Is The I Ching Often Wrong or Misleading?

[rosada]

"..You live in a zoo.
You look like a monkey.
And you act like..

 

[Tohpol]

"..You live in a zoo.
You look like a monkey.
And you act like..

A Horse.

And there it was in front of you again and the warrior sitting astride his steed looking nonplussed.

You shake you head and run your fingers through your hair. What were all those strange voices in your head? What was hexagram 65? Wormyi-tzu? A Hilary and a penguin? What was all this about? You wonder if you had experienced some kind of blackout. You feel dizzy.

"Are you all right?" says the warrior leaning forward.

The Horse flaps its lips and whinnies softly.

"No. No I'm not." You reply, swaying slightly.

The warrior suddenly dismounts and grabs you in his arms. "Weeeeell now," he breathes seductively, I had better...support you before you fall hadn't I?

"Er...well." You decide it isn't such a bad idea given the circumstances.

"If your sister is as beautiful as you I should like to meet her too!" said the Warrior raising a mercurial eyebrow.

As he draws you closer, you have to admit to yourself that you are captivated by his eyes (despite the smell of garlic and something odd hanging from his left nostril). What is strange is that this man appears to think you are a woman. Stranger still, this doesn't seem to matter. However, as you look into the oil-black eyes you realise...in fact...

You ARE a WOMAN!

WAUUUUUUUUUUUUAAHHHHHHH!

The warrior jumps back dropping you on the ground.

OOff!

Then it all made sense. The magical coins in the well had

 

[dobro p]

fallen into the slot of an intergalactic vending machine that someone had carelessly left lying about at the bottom of the well. ("What's this universe coming to?") And how were you to know that this particular vending machine didn't actually *vend* anything, but instead *morphed* the being of anyone who fed money into it, morphed them into the being they were thinking of when they fed the machine? And how was the machine to know that you had simply been doing an oracle consultation, and not trying to get anything vended at all? Or morphed, for that matter. But it serves you right for messing with magical coins.

"Well," you think to yourself philosophically, "at least now I'll be able to find out if any of those stereotypes about women have any truth to them. You quickly check inside for any signs of intuition. Nada. How about an enhanced emotional sense? Nope. Poo.

"So what's the advantage of being a woman, then?" you hear yourself say in what could only be described as a sweet voice.

The warrior, meanwhile, seems willing to answer your question for you. Not, perhaps, in terms that you had hoped for, but certainly with boatloads of what you take at first to be sincere interest, but which, alas, turns out to be nothing other than garden variety lust.

Everything at that point seems poised to provide you with tons of input about just what exactly being a woman means, when just then

 

[dobro p]

three small T-rexes in pink tutus, each holding a rose in its rather dashing teeth, pirouetted in from stage left, perfectly synchronised with each other, and temporarily distracting the amorous warrior. It was quite exquisite, really. The only problem was

 

[hilary]

[that whatever Dobro's on, there isn't enough to go round... Sorry, please continue.]

 

[getojack]

that Amanda recognized something familiar in the eyes of those adorable T-rexes. They looked exactly like the eyes of her dream girl on 5th and Main, back when she was a he. But how could that be possible?

Meanwhile,

 

[Tohpol]

The warrior seems unconcerned by the T-Rex interlude, as though such things happen every hour of the day. He is still fixed on your cleavage.

You swallow hard, still confused by the colour choice of the tu-tus. "Look I know what you want garlic breath and you can't have it."

He nods suppressing a smile. "You can't do that you know."

"Do what?"

"Play with reality like that. All those T-Rex's. Yi has standards. Hex's like me don't just appear in the flesh (wink) for everyone you know. You must be responsible. Like bow to the whim of your suitor. You may not get another chance."

"Weeeell, hey, that's just fine by me."

He smiles and lights up a cigarette. "Listen doll-face, you need to know something about your situation here if you want to get your balls back and see your girl again - preferably in that order."

And what is that exactly?

