Blog post: The words and the magic

[hilary]

The words and the magic

The Yi is an oracle; it speaks. (The word ‘oracle’ has its roots in the Latin orare, to speak, and oraculum, the name of the priest/ess who gave voice to the god.) Other oracles people use now, like tarot, have interpreters to speak their meanings, but Yi is unique: it has its own words and speaks in its own voice.

I think this is why we experience Yi as a person. We – humans and oracle alike – communicate in both body language, pictures and words. Our inner life, too, is woven from physical existence, mental imagery, and inner monologue. If you can think and hold a conversation, you can talk with Yi.

What should I do? Retreat.

How to move on? Release.

I once had a reading – I forget the question I asked – answered with Hexagram 5, Waiting, changing to Hexagram 20, Seeing. ‘Wait,’ said Yi, ‘and See’ – as clearly as any human interlocutor.

And more than one person has recorded their first experience with the Yijing – peppering it with questions, asking the same one again to test if they would get the same answer – and suddenly finding themselves in the middle of a real conversation as the words of Hexagram 4 leap off the page at them:

“It is not I who seek the young fool;
The young fool seeks me.
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.”

(Wilhelm/Baynes translation)

Of course we know that Hexagram 4 doesn’t always, only mean you’re asking the oracle too many questions, but…

The Yi’s words are what makes it so approachable; they’re how we first form a relationship with it. This is especially true for absolute beginners – I’ve found the oracle will often speak most directly and clearly to a complete novice, and then call for a bit more thought as you grow in experience.

For an experienced user, the words become important as a focal point, something that keeps you from getting lost in the depths of the reading. The nuclear story says this and the complement says that and the baoti trigrams say something else… and interpretation starts disappearing up its own analysis, with the whole thing looking more like a puzzle to solve than a reading. All this stuff is here to help deepen our understanding of the answer. And what’s the answer? What it says.

An example from a podcast episode – I asked about quitting a volunteer role and received Hexagram 32 line 3 –

‘Not lasting in your character,
Maybe accepting a shameful gift.
Constancy: shame’

And that was me cut down to size, by what Yi said.

In case it isn’t already obvious, this isn’t to say that the text is ‘better than’ the structure, or to be used instead of it. No-one ever suggested that. You do occasionally find people suggesting that the structure’s more important than the text, and you can do readings without the text. And you can receive something of value from the Yi without its text, just as you can receive something with no awareness of the structure, because the universe is alive and communicative – though I’m not sure that either counts as a Yijing reading.

But really, any kind of ‘text vs structure’ argument about the Yi is a straw man, a windmill to tilt at – poppycock, piffle, twaddle, nonsense of the first order. It makes about as much sense as saying that ‘body language is important, so we shouldn’t talk’ or ‘words are important, so we should only communicate by text message.’ And post-pandemic, we all know that being physically present matters. The hexagrams are the oracle’s physical presence. (And if this makes no sense to you, I strongly recommend using three coins, pencil and paper for your next reading.)

Reading the words alone reduces the Yi to a needlessly complicated kind of bibliomancy, making it strangely two-dimensional and disembodied – the ‘communication by text message only’ approach. It’s also how people get caught on single phrases of translation or – worse – commentary, which can be misleading, and how they get confused by apparent ‘contradictions’ within readings: it’s usually the reading’s structure that creates its ‘if… then…‘ logic.

You might think looking at structure without the original text – the ‘communication by interpretive dance only’ approach… – would just be analytical and dry, which it can be. Yet it can also be oddly vague and subjective, lacking the power the words have to compel you to see things differently. I don’t think I could be made to feel ashamed of myself, as I was by that 32.3 reading I mentioned – or seen and comforted, or shocked, or reassured, or disconcerted, or any of the myriad changes readings have created in me over the years – by a structural analysis of trigram relationships.

So yes… different shades of twaddle. The magic of Yi, the reason we’re all still talking with it now, lies in the ways its words and structures weave and work together.

There is no reading that isn’t an example of this – and it’s something I try to point to on this blog as much as I can, for instance in this series about hidden gems, or this one about two-line changes, or this dive into the ditch of Hexagram 4.

Still… imagine for a moment you’d asked for advice and received Hexagram 59, Dispersing, with the third line changing:

‘Dispersing your self
Without regrets.’

