Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
I feel like adding that formulaic rules about divining probably isn't the best approach, for instance that the word "should" in a question is a red flag.
I think Yi knows when we've done what we can.
If we haven't, it still might choose to help. Or it might not. A lot like a good parent, as Hilary points out the Dazhuan says...
Like a parent?
Writing lately about ways Yi helps reminded me of possibly my favourite chapter of the Dazhuan (the 'Great Treatise', 5th and 6th Wings of the Yijing): 'Yi is a document that should not be set at a distance. Its dao is ever-changing, alternating and moving without rest, flowing through the six vacanwww.onlineclarity.co.uk
I like how you put that.(And yes, we may have to talk about and define magical thinking, because there's a form of it that's valid, I think!)
Liselle: I like how you put that.(And yes, we may have to talk about and define magical thinking, because there's a form of it that's valid, I think!)
Well... it depends. The sort of magical thinking that's I wouldn't call divine at all, it might even be tuning out the divine in certain circumstances., I would agree with Liselle that Magical Thinking emanates from a taste and aroma of the Divine.
Another version:Caller: Doctor! Please come quickly! My husband is terribly sick.
Doctor: Oh calm down I’m sure it’s not so bad. He probably just thinks he’s sick.
An hour later…
Caller : Doctor! You really must come!
Doctor: Why? Does your husband still think he’s sick?
Caller: Nope. Now he thinks he’s dead.
@Liselle @dobro p @my_key and whoever is interested... This is a clarifying story about MT trauma. Hope to read your comments.
I paraphrased your words in my post. Speaking about the I Ching you originally said "but I think it's a divinely-inspired, intentionally oracular book that God speaks through." Sorry that I took the word divine out of your context, and I attached the word Divine to the source of Magical Thinking.Well... it depends. The sort of magical thinking that's I wouldn't call divine at all, it might even be tuning out the divine in certain circumstances.
Again, from my perspective Magical Thinking does not have to facilitate constructive communication. The I Ching, carries archetypal, intentional wisdom conveyed in the symbols or images (including the words) to assist this however I believe that it acknowledges the existence of destructive or negative communication within the Judgement of Hex 4.Magical thinking that's anything not scientifically verifiable - including the I Ching and other constructive communication from the universe - that could be divine.
I'm not sure any of us has a clear picture on any of this. I think we are all in above our heads. I do agree with you that there is Magical Thinking that can impose or create dark and destructive behaviours. I would contend though that whether positive or negative it all falls under God's umbrella.There's probably magical thinking that's quite dark and destructive, and I don't think that's divine, either, but this is getting over my head now.
It sheds no light on either the I Ching or on your motivation for posting it. What's it got to do with the I Ching?
PS - I have no idea how this attachment came up at the bottom of the page and all my efforts to delete it have proved unsuccessful.
Sticking fingers in ears and shutting your eyes, burying your head in the sand, tuning out things you ought to pay attention to - however you'd describe that. Like my example about losing your job and thinking you won't run out of money. At some point that becomes .I'm not really sure what you mean by
Missed the trash can completely. All fixed now. Thanks.The extra attachment - if you edit your post and look at it, hopefully you'll see a trash can in the upper right-hand corner. Click that to delete it. If you already tried that and it didn't work, we'll just have to stay puzzled, I guess, unless someone else has an idea.
View attachment 5316
Then check your post and make sure the images you want are still there.
I think how this happens is if you remove an image from the body of the post using the delete key or backspacing over it. That will remove it there, but it won't remove it as an attachment - for that you have to click the trash can.
Thanks. Using psychological terms you could say avoidance or, in extreme cases, dissociation, contribute to tuning out the divine. I can align with that.Sticking fingers in ears and shutting your eyes, burying your head in the sand, tuning out things you ought to pay attention to - however you'd describe that. Like my example about losing your job and thinking you won't run out of money. At some point that becomes .
Except I for one don't understand half the psychological terms in this thread for the good reason that I'm not a psychologist.Thanks. Using psychological terms you could say avoidance or, in extreme cases, dissociation, contribute to tuning out the divine. I can align with that.
Hermit, this is tricky.My motivation is the same as before. There is correlation between trauma, magical thinking and the use of cleromancy devices like IC, Tarot, or others. So if we explore divination here, the why we use it should be as important to us as the how we use it.
@dobro p if you can't get passed this point, if you do no grasp this basic thing, I would suggest refraining to comment from now on. If not, I will extricate myself from explaining anything further to you. But if you do get it, if you do understand that how someting is done is as important as why it is done, then I am open to continue the exchange.
The original post by @dracon was about the guiding principle behind MT. The IC is used to predict outcomes or generate knowledge to confront possible outcomes, through insightful ideation which occurs when resonance happens as you stated so candidly. But it does not happen always.