 

[getojack]

The warrior told Amanda about the intergalactic vending machine in the well and the aliens who left it there, and explained that all of these strange warps in reality were due to the malfunctioning of this vending machine. She understood that her dream girl from 5th and Main had jumped in the well after her, inadvertantly morphing into the T-rexes.

Now, all she had to do was take the T-rexes, use her space travel ticket to travel through hyperspace and get the replacement parts for the intergalactic morph-o-tronic vending machine, come back to Earth, put the machine in reverse, putting some more coins in the machine, thinking of the way things used to be, and everything would be hunky-dorey.

**********************​

One week later, it had all been done. Amanda was a man again, engaged to be married to the girl from 5th and Main (formerly the T-rexes), and all was right with the world. But Amanda -- now Philip Hutchinson -- still dreamt of the warrior on the noble steed and the strange pale-skinned man with course, black hair, and the penguin and Wormyi-tzu and all the rest. Of course, it all seemed like a dream now. Was it real? Philip didn't know and he didn't care. All he knew was that he was happy now, no matter what changes the future might bring.

 

[dobro p]

Just then the future arrived.

"Want a chip, Phil?" a strangely familiar voice asked.

Philip looked up into the biggest blues eyes he had ever seen. And possibly the biggest smile as well. (He had a vague image of a rose in those smiling teeth, but dismissed it as quickly as it had come up.)

"Don't dismiss it as quickly as it comes up, Phil," said the biggest-blue-eyed woman to Philip. "You're too young for that, and besides, it puts me off my stride."

Philip thought the best thing to do under the circumstances was to buy time by taking a chip from the proffered bag. As he took a chip, he noticed the woman's hands - very pale, quite large, and was that...? Yes, definitely. Quite thick black hair on her forearms. His heart decided to skip a beat and then pound quickly in his chest. ("Well, at least it's pounding in my chest for a change," he thought wryly. "That being a woman was an odd business.")

"Yes, it was," the tall, mysterious stranger replied quickly. "And that's why I put my *own* coins in the vending machine and did a bit of morphing myself."

Philip's head swam. It did the backstroke, in fact, but still could not escape the horrible truth in front of him. The warrior was now a babe! And what a babe! A babelicious babe! A bodacious, doublelingam, lollapalooza, snickers-in-the-hallway-no-need-to-be-shy-now-you-great-big-piece-of-mama's-favorite-pudding sort of babe.

"You!" Philip gasped.

"Sweetums," the pale-skineed, dark-haired stranger replied.

Just then

 

[hk89]

Hi cssslw,

You have to write down the Year, the Month, the Date, and the Time, before you tossing the coin, becsuae use those information to read the hexagram, if missing the time, the answer will totally different

 

[hilary]

Hk, I feel you've chosen an opportune moment to drag the thread back on topic. But you're describing one particular way of divining with the I Ching (or with its hexagrams, at least), among many. A few people here know and use this method, but most of us are just working the old-fashioned way.

 

[charly]

Is The I Ching Often Wrong or Misleading?

I ching never commits mistakes, people often do it.

When you ask for advice you can get wrong o right ones, but the risk is yours.

When you consut I ching, or whatever other system, you don't get advices, you get issues for advicing yourself. The risk is also yours.

You must ever be a good adviser for yourself but nobody's perfect!, you can make mistakes. People often make mistakes.

If you seek for good responses, you must improve in your own capability. Be critic and discard bad ones. Be not much severe with yourself.

34.2: 九二 貞吉。«Perseverance brings good fortune» or, if you preffers, «Omen auspicious»

Charly

 

[dobro p]

Charly, on more than one occasion, I've seen the Yi provide an answer that was more or less useless to the person asking it. Neither I nor that person could see any relation between the question and what the Yi provided.

So although the Yi wasn't wrong or misleading, it didn't do what the querent wanted it to do, which was provide useful material in response to the question. And how do I explain this? Well, I haven't decided. But there are two possibilities: one, the Yi simply doesn't work for some people. That's the explanation I favor. Two, the Yi has a benign influence on the person asking the question such that it never answers a question if it isn't in the person's best interests to have that question answered. In other words, if a person needs to be in the dark, the Yi won't shed light on a question.