‘Disperse your self’ – what a thought! And look at the trigram picture: line 3 is the upper surface of the inner trigram kan, the stream, where it’s touched by the upper trigram xun, wind – where the water, the inner emotional flow, begins to evaporate into open air.

 

[Wasserdrache]

The words and the magic

The Yi is an oracle; it speaks. (The word ‘oracle’ has its roots in the Latin orare, to speak, and oraculum, the name of the priest/ess who gave voice to the god.) Other oracles people use now, like tarot, have interpreters to speak their meanings, but Yi is unique: it has its own words and speaks in its own voice.

I think this is why we experience Yi as a person. We – humans and oracle alike – communicate in both body language, pictures and words. Our inner life, too, is woven from physical existence, mental imagery, and inner monologue. If you can think and hold a conversation, you can talk with Yi.

What should I do? Retreat.

How to move on? Release.

I once had a reading – I forget the question I asked – answered with Hexagram 5, Waiting, changing to Hexagram 20, Seeing. ‘Wait,’ said Yi, ‘and See’ – as clearly as any human interlocutor.

And more than one person has recorded their first experience with the Yijing – peppering it with questions, asking the same one again to test if they would get the same answer – and suddenly finding themselves in the middle of a real conversation as the words of Hexagram 4 leap off the page at them:


Of course we know that Hexagram 4 doesn’t always, only mean you’re asking the oracle too many questions, but…

The Yi’s words are what makes it so approachable; they’re how we first form a relationship with it. This is especially true for absolute beginners – I’ve found the oracle will often speak most directly and clearly to a complete novice, and then call for a bit more thought as you grow in experience.

For an experienced user, the words become important as a focal point, something that keeps you from getting lost in the depths of the reading. The nuclear story says this and the complement says that and the baoti trigrams say something else… and interpretation starts disappearing up its own analysis, with the whole thing looking more like a puzzle to solve than a reading. All this stuff is here to help deepen our understanding of the answer. And what’s the answer? What it says.

An example from a podcast episode – I asked about quitting a volunteer role and received Hexagram 32 line 3 –


And that was me cut down to size, by what Yi said.

In case it isn’t already obvious, this isn’t to say that the text is ‘better than’ the structure, or to be used instead of it. No-one ever suggested that. You do occasionally find people suggesting that the structure’s more important than the text, and you can do readings without the text. And you can receive something of value from the Yi without its text, just as you can receive something with no awareness of the structure, because the universe is alive and communicative – though I’m not sure that either counts as a Yijing reading.

But really, any kind of ‘text vs structure’ argument about the Yi is a straw man, a windmill to tilt at – poppycock, piffle, twaddle, nonsense of the first order. It makes about as much sense as saying that ‘body language is important, so we shouldn’t talk’ or ‘words are important, so we should only communicate by text message.’ And post-pandemic, we all know that being physically present matters. The hexagrams are the oracle’s physical presence. (And if this makes no sense to you, I strongly recommend using three coins, pencil and paper for your next reading.)

Reading the words alone reduces the Yi to a needlessly complicated kind of bibliomancy, making it strangely two-dimensional and disembodied – the ‘communication by text message only’ approach. It’s also how people get caught on single phrases of translation or – worse – commentary, which can be misleading, and how they get confused by apparent ‘contradictions’ within readings: it’s usually the reading’s structure that creates its ‘if… then…‘ logic.

You might think looking at structure without the original text – the ‘communication by interpretive dance only’ approach… – would just be analytical and dry, which it can be. Yet it can also be oddly vague and subjective, lacking the power the words have to compel you to see things differently. I don’t think I could be made to feel ashamed of myself, as I was by that 32.3 reading I mentioned – or seen and comforted, or shocked, or reassured, or disconcerted, or any of the myriad changes readings have created in me over the years – by a structural analysis of trigram relationships.

So yes… different shades of twaddle. The magic of Yi, the reason we’re all still talking with it now, lies in the ways its words and structures weave and work together.

There is no reading that isn’t an example of this – and it’s something I try to point to on this blog as much as I can, for instance in this series about hidden gems, or this one about two-line changes, or this dive into the ditch of Hexagram 4.