Sometimes yes, but many times IC is unable to shed light on anything, even experienced users will ask others to interpret about their castings on this site, and many times the alternative interpretation feels also very off or we try to squeeze them in somehow, just to make any sense of it. And sometimes IC answers feel even vicious and almost sarcastic with no insight but more hurt. Soneone said tough love. I don't rhink so. Its abuse. Self abuse.
That is the very definition of intermitent reinforcement of trauma. Its like a drunk father or mother. Sometimes loving, sometime a real assh***. When loving and positive, he/she mobilize us, we trust in us, but in reality we outsourced that trust to the ambivalent parental figure or the IC. Sometimes he/she is irrational and cruel and we get stuck, we freeze, we tremble in fear because of his/her admonishments.
What do we gain when exposing ourselves as adults to these MT dynamics brought to us by using cleromancy devices? We sooth ourselves, because the abuse, the retraumatizing event triggered in the present linked to past trauma is acknowledged by ourselves as real. We feel we "control" it, apparently, as we wish, casting or not casting about it. What we don't perceive is the development of dependency towards the use of the device (Tarot, Runes, Ic, etc.) and incremental OCD. Does it happen to everybody? No. And not everybody is an alcoholic for drnking too much. But if you continue drinking without limits over time, you will develope dependency from alcohol and sooner then later end up a chronic alcohol abuser aka an alcoholic.
My claim, as I said in begining, is that the use of these devices will continue feeding on a trauma bond experience we suppressed or dissociated us from happened in childhood. Its been re-triggered by an event in the present. So you can choose to cast a reading or you can choose to address the triggered trauma. You could also admit that you feel lonely, bored, clueless and anxious, accept yourself even when you feel bad about yourself and emerge mentally stronger on the other side. But can you really do that?
I don't think it's really "another version." I don't think the two are equivalent, if that's what you meant (?). In Rosada's, the person called a doctor and the doctor abdicated his responsibility.Another version:
Caller: Psychic! Please I need to know what to do! My husband is very sick.
Psychic: Yes, I can see it in your cast. But you draw a very good relating hexagram. Don't worry.
An hour later...
Caller: Psychic! An update!
Psychic: What happened? Did he improve?
Caller: No, he died from a massive heart attack. What should I do now?
Hermit, this is tricky.
On the one hand, I'm not going to say you don't have a point at all. It's easy enough to misuse an oracle, and that could be a perfectly valid topic for a forum called Exploring Divination.
On the other hand - this could also be construed as coming on an I Ching forum to tell people they shouldn't cast readings. Analogy: going on a forum dedicated to dessert recipes for the purpose of telling everyone about the evils of sugar. You might mean well, but guess how that would be received?
Tread lightly, I guess is what I'm suggesting. For instance, you probably won't advance your point by saying the I Ching is irrational, drunk, and devoid of insight. Do you see how that's different from pointing out Yi isn't always kind, doesn't always give out hugs? Most of us have experienced the non-hugs, but we don't think Yi's irrational or drunk.
Also - since the non-hugs are a thing - I think Yi is well-placed to deliver these messages itself.
I don't think it's really "another version." I don't think the two are equivalent, if that's what you meant (?). In Rosada's, the person called a doctor and the doctor abdicated his responsibility.
In yours, the person didn't do the normal, sensible, real-world things. She only called a psychic. I figure virtually all of us would agree that's not a good use of an oracle. Although there are certainly good questions a person could ask Yi in that sort of situation.
Moderator comment: thread tangents are okay. It's equally okay to pick the original gist back up.
I am also aware of the aggressive tone in some of the posts, that @Liselle picked up on. These started with the comments pointed towards @dobrop saying in effect 'Play the game by my rules or I'm going home and taking my ball with me'. Similarly, I see the comments towards Liselle and rosada in post #46 carrying a disparaging tone, disempowering content and lacking in empathy.
@ The Hermit - I'm not saying that you do not have the right to express yourself in what ever way you like, however a large part of effective communication, especially if you really want it to be two way, is to consider carefully how your transmissions will be received. Of course, for people who are tuned in only to transmit then this will not be a natural consideration for them.
Equally, lumping issues where "we have lost trust in ourselves and turned it over to somebody or something else" into this same boat does a huge disservice to trauma sufferers. People become disempowered or give there power away every day. This is an important topic too and certainly deserves an airing beyond a thread based in the I Ching.
It's not that I'm losing interest. It's more a case of these things do not carry any real interest for meSorry to see you lose interest, @my_key. But that’s ok. Not everybody is into caves. Still, caves are interesting places. And caves in the Paleolithic must have been very scary places too.
You keep offering me references to look up. However as these topics do not interest me in the form you are presenting then I will not be taking up your kind offer.First of all, if you want to live in a cave even today, you need to check if there´s no predator living there. Fire is really helpful, not only to scare away cave animals, but also to illuminate inside the cave. But then after chasing out Trogloxenes, also called cave guests like bears or other dangerous animals, there were also Troglobites. These are animals living always underground, in these special habitats with humidity, lots of minerals and 100% darkness. Some of them were (are) big worms, with four limbs and a regenerative tail like Axolotls and others amphibians, and they look(ed) very similar to dragons. They also can change colours (pigmentation). I am not kidding. Look it up for yourself.
Controversial ideas have been the bedrock for the growth of humankind. Over the years some have been taken on board and become mainstream beliefs others have fallen on stony ground. Much of what you voice here could be considered as 'mainstream' already if you know which streams to wade in. Whichever outcome prevails - mainstream or controversy- matters not. It is a wonderful thing to have diversity in human beliefs. Long may controversial ideas continue to be generated.These animals (dragons, worms) appear in Nordic mythology and in all places around the world, were people lived in caves. Check out the Feathered Serpent, a supernatural entity or deity, found in Mesoamerican religions, those people lived in big, big rain forest caves. Worms, and I will boldly say, Dragons, are animals you will encounter in a cave, crawling on the ground. Remember what kind of animals appear in Hexagram 1 and also in hexagram 18? Yes, dragons and worms. But why? I am going to venture here a controversial idea.
There are some IC text scholars I´ve read, talking about constellations appearing to explain these dragons announcing the end of winter. If you would have lived during glaciations and climate change in the Paleolithic, in a cave in Siberia, you´d probably observed worms awakening from estivation. That’s how worms survive winter. They creep deep down into the earth before the soil freezes, kind of hibernate and come back when temperature rises again. Like many insects and other land animals, they “know” when winter is coming and also when spring is coming. Translation from Wilhelm:
Hex 1 line 1
"Nine at the beginning means:
Hidden dragon. Do not act."
Stay put!!!
Hex 1 Line 5
"Nine in the fifth place means:
Flying dragon in the heavens.
It furthers one to see the great man."
Time to move!!!
Hex 1 line 6
"Nine at the top means:
Arrogant dragon will have cause to repent."
Its too late to move now, stay put or you will repent!!!
Would someone like a shaman notice these things? I think so. Would he/she pass the secret on to the next generation? If he/she had a code, a trans-generational code, maybe he/she could. And such information would mean the difference between life and death for the tribe. To move or to stay put. Well, stories told by the fire were important, that is a transgenerational code, it’s also called oral tradition. But if you wanted to protect "sacred" knowledge for real, you had to find a long-lasting trans-civilizational code. Well, petroglyphs are literally one of the cornerstones for the development of human language. Is this boring? I hope not.
Now let me ask a final rhetorical question: Would you follow a leader without this knowledge? To know when to move or to stay put, not because of war, but because of season, is not an alpha male trait, it requires connection to the spirit of nature, it requires mental flex, it needs somebody with special skills like careful observation of natural signs or a certain cognitive sensitivity towards subtle changes within the group and/or to external factors.
The shaman was a shapeshifter, a trickster. But he/she was also an educator, a guiding voice to the leaders of the hunter-gatherer, a medicine(wo)man able to heal and to give significance to life and death, and foremost he/she knew about seasons. To the common man/woman/child, it must have felt almost or maybe exactly like witnessing a wizard in action.
My guess is magical thinking is level one, for the common folk, the gullible. The shaman was on level three. He/she had probably transcended the realm of irrationality into emotional cognition and it enabled him/her to observe the natural phenomena, the patterns of creation, balance and destruction.
It was probably the first scientist at work, the first artist delighting others, the first one to lose his/her mind in a dark place and earning a superhuman soul (spirit) by coming back to tell the tale. But enough with this mental speleology. We are here to operate the IC; not to understand it, right? Or should we hold on to our (stone)axe a little bit longer? I think we need to hold on to our intellect before using something we don´t comprehend.
Solipsism if based in the philosophical perspective extols a thinking that only mind exists. So I hope you or others do not see the words what I have written in this way. My comment does embrace though the idea that our worlds evolve in and around a core essence of Self. Self is way more powerful than mind and there is no real comparison between the two.And then of course there is this, you wrote it at the end of your last comment: "...so as with all things we can only really base our individual beliefs in our own experiences." Sounds like Solipsism. Well, to know is to possess knowledge, to believe is to accept something to be true. The first, as shown above, is appropriate for a leader. The latter, for a follower.
Take care.
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).