Which do you think it is? (And I'm addressing this question not just to Charly, but to everyone.)

 

[rosada]

I'm with you. dobro! I would much prefer to embrace the viewpoint that the IC is not for everyone, than to hook up with the Hierarchy out there that takes it upon themselves to decide what I can and can not know!!!! If I can come up with a Question, my God will come up with an Answer - and it will be an answer CLEARER than my own understanding. My God is a compassionate loving God who wants me to come to Him/Her/It with total trust, faith and acceptance that I can accept His/Her/Their Word without hesitation and without understanding. If I do not IMMEDIATELY understand the reading I believe I will come to understand it, and meanwhile I accept it as guidance better/stronger than my own.
Amen.

Don't mean to be overly dramatic here. I've found that when I put ideas out on the internet, they manefest more quickly in my life, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to make some affirmations.

 

[mudpie]

And how do I explain this? Well, I haven't decided. But there are two possibilities

There is a third possibility and it based on the concept that , in a given moment, evrything is related to everything else, that there are no accidents,that events are synchronistic whether we are aware of it or not. In WHICH case, an answer makes no sense to the querent simply because they are shut down to it, can't hear it, maybe even through no fault of their own.

In Stephen King's novel The Stand, there is a time when an elderly Sage woman really needs to connect with her inner guidance, with GOD, because things are at a crisis point and she knows it. BUt it is shut down. she says "GOd, I feel like I am praying into a dead phone" The wavelengths were disrupted. Not because God was being capricious. It just happens sometimes. The Yi, or God, goes silent for us (seemingly), and we need to wait through the dark night of the soul. Maybe some people live their whole life like that ( and maybe that is the reason behind Dobro's first possibility) but I think every question gets answered.

and anyone who persists in even asking to begin with eventually finds a door. "Seek and ye shall find" "Knock and it shall be opened"

 

[lightofreason]

There is a third possibility and it based on the concept that , in a given moment, evrything is related to everything else, that there are no accidents,that events are synchronistic whether we are aware of it or not. In WHICH case, an answer makes no sense to the querent simply because they are shut down to it, can't hear it, maybe even through no fault of their own.

This perspective is that of symmetric thinking where a property of such thinking, a property of symmetry in general, is 'all is connected'.

Self-referencing a dichotomy will elicit a symmetric bias. We can make the best analogy to the expressions of emotion on a face. The face is the 'whole' and the emotions 'facial expressions'. Since all expressions are controlled by the one set of muscles so all muscles of that set contribute to any particular expression.

This analogy translates to the I Ching well where the question sets a moment and so a 'face' and the 'emotional expression' of such is mapped to the hexagrams, one in particular (best fit) and the rest falling in behind in order to worst fit.

Coin tossing etc will not necessarily give you the 'best fit' but consciousness can easily make the result fit! - from an emotion perspective it is like presenting as facial expression considered 'out of context' or 'inappropriate' from someone elses perspective but meaningful to the expresser!

The basic emotions mapped to trigrams:

000 - fear
001 - grief
010 - rejection
011 - anticipation (of wrongdoing)
100 - surprise
101 - acceptance
110 - love (sex, replication etc)
111 - anger

These can be refined into:

000 - devotion to others (protection in the group)
001 - self-restraint, discernment (we learn quality control from suffering - passion)
010 - containment/control
011 - cultivation (anticipation of right doing)
100 - enlightening to awareness
101 - guide/direction setting (ideology)
110 - self-reflection, intense expression (replication, passion)
111 - singlemindedness - devotion to self

The XOR material brings out the entanglement aspects of the 'whole' that is the I Ching. As a species we are driven to convert difference to sameness. As unique beings we are ourselves asymmetric and so our natures reflect living on the border of asymmetric/symmetric. The nature of the symmetric will elicit the 'all is connected' and this is brought out in experiment design based on self-referencing - as we find in quantum mechanics experiments where two slits (a dichotomy) lead to a pattern of connectivity (wave interference) appearing on a photographic plate!