Still… imagine for a moment you’d asked for advice and received Hexagram 59, Dispersing, with the third line changing:


‘Disperse your self’ – what a thought! And look at the trigram picture: line 3 is the upper surface of the inner trigram kan, the stream, where it’s touched by the upper trigram xun, wind – where the water, the inner emotional flow, begins to evaporate into open air.

The structure is universal, objective and allows testing and knowing about the real properties of the three sets, bigrams, trigrams and hexagrams. The text is dependent on the native language (culture) and politically subjective, since it has been constantly intervened and adapted by modifiers (interpreters and scholars) to fit state and personal objectives.

H.

 

[hilary]

Imagine for a moment the text had never been written. Do you think we would have heard of the structure? If so, what would it be to us?

 

[Wasserdrache]

Imagine for a moment the text had never been written. Do you think we would have heard of the structure? If so, what would it be to us?

Hard questions. Speculative. I don't know. But I know that IC is based on the observation of nature. The structure is already there. In front of us. Day and night. Winter Spring Summer Autumn. year after year.

A counter question: could you use the IC with a minimum of text or even without it? What would you use to affirm your results?

H.

 

[hilary]

could you use the IC with a minimum of text or even without it?

Well, no, because whatever I would using, it would not be the I Ching. And nobody uses it without text. Some use it without the original text and replace that with, for instance, text describing trigram associations, or some more involved method. But we humans do our thinking, talking and exchanging of meanings in words.

 

[dobro p]

Without the text, we would have to supply meanings to hexagrams, trigrams and lines in some other way - there would have to be specific meanings attached to these things so that mere line type and line arrangement actually meant something. This could be a left brain exercise in which, for example, 'this trigram has this meaning' - a sort of cookbook approach. But the way Yi does it is more useful (for me, at least) than left-braining it: the Yi provides images, poetic images, which BY THEIR VERY NATURE trigger associations. Where the left brain delineates and discriminates and divides for the sake of its own brand of clarity (that's what intellect is good at), the Yi stimulates right brain with its associations, connection-making, and whole-take snapshots. With something like Tarot, the user has to slowly, painstakingly develop a repertoire of associations/meanings on their own for each card - there's a downside and an upside to this. With the Yi, more is provided to the user right out of the gate - there are upsides and downsides to this, too.

 

[Wasserdrache]

Hilary:

Your post has some inaccuracies I don't want to address, at least for me it's not necessary now, it's your opinion, I understand, I respect that.

My message to the younger people who are interested in IC: Embrace structural analysis and if you can, get yourself to learn more about logic and mathematics, especially trigonometry and group theory, to deepen your knowledge of the sage´s wisdom. It is really impressive once you start to see how it works.

Good luck. Share if possible. Thank you.

H.

 

[Trojina]

Hilary:

Your post has some inaccuracies I don't want to address, at least for me it's not necessary now, it's your opinion, I understand, I respect that.

Vague. I might think you don't want to address them because you can't . In any case you haven't actually read the Blog properly to start with or you wouldn't be making out it's an anti- structure piece.

My message to the younger people who are interested in IC: Embrace structural analysis and if you can, get yourself to learn more about logic and mathematics, especially trigonometry and group theory, to deepen your knowledge of the sage´s wisdom. It is really impressive once you start to see how it works.

Good luck. Share if possible. Thank you.

H.

Your 'message to the younger people' ? What are you saviour of youth from corruption by Hilary ? Who are you addressing ? Do you have a host of young people ready to sit at your feet in this thread ? You say 'share if possible' ? Well the Blog has been shared, the thread is for people to share that's why it was posted. It's like you're intervening really to say

"Youth of today, I beseech you, don't listen to her listen to me and study trigonometry as that makes me a top notch interpreter of the Yi" I don't get why on someone's own blog post you would intervene to broadcast a message to the young and ask them to share. There's something off about that.



The entire point of the blog post is to say that one cannot place structure above text nor text above structure. Indeed often Hilary has discovered ways in which the text actually is in conversation with the structure. Yes, that is the text references the structure, the structure references the text, they are one.

But really, any kind of ‘text vs structure’ argument about the Yi is a straw man, a windmill to tilt at – poppycock, piffle, twaddle, nonsense of the first order. It makes about as much sense as saying that ‘body language is important, so we shouldn’t talk’ or ‘words are important, so we should only communicate by text message.’ And post-pandemic, we all know that being physically present matters. The hexagrams are the oracle’s physical presence. (And if this makes no sense to you, I strongly recommend using three coins, pencil and paper for your next reading.)

