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A system of I Ching - Tarot correspondences

ianek

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Hello.

http://hermenes.com/Homepage/ichintaro_en.htm

Here you can find a system of correspondences between the I Ching and Tarot. These systems have absolutely different origins but you can see yourselves how they correspond each other. Keeping in mind the correspondences you can enrich your understanding of hexagrams and cards.
 

pocossin

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This appears to be a very thoughtful correspondence.

10. Treading -- Five of Pentacles
29. The Abysmal -- XV The Devil
30. The Clinging, Fire -- XVII The Star
44. Coming to Meet -- Seven of Pentacles
 

ianek

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Sometimes the corresspondence is not so obvious and takes time to establish internal correlations between the hexagram and card. It turns out that the correspondence manifests itself in cultural works: movies, books and so on. Let me show simple example. Movie "Avatar", surely, is not a masterpiece of cinematograph, but it contains many signs of the corresponding archetype H23 " Splitting Apart" - XII Major Arcanum "Hanged Man". The picture from the card clearly reminds us the main entity of the movie, World Tree, the text of the hexagram has something in common with the plot.

PS. Sorry for my poor English, if you find something unclear, please, let me know. I will try to explain more clearly.
 

pocossin

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Has this correspondence been posted to Aeclectic Tarot?

http://www.tarotforum.net/

I once saw a thread there about such a correspondence and think a number of people there would be interested in it.
 

ianek

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Thanks, I know this site. Yesterday I tried to register there but it's closed untill Jan,11. I am going to post this system there, but it seems to me that it also is useful for people studying I Ching. I understand how hard to accept the correlation of ancient I Ching from entire different system of knowledge but there are too many examples justifying (if this word is appropriate in this case) these correspondences.
 

bradford

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Such a system is best undertaken by someone with a good understanding of both disciplines. Not the case with this one.
 

ianek

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Yes, it's true. But I am sure that an interdisciplinary approach is very useful in many cases. Actually, there is no problem for I Ching people to learn something about Tarot and vice versa. Most people use I Ching and Tarot for divination and the combination of the two correlated archetypes (the hexagram and the card) can be helpful. You can check yourself the proposed correspondences if you try to find archetypes of the both system in the same process. For example, H. 10 Treading corresponds to ancient greek tragedy "Oedipus the King" and it is not difficult to see this motiff in the Five of Pentaces. "Lolita" by V. Nabokov resembles XV Major Arcanum and it's instructive to see how the plot of the story correlates with the text of the 29 hexagram.
 

bradford

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The human mind is wired to manufacture meaning, whether any exists beforehand or not. Regardless of the input, we can make stories from it. Where the input already carries a hint of order, as with clouds or tea leaves, the phenomenon is called pareidolia. Where completely random, as in a whiteout or sensory deprivation tank, it's called apophenia. Further, this is fundamental to how most instances of divination work. People, therefore, are always going to be able to see relevance in ANY system of correspondences, and they will also be able to learn new things from the new angles and points of view it provides. But it is another thing entirely to develop a system of real correspondences, which isn't accomplished by juxtaposing essentially meaningless sequences such as the King Wen arrangement and the sequence of the Hebrew alphabet.
It will use more elemental and fundamental properties of the individual systems.
 
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ianek

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>>The human mind is wired to manufacture meaning, whether any exists beforehand or not. Regardless of the input, we can make stories from it. Where the input already carries a hint of order, as with clouds or tea leaves, the phenomenon is called pareidolia. Where completely random, as in a whiteout or sensory deprivation tank, it's called apophenia. Further, this is fundamental to how most instances of divination work.
_________________________________
I consder a man as a boundary (or mediator) between the External and the Internal, so the phenomena which you described seems very natural to me. Of course, even slightest stimuls from the External can modify the boundary or cause rearangement in the Internal.

