
 

remod

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Just got my printed cards from MPC. I've set up a project in their marketplace for those wanting to directly buy the printed cards from them: https://www.makeplayingcards.com/sell/castingiching

I'll prepare a booklet describing not just these 8 cards but also the others. Then I'll create a set of decks mixing up the various type of cards so that one could buy only what they are interested in. The minimum is 10 cards, I'll try to find the best combinations.

Note that the price is practically the same as if you set up the project yourself, they asked to charge at least 1% on top of the pure production costs (12.70$ vs 12.55 for one deck). Shipping costs may vary depending on where you live (I had to pay 9.99$ for shipping).
 

remod

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I found a new app (or iOS and Android) that publishes general decks: Deckible
I converted the trigram cards above to their app (with some modifications/additions), and here it is how they appear:


I believe the App still has some wrinkles to iron but they are actively working to make it better and allow users to enjoy the experience of "digital decks".

They will never replace physical decks (and I don't believe that's their intent), but I take it as a new way to think and use card decks.
 

remod

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Well, actually I did the same with the element based, five cards deck. This time, for each element I added an image and a short description that appears at the bottom of the screen.

 

remod

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Now that I have one deck on MPC and two on deckible, I guess I no longer can say that "I do not sell any of my design". Still, please consider that you can get for free the images and all the info you may need to make any of my designs by yourself. As I said many times already, I'm doing it for fun in the hope someone will find those things interesting.
 

remod

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I just realized I never posted this design for this "three cards method" (which generates lines with yarrow stalk probabilities). They work much like the "five cards method" listed above.
Let me add them here for sake of completeness.

1675020550262.png
 
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