Reading the words alone reduces the Yi to a needlessly complicated kind of bibliomancy, making it strangely two-dimensional and disembodied – the ‘communication by text message only’ approach. It’s also how people get caught on single phrases of translation or – worse – commentary, which can be misleading, and how they get confused by apparent ‘contradictions’ within readings: it’s usually the reading’s structure that creates its ‘if… then…‘ logi

I'm not sure copying this out helps because it's there in black and white above but when someone wilfully misunderstands a piece of writing the urge is to post it again just in case they couldn't see the first time. I actually don't think posting it again will help but if you have a group of young disciples you want to instruct and turn towards you perhaps you might start your own thread for them !

 

[Wasserdrache]

Vague. I might think you don't want to address them because you can't . In any case you haven't actually read the Blog properly to start with or you wouldn't be making out it's an anti- structure piece.

Read Hilary´s post. She says humans convey meaning and thoughts merely through words. Music and Math are two examples of sound and also symbols doing that part, creating thoughful expressions with profound meanings without talk or use of words. So, that is an in-accuracy.

The rest of your posting is a lot of projection. I don´t agree with any of it.

H.

 

[Liselle]

She says humans convey meaning and thoughts merely through words.

Where exactly does she say "merely" (or "only")?

Answer: nowhere. Here's another actual quote:

We – humans and oracle alike – communicate in both body language, pictures and words. Our inner life, too, is woven from physical existence, mental imagery, and inner monologue.

 

[Wasserdrache]

Where exactly does she say "merely" (or "only")?

Answer: nowhere. Here's another actual quote:

Keep things in context. This was about my counterquestion to Hilary.

H.

 

[Liselle]

Hilary answered that.

Well, no, because whatever I would using, it would not be the I Ching. And nobody uses it without text. Some use it without the original text and replace that with, for instance, text describing trigram associations, or some more involved method. But we humans do our thinking, talking and exchanging of meanings in words.

Alright, at least I see where you got it from, thanks.

My own take on what she said:

(1) If we tried to "use the IC with a minimum of text or even without it" (your question), it would be a different oracle. It might bear a resemblance to the I Ching, but it wouldn't actually be the I Ching, because by definition the I Ching is both structure and text. Possibly similar to how Wen Wang Gua has things in common with the I Ching, but it's a different method/system.

(2) In some way, shape, or form, we'd end up with words anyway.

Humans do use language to convey most things. You say not music and math. Alright...for instance, if I'm not mistaken there have been attempts to send messages out to other intelligent life in the universe (if there is any), and if I remember right it was math-based for exactly that reason.

But this seems like comparing apples and oranges. Just because we can appreciate music without talking about it in words, doesn't mean we should do everything else without words, including use the I Ching. Right?

 

[Wasserdrache]

Liselle:

Gottfried Leibniz, the famous German mathematician and philosopher, was able to analyze and investigate the structure of IC without relying on the text, which was not made available until 1830 through a Latin translation by French Jesuit missionary Jean-Baptiste Régis, at least according to Shaugnessy.

This man studied IC to such an extent, our conversations here, as a digital manifestation, stems from his passion for the deeper mathematical and logical structure of IC. We owe him the digital age, and he owes his knowledge to the geniuses behind the creation of the IC. Without his investigation, this here (our dialogue) would be impossible as it is right now.

Music is just an example. " Just because we can appreciate music without talking about it in words, doesn't mean we should do everything else without words, including use the I Ching. Right?"

By fixating on conflict to find something to argue, i think we tend to become blind with opposition. I said it was an in-accuracy, not a mistake by Hilary and I also think younger people, less biased by traditional thinking, have more chances to use advanced scientific methods of analyzing IC. If they are prepared in abstract thinking and pattern recognition, that´s even better. If these youngsters find new stuff, it would be great to know about it, so, that’s why I ask them to share.

BTW, I don´t have followers, nor am I really interested in people following me, what is the use? I am not a narcissist. But I do follow those who I think make excellent questions and have keen insight to structure and wisdom of IC.

H.

