...life can be translucent

Menu

An article on creating I Ching hexagam casting methods

remod

visitor
Joined
Oct 24, 2008
Messages
226
Reaction score
89
I've just published on my blog a post that summarizes my ideas on why and how to create new methods for casting I Ching hexagrams:
http://www.castingiching.com/2016/06/creating-casting-method.html

It's rather long, and I understand not everyone will read it through the end.
In case anyone will want to have a look, I will be very interested in receiving any feedback or comments. Here on Clarity or via a private message, I don't mind.

Hope you will find it interesting

Remo
 

russell

visitor
Joined
Dec 8, 2009
Messages
126
Reaction score
5
I am glad you are updating your site. I got a lot of inspiration from the old one. There are many ways of getting information from the universe, and there should be many ways of consulting the I Ching. The introduction to the Takashima Ekidan says, of the I Ching, “There are a great many styles of divination offered by different scholars, and no one knows which is the best of all.” By analogy, there are undoubtedly many ways of measuring the energy of an atomic bomb, but at the Trinity site, Enrico Fermi made the first measurement on-the-spot by dropping little pieces of paper and watching how far they moved when the shock wave hit. I pretty much use playing cards exclusively these days for consulting the I Ching, and I cut off part of the deck first to make the odds dynamic. I like cards, I like the way they feel in my hands, I like the way I feel when I shuffle and deal them, and I like letting the Yi determine its own odds. It is such a simple way of letting it speak for itself. And I have come to terms with the fact that divination and gaming have gone hand-in-hand since ancient times. But others prefer the toss of a coin, or the “back to nature” feel of yarrow stalks. If I found myself out in the wilderness without the advantages of civilization, I would use a primitive method of just picking up part of a pile of little sticks or whatever, and counting them off to see if the number was even (2) or odd (3), which is my guess as to how people “tossed a coin” long before coins existed. Any of these ways beats heating bones and reading the cracks, which was of course the “original” method. Gemstones, memory wheels, tetrahedral dice, the more ways the better; it is all good food for the mind.

—Russell
 

remod

visitor
Joined
Oct 24, 2008
Messages
226
Reaction score
89
Thanks for your comment Russell!
I like cards too, as you might have guessed. Rather than playing cards I prefer to use specially designed cards it's rather easy to print and cut them. I plan to add others to the site (most probably up to eight cards).
I like the huge number of possible outcomes that cards give. Even when you use very few of them

The more I update my site, the more I find about new methods that people have devised to cast hexagrams. It will surely take me quite some time to cover them all (if that was ever possible).
 

russell

visitor
Joined
Dec 8, 2009
Messages
126
Reaction score
5
I Ching “bibliomancy”

• Fan the pages of a book (such as the I Ching).
• Very casually divide the pages at a random position, as if cutting a deck of cards.
• Look at the last two digits of the number of the even-numbered page (generally on the left).
• If it is divisible by four, count it as “tails” or 2.
• If not, count it as “heads” or 3.
• To make the math easier, you can subtract a multiple of 4 from the page number, such as 40 or 80.
• Three divisions determine one line, just like using coins.

Note: this isn’t actually bibliomancy; it is sortilege using the pages of a book. It is analogous to picking up part of a stack of yarrow stalks and counting them off to see if the number is odd or even, which is what I think the coin method was invented to mimic.

The edges of the pages must be fairly clean and smooth, without irregularities that could throw off the results.

—Russell
 

remod

visitor
Joined
Oct 24, 2008
Messages
226
Reaction score
89
Thanks Russell! I've added this to the blog.
As usual, let me know if you want me to change/modify anything.

Thanks and keep sending new ideas, I love them.

Remo
 

Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom

Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).

Top