Power Barometer

[becalm]

Is anyone familiar with this. It’s too much like IChing to be coincidental surely!

 

[dfreed]

I'm curious, where did you get the phrase 'power barometer' from?

These are the characters / symbols from the T'ai Hsuang Ching (or Tai Xuan Jing), 'The Canon of Supreme Mystery'.

It is another oracle/divination system from China. According to Wiki, it was composed by the Confucian writer Yang Xiong (53 BC-18 CE). The first draft was completed in 2 BC, so it was written nine or so centuries after the first texts of the Yijing (the Zhouyi) were composed.

(If memory serves me from my reading the into, this was at one time a very popular oracle in China, but because of Confucian politics, the author was discredited - for something unrelated to this text I think - and this oracle stopped being used.)

It consists of 81 four-line symbols called Tetragrams (which we might think of as being similar to the hexagrams in the Yijing); they are made up of combinations of solid, once-broken and twice-broken lines. I don't know the casting method, but the tetragrams (tetra- meaning four) are built from the top down, unlike the hexagrams which are built from the ground up.

The text for each Tetragram includes a Head, which we might think of as being somewhat like the hexagram's Judgement text; and each tetragram also has nine Appraisals: these don't really correspond to the line text statements in the Yi - since there are only four lines for each tetragram, but nine appraisals.

Also, I don't believe they are arrived at in the same way as the Yi's moving or unmoving lines. Instead there are three each of 'thought', 'good fortune' and 'calamity' Appraisals, and I believe you would read one from each category as part of your query. (And the decision about which to read might be based on the time of day, but I'm not entirely sure about that.)

I find it a very interesting oracle - though different than the Yi. I have listed the English versions I know about at the end of this thread ....

Right now I'm reading it, not specifically as an oracle text, but I am looking at what the different Head and Appraisal verses might tell me about the eight trigrams (even though I don't think trigrams are a part of this divination system).

For example:
Tetragram 9, Head reads: "Yang ch'i is strong within, but weak without. All things, branching out, advance to greatness (or increase in size)".

I took from this, 'all things, branching out, advance to greatness' - and this reminds me of trigram Wind and how in exploring the world, wind might be seen as 'branching out, or even advancing to greatness. This is of course wholly my own, very personal way of approaching text.

Another example is:
Tetragram 9, Appraisal 6: "Branching out alone by leaps and bounds is good for small things but not for great. This means: this cannot be turned into something great."

This verse reminds me of trigram Thunder which is good for quick decisions and actions, but perhaps doesn't always have a long-term impact.

I have also done a few 'readings' (and I have devised my own way of casting with the Mystery). Again, these are my own personal explorations, and I strongly believe they are not how the Mystery was intended to be used.

I have only found two (or three) English translations.

* The one I have and use is "The Canon of Supreme Mystery" (by Yang Hsiung), translation by Prof. (Ms.) Michael Nylan, SUNY Press , 1993. Here's the Amazon link; there is another version which appears to be the very same book, but is much, much more expensive.

There are two other versions:

* "The Elemental Changes: The Ancient Chinese Companion to the I Ching", SUNY, January 27, 1994. This is also by Nylan; I think it has the same core text as her Mystery, but I don't think it has all the info and footnotes as the one above.

*And also "The T'ai Hsuan Ching: the hidden classic" by Derek Walters. January 1, 1798 (I assume they mean 1978). I've heard this described as a more 'poetic' translation. I am waiting until my local library starts doing inter-library loans again to take a look at this one.

(The sub-titles from Nylan's book reads: "Ancient Chinese Companion to the I Ching" and the one from Walter's book reads: "A lost companion of the I Ching" but I question how accurate these are: in Nylan's version she indicates 'correspondences' between the Tetragrams and the Hexagrams, but some of the tetragrams are shown as corresponding to more than one hexagram, and some the hexagrams don't correspond to any of the tetragrams! All in all, 81 divided by 64 or 64 divided by 81 just doesn't work out cleanly, or give us whole numbers! If I get a chance, I'll read up more on this tie-in between the Yi and the Mystery.)

All the best, David

 

[moss elk]

I'm curious, where did you get the phrase 'power barometer' from?

These are the characters / symbols from the T'ai Hsuang Ching (or Tai Xuan Jing), 'The Canon of Supreme Mystery'. It is another oracle/divination system from China. According to Wiki, it was composed by the Confucian writer Yang Xiong (53 BC-18 CE). The first draft was completed in 2 BC, so it was written nine or so centuries after the first texts of the Yijing (the Zhouyi) were composed.

Thanks D,
nice to see you.

 

[becalm]

Thanks David, that's awesome!!
I got the 'Power Barometer" from my Kinesiologist who's never heard of IChing and she couldn't tell me anything about it. I mentioned to her it was very much like Yi and she was curious to know what it was all about.
I passed on your post here to her and she was very grateful as she loves learning.

 

[dfreed]

You are welcome. The names that Nylan uses in her translation are a bit different than the ones you have listed in your 'power barometer' chart, so my guess is they are from Walter's version. Nylan's names/titles for a few of the Tetragrams are (with you chart names in parentheses):

1. Center (acceptance)
10. Defectiveness or Distortion (attachment)
19. Following (completed)
28. Change (choosing to)