To see this emerging using the IC see:

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/WaveStructure.html

In our brains this oscillation across elements of a dichotomy elicit a rich associative memory with age - the 'random' bits of A/NOT-A start to link up.

Chris.

 

[charly]

I'm with Dobro and with Listener.

Yi doesn't work for some people, could not be for everybody, I agree, but, I think, Yi is neither ever benign nor ever clear.

It is important if the person asking gets the relation between his needs and the stuff provided by I Ching, it isn't so important if mediators gets it or not.

It's true that sometimes «the Yi, or God, goes silent for us», but I trust that the Yi or God speaks directly to our heart, but often we don't understand his words, as we don't undestand our own hearts nor our own acts.

Could be that Yi, or God, speaks clearly, but we don't ear clearly. Who seeks shall find response that makes sense, but not neccessarily ever.

When Yi, or God, speaks and we ear clearly and his words make sense for us, our understanding is enhanced, but if this don't happen, don't worry, life is so short and Yi has so many thousand years!

«In my solitude / I have seen things very clearly / that were not true.» (A.Machado)

Charly

 

[hilary]

I've an idea this has been said already, and better, but anyway... I think the risk with asking 'is the I Ching wrong?' lies in its dodgy model of the process. The idea seems to be - there are facts, I Ching issues statements or predictions about said facts, these statements are true or false. I think a reading's made of an oracle and a querent (and also some facts), rather than oracle + facts (and incidentally a querent). The meaning's created somewhere between person and oracle. Or the wrong meaning's created, or no meaning is at all, etc.

Not that this is any help in explaining whereabouts in the process things might go wrong, of course. Just to say there is no way, at all, the human element can be excised from the picture in order to examine the oracle's performance in isolation. There's no such animal. I'm pretty sure three coins falling in a forest with no-one to hear make no noise.

 

[silent octavius]

I always thought the Yi gave the appropiate answers to the questions I've asked it. It's just that sometimes I think I might not have been ready for the answer. It's only looking back and seeing the whole situation that I understood it's answers. I guess hindsight is always 20/20.

 

[lightofreason]

I always thought the Yi gave the appropiate answers to the questions I've asked it. It's just that sometimes I think I might not have been ready for the answer. It's only looking back and seeing the whole situation that I understood it's answers. I guess hindsight is always 20/20.

Using random/magical methods, all 64 hexagrams apply to a moment in a sorted order from best fit to worst fit. Getting the worst fit and interpreting it as the best fit can raise 'issues'.

What people call 'synchronicity' is when the best fit for the situation comes up when using random/magical methods.... but these methods guarantee such 1 in 64 times (or with biases more or less than that - e.g. yarrow stick useage has a bias to yin) and if you understand probability then you understand that you can have as 'sync' moment 10 times in a row and the odds of getting it are STILL 1 in 64-ish.

Science focuses on repetition and so removes chance. DIvination focuses on the unique moment and so favours chance. Reality is the mix and that is mapped in probabilities where there is ALWAYS the chance of a 'snow in the sahara' event and predicting such but with such an event the system quickly restores balance.

As unique beings we are associated with the realm of the random, miraculous, asymmetric. The I Ching comes out of self-referencing and so is symmetric, determinism. The interactions of random(free will)/determinism give us the mix of hierarchies of meaning.

With consciousness we introduce an agent of mediation and so can be proactive rather than reactive. As such, understanding the nature of the IC and of consciousness we can use questions to get a 'better' best fit, a more consistant result, than that used to bring out 'synchrony' - i.e. random/miraculous.

What consciousness does as an agent of mediation is work from the middle position of random/determined.

Chris.

 

[rosada]

Chris, I've never understood how you move forward with your idea of finding the "best fit". I think I asked you about this once before and you sent me off to some web page of paragraphs that didn't apply or make sence. So please, don't send me off to something you wrote years ago that I would have to weed through. Just, can you give me a simple demonstration as to how you would answer a question using your method? I'll give you a question..

