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Negative experiences with oracle?

voltairine

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Hello,

I'm new to this forum, and not quite sure how to search the archives for an answer to the issue I'm asking about. I've been working with the I Ching (as well as occasionally tarot) for a couple years or so, and have had very mixed experiences. Sometimes it's incredibly helpful. At others, it's clearly been repeatedly dishonest, in particular regarding one relationship that has never worked out positively though it's assured me it would (for going on two years ... come on now). Sometimes I wonder if I'm engaging with something that is mean-spirited, or worse.

I did see one forum post about repeated fairytales/tales spun by the IC. Has anyone else had experiences like this? Any thoughts/advice? Are there posts I might consult regarding untrustworthiness, or even provocation?

Many thanks. :confused:
 

pocossin

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it's clearly been repeatedly dishonest, in particular regarding one relationship that has never worked out positively though it's assured me it would (for going on two years ... come on now).

Could you give an example of this dishonesty?
 

voltairine

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I did give one ... there is one relationship that has never worked out positively, but it has seemed to assure me it would (for going on two years). 32, 31, 45, 13, etc., repeatedly in reference to this person.
 

pocossin

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I did give one ... there is one relationship that has never worked out positively, but it has seemed to assure me it would (for going on two years). 32, 31, 45, 13, etc., repeatedly in reference to this person.

Oh, I meant query and casting. My opinion is that the I Ching does not give answers. Like grit in an oyster, it gives the opportunity for an answer to form. Whether we get a pearl or a pain depends on us.
 
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RindaR

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great analogy! The world is a perfect mirror, Yi can help you see it.
 

Tohpol

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I'm new to this forum, and not quite sure how to search the archives for an answer to the issue I'm asking about. I've been working with the I Ching (as well as occasionally tarot) for a couple years or so, and have had very mixed experiences. Sometimes it's incredibly helpful. At others, it's clearly been repeatedly dishonest, in particular regarding one relationship that has never worked out positively though it's assured me it would (for going on two years ... come on now). Sometimes I wonder if I'm engaging with something that is mean-spirited, or worse.

I did see one forum post about repeated fairytales/tales spun by the IC. Has anyone else had experiences like this? Any thoughts/advice? Are there posts I might consult regarding untrustworthiness, or even provocation?

This is a complete misunderstanding of how the I Ching works. You are projecting your very human foibles onto the I Ching based on the frustration and tension of the ego which is based on a narrow, binary rendering of reality = like/dislike, success/failure etc. Life is much richer and nuanced then that.

To that end, it seems one of the great battles we have in life is focused around self-deception and thus our own "dishonesty." Perhaps we have to learn to read the I Ching with sincerity and humility which can open up our ability to SEE. Who you are and what you see objectively will determine in which reality you reside.

The "fairy tales" and sense of a "mean spirit" are spun out of the conflicted desires of the beholder, nothing to do with the I Ching I'm afraid. Yet, as others have commented, it's a marvellous tool for reflecting back the shadows we have yet to resolve in ourselves and which have the tendency to keep us trapped in that mirror.
 

voltairine

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These responses are fairly unhelpful, and totally fail to address my question, which explicitly describes being told something would happen repeatedly, in extremely detailed and repetitive ways, which has never happened, in any way. The IC has even warned me away from other, potentially very good relationships because it said this one would work out. It never has. I've also been dealing with some strange paranormal-type experiences that are not positive, at all--for example, constant interference with electrical elements like Internet access, cell phone access, important files disappearing from my computer unexpectedly ...

If anyone has had experiences of the type I describe--and I know I've read others on this forum describe them--I'd love to hear from you.
 
