Intuition in Divination

[sooo]

Two questions for anyone:

1) Have any of you ever received answers from the Yi which you were absolutely positive of its meaning?

2) Is it remotely possible that this same certainty can ever be applicable to someone else's reading, that you've been asked to interpret?

 

[maremaria]

I did experience the situation as a whole by contemplating it in terms of Chinese metaphysics, and thus got the feel of the situation.[/B] That, in my opinion, is what a diviner is supposed to do, and if you would make some attempt at doing it you would understand the reality of my position. My feelings are just as real as yours are.

Tom , do you say the underlined part literally or figuratively ? I'm asking you because I try to understand some incindence of "experiencing " situations of a reading. Is it a rational procees or its more than that ? a flash of insight ? something else ?

(sorry for asking here, i should open a new thread but don't know how to call it , lol )

 

[maremaria]

Two questions for anyone:

1) Have any of you ever received answers from the Yi which you were absolutely positive of its meaning?

2) Is it remotely possible that this same certainty can ever be applicable to someone else's reading, that you've been asked to interpret?

Lol, we crossed post

My answer is
a. YES and NO
b. YES and NO

But if I'ld be asked to explain, i would say just No, because the YES-part its not easy to explain.

for example, I believe WF and Tom answer were very logical, and I can follow them into my mind, but there is something else that tells me that there is another answer and that voice speeks with a 100% anoying certainty. But i can't trust or prove it. Only the facts can tell how right or wrong am I.

Fortunely those Yes -times are rare

 

[willowfox]

Two questions for anyone:

1) Have any of you ever received answers from the Yi which you were absolutely positive of its meaning?

2) Is it remotely possible that this same certainty can ever be applicable to someone else's reading, that you've been asked to interpret?

Q.1 Yes, sometimes the IC can answer really clearly, or I can see the answer perfectly clearly, or I just know the answer pretty much straightaway.

Q.2 Yes, as I hardly ever read for myself, 99.9% of all readings(tarot and IC) I do are for others, and many of the answers come to me very clearly and so I have no hesitation in telling the querent what I see or feel. But not all readings are that clear.

 

[pocossin]

do you say the underlined part literally or figuratively?

I did experience the situation as a whole by contemplating it in terms of Chinese metaphysics, and thus got the feel of the situation.

Literally. I felt bad as if the loss had just happen and I was there. It was a shock to me too.

Is it a rational process or its more than that?

It's more than a rational explanation because feeling and values are involved.

 

[bamboo]

yes, yes and yes to the first question. else why would one use an oracle? if i ask about going to a party and the response is 62.6, for instance, only the chattering intellect would try to pull it aprt like taffy to extract a positive stance on a party that is clearly not a good idea for me.

in the readings for others, I am less definitive, but still, in the reading pammy did, I think the tenor of that line and that hex were foreboding and cautioning...it was certainly not a line that said "relax, your friend can be trusted" ..did X take the money...? Yi: No error in that. you meet it, be very careful.

 

[maremaria]

Thank you very much Tom

 

[bamboo]

I'd also like to say that I trust readers like WF because she clearly rusts her own intuition 100% and that is an impt thing in divining..it is the squirrelly intellect that wants to pull things apart , and hem and haw....the intuition speaks swiftly, softly but clearly.

perhaps the spirit of the Yi feels safe in the hands of a reader like WF. thus, the communication between the two is streamlined and efficient.....( and btw, when Wf said that maybe the son was a liar, she wasnt being disrespectful, but pointing to another way that the ominous line of 62.4 could be viewed. some kind of fish was rotten....I'd be very surprised f the money was merely mislaid.

 

[sooo]

Maria's right, this probably should have been its own thread.

My answer is yes to both, on occasion; much more often with my own readings than with interpretation of others' readings.

However, for me, even conclusive answers often leave room for further contemplation, and that open contemplative space humbles me. It could be said that my conclusions typically end on a 64 kind of answer, rather than a 63 kind of answer.

There is also the matter of Yi's (or universal) indifference to what I'm asking. IE, "Should I get the blue one or yellow one?" I know, that's over simplistic, but really, many questions are just as relatively subjective and depend on our own taste and desires; a question there is no absolute answer to.

Or, "Should I call or just wait?" Sometimes there's a good 'universal' reason for calling, and sometimes for waiting. How many have received hex 60, lines 1 and 2? LOL.. how can one be certain, other than to understand that there's a time to stay in and a time to go out. That's a 64 kind of conclusion, a "not yet" or "not finished" answer. But if I understand that, then I can claim to absolutely understand Yi's answer, but in an open and intelligent way, leaving room for ti-ming to fill in the blanks. So there's still a bit of unknowing in my knowing. :bag:

 

[maremaria]

Maria's right, this probably should have been its own thread.

Moderators can help and moove it to another thread . Its an interesting subject , imo.

I said mostly No , because as Yes, i had in mind what i was discussing with Tom.
the "absolute sure" kind or as Tom described, "i was there" or as WF said "I can see the answer perfectly clearly". where there is no space for doubts.

Bamboo talk about intuition and intellect. The result-answer is a product only of intuition or a combination of those two ?

 

[maremaria]

and btw, when Wf said that maybe the son was a liar, she wasnt being disrespectful, but pointing to another way that the ominous line of 62.4 could be viewed. some kind of fish was rotten....I'd be very surprised f the money was merely mislaid.

I agree with that.

 

[sooo]

I said mostly No , because as Yes, i had in mind what i was discussing with Tom.
the "absolute sure" kind or as Tom described, "i was there" or as WF said "I can see the answer perfectly clearly". where there is no space for doubts.

Yes, I believe that too, at times. No doubt, clear as glass. But again, not necessarily as a completely finished kind of answer. If there is no room for the unexpected, there is no innocence, only presumption; and therein lie the many differences of opinions and objections to claims of certainty.

But of course so much depends on the kind of question one asks, in terms of ways to approach the interpretation. If my outlook is way off course, the Yi will first address my outlook. I quite firmly believe this is true. If my outlook is well balanced, then I can think clearly enough to both reason through the answer and to let my free-flow-cognition do its thing.

I personally don't care for the free and easy use of the word, intuition, because I think it dumps a very complex system of subtle and gross cognitive processes into one nebulous term.

 

[sooo]

Tom:

Please do continue discussion there. It's interesting.

I think so too. I've asked myself for hours, is one of these ways more right than the other? I don't know, but I don't think so. One way leaves no open space, no doubt. Another way intentionally leaves open space and some doubt. Plus variations and combinations of the above, and probably most of all, a lot of "it all depends." Seems there should be enough room for different approaches.

Digressing a bit to the other thread, when I first read Wf's 'then the son is a liar', like Bamboo stated earlier, I didn't read that as anything offensive, but as stating a process of simple elimination. Of course there was the third possibility that neither took the money, that it was somehow lost. I didn't read into what she said that that couldn't be possible.

Same with Tom's interpretation. As my fuzzy brain recalls, Tom's view was the opposite of Wf's comment, and yet there was no argument between the two, no insistence of who is right. I think that's cool. It's what drew me in to this place again . I had no intention of posting with the new handle, I just wanted access to the entire general free site. But I found the answers from Tom and Wf interesting, and then you know the rest. It wound up in the Principle's office, Moderation... dadada daaaa!!!!

I think what's more important than who was right, or more right than others, is that a Yi related rationale can support the claim. Intuition rarely, if ever, defies logic, or the stream of consciousness which runs beneath our feet and bed.

Tom named this thread Intuition in Divination. I've been in a talkative mood about it, and I get a little ornery around words like intuition or spiritual, because they are themselves only words with varying meanings, depending on who is defining them. In other words, to me, they're nothing. Only words, substitutions, replicas or a coagulation of thoughts, given a name. Yet, to say there is no intuition would be a really stupid thing for me to say, because I know there is. Things such as premonition dreams can't just be written off as a form of logic. And yet, when looked at very closely, there is an underlying current of consciousness, and we are that consciousness. So if we define intuition as what emerges from the stream, which is us/you, that kind of definition of intuition I agree with. But the kind which just falls out of the sky will also have a logical explanation and sequence. A pattern had occurred; a traceable pattern of reason - all which fuels what emerges as "intuition".

 

[bamboo]

But the kind which just falls out of the sky will also have a logical explanation and sequence. A pattern had occurred; a traceable pattern of reason - all which fuels what emerges as "intuition".

But I think intuition is often illogical, and has no traceable pattern of reason. It can be totallly out of left field, the stuff of "selecting from another reality" as Jean Houston put it. Yes, of course it is consciousness, but consciousness is vast. The very thing that makes intuition so valuable is that it is a means of knowing what we would otherwise not ever figure out by logical means. So of course it can defy logic.

maybe what you object to about the term is that it can be overused/misused. If a person starts to get really focused on "using intuition" it almost automatically becomes suspect. You can imagine all kinds of things are "intuitive" when they are really not. when ever the mind gets too active, natural flow is halted. and I do think intuition is actually our most natural flow, inherent in our nature. The reason it becomes a "hot topic" is that I dont think most people live according to their natural flow. It is difficult to do that in a culture that values time and schedules and planning and accomplishment. a culture that values doing over being. I used to be a "list-maker" and one of the most valuable pieces of advice I was ever given was to stop making lists - to just allow my day to unfold, and to trust I would do the right thing at the right time. But it is so easy to lose that thread, and difficult to stay attuned to natural rythyms. The body knows better than the mind, but just think how far from body rythyms we can get. and how much in the mind humans beings can live their lives.

logic defnitely has its place, but it seems the "genius moments" we all know dont come from logic at all.

sooooo ....

 

[heylise]

Great thread. Guess this is the first time a thread moves from moderation to discussion.

It is yes for me for 1): sometimes I am 100% certain. Even sometimes about yes-no things, but I must say I very seldom ask those. Occasionally about very tangible things I do: is this lost thing still in my house? Is it possible to find it (before I ask where it is and start on an endless effort of interpretation and searching). I never ask it about important matters because I am very well aware of the danger of interpretation going somewhere the Yi didn't intend it to go.

But even for questions for advice there can be 100% certainty. For me, that is. Never from me for someone else. So for 2) it is no. I can tell the other "it looks like Yi is rather convincing about this", but never "this is certainly how it is". It has to be according to my conscience.

To me intuition is the only real tool to understand an answer. But it is, IMO, the total of all your cognitive qualities. Logic, feelings, hunches, little things you may not even have seen consciously, even including things like telepathy and such. Anything which brings any information, much more than consciousness can encompass.

At the same time that makes 'certainty' irrelevant. When I go back to the state of mind which can be 'certain', intuition gets closed off again. I can apply the answer, but "being certain" is something totally different. When it is a reading for a friend, I can inspire her to understand, but not as certainty, rather as a relief, an insight. So that is again an answer to question 2). As soon as you put it in words, you 'think' and intuition is the base but not the one who can answer outside yourself. Her own intuition is the next step and that one should not be skipped because of the certainty I would put over it.

 

[arabella]

Off the top of my head, and by no means a philosophical treatise:

It seems to me a matter of "wavelength" both metaphorically and spiritually, how open someone is, both to his/her own inner workings -- and to the vibration of someone else -- what that interpreter will receive from a reading.

Generally, for most of us, it is dangerous to intuit what somebody else's reading might mean and declare it so. There are those who can, but they are on a wider band of the subconscious and they are rare. Some have asked me to "cast" a reading for them and there is no way I will except for my children. For them I can see more deeply and pick up background influences and tones, but for no one else. For myself I many times find that a casting, and a detached look at that casting [which is the hard thing to achieve] will give a flash of insight, someplace I haven't thought or imagined or dared to dream. And there are those times the door is shut, I may be blocking the image of what I've cast, or unable to see, lacking experience or even internal insight. Sometimes I know from the feel of it that I wasn't focused and the casting has come back rubbish.

I think in life there is a path, a destiny for each of us, a primary thread. Then there are little lines and threads running everyplace, things we might try, might do, might want to experience. And there are those crossroads and overlapping paths with others. But the meaning of our life, our main route of contribution and service in the world, doesn't alter so much. When you're off on a tangent, you can feel the path running more and more narrow, and there is a line in the Yi which refers to this. Likewise, when you've hit a main vein of life as it is best and intended for you, the exhilartion rushes in. Those castings, those vibrations of the truth ring very immediately true to me, whoever I am reading for. Some messages are VERY LOUD. I differentiate those because they come through like flashing lights.

The Yi provides that nifty dial that lets you feel the nuances and stay as close to the main vein as you can, while enjoying all the subtle sideroads along the way -- without getting lost.

The idea of meditating on the readings, regarding them respectfully and quietly, is to me a reflection of the ultimate way people are intended to function intellectually and spiritually as they evolve and, that is, that prayer will do this same thing in a morally centred person. With an evolved moral centre people should eventually be able to turn inward and look and have an answer with the focus of prayer and meditation. That, to me, is why it always seems so funny when people fight over the Yi and who can do what with it, who is "right" or "wrong," because they are missing the point. We are all evolving, and we are all doing that in our own way and time, and this will continue into eternity.

When I think of people tuning in here to Clarity and what they might most want to realise about the YiChing it would seem most important, not that we are consistently "right" but that we are centred, respectful, balanced -- because that is reflecting what the concept is about. Where we veer away from that we have left the road of truth and are careering all over the place. So what if I don't see, know, understand what you have said? You may be far into the process where I can't yet go. You may be so far back in the process I've forgotten where that was. Nonetheless, I have respect for your thoughts, and for you.

 

[willowfox]

Today, I suddenly got the idea to empty somebody else's stagnant fishpond without that person's knowledge or permission. The pond had been dirty for ages.

About 30 minutes later they asked me to do them a favour an empty the pond for them.

I had already done it.

 

[pocossin]

I personally don't care for the free and easy use of the word, intuition, because I think it dumps a very complex system of subtle and gross cognitive processes into one nebulous term.

Yes, the word 'intuition' is often used vaguely, but intuition itself is a concrete experience. In my opinion it is based on the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Recognition of wholeness is intuition.

I first came across a clear statement of this problem in The Questions of King Milinda:

Where is the chariot?
Is it the wheel?
Is it the axle?
. . .

The chariot is how all its parts work together, not another part. It is adverbial rather than nominal. It is the not-being of the chariot. It is the atmosphere of the chariot, in no one part but in every part.

In my understanding, divination is an intuition that involves a recognition of the wholeness of a situation, the situation's atmosphere, not its details. It differs from rational intuition (like the perception of a chariot) by involving feeling and values. It is perception as poetry. Depending on context the chariot is a symbol of status, militarism, or the vehicle of angels. Swing low, sweet chariot. . .

 

[sooo]

Interesting thoughts, all.

Today, I suddenly got the idea to empty somebody else's stagnant fishpond without that person's knowledge or permission. The pond had been dirty for ages.

About 30 minutes later they asked me to do them a favour an empty the pond for them.

I had already done it.

I can identify with this as a pure example of intuition.

But to my thinking, this example, of the kind which seems to fall from the sky, does not defy nor leave out your own cognitive process. You knew of the friend and the fish pond, you've seen it and have probably thought it could use a cleaning. The question had to do with ti-ming, and the 'guided impulse' to act on a hunch (as LiSe called it). All of Yi's hex and lines exist at once, but ti-ming presents specific applicable ones at specific times. By you being sensitive to the impulses of the time requires a ready, receptive mind. That receptive mind is a part of 'Tom's whole chariot', and is therefore a participant in your own cognitive process. All considerations, whirling in your mind, looking for the right spaces to fill and/or be connected to, with answers, thoughts and actions that makes sense. That is a cognitive process. It may happen in less than an instant, and feel like revelation or flash of insight; and it is a revelation to the conscious mind. A budding off the magician's staff, commonly known as Intuition.

Then, you not only received and processed it, you acted upon it, you cleaned the pool. As I see it, your intuition was a result of a fast, and possibly vast bank of learned knowledge and expectations. Your field was equipped and ready to cognate with the time.

The 64 I find in that, is that in that entire process, and especially the actual work of cleaning the pond, has the potential to also clean your own well. Even if not conscious of it. That's the underlying stream, pulling you along according to ti-ming.

That's just my view if it. Your intuition was pure because you were open to the time and your field was well equipped with knowledge and experience to draw meaning from, to find places for, if you will, and you actually got down and did the work. Bravo! And then, as an after-the-fact, someone gets around to asking to do what you had already done. I'd definably call that intuitive response resulting from a rapid and equipped cognitive process.

Picture which comes to mind is one of Tom's chariot, in the form of an auto race pit stop. The pit crew is ready a well equipped for a rapid response, including assessments and actions, to get that car safely back on the road, ASAP. It gets to be an intuitive action through a lot of practice, which can begin at a very early age. Maybe even already born with it.

 

[ginnie]

1) Have any of you ever received answers from the Yi which you were absolutely positive of its meaning?

Yes. Most certainly.

2) Is it remotely possible that this same certainty can ever be applicable to someone else's reading, that you've been asked to interpret?

Good question, Sooo. I used to think so but I've been challenged repeatedly here about this very point.

I think we human beings are not so unique as we think we are. If I have been in a H59.6 situation, and if I have grasped the meaning of that for me, then it is my considered opinion that if someone else receives H59.6, then I might understand where they're at, because I've been there myself. Over the course my decades of IC practice, I might have been there numerous times.

This process is not an abstraction to me. I think people are asking for help -- and that maybe I can offer some words that might fit their dilemma. I use the I Ching because it works for me. Therefore, by extension, it should also work for other people.

The IC itself seems to be the bridge between you and me.

I mean: People can't say everything. Situations and emotions are too difficult to put into words. But if I know that person's lines, then it is the IC telling me what situation the person is in. Do you know what I'm saying?

However, it is also true that there are differences of degree. What is a catastrophe for one person may be a very transient incident for someone else, even a bad mood more than a situation.

And therefore there can be great differences in terms of external actions that might need to be taken.

 

[ginnie]

Another way intentionally leaves open space and some doubt.

Yes, always there must be that doubt --

Words can be so powerful; can have an effect. I am not as precise in the use of words as I would like to be. I might inadvertently give someone the wrong impression.

There is the question of whether or not anybody really listens and takes in words from a forum. I have my doubts on this subject. I think we can assist people establish their own relationship with Yi. I don't think anybody really wants to know what I say about Yi.

But occasionally I might help someone by posting from what I've learned. I like to be helpful to people this way.

 

[arabella]

I think Ginnie has an important point here, you have no idea of the capacity of the person you may be reading for via the forum, nor how they will interpret the actual words that you use, if they even read them through. It's rather hit or miss on so many levels. It does make you nervous a bit when people come to shared readings asking critical life-changing questions. You don't know whom you are addressing nor how they will accept the answer. It's all a gamble at that stage. And yet some might have nowhere to go at all if they didn't come here. To my mind, it's a big responsibility and hopefully enquirers know when they contribute a reading that nobody here purports to be an expert with all the answers.

 

[sooo]

I also think Ginnie made good points, but it returns to the subject of moral or ethical responsibility, which has forever been the short fuse of many farts and explosions in this forum. How intuition is used.. not exactly off the subject of "intuition in divination", but I think it's a subcategory. It's like the scientists discover what makes something work, and then government chooses how it (intuition) should and should not be used.

They are both relevant, but I think it's hard to intermingle them, mainly because moral judgment is individual and subjective, where as the matter of how intuition operates in divination is more open ended in general to discussion, rather than debate.

Maybe a moderator can open a 'divination responsibility' thread, or something. Maybe 'ethical divination', where all views of what are right or wrong ways to use divination can be discussed. But, it's a hot subject, sooo...

 

[bamboo]

IMaybe a moderator can open a 'divination responsibility' thread, or something....

once upon a time, posters started their own new posts on sub-topics maybe these moderators aren't so bad after all. I am starting to feel like we have a butler! Just ask and voila! Ummm, moderator, would you be a doll and bring tea for everyone? we're having such a lovely time discussing and simply havent the time for the um, domestic responsibilitiesI'll take mine with lemon please, Topal.

 

[sooo]

chuckle..

I have the distinct impression that the requests of women have far greater influence on such acts of moderator servitude.

hey, whatever works, right?

 

[maremaria]

thats because threads are tooooo heavy to move them, especially for women.

 

[maremaria]

catching up with this thread. Its fascinating !!!

someone ,don't recall who, use instead of the word "intuition" the term "feeling of truth " What is "truth" is another big issue, but here i mendioned it because of the "feeling" word.

if the answer of a reading is a painting, do we paint it or we just observing it becoming ?

If what i describe has to do with intuition, then sometimes it feels that you travel somewere else , see something and the return. What always confuse me, is if that is intuition, or is the mind that can procees information in a speedy way and that happens so fast that seems like intuition.

 

[arabella]

I also think Ginnie made good points, but it returns to the subject of moral or ethical responsibility, which has forever been the short fuse of many farts and explosions in this forum. How intuition is used.. not exactly off the subject of "intuition in divination", but I think it's a subcategory. It's like the scientists discover what makes something work, and then government chooses how it (intuition) should and should not be used.

They are both relevant, but I think it's hard to intermingle them, mainly because moral judgment is individual and subjective, where as the matter of how intuition operates in divination is more open ended in general to discussion, rather than debate.

Maybe a moderator can open a 'divination responsibility' thread, or something. Maybe 'ethical divination', where all views of what are right or wrong ways to use divination can be discussed. But, it's a hot subject, sooo...

Oooooorrrr, maybe what on the surface seems tangential, such as cautions of morality in intuitive divination is merely a blindingly intuitive addition to this thread. :bows:

 

[pocossin]

. . . it returns to the subject of moral or ethical responsibility. . .

On the one hand there are mechanical moral rules -- rules of thumb for ordinary behavior. On the other hand there is inner truth, intuitive action with humane sincerity. Since intuition is limited and often doesn't function, we fall back on mechanical rules, but inner sincerity is the ultimate standard.

 

[maremaria]

can intuition be biased ?