I have been offered a job. It would mean a bit of a commute and also getting involved with The World. So my question is, "How would it be for me to take on this responcibility?" Now, I don't even know if according to your method I should toss coins or if I should look at all the hexagrams and try to figure out which one sounds like what I know. So how would you proceed?

 

[lightofreason]

.....I have been offered a job. It would mean a bit of a commute and also getting involved with The World. So my question is, "How would it be for me to take on this responcibility?" Now, I don't even know if according to your method I should toss coins or if I should look at all the hexagrams and try to figure out which one sounds like what I know. So how would you proceed?

Asking such a question and using traditional/random methods will give you a hexagram you believe is the 'answer'. The reality is there is a 1 in 64 chance that it is (or about that, depends on the methodology - coin toss is not the same as yarrow stick etc). The further reality is that ALL hexagrams apply to the moment, they are not discrete, independent from each other in that the manner in which the hexagrams have been constructed makes them symmetric and the WHOLE of the IC can be considered as a 'face' and the hexagrams 'emotional expressions' of such. Since in these expressions all muscles contribute to all expressions so all hexagrams contribute to the expression of each - XOR brings this out where we can map out a hexagram' s spectrum.

In the IC plus realm we focus on context and so what is pushing your buttons to lead to the formation and asking of such a question. The Emotional IC work applies such questions to your emotions and from that elicits a 'best fit' hexagram in a more consistant manner than the 'traditional' methods where people try to 'distance' themselves from the process, not realising that there is no 'distancing', they are involved such that they can be proactive rather than reactive.

By identifying what is pushing your buttons one can (a) go with the flow or (b) go against it by asserting one's own context or (c) move on - shift contexts and so the push.

So - from an IC+ perspective your question and use of the traditional IC is egocentric and as such primitive. You are not primitive. You have consciousness, a brain, and can be proactive rather than reactive and in that proactivity are capable of working with the context, guiding it etc through trust in your own skills etc where the IC can guide you through use of your emotions to assess a context and work with it.

BY working with context, the background, the history, one can make better assessments of situations. By ignoring such and working off traditional methods brings in a lot of inconstancy in results and can introduce a degree of delusion that is not helpful over the long term. Its about such differences as IQ vs EQ - the latter is about understanding context, history etc - the former is about nothing more than innate skills in the form of reaction times.

So - the issue then is on what has led to you asking such a question? What is implied about your psychic state? How can this be refined etc and/or make your assessments of situations trusted such that you dont need the external, traditional, IC, you can internalise such and work with yourself - isnt that personal freedom? ;-)

SO - with IC plus you do not formally ask a question, you have it in your mind and it remains your business and you get the IC to ask YOU questions. How? Since the IC reflects our brains (is a metaphor for) we can apply brain dynamics in asking about some situation to asking the same 'questions' from an IC filter position.

By identifying the context we can, through XOR, map out its development and then comes your choice in going with it or fighting it or moving on.

See the Emotional IC pages:

preamble:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/EmotionalIC.html

program:
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/lofting/icplusEProact.html

Chris.

 

[rosada]

Your program looks interesting, Chris, but I am uncertain how to apply your questions to my situation. Perhaps you could give an example of a question and then demonstrate how you would answer it.

 

[lightofreason]

Your program looks interesting, Chris, but I am uncertain how to apply your questions to my situation. Perhaps you could give an example of a question and then demonstrate how you would answer it.

Any question from the individual will do in that the system ignores them. It is the questions asked of the individual by the IC that are focused on emotional assessments of what elicited the questions in the first place.

For example consider "Does my boyfriend love me?". This is not formally asked but can be since ICPlus does not care about the expression but about what elicited it. If you use random methods to derive meaning then the meaning derived is random! All meaning is determined by the method used to derive it.