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sooo

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Voltairine, I'm curious if you have been exclusively using the Wilhelm/Baynes. Not that it alone can create misunderstanding and false expectations, quite unintentionally, but it is particularly dramatic in regard to success and failure. It can be like reading a fairytale, so the text and commentaries must be drawn into a realm of metaphor, which deals at least as much with our inner world as with the questions we ask about our outer world. We do go down the rabbit hole where things aren't as they seem, and we must learn to understand ourselves in order to understand the characters in the story. Then answers take on a new meaning that is very real. For example, many times the IC will illustrate what our situation really is, plain and simply, and we read into that "story" the outcomes we expect, wish for, or fear. That is not a correct approach. Like reading Alice in Wonderland, we read the stories and learn of the characters, and it is up to us to understand the complete metaphor of that character, not to take it literally. Lewis Carroll described quantum theory using characters as metaphor. That's not unlike correctly interpreting the IC.

But I was thinking of a way to multiply by ten, and always, in the answer, get the question back again.
Lewis Carroll
 
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sooo

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Karcher too uses massive amounts of metaphor.

So other than your six word response, have you given any thought to what's been said here?
 

voltairine

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Again, suggestions that this is somehow my misreading given what I've already said are offensive. I'd appreciate hearing from people who have had similar experiences. Thanks.
 
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sooo

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What is offensive is asking questions and paying no attention to the answers.

Your wishes for the girl's affection didn't work out for you and so you accuse the IC of being a liar.

Perhaps you will find a sympathizer.
 

Trojina

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Your experience is a fairly common intro to the I Ching...that is people begin to use it in order to ask about relationships, misunderstand the answers whilst projecting all their hopes and wishes on to the Oracle and then conjure up their own story of how the relationship will work out. This is especially likely to happen when you are not really communicating with the object of your desires and talking to the IC instead. I think it is described here

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/frie...42-Blog-post-Advice-for-relationship-readings

I recommend you read that link with attention.

However as it says these kinds of experiences you describe are quite common and I think there is a pattern and it goes like this


What usually happens is this

1. After using Yi to support ideas about a relationship without real life confirmation or response from the actual person, when the relationship doesn't work out people get annoyed, believe the I Ching doesn't work and so on....and even imagine it 'lied' to them

2. Next they will generally leave the book alone for a period of time

3. Often they come back to it when things have settled...and then they realise they actually had never really understood their answers....and also

4. .....that the answers from Yi may go far beyond their narrow definitions of what success in any area really is....and


5...... they hopefully learn the important lesson that communication with Yi about prospects of a relationship with another person is not much use without also consulting the person in question who naturally will have their own ideas about the relationship.


It sounds like you never spent much time talking to the other person to find out what they wanted but rather spent time consulting the I Ching regarding what the other person wanted and then failed to understand what your answers were saying.

This comment alone shows you don't understand the answers you got

I did give one ... there is one relationship that has never worked out positively, but it has seemed to assure me it would (for going on two years). 32, 31, 45, 13, etc., repeatedly in reference to this person
.

Getting these answers repeatedly does not signify the relationship would work..You did actually need to communicate with the other to avoid disappointment. Also your understanding of the I ching is undeveloped if you imagine just getting certain hexagrams mean it will all work out.

So when you say


I'm asking about. I've been working with the I Ching (as well as occasionally tarot) for a couple years or so, and have had very mixed experiences. Sometimes it's incredibly helpful. At others, it's clearly been repeatedly dishonest

...it is not the I Ching who has been 'dishonest' but you who have been dishonest with yourself. You based your plans on an Oracle which you didn't understand and convinced your self of things you had no evidence of.


These responses are fairly unhelpful, and totally fail to address my question, which explicitly describes being told something would happen repeatedly, in extremely detailed and repetitive ways, which has never happened, in any way.

That is ungracious. Also I don't think you have been told repeatedly in detail that something would happen, you just thought you had. If you believe you have been told repeatedly in detail that something would happen then please share the exact castings and questions as you have been asked to do. It is of no use to vaguely indicate that you got 31 or 32 so everything should work out...



The IC has even warned me away from other, potentially very good relationships because it said this one would work out. It never has. I've also been dealing with some strange paranormal-type experiences that are not positive, at all--for example, constant interference with electrical elements like Internet access, cell phone access, important files disappearing from my computer unexpectedly ...

So what are these answers that you believe warned you away ? I imagine you just had no idea what they were saying. Also you do need to talk to the actual people concerned...You cannot make relationships with others via I Ching readings.
 

voltairine

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Further condescending posts suggesting this is my reading will be ignored. Is there no one on here with any capability of responding to my actual question?
 