>> People, therefore, are always going to be able to see relevance in ANY system of correspondences, and they will also be able to learn new things from the new angles and points of view it provides. But it is another thing entirely to develop a system of real correspondences, which isn't accomplished by juxtaposing essentially meaningless sequences such as the King Wen arrangement and the sequence of the Hebrew alphabet.
________________________________________
First, I must say that I strongly disagree with that King Wen sequences is meaningless. If one accept I Ching as a source of ancient wisdom one should accept this wisdom as a whole, i.e. accept not only texts but also the order of the hexagrams. Second, sometimes juxtaposing is enough, sometimes not. In this case it works and you can see that the order is not so obvious. But let's make our discussion more specific. In my opinion, "Oedipus the King" (the most important myth for European civilazation according by Zigmund Freid) corresponds to Hex. 10. Are you agree with this choice?

>>It will use more elemental and fundamental properties of the individual systems.
______________________________________
I would be very glad if you tell me about the another system of the correspondeces (if you have any).
 

pocossin

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. . . let's make our discussion more specific. In my opinion, "Oedipus the King" (the most important myth for European civilazation according by Zigmund Freid) corresponds to Hex. 10. Are you agree with this choice?

Why not 39 for Oedipus?

Bradford think hexagram 10 corresponds to the Seven of Swords. I've no idea why he thinks that.
 
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Sparhawk

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>> People, therefore, are always going to be able to see relevance in ANY system of correspondences, and they will also be able to learn new things from the new angles and points of view it provides. But it is another thing entirely to develop a system of real correspondences, which isn't accomplished by juxtaposing essentially meaningless sequences such as the King Wen arrangement and the sequence of the Hebrew alphabet.
________________________________________
First, I must say that I strongly disagree with that King Wen sequences is meaningless. If one accept I Ching as a source of ancient wisdom one should accept this wisdom as a whole, i.e. accept not only texts but also the order of the hexagrams. Second, sometimes juxtaposing is enough, sometimes not. In this case it works and you can see that the order is not so obvious. But let's make our discussion more specific. In my opinion, "Oedipus the King" (the most important myth for European civilazation according by Zigmund Freid) corresponds to Hex. 10. Are you agree with this choice?

Before you get too excited about the received sequence, it is a Han construct, based, for the most part, on another work, the Yilin. It was, IMO, convenient to use a surviving text to recreate a sequence and attribute it to an ancient historical character. The best evidence for the disputability of the antiquity of the KWS is the Mawangdui manuscript of the Yijing, which is based on a different sequence altogether.


Schulz-Yilin.png

LARRY J. SCHULZ AND THOMAS J. CUNNINGHAM*
THE SEASONAL STRUCTURE UNDERLYING THE ARRANGEMENT OF HEXAGRAMS IN THE YIJING
Journal of Chinese Philosophy I 7 (1990) 289-313 Copyright @I990 by Dialogue Publishing Company, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.​
 

sergio

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Thanks for this update-at least to me it is.Seems to be a nice article you are quoting from.
I found tit is very interesting also from the first article how they correlate the tarot cards to the hexagrams,pairing them with an alternation of pairs(forgive the redundancy) from the upper and lower canons.Very interesting correlations to make and an excuse to exercise our thirst for meaning.
Merry Christmas to everybody!.
Sergio
 

elias

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Such attempts at correspondence appear from time to time. I started my own, based on runes, a while back, but didn't get very far... http://gnostix1.wordpress.com/recent/runescapes/

I Ching is very disciplined and no-nonsense; Tarot is a garrulous old gossip. You might find some superficial correspondences but the underlying world-views are utterly different. A while back I encountered a site corresponding Hex 4 with Tarot's Fool. This displays a shallow understanding of both systems.

Nevertheless, some very deep thinkers in Tarot end up sounding like Toaists (try Meditations on the Tarot when you have a spare year.) I have never encountered a deep Toaist who ends up sounding like a Christian.

Oedipus as Hex 10? Sorry, I don't see it except perhaps in 10.3. Hex 4.4, perhaps or 6.6 would do as well, or Hex 43. Of 39 "Limping" -- this might describe Oedipus "Swollen Foot," though the lines don't seem to fit his trajectory.
 
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sooo

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I'm not qualified to technically offer much, but I do recall, back when I was doing both, that they seemed really two unrelated systems and schools of reasoning. One can always create bridges, since reasoning ought to be reasoning, and not reasoning only within one bubble or another. In nature, they're not the same species, but they're all related.
 

yamabushi

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If the willowfox was not banned, she could say something of her experience with tarot...

In my experience I ching is much more precise in situational questions while tarot has to be used in relationship or money questions..

In Tarot intuition is very important.
Major Arcana numer 13 mean "change", reversal it mean stagnation-hex 12
 

bradford

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The system I use is partially derived from Crowley's, with lots of adjustments. I used his sixteen Gua to Tarot Court associations intact, and this displays bilateral symmetry when plotted onto the Early Heaven sequence. They are also fairly well explained in the Book of Thoth. For the rest I generally carried forward his idea of using "portmanteau analysis" with the upper and lower primary Ba Gua, with a few important corrections to Crowley's Number (Sephirot) to Ba Gua associations, like giving 7's to Dui instead of Gen. I made use of the fact that 64+8+4+2=78, and so was able to include the Ba Gua and other Xiao Xiang. The Ba Gua are actually closer in meaning to the Western elements than to the Wu Xing, where Mu, wood, would be wands. Kun and Gen are obviously earth, Kan anf Dui water, Qian and Xun air and Li and Zhen fire. So where you have swords in my system you'll find either Qian or Xun. The numbers are in the lower primary or Zhen Gua position.
This is more completely presented in my Vol !, pp 54-5, the Xiao Xiang chapter, Introduction to Scales and passim, and the index tables in the back, and then in Vol 2, the Dimensions, Introduction, Correlative Thought and Ban Xiang sections.
As to the Wen Wang or Hou Tian arrangement, believe what you like. At bottom it's just 32 structurally meaningful pairs jumbled into a random sequence.
 
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ianek

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>>The system I use is partially derived from Crowley's, with lots of adjustments. I used his sixteen Gua to Tarot Court associations intact, and this displays bilateral symmetry when plotted onto the Early Heaven sequence. They are also fairly well explained in the Book of Thoth. For the rest I generally carried forward his idea of using "portmanteau analysis" with the upper and lower primary Ba Gua, with a few important corrections to Crowley's Number (Sephirot) to Ba Gua associations, like giving 7's to Dui instead of Gen. I made use of the fact that 64+8+4+2=78, and so was able to include the Ba Gua and other Xiao Xiang. The Ba Gua are actually closer in meaning to the Western elements than to the Wu Xing, where Mu, wood, would be wands. Kun and Gen are obviously earth, Kan anf Dui water, Qian and Xun air and Li and Zhen fire. So where you have swords in my system you'll find either Qian or Xun. The numbers are in the lower primary or Zhen Gua position.
________________________________
Interesting, I need time to think about this.

>>As to the Wen Wang or Hou Tian arrangement, believe what you like. At bottom it's just 32 structurally meaningful pairs jumbled into a random sequence.
___________________________________
Sorry, but argumentations doesn't become more solid after repetition. I can't add anything to what I said before: KWS order is the part of I Ching, you can't reject KWS without rejecting I Ching. If you trust the wisdom of I Ching creators it would be very consitent to accept not only the texts but the the order of hexagrams also.
 

ianek

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>>Before you get too excited about the received sequence, it is a Han construct, based, for the most part, on another work, the Yilin. It was, IMO, convenient to use a surviving text to recreate a sequence and attribute it to an ancient historical character. The best evidence for the disputability of the antiquity of the KWS is the Mawangdui manuscript of the Yijing, which is based on a different sequence altogether.
________________________________________
Yes, there are the other orders, you can also say about simple binary order. But it doesn't make KWS order random or useless. (BTW, Mawangdui order fits to the 360 Sabian symbols, but it's an another story). After all, all texts are written by someone and if KWS is really dated by Han dinasty (i.e. only two centures later then the earliest extant version of the text) that doesn't change very much at all.
 

ianek

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>>Oedipus as Hex 10? Sorry, I don't see it except perhaps in 10.3. Hex 4.4, perhaps or 6.6 would do as well, or Hex 43. Of 39 "Limping" -- this might describe Oedipus "Swollen Foot," though the lines don't seem to fit his trajectory.