 

[Liselle]

The thing is, I have neither the time nor the brain to become a mathemetician, which is probably what I'd need to understand Leibniz, for heaven's sake. (Obviously this is not meant as disrespect to Leibniz.)

I'm pretty happy with the ways we already have to interpret. Goodness knows I haven't exhausted them.

 

[hilary]

She says humans convey meaning and thoughts merely through words. Music and Math are two examples of sound and also symbols doing that part, creating thoughful expressions with profound meanings without talk or use of words. So, that is an in-accuracy.

Fair point. I was simplifying and concentrating on the kinds of meaning that we are talking about here, the ones involved in divinatory answers. As Trojina pointed out, I put things more clearly in the original post. Elsewhere, I've actually encouraged people to approach hexagrams as rhythm.

To what extent did Leibniz study the I Ching? If I remember rightly, someone sent him Shao Yong's diagram as an illustration of the binary system he (Leibniz) had already developed. Did he write anything in response?

 

[Wasserdrache]

The thing is, I have neither the time nor the brain to become a mathemetician, which is probably what I'd need to understand Leibniz, for heaven's sake. (Obviously this is not meant as disrespect to Leibniz.)

I'm pretty happy with the ways we already have to interpret. Goodness knows I haven't exhausted them.

I agree 100%. Sticking to what you know is probably the best. Nobody is asking you to become anything you are not interested in or don´t want to be. I mentioned the man only to show an example, one thinker, an extraordinary one, of many others, who used IC without text and came to deep understanding about nature and its workings. Also about Gottfried, he was a Cancer. Those people are tough. And he is dead now. Can´t get any worse than that.

H.

 

[Liselle]

(Cross-posting...)

Elsewhere, I've actually encouraged people to approach hexagrams as rhythm.

I can attest to this, now that Hilary reminds me. As proof, here is something I posted about it during the Imagery class it was part of. (It's in Change Circle, so the link won't work unless you're a member, but maybe it's okay if I post it here since it's my own post - ? - I'll remove it if not.)

Wonder if I'm getting somewhere with the drumming / sounding-out?

Same reading as last week, 21.4.5.6 to 3 about getting myself out of the house.

Ridiculously mundane subject, trying to get out of the house on time.

(Background: have terrible trouble being neither late nor (rarely) way too early to places like the vet, and without it becoming a stressful nightmare. This is partly because there are always 57 things that have to be done before I can actually walk out the door. Trying to estimate how long it'll all take, and therefore when I should start, is a mess. (I do not expect normal people to understand this.) Question was, "What if I start getting ready tomorrow at 12:45 p.m.?")

21....3

"Dum-taka-taka dum-taka-dum" (21) seems to flow better rhythmically than hexagram 3's "dum-taka-taka taka-dum-taka." 3's rhythm takes more time and practice for me to get comfortable with than 21's, and I can lose the feel of it pretty quickly if I go away and come back.

I think that might be because 21 repeats the same basic sequence, "dum-taka," in each trigram, just with one less "taka" in li. 3 seems more stuttery - you have to switch from "dum-taka" to "taka-dum." That seems 3-like: difficulties sprouting.

And "dum" on top seems more conclusive, more like a statement or an ending, than "taka" on top. It almost sounds like a call and response to me: zhen does something, the action hangs there, then li comes along and assesses it (appropriately enough for "bringing light to punishments").

[...edited out some stuff talking about someone else's thread...]

Does the sounding-out shed light on my reading? Well... getting out of the house certainly feels stuttery and fraught and 3-like to me. Trying things and then assessing them (21) might help. Finding a flow-y rhythm would also help [...]

I suppose it's obvious I haven't tried this since then. Looking at it again, maybe I should.

 

[Trojina]

The structure is universal, objective and allows testing and knowing about the real properties of the three sets, bigrams, trigrams and hexagrams. The text is dependent on the native language (culture) and politically subjective, since it has been constantly intervened and adapted by modifiers (interpreters and scholars) to fit state and personal objectives.

H.

There's a central illusion here, a cleaving to the notion that only structure and maths are 'pure' and that the realm of human meaning represented in words is tricky, shifting, not to be trusted, polluted. The problem you have is that divination is for humans, done by humans who use language.

While it is true of course meaning will get lost, shift, get translated and re translated according to time and place that is no reason to get scared of even using the text. No reason to give up on it or think there's no truth there. The truth is there's a lot more to divining with Yi than having someone's translation on your desk anyway. Yi is a living thing, it can't even be contained or held by one particular translation nor commentary, people actually discover it through living it.

For sure there has to be the basis of the words of Yi which will be a translation and one can use and go from that but it's not the end of the story. That's one dimension you don't recognise, that people might notice in their own experience 'hang on this line plays out this way for me' and that is a creative act that unites with the text and structural elements to give meaning.

What I hear is fear of the uncertainty of shifting meanings in Yi and the belief that only structure and math can be purely true. But constantly evolving meaning is the nature of human experience and divining is a human process that can't be bypassed however untidy it may seem.

There's no need to get frozen in 'text is unreliable being a product of time/culture' . The person can meet the text in the now as they find it in the now. As a person might find Yi in a crappy book in a second hand store and it still talks to them that is how inexhaustible the wisdom of Yi is, it can't be muffled even with bad translation and terrible commentary. It still speaks.

You seem to be saying it can't because it's all just too messy with culture and time and all that. Well it can actually.

So your above quote, while true to some degree, stops short in development. It doesn't end there. Wisdom finds a way, it runs through things, you can't stop it. If it's unsettling how it moves you might want to fix it somewhere in numbered ways or make out people shouldn't actually have the audacity to use the text at all which is pretty much what you said in the Open Space thread Hermit, under a few different names now, hard to keep up. Your basic message seems to be getting towards the idea people shouldn't use the text to interpret, that was the gist of the Open Space thread.

Here is the thread I'm referring to by Hermit/Hai Long/Wasserdrache..

Divine Krypton

Having lived abroad many years and as a traveler I have come to understand how one can mistake many things about a foreign culture when trying to use one’s own as guiding principle, especially through language. A good example to illustrate this idea would be looking at Eastern plurality versus...

www.onlineclarity.co.uk

 

[Trojina]

By fixating on conflict to find something to argue, i think we tend to become blind with opposition. I said it was an in-accuracy, not a mistake by Hilary and I also think younger people, less biased by traditional thinking, have more chances to use advanced scientific methods of analyzing IC. If they are prepared in abstract thinking and pattern recognition, that´s even better. If these youngsters find new stuff, it would be great to know about it, so, that’s why I ask them to share.

Traditional thinking ? Hang on a minute The Hermit....to make out Hilary is a traditional thinker with Yi and you are some kind of radical leading the youth is truly laughable. Hilary has discovered a huge amount about Yi and structure and I mean huge. She's found patterns in the structure no one else has but I don't suppose you know about that.

This thing with your concern for 'youth' is laughable. First you are posturing that Hilary's work is somehow old and traditional where she has actually made fairly radical changes in how many interpret and then you falsely posture as a leader of youth.

Inviting sharing for the youth here on this blog is pretty much like me walking into someone's party and inviting other people to my party !

Why don't you start your own thread and appeal to the youth to 'share' ? Oh you have your own thread in Open Space but no one replied yet but you could start another especially for youth or even your own website ! It would make a change from proposing the same arguments here over and over again under different names.

 

[Wasserdrache]

Trojina:

You have deep understanding of IC. Can you prove why changing pattern method is relevant and not just a mental delusion of the interpreter? Can you prove nuclear hexagrams are the root situation and why? How many elements does the IC set really have? How do the lines work? What is the true proven nature of the relation between original and related hexagram? Is IC associative? Is it a group? Is it closed under certain operation? Is it a semi group? A ring? What is the function of IC? Is it a cycle, many cycles, a circle, an ellipse, a convex function? Where is future, where is past, can you prove its position? What does unchanging mean for a hexagram, not poetically but as axiom? Why does hexagram 1 and hexagram 2 have the maximum allowed disposition of changing lines and no other hexagram pair does? What is the IC modelling conceptually, what is it modelling as algebra? Does the set has an Identity element? Is substraction allowed? Is adding allowed? Are other operations allowed and what are those? What importance do Prime numbers have as a group within the IC set? What is the function of square and cubic exponents in the IC set? Why 8 by 8 and not 16 by 16 as Ifa (Yoruba) Oracle or 22/56 as used in Tarot? And there are many many more questions waiting for us, and the answers are not in the text, thats for sure.

Say whatever you want about me, I don´t care. I don´t have a reputation to defend nor do I have vested interests in this site. I am not after followers, nor do I need validation, or attention. I am not fishing for clients, I am here to find answers for me and better questions for others, and of course because I want to keep learning about the fascinating nature of the IC set. Have a good day.

Dragón de Agua aka H.

 

[my_key]

Chris Lofting had a strong mathematical bent in the way he explored and explained the structure and interactions within and between the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching. Interestingly he title his book something like " I Ching: The Language of the Vague".

 

[Trojina]

I've reread Hilary's initial blog post here. To summarise it is quite clear she is not saying structure doesn't count. How could she given the close attention she gives to the structure and the ways in which she sees it connect with the text. She is saying I think often readings done by structure alone, whilst they may be of value in their own right aren't always exactly Yi readings.

She wrote

In case it isn’t already obvious, this isn’t to say that the text is ‘better than’ the structure, or to be used instead of it. No-one ever suggested that. You do occasionally find people suggesting that the structure’s more important than the text, and you can do readings without the text. And you can receive something of value from the Yi without its text, just as you can receive something with no awareness of the structure, because the universe is alive and communicative – though I’m not sure that either counts as a Yijing reading.

Divining only by free association to trigram structure may not be anything like what Yi is saying in the text and therefore it becomes another animal altogether.

She also says below only using the text can be lacking in dimension which is also true

Reading the words alone reduces the Yi to a needlessly complicated kind of bibliomancy, making it strangely two-dimensional and disembodied – the ‘communication by text message only’ approach. It’s also how people get caught on single phrases of translation or – worse – commentary, which can be misleading, and how they get confused by apparent ‘contradictions’ within readings: it’s usually the reading’s structure that creates its ‘if… then…‘ logic.

In reality mostly I think people tend to use text and structure together, that's what I see here. That's what I do, that's what Hilary and Liselle do and others.

You have deep understanding of IC. Can you prove why changing pattern method is relevant and not just a mental delusion of the interpreter?

This is divination, an interpretative art or skill it is not science and therefore trying to prove this or that would seem to me a rather foolish and irrelevant enterprise. It's like asking a poet to 'prove' their poem. In divination one is concerned with discerning meaning, human subjective meaning, so from what perspective would you be looking for proof from ?

Change patterns of course are clearly based in structure, I mean that's where you find them. You look at the structure of the hexagram you have cast and there they are, apparent to anyone who looks. You could ask me any question and any meaning I find could be my delusion but I'm human, I have a mind that finds meaning. Am I interested at all in proving why a change pattern might be relevant ? Absolutely not, that would be a waste of time just as asking that poet who wrote a poem about the colour of the grass if she could prove her perception that fuelled that poem.

Can you prove nuclear hexagrams are the root situation and why?

Personally I'm not sure it is true that nuclear hexagrams are the root situation. I don't tend to even look at nuclears in my readings. But it's such a bizarre question 'can you prove...' it seems irrelevant, misses the point..and it's way off at a tangent from the blog post.

Different people like using different aspects in readings just like different artists like different materials to work with. Some like acrylic, some like oil etc. If I asked 3 artists to please depict, show me this garden today, paint it for me, I will have their vision, their own subjective vision of the garden today. If I asked them to prove why they drew that stroke there they'd think I was mad. They are presenting me with what they see with the tools and materials they have alongside their own personal sensibilities. Some may be more sensitive to light, may feel the gradients of light keenly, whilst others are much more focused on texture. It is like that with different diviners. Hence I'm not drawn to painting with nuclears at all but I am drawn to change patterns. It would be odd to ask the painter if she can prove her sensitivity to light or texture and it is odd to ask me to prove any aspects of divining with Yi.

What is the true proven nature of the relation between original and related hexagram? Is IC associative? Is it a group? Is it closed under certain operation? Is it a semi group? A ring? What is the function of IC? Is it a cycle, many cycles, a circle, an ellipse, a convex function? Where is future, where is past, can you prove its position? What does unchanging mean for a hexagram, not poetically but as axiom? Why does hexagram 1 and hexagram 2 have the maximum allowed disposition of changing lines and no other hexagram pair does? What is the IC modelling conceptually, what is it modelling as algebra? Does the set has an Identity element? Is substraction allowed? Is adding allowed? Are other operations allowed and what are those? What importance do Prime numbers have as a group within the IC set? What is the function of square and cubic exponents in the IC set? Why 8 by 8 and not 16 by 16 as Ifa (Yoruba) Oracle or 22/56 as used in Tarot? And there are many many more questions waiting for us, and the answers are not in the text, thats for sure.

I use it and often understand it. I personally believe Yi is a live intelligence, or rather it was made by a Wisdom that is lively now, that goes on, that cannot be put on a table to be dissected the way you'd like to satisfy you. I don't care what it's 'modelling' I just ask it for help and try to interpret for others. I generally don't care at all about any of your questions, they just aren't relevant to me. But I think it's fine if they are relevant to you and you find people who would like to discuss these with.

What I don't get is why you'd pitch up on this thread offering invitations to 'youth' to 'share' and exhorting them to take up trigonometry and group theory. This quote below I think carries a strong implication of dismissiveness to what was said in the original blog as well as a misrepresentation of what was said in the blog In this appeal to the youth I see you categorising Hilary as 'traditional'

My message to the younger people who are interested in IC: Embrace structural analysis and if you can, get yourself to learn more about logic and mathematics, especially trigonometry and group theory, to deepen your knowledge of the sage´s wisdom. It is really impressive once you start to see how it works.

....I think in being so terrified of the uncertainty of words it is you who is the hidebound one here rather than Hilary.

Say whatever you want about me, I don´t care. I don´t have a reputation to defend nor do I have vested interests in this site. I am not after followers, nor do I need validation, or attention. I am not fishing for clients, I am here to find answers for me and better questions for others, and of course because I want to keep learning about the fascinating nature of the IC set. Have a good day.

I have not said you were fishing for clients or had vested interests etc etc. It does however strike me that you aren't interested in real communication you are interested in devaluing this blog post. I might be wrong but given you have done this repeatedly under the last 3 or 4 incarnations at least, it's true to your usual pattern. I haven't seen that you are keen to learn under any of these incarnations but I have seen that you are keen to teach ! I think if you want to exhort youth to follow your ways then your own thread would be appropriate and then see how many of said youth show up.

 

[Liselle]

Whether you intend it or not, the impression you give is that we're doing it wrong, largely because we don't use all the math stuff. For instance this comes across as an accusation or challenge:

You have deep understanding of IC. Can you prove why changing pattern method is relevant and not just a mental delusion of the interpreter? Can you prove nuclear hexagrams are the root situation and why? How many elements does the IC set really have? How do the lines work? What is the true proven nature of the relation between original and related hexagram? Is IC associative? Is it a group? Is it closed under certain operation? Is it a semi group? A ring? What is the function of IC? Is it a cycle, many cycles, a circle, an ellipse, a convex function? Where is future, where is past, can you prove its position? What does unchanging mean for a hexagram, not poetically but as axiom? Why does hexagram 1 and hexagram 2 have the maximum allowed disposition of changing lines and no other hexagram pair does? What is the IC modelling conceptually, what is it modelling as algebra? Does the set has an Identity element? Is substraction allowed? Is adding allowed? Are other operations allowed and what are those? What importance do Prime numbers have as a group within the IC set? What is the function of square and cubic exponents in the IC set? Why 8 by 8 and not 16 by 16 as Ifa (Yoruba) Oracle or 22/56 as used in Tarot? And there are many many more questions waiting for us, and the answers are not in the text, thats for sure.

You - the one who's interested in it - can't answer those questions yourself, or at least you haven't. But still, you're quite sure it's more important than the "inaccurate" (according to you) text.

This doesn't make sense to me. If you had something to show us (like, "Look at this nifty pattern - it reminds me of xyz in math; what do you think?") we might have more to discuss. (If you could explain the math concept to all of us non-mathematicians, which would be a tall order.)

 

[Liselle]

Is adding allowed?

Just remembered Hilary speculated about that once

Additive hexagrams?

OK, here's the off-the-wall idea for the day. What if you could add two hexagrams together? Not changing lines to move from one hexagram to another, but 'adding' them, on the basis that yin + yin = yin, but yang + yin = yang, because you imagine the yang line 'filling' the empty yin space. This id

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