Tohpol

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It's not possible to separate the root assumption from your question which is why you have received answers you have. Clearly, if you are seeking confirmation of your belief rather anything else this will narrow the possibility for resolution. Perhaps the "capability" lies with you?

No doubt this will be quite familiar to you: http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?19490-Horse****
 

RindaR

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I don't see these responses as condescending in the least. You seem to be trying to understand responses from Yi that appear to be misleading. We are trying to help you with a possible alternative understanding.

We don't usually duck the difficult questions here, our responses are rooted in our authentic experiences with Yi and with life.
 
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Trojina

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Has anyone else had experiences like this? Any thoughts/advice? Are there posts I might consult regarding untrustworthiness, or even provocation?

You are looking for a chum who feels the way you do ? Well you didn't look very hard as this person posted this thread only a short while ago


http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?19490-Horse****

you could send him a pm and have a nice chat....or go and visit him on his thread. he thinks he has been 'testing' the I Ching for 2 years...as if it were a new piece of electrical equipment.
 

Liselle

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Voltairine,

People here are responding sincerely to you, in the spirit of trying to actually help you with your I Ching experience. If you're looking for someone to simply agree with you that the I Ching is deceitful, both Trojina and Topal have linked to a recent thread.

I wholeheartedly agree with people's suggestions that you present an entire reading, not just a list of hexagrams. And I think what Trojina has said and linked to about the pitfalls of relationship readings is worth your attention. You are not alone in having relationship reading problems.

I have had numerous maddening experiences with the I Ching, and sometimes I do think it plays games. One thing that aggravates me is when I get a reading, and then after the situation resolves, I can think of a line which would have answered my question better than the reading I got.

Truthfully, I still have not come completely to terms with these sorts of problems, although other people on this forum, whose expertise I respect, have done so.

Personally, I think a lot of the trouble we have is that we simply do not know enough. I find that the more I know, the clearer readings are to me. For example, I recently got 53uc as an answer about using a particular thing (A) for a particular purpose (B). Since hexagram 53 is "about marriage," I thought to myself, "Ah! It's telling me that A and B are a good marriage :D!"

Well - no. The "marriage" of A and B was an abject failure. I was angry! I really did think I'd been lied to. At best, I thought the reason Yi did that was perhaps because I was so very delighted that I'd figured out 53uc in this example, that I rushed right to the forum to post about it, before the situation was even resolved, and Yi was trying to teach me a lesson not to be so hasty, or so overly exuberant, or so full of myself. (I deleted that post :bag:.)

This still might actually be why Yi gave me 53uc rather than some other casting to address my question. Yi will take a person down a notch or two when it deems it necessary. But also, after this thread on 53uc was posted recently, I now also see other angles on hexagram 53 which I hadn't really known about or thought about before - and those other angles were relevant to my question.

I still do think it's exasperating to have gotten 53uc in that particular case, because I had no way to know that it wasn't telling me that A and B were a good "marriage." A and B could actually be a perfectly good marriage - thing A is often used for purpose B. It's just that in this particular case, it didn't work.

The best I could have done in this situation - if I would have had the knowledge - would have been to think to myself, okay, is 53uc here about the marriage side of hexagram 53, or is it about one of the other sides of hexagram 53? Then I would have asked enough follow-up questions to sort that out. (This tale is a pretty good description of why I often just don't like receiving unchanging hexagrams :eek:uch:).

Anyway. You are perfectly entitled to think you've been deceived. A different question might be, do you want to try to dig into it to improve your skills? Because that is possible. I suspect there is no one on earth who communicates perfectly with the I Ching at all times, but it is possible to get better at it.
 

Liselle

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Well, I pretty much just repeated it anyway...:eek:
 

Brendon

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how about trying YI im sure it will help you to relate all your matters
 

rosada

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Lisa - Would it be too much of a stretch to say getting 53 UNCHANGING as your answer was the IC telling you no marriage of A and B would take place? Like, "This pairing has stopped at the point of appearing to be making Gradual Progress but won't progress any further"? But why didn't the IC just give you a clear answer like it could have told you something like" 7.4 The army retreats" and you'd know that all your efforts would come to naught and to give it up. But nooo… You were led on a wild goose chase. Hey! Maybe Gradual Progress is the name Wilhelm gave but maybe a better name would be

53. Chasing The Goose in The Wild :flirt: :hissy:

Rosada
 
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Liselle

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Hi Rosada - maybe? "A proposed marriage that won't succeed" is certainly a reasonable way of describing what happened.

Looking back at my notes about this event (to the extent I have decent notes :rolleyes:) - it ended up becoming quite complicated. One thing that factored into it, which I was VERY worried about at the time, turned out not to be as urgent or as horrible as I thought (in other words - one specific contributing factor caused me to panic, but it turned out to be something which merely needed taking care of, without being the catastrophe I thought it was. Not that I knew that at the time).

Speculation: your "wild goose chase" idea might be absolutely correct, but maybe in a different way than you thought. Maybe the 53uc was just a general advance warning to me, in light of what this would become: "Don't succumb to a wild goose chase here." That could apply to the contributing factor - my panic, and my frantic attempts to fix things, did indeed turn out to be mostly a wild goose chase.

When I cast the 53uc reading, I wasn't even aware of the contributing factor. I didn't think of it and start worrying about it until later. So this is a probably a good example of why it's good to keep your readings in mind. When I started panicking about the contributing factor, I might have thought to myself, "Wait...remember that 53uc...that could mean a wild goose chase...could that be relevant?" And then maybe I could have brought to light the "non-emergency" aspect faster and more easily, or asked another question like, "How does the 53uc reading apply now?" - or something.

Not sure, though. I can think of a couple other ways 53uc might pertain (...that I should look for and find a better marriage of things than the one I'm proposing...or that A and B really were a decently acceptable marriage, since it was the phantom emergency which caused me to think they weren't...). This is all too complicated to explain well since I can't (won't) spell out the details on a public forum. (Ultimately, A and B would have been a workable marriage - barely. A and C would have been a much better pair.)

Maybe another possibility is that this particular 53uc reading meant ALL those things - which might actually explain the unchangingness...? Just a big huge umbrella HEXAGRAM 53?

Thank you for asking, Rosada! I think I've learned something just by going through this in more detail, and I think it might be good for me to take all the scattered readings on this subject and bundle them together in Resonance Journal, with better-organized notes, and a big "HEED THIS" tag on it...

(Oh, by the way - I have gotten 53 as "wild goose chase" in the past, so I know what you meant, and it's something I could have thought of at the time. Can't use the excuse that I'd never heard of "wild goose chase" :eek:.)
 

jzy369

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I did give one ... there is one relationship that has never worked out positively, but it has seemed to assure me it would (for going on two years). 32, 31, 45, 13, etc., repeatedly in reference to this person.

The fact you got 31,32,45,13 for relationship questions are specific enough. Hex 31 and 32 are the two hex most closely related to marriage and relationship. Hex 31 depicts the genuine affinity in a courtship (relationship), and hex 32 depicts how to perpetuating a long-lasting relationship (marriage).

However, neither 31 nor 32 "assures" the caster an auspicious relationship, no matter which line you casted. 31 is describing a natural process of man-women falling-in-love". Auspiciousness appeares only if subject "don't advance or else misfortune" (line 2), or "stay true to the relationship among apparent challenges" (line 4). 32 is even worse, misfortune/undesirable-outcome appears in five of the six lines. The reason for this is that falling-in-love (31) is a natural occurance but is highly susceptible to be out-of-control. Marriage (32) is full of "conquering challenges together. Long-lasting marriage is full of hard work from both parties.

45 is indeed a pretty good hex, but it involes synergy of multiple elite minds. To generate synergy, multiple egos have to be restrained. Original text depicts King using God's name to establish common goals for the elite minds, else strong opinions would fly all over the places. Text for hex 13 describes a process to "strive for equality". If equality is already achieved then there is no need to "strive" anymore, thus no need for 13's six lines depicting how to "strive" for equality phase by phase. So 13 and 45 lines are auspicious with conditions involving your own efforts.

Years ago I started study IC for its philisophical values, just like how I studied the Bible. At one time I despised the augury part of IC as superstition. Years later, after I grasped the meaning of every IC text and created my own interpreation text (if you want, I can send you a copy), I tried the augury part and the result continued to amazed me till this day. But that's a lot of hard work for me to get there. If IC does not work for you, don't use it, as inappropriate interpretations can possibly raise havok.
 

ariel13

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Again, suggestions that this is somehow my misreading given what I've already said are offensive. I'd appreciate hearing from people who have had similar experiences. Thanks.

I know this is a super old thread, but I just found it.

Voltarine, one quick note– I do think if you were more specific with your readings that people would have more directly responded to your questions instead of offering ways you may have misinterpreted.

For instance when someone tells me they got 32 or 13 in reference to a "good" relationship reading I'd immediately scoff, because 13 is not really a romantic hex– more about platonic friendship, and 32 is just duration. It could be duration of anything, even something bad.

That being said I did want to response "directly" to your actual question as many people on this thread haven't. I'd say that yes, sometimes I feel like I've gotten answers that led me astray from the truth. While I wouldn't come out and say that Yi was lying, it was very confusing.

For instance, a few months back I was "dating" someone who was cheating on his girlfriend with me. I was never really into the idea, so it didn't go on for very long. But everytime I asked the IChing about the situation I kept getting really cutesy responses like all involving hexes 31 and 37 and other hexes I'd associate with very good things regarding a romantic relationship. Now, on the one hand I'd say that I might have been misinterpreting the 37. As I was told by someone with more experience with the hexagram, it can sometimes just mean more that people need to stick with their clans or families and less about the idea of someone marrying you or becoming part of your family. Anyway, point being, they felt very positive at the time. To the point that I remember asking myself why the IChing liked this guy so much, because obviously I had trepidation from the beginning. Well, in a very short amount of time that relationship ended, and to be honest the only view I have over the whole thing is that the guy never really had feelings for me and was just being unfaithful, because maybe he is commitment phobic or something.. I mean we had a terrible conversation towards the end where he basically said he did not have feelings for me and was just enjoying the attention. :duh: Although he started the entire thing :rant: Now everytime I see him he still follows me around but never tries to kiss me anymore. Ugh so weird.

Anyway, I have two theories about this sort of thing:

1) The Yi never really tells the future at all, and if it does it is very, very based in the moment and can change on a dime ( I really believe this about most divination, but always hope that it can do something greater..). Also, that it often just very directly reflects how you yourself are feeling about a situation.

2) AND THIS THEORY MAY BE OF MORE INTEREST TO YOU: Perhaps there is some sort of spiritual meddling happening. My belief in the spirit world is precarious at best (DO spirits/ghosts exist? Or is it just people from other dimensions, or remnant memories retained by a place– I don't have the answer). However regardless of my belief or disbelief in spirits, I do not rule them out. Also, I do believe in the power of intention and energy. SO, that being said, I think it is possible to receive a tainted divination reading, one that has been inadvertently affected by surrounding remnant energies, however you define them.

So here is the solution that I have used in the past with other types of readings (i.e. tarot mostly), and my friends do this as well.

1) Smudge the area with sage before you begin the reading. This is pure superstition, but I think any ritual to make you feel you are cleansing an area can be helpful.
2) Light a white candle– they are supposed to symbolize protection and can help you focus.
3) Do the reading on a cloth that is special to you and symbolizes some kind of benevolence. I use my grandmother's scarf.

Anyway, all of that is very subjective, sort of superstitious advice. But like I said, I think any ritual that makes you feel that you are releasing bad energies (or "spirits") or staving them off in some way may just give you the peace of mind to at least be able to focus better. I don't always follow my own advice, but when I do it does help me to get more accurate/helpful readings.

If you are still on this forum somewhere, hope that helped in some way.

:bows:
 

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