The ICPlus focus is on recognition of history. Relationships dont come out of nowhere, there is history involved, be it consideration of past or on possible futures and THAT is only identifiable with background - context. (this includes your genetic traits as a specialist form of the species - such that you can 'resonate' with someone due to them matching you primate nature - your ape buttons are pushing! - The MBTI etc are typologies that bring out these primate natures manifest in humans and we can map these to the IC as we can emotion since the categories are derived all from self-referencing)

ICPlus asks about "a situation", be that social, psychological, anthropological, philosophical etc etc etc (and so someone or something, an object or relationship) - as such it asks about the background to the question asked in traditional methods)

The Emotional I Ching focus tries to focus on asking questions of your emotion and so how do you FEEL about the situation, is it more about facts or values? Then it asks "is the situation more about what was/is/will-be or about what could-have-been/is not/could-be? Then it asks "is your involvement reactive (responding) or proactive (instigating)?

From analysis of how our brains work in dealing with novelty we can derive the above general questions that give us a generic representation of the context eliciting the feelings that caused you to ask the question.

It could be a situation focused on any of personal identity, security, sensations, or problem solving where these represent the basics for life forms that use emotions (emotionally we cover fear/anger, rejection/acceptance, grief/love, surprise/anticipation. Compound emotions derive from these)

Thus, given the question "Does my boyfriend love me?", through the questions regarding 'the situation' we can identify what is pushing your buttons - identity, security, sensation (e.g. lust), problem-solving.

These basics fall back to the dichotomy of identity/sensation and so issues of essence/existence and they go with flight/fight (blend in with a context or take it over to assert self)

This bringing out of considerations of context takes one way past the primitive tossing of coins etc. (that can be useful in giving one a perspective of the whole not considered but that is all it will usually give, a perspective that is not the whole and so not necessarily the 'thing' just an aspect of. Synchrony is when thing and coin toss 'fit' but there is no connection necessary for such to happen, basic probability allows for it)

BTW - there are 'dangers' as such in that the method can elicit material censored by consciousness so be warned. See comments etc in the preamble:

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/EmotionalIC.html


Chris.

 

[jesed]

Hi Cris

I remember long time ago you post about some situation with your daughter (don't remember exactly, but maybe it was something about a car; or drive issues), and you "worked it " with emotional I Ching.

As far as I can remember, that concrete example was very useful to understand the value of emotional I Ching. At least for me.

Maybe if you can re-post that case.. or some other... would help rosada and others.

Best

 

[jesed]

I found it
_______________________________________

As an example of the proactive method (answering GENERAL questions) consider the following about a recent event with my daughter (original post to my ICPlus list):

The particular questions I came up with [in ICPLUS) stem from my analysis of the generic dynamics of the brain dealing with 'novel' situations and where, using the questions, we can extract the GENERAL context of which the question is being asked.

For a recent example, with my mother in the hospice I and my daughter were there every day. During this period, three weeks ago, my daughter's car was written-off due to a severe storm that hit the hospice car park and knocked a tree onto her car. Although insured etc this was an issue in that (a) my daughter had now had no car and (b) she could not drive mine due to insurance issues re those under 25 and still on provisional licences.

So - I was the only source of transport outside of taxis and that ment my daughter spent more time at the hospice as I was the one who went out for supplies, paid bills, etc etc IOW she did not have a 'break' from the hospice room as much as I did where prior to the accident we would take turns on these 'outings'.

I asked by daughter to do the ICPlus questions in the context of how she felt in the current context (a few days after the accident); she got hex 47 where the focus is on being confined (either by willingly or by force) and the associated exhaustion that that can bring (we were at the hospice for 6 weeks, day in, day out, and all emotionally draining.)

My point here is that she did not realise how she felt LOCALLY/PRECISELY, she was generally 'cranky' but could not nail-down what was setting that off
- IOW there was general concern with her grandmother etc but the accident concentrated 'issues' to bring out that focus on contractive bounding - a boundary working to (a) keep someone/thing 'IN' or (b) 'OUT'. (the first answer by her was the context was more into a sense of 'values', qualitative focus rather than quantitative)

The hexagram has a dual meaning in that it covers the positive as well as the negative in that it also covers the 'carer' function of PROTECTING - IOW besides HER IMMEDIATE perspective of being 'fenced in' so there was also here GENERAL perspective of 'closing in' grandmother as a form of aid etc. - the role of carers etc is to 'ease' the pain/suffering, to keep out excesses etc. and so to protect.