>>Why not 39 for Oedipus?
___________________________________
H39 is more or less plain, it's fighting with the obstacle, this motiff can be referred to Oedipus's duel with sphinx, but H10 fits it much better.

1. The tiger is H10 resembles sphinx who had lion's body. Treading on the tail can be assosiated with dangerous opposition, riddle in this case.
2. The main subject of sphinx riddle is about the number of legs and the walking . It directly connected with H10 "Treading". ("When Oedipus reached the gates of the city, the creature posed her riddle: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening? ")
3. The third line "A one-eyed man is able to see,
A lame man is able to tread." remind us what happened with Oedipus:
a servant pierced the child's ankles and Oedipus blinded himself. Yes, it is not literally correct, but we can't ask too much from I Ching about ancient greek tragedy. It's much more suprising how many correspondences we can extract from the text of the hexagram.

>>Bradford think hexagram 10 corresponds to the Seven of Swords. I've no idea why he thinks that.
____________________________
It would be interesting to see the reasons for this correspondence.
 

ianek

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>>Major Arcana numer 13 mean "change", reversal it mean stagnation-hex 12
________________________________________
A another name fo H10 is "pestilence". You can track this motiff in MA 13


>>reversal it mean stagnation-hex 12
_________________________
Well, then we have 78*2=156 meanings of the cards but only 64 hexagrams...
 

pocossin

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As to the Wen Wang or Hou Tian arrangement, believe what you like. At bottom it's just 32 structurally meaningful pairs jumbled into a random sequence.

The linkage within pairs is more than structural. There is often a unity of vocabulary. For example, "dragon" occurs only in the first pair.
 

pocossin

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Before you get too excited about the received sequence, it is a Han construct, based, for the most part, on another work, the Yilin.

"The first appearance of the Yijing gua order is not in an edition of the classic but in a text called the Yilin . . ." What does "appearance" mean here? Did the hexagrams flit about like a flock of birds until they were captured and put in a row by the Han? "Appearance" means something like 'first authenticated use." It is not evidence that the hexagrams had no such sequence prior to the Han.
 

yamabushi

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>>Major Arcana numer 13 mean "change", reversal it mean stagnation-hex 12
________________________________________
A another name fo H10 is "pestilence". You can track this motiff in MA 13


>>reversal it mean stagnation-hex 12
_________________________
Well, then we have 78*2=156 meanings of the cards but only 64 hexagrams...

when you are talking about H10, Major Arcana 8- Strength=H34
 

Sparhawk

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"The first appearance of the Yijing gua order is not in an edition of the classic but in a text called the Yilin . . ." What does "appearance" mean here? Did the hexagrams flit about like a flock of birds until they were captured and put in a row by the Han? "Appearance" means something like 'first authenticated use." It is not evidence that the hexagrams had no such sequence prior to the Han.

I feel kind of silly but this is what it means, courtesy of Merriam-Webster:


3 a: the act, action, or process of appearing

4 a: something that appears : phenomenon; b: an instance of appearing : occurrence

It means that the only extant reference of the received sequence of the Yijing doesn't come from any contemporary version of it but from a related, I would say, exegetical work. It doesn't mean "first authenticated use" but "first documented occurrence by proxy". Given the extant evidence, the Yilin seems, for all intents and purposes, to be the proxy by which later exegetes and court scribes, set the sequence of the received text, still within the Han Dynasty.

Of course, as you've said, this isn't evidence that the sequence didn't exist before that; quite possibly, indeed. It is even possible that Jiao Shi based his Yilin on a version of the Yi with such a sequence. Alas we have the Yilin but not an actual version of the Yijing contemporary with it. Thus far, there ISN'T ANY extant/documented evidence of its existence prior to the Yilin. On the other hand, we do have the Mawangdui and fragments of other "Changes" with other completely different sequences, that predate the Yilin; that's all.

Documented evidence:

Other sequences <<===prior to=== Yilin ===forward===>> KWS

That doesn't preempt that some new archaeological evidence will prove the veracity of "tradition and/or faith based stances," mind you. Personally, I rather take the path that current evidence shows. If evidence comes that proves a prior existence of the received sequence, I'd wholeheartedly take it.
 

Sparhawk

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Sorry, but argumentations doesn't become more solid after repetition. I can't add anything to what I said before: KWS order is the part of I Ching, you can't reject KWS without rejecting I Ching. If you trust the wisdom of I Ching creators it would be very consitent to accept not only the texts but the the order of hexagrams also.

Who says you MUST trust anything, let alone the wisdom of a mythical creator of a book? If you do trust such wisdom, you would stop what you are doing and cease to find correspondences with other systems, since such systems were NOT in the mind of those wise men when they "created" the Yijing. :D Well? Are you stopping any time soon? I didn't think so.

The Yijing is an intellectual work, shrouded in myth and historical references, period. There's no theology in it to take on "faith" (or trust in their "wisdom"). There isn't a "creator" of it but an evolution of it, through countless exegetes and scribes, over a couple of thousands of years, that ended up with what we received to work with.

You are not doing anything different from what many people with an interest in it have been doing for a very long time (actually, not that long because these exercises are a Western phenomena):

Trying to FIT IT within the context of other systems that share the common denominator of all of them being divination devices.​

Of course, it is a very entertaining affair for many. Personally, I think there's so much to work with, without straying away from it, that stepping outside its circle to make a square peg fit in a round hole, is not studying the classic at all. There is NOTHING to be found OUTSIDE of it that would make ANYONE understand the classic better.
 

elias

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H39 is more or less plain, it's fighting with the obstacle, this motiff can be referred to Oedipus's duel with sphinx, but H10 fits it much better.

Hex 10 isn't about fighting with an obstacle, it's about "the obstacle" indulging you (mostly) for the mistake of following too closely, as your intentions are innocent. Antigone would make a better match than Oedipus if you're looking for correspondences. Except that she died. oops. But she's the youngest daughter of the household (Lake) encroaching on Heaven (Creon), and her intentions are honorable.

In the longer view, Oedipus' tragedy isn't about the sphinx, it's about his ego overrunning his common sense. Such an eventually doesn't occur in the IC, except as a rather indirect object lesson (Hex 49). Oedipus bulldozed ahead despite the best advice of everyone. Back to Hex 39, looking better the more I think about this...
 

pocossin

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Alas we have the Yilin but not an actual version of the Yijing contemporary with it. Thus far, there ISN'T ANY extant/documented evidence of its existence prior to the Yilin.

There is evidence for the KWS much older than the Yi Lin, but I have yet to find anyone who would independently replicate my research: the Dao De Jing was inspired by the Yi Jing and follows the KWS.
 

pocossin

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No it wasn't. No it doesn't. But your pareidolia is fully functional.

Thank you, Bradford. In spite of a health issue, at least something is functional. The word "pareidolia" is a linguistic oddity. "From Ancient Greek; παρα (para, “amiss, wrong”) + εἴδωλον (eidōlon, “image”)." But actually it is a modern coinage, and its origin is concealed. It is not in my older version of the OED, and I suspect it to be a product of the critical thinking cult.

In I Ching terms, critical thinkers deny that appearance has anything to do with significance. Hexagram 27, they might admit, is shaped like a mouth, but they deny that this appearance has anything to do with the meaning of hexagram 27. Hexagram 50, they might admit, is shaped like a ding, but they deny that this appearance has anything to do with the meaning of hexagram 50. For those unafflicted with critical thinking, such obvious pairings of appearance and significance are an invitation to view the significance of all hexagrams as originating in their appearance.
 
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