The ICPlus material is aimed at describing the GENERAL context that is 'pushing one's buttons' rather than the particulars of an asked question; the focus is on one's FEELINGS and so draws out the unconscious as well as conscious elements of the WHOLE context.

With the XOR material we can then take that hexagram and extract all of the
64 parts to cover how the context 'begins', 'completes' etc etc etc and from there give our consciousness the CHOICE of (a) adapting to context or (b) trying to assert one's own, of (c) moving on. (thus for 47, it has its skeletal form, its infrastructure, its 27-ness, described by analogy to the underplayed qualities of hexagram 10 with ITS focus on a need for conduct etc whilst carefully following a path when under close scrutiny.)

Her GENERAL 'vibe' of her being in the current context was (a) context was about values (her feelings but no particulars, just a 'vibe' of being uncomfortable etc), (b) about what was/is/will be (no car), (c) she was reactive (little she could do). This gives a core sense of Water (contractive bounding). For the top trigram and a focus on the text operating in the context, she had (a) a facts bias (death), (b) about what was/is/will-be (inevitability), and (c) reactive (the waiting with little one could do)

My daughter was surprised at the GENERAL precision of the result just based on those generic questions but was able to 'resolve' what was troubling her and so 'adapted' to the current context as best she could (and she did extremely well in dealing with her grandmother as her grandmother died)

My point has been on how our LOCAL expressions, our intense use of words etc often covers-up the core context influence and how it pushes our buttons and how through use of the ICPlus perspective we can extract out what is troubling us/driving us (by understanding things we can, through the use of consciousness, REFINE our responses, understand the contexts etc and so move more 'smoothly' in those contexts)

 

[rosada]

Thanks jesed and Chris. Someday Clarity should have a group phone call. I think a lot of things that take pages to explain in print could be easily explained over the phone. Of course what I'm really holding out for is the OnlineClarity Cruise. Now that would be worth doing!

 

[hilary]

OK - we'll have a quick whip-round and charter the ship. (See the bottom right-hand corner for donations link.)

 

[PeterF99]

2018 Reply to a 2007 comment

Hello, friends: I am interested in your opinions about I Ching accuracy. I have found that the I Ching is seldom correct when asked for advice about a future event or present situation. In fact, its usually not even remotely close. I know apologists will say that it was really answering another question than what I asked, or perhaps, I simply didn't like the response I was given. Those answers are a cop-out. I've checked the I Ching replies against many different translations, and I've really applied critical thinking, and either the I Ching purposely misleads, or is far too cryptic for modern use, or is, as I have noted, just plain wrong most of the time. Being careful to avoid confirmation bias, what is your assessment, as to why the I Ching is still so popular despite its poor efficacy. Thank you very much.

Certainly, it helps to be skeptical about oracles. John Casti's "Complexification" noted that life is so complex that opposite aphorisms can both be correct at the same time. E.g. were your parents married because 'opposites attract' or 'birds of a feather flock together'? So the I Ching can seem only as true as horoscopes and vague fortune tellers. The I Ching can have some value, little value, or even be harmful;like a religion it is only as good as the person using it. The I Ching can help you think about what is going on around you. Possibly if the I Ching has magic, it is not the book's ESP, it is the users ESP using the book as a meditation tool. Some value can be seen in comparing it to a Buddhist meditation technique where all of life is transformed into a living mandala. You can call this just a bad analogy as some think Buddhism is nonsense. But "Sapiens" author, Yuval Harari is obviously brilliant and he meditates daily and goes on extended Buddhist retreats. As with religion, the I Ching user needs to have other good influences from other good books and people, balancing his thoughts and perceptions.

 

[Peter Belt]

Looks like a good time and place to post (or repost) this here. Specially since the person that initiated this (long) thread was (at the time) a physician to be, this is, someone that could enjoy the physics Vs metaphysics intertwining of this marvelous interview:

Terence McKenna - Time and the I-Ching
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGfZQ