Steps of Yu (new material from Stephen Karcher)

[hilary]

Oh, for pity's sake. If you don't like this thread, start a different one. How difficult can it be?

 

[dobro p]

"Thus each person on this planet can come up with an IC and although locally different will reflect the global qualities."

Interestingly, Stephen Karcher's latest I Ching is probably one of the best examples of this. His version differs from the original lots of times, but it's a really useful oracle. This raises huge questions for me. (Are you allowed to play Bach on a synthesiser? Sure, but the purists won't like it. Is it good music? Sure. Do you also want to hear played on a harpsichord? Sure.) But in just the same way that I've heard music played badly, I've seen some really dodgy I Chings as well. But I think bad renderings of the Yi are within your IDM idea, right?

But I still don't buy the idea that the code you're talking about got expressed in the meanings attached to individual lines. It's a nice idea, it's a beautiful idea, but I don't buy it. You're talking some sort of genetic code of the psyche if I understand it right. I've got no objection to that, but I don't think the I Ching meanings reflect that code. What I think is that some very wise people used their experience of situations to apply a handful of useful meanings to each hexagram, using some rules of thumb based on hexagram structure and also relating hexagrams, but basically referring to their own experience and wisdom. If IDM comes into the equation, or DNA, or the BBC, that's okay - but it doesn't *explain* the meanings in the Yi, or help you use it better. IDM's a logical system. The guys who put the Yi together weren't logical, they were poetic and irrational balanced by wise. And very, very useful.

 

[chrislofting]

> * I'm impressed with Stephen's I Ching work in the past and
> his latest I Ching

I thought you had some aggenda other than IC, your focus is on Karcherism in particular.

> - it's helped me a lot with my own
> divination. So I'm interested in what he has to say, and
> I'm concerned that he might decide not to post here if he's
> gonna have you going up one side of him with a lawn mower
> and down the other.
>

oh I see, IOW here you get it free and so wont have to pay in the future? - if he gets 'upset' and storms off then you have missed out on a freebe! LOL! I can see your mind at work!

> * I like this group and I want to preserve its health.
>

this group has been fine for a LONG time - go through the archives, read the occasional hate mail ;-) - My issue with Stephen is not the only issue he has been involved in - nor this the only issue I have been involved in.

> * I've spotted something you need to attend to. You're so
> busy responding to my observations that you seem not to have
> taken it on yet. You've got a brain the size of New York
> and tact the size of a sesame seed. What's the point of the
> former when you're hampered by the latter? So you're an
> enneagram 5. So what? All that says is that what you've
> got to learn is how to connect to others better.
>

I see - so I need to adapt YOUR perspective? dont think so pal -- too devious for me.

Chris.

 

[chrislofting]

A-ha - you want to talk serious now, no problem... ;-)
>
> By Dobro (Dobro) on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 01:03 am:
>
> "Thus each person on this planet can come up with an IC and
> although locally different will reflect the global
> qualities."
>
> Interestingly, Stephen Karcher's latest I Ching is probably
> one of the best examples of this. His version differs from
> the original lots of times, but it's a really useful oracle.
> This raises huge questions for me. (Are you allowed to
> play Bach on a synthesiser? Sure, but the purists won't
> like it. Is it good music? Sure. Do you also want to hear
> played on a harpsichord? Sure.) But in just the same way
> that I've heard music played badly, I've seen some really
> dodgy I Chings as well. But I think bad renderings of the
> Yi are within your IDM idea, right?
>

Sure. The IDM material is focused on qualities of meaning - how you put them together is a specialist act and so not of interest to IDM in particular. The issues come when people assert a universal when it isnt one - as Stephen has done with the 1,2...61,62 octet.

> But I still don't buy the idea that the code you're talking
> about got expressed in the meanings attached to individual
> lines. It's a nice idea, it's a beautiful idea, but I don't
> buy it. You're talking some sort of genetic code of the
> psyche if I understand it right.

EVERY act of information processing uses the SAME set of qualities derived from our species-nature. It is the CONTEXT that then 'biases' those qualities. I can take yin/yang and apply it recursively to give the IC IOW I can take EACH line or GROUP of lines or hexagram and will apply the ONE set of qualities but what makes the difference is the CONTEXT. Where do you think the notions of nouns and verbs come from? Apply recursion and out pops gerunds etc etc etc

When we apply recursion to yin/yang so out pops the binary sequence. ROTATE the hexagrams in that sequence and you get the line change order for hexagrams 01/02. Given that rule so for EACH hexagram we can derive the changing line order and rotate that to give the other order. This dynamic reflects the focus on generals and particulars, relationships WITHIN and BETWEEN. The orderings reflect a LOGIC OF RELATIONSHIPS that is expressed qualitatively.

I can refine the process by moving to dodecagrams but that is excessive to deal with - easier, more pragmatic to deal with 64s. IOW I can

In all of this is the pattern of differentiating/integrating. LOCAL CONTEXT will then 'colour' things to emphasise that local context. That colouring is in the form of languages. arbitary association of sounds to feelings expressed in a particular context. Without that skill we would lack the precision we have as a species.

I've got no objection to
> that, but I don't think the I Ching meanings reflect that
> code. What I think is that some very wise people used their
> experience of situations to apply a handful of useful
> meanings to each hexagram, using some rules of thumb based
> on hexagram structure and also relating hexagrams, but
> basically referring to their own experience and wisdom.

...and what structures that 'wisdom'? their brains. Our brains are the source of the methodology in dealing with reality. At the level of consciousness there is a LOT of hierarchy involved - each level reflecting a context and so DIFFERENCE. Our derivation of meaning starts general and heads to the particular - as a hexagram does.

Experiences come through senses that elicit emotions as responses and allow for communication through resonance. simple. The abstraction of senses has been in the formation of general purpose identifications of wholes, parts, static relationships, dynamic relationships REGARDLESS of sense. That 'meaning engine' is identified in IDM and the derived qualities are found to map to the trigrams of the IC, the persona categories in the MBTI, the types of numbers we use, their quality, in Mathematics, and the categories of basic emotions we have as a species.

Thus I can take anger in a context of fear/devotion-to-another(s) and map it to hexagram 12 where the focus is on parrying the attacks of others upon one's faith. I can do this with all of the symbols in the IC simply because the whole system is derived from recursion of a dichotomy as is emotions where they are derived from recursion of fight/flight.

IOW I can focus attention on a LINE and map-in aspects of the hexagrams applicable to that line GIVEN A CONTEXT.

Why do you think the IC DEMANDS a question? because it is useless without a context. You brain does that, it needs a single context to derive 'meaning' of a particular.

> If
> IDM comes into the equation, or DNA, or the BBC, that's okay
> - but it doesn't *explain* the meanings in the Yi, or help
> you use it better. IDM's a logical system. The guys who
> put the Yi together weren't logical, they were poetic and
> irrational balanced by wise. And very, very useful.
>

No - I think you dont understand issues of Logic. 'Traditional' Logic is analytical and as such focuses on A/NOT-A as opposites and 'static', eternal combat etc. 'True' logic is the combination of analytical and dialectical. Western thinking does not take into consideration the dialectical where TIME is a factor.

IDM covers BOTH, its roots in development are not in logical analysis but cognitive analysis and so it captures ALL aspects of the species, not just west or east biases. Each specialisation can take on its own logic such that if you tried to map the MBTI to the IC based on 'traditional' logic you would not get the maps I get (people start with the I/E dichotomy as fundamental - it isnt). BUT when you map the MBTI to the IC from a cognitive perspective you get correlations and so GENERALS - the core set of qualities used in deriving meaning. This cognitive mapping gives correlations across the particular specialisations I have nominated as examples of the IDM template at work in us all.

The originators of the IC had the same brains as we do such that the IC reflects us as a species.

Chris.
>

 

[lenardthefast]

Hi Chris,

I have been reading your posts in this thread and attempting to understand just what it is that you are trying to accomplish. Are you saying that your IDM is the ONLY method to use the IC? Or, are you saying that it is an alternate method of using it?

Namaste,
Leonard

 

[chrislofting]

>
> Hi Chris,
>
> I have been reading your posts in this thread and attempting
> to understand just what it is that you are trying to
> accomplish. Are you saying that your IDM is the ONLY method
> to use the IC? Or, are you saying that it is an alternate
> method of using it?
>

neither. IDM identifies the source qualities used to come-up with the I Ching and such serves as an AID in deciphering all of the various ICs in that they will all reflect the basic blend, bond, bound, bind qualities (and their combinations) discussed in IDM. My particular version is called ICPlus (IC+) and it has used IDM to flesh things out (and still does in that there is LOTS of work to be done).

The material in IDM also allows for the extension of the traditional perspective, rooted in ancient china, to a species perspective that transcends the traditional, allowing for more refinement, more precision, etc etc

This is possible due to an understanding of how the brain derives meaning through recursion of dichotomies; IOW the dynamics identified in IDM apply to the IC since the IC is a specialisation of the IDM generalisation.

In the process of developing IDM, and from there IC+, so patterns have been identified that reflect core perspectives metaphorised in the IC but not covered clearly in the traditional material (or not covered at all).

Included in the IDM material is analysis of HOW we derive meaning from the IC and so how it can work without the use of 'random' processes; we can use questions etc to use the IC as an aid in moving from general to particular, in identifying what is going on 'strategically' from our local, tactical, position.

Ultimately, through linking the IDM patterns to various specialisations, we identify the IC as an example of specialisation of brain perspectives and as such something more than 'ancient chinese divination' or 'obscure chinese philosophy' etc etc - it is in fact usable as a universal filter in dealing with reality. That is PROVABLE from an EMPIRICAL perspective and as such grounds the IC in our species-nature and as a valid tool for use in analysis and even prediction of events.

THat said, to appreciate what you are dealing with requires an understanding of where it came from, IOW the patterns of meaning, the qualities described, in IDM.

IDM is GENERAL and being general will always be a problem in communicating at the level of our consciousness where we DEMAND refined labels and so specialisations. Thus 'blending' covers all of the properties of hexagram 01 as well as hexagram 02 - and that is a LOT. CONTEXT will then customise meanings, the general is refined to a particular. EACH context will elicit a different label that ties 'blending' to it, but the sense of 'blending' is a constant regardless of context.

In the particular case of this thread, Stephen makes a claim re an octet of hexagrams is 'fundamental' - 'engine' room etc - this is false in that that octet is one of many derived from 64-hexagram sequences. IOW the scope of what is being delt with is WAY beyond what he imagines but he is formally 'selling' his point of view as if a 'fact' - it isnt and so he is distorting the IC in general and that is an issue in that the overall aim is to de-specialise the IC, not to do what he appears to be doing, RE-specialising it.

This specialist approach to the IC is reflected in general where people interact with the IC through a hexagram and so imagine it reflects the totality of a moment - it doesnt, it reflects an ASPECT of that totality and that aspect will be in a range of qualities from 'best fit' to 'worst fit' - IOW the WHOLE of the IC is applicable with each hexagram/dodecagram etc contributing to the whole - our consciousness has a problem dealing with this 'holistic' form of expression and so ignores it.

Understanding the IDM template material can aid in understanding what is going on here such that referencing IDM can aid in resolving specialist issues - and ultimately when you reach the incompleteness level in a specialisation it is to the generalised patterns of meaning that you need to refer to understand the issue, to complete the specialisation.


Chris.

 

[lenardthefast]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for answering my questions. Let me see if I understand what that answer means.

Are you basically saying that you are in disagreement with Stephen's methodology as pertains to one area,(the octet thing), or to his entire approach pertaining to the IC? Please bear with me on this, I am really trying to understand what you are saying. I am also having a very hard time understanding your point(s).

As I have stated here many times before, I use the Yi strictly on an intuitive level, relating to the symbolism as a way to decipher the language of the sub-conscious, thus establishing a dialogue with same. This system works extremely well for me and I have experienced great accuracy in my casts when employing it. ....but, I happen to have a very curious mind, and when it encounters material such as yours it naturally wants to, at the very least, understand the basic parameters. And, I am experiencing total failure in this endeavour. Total failure to understand something is not a scenario I am accustomed to. So, I continue to question.

Is it possible that you could explain the basics in layman's terms for the dense people like myself? IOW, I am an engineer, and I understand the principles of thermodynamics and how they apply, lets say, to the boiling of water. But, if asked by an aborigine who had never boiled water how that task was accomplished, I probably would tell him to light a fire, fill a vessel of some sort with water, place it in close proximity to the fire and wait til it bubbles. So, I'm the aborigine and I am asking you to tell me the basics of IC+. What would you tell me?

I am not attempting to be facetious, I REALLY want to KNOW.

Thanking you in advance.

Namaste,

Leonard

 

[chrislofting]

Leonard,

The aid in interpretations is in such scenarios as the recent thread on hexagram 05. There was one interpretation which favoured an anticipatory aspect in 05. There isnt. That is in 09. 05 waits and HOPES for something to turn up. 09 works and ANTICIPATES that the moment will come. 09 is PROACTIVE, making small gains to stand upon and be noticed, 05 makes no gains other than networking whilst waiting for the opportunity rather than creating the opportunity (the 09 focus).

The differences here are in the TOP line of the hexagram and so the top TRIGRAM from a FEELING perspective - the context is the same, expansive blending, to move out and 'take over' but the text is subtly different from contractive bounding (water- static nature overall, stay within a boundary to control) to contractive binding (wind - dynamic nature overall, move through time to cultivate, refine).

In general analysis it is easy to 'wander' outside the bounds of a hexagram's core nature, we can cross the line from 05 to 09 etc etc, the IDM focus elicits a set of basic FEELINGS to aid in 'getting the idea' about a hexagram/trigram/dodecagram.

Since the WHOLE of the IC is applicable to each perception it is easy to 'go out of bounds', to 'lose the context' without reference to the hard-coded elements 'beneath' the texts.

Chris.

 

[chrislofting]

>
> Hi Chris,
>
> Thank you for answering my questions. Let me see if I
> understand what that answer means.
>
> Are you basically saying that you are in disagreement with
> Stephen's methodology as pertains to one area,(the octet
> thing), or to his entire approach pertaining to the IC?

The one area. His entire approach is specialist and focused on the traditional I Ching and I have no complaints re that focus, but in doing so his recent text the "TOTAL I CHING" tries to present the 'be all and end all' of IC as some form of universal. MY point is that he is missing LOTS and his focus on the particular octet as a 'universal' etc is in error - he has a LOT to understand but chooses not to, to pretend the other material does not exist, wishes it will go away! - no way.

> Please bear with me on this, I am really trying to
> understand what you are saying. I am also having a very hard
> time understanding your point(s).
>
> As I have stated here many times before, I use the Yi
> strictly on an intuitive level, relating to the symbolism as
> a way to decipher the language of the sub-conscious, thus
> establishing a dialogue with same.

Ok.

> This system works
> extremely well for me and I have experienced great accuracy
> in my casts when employing it. ....but, I happen to have a
> very curious mind, and when it encounters material such as
> yours it naturally wants to, at the very least, understand
> the basic parameters. And, I am experiencing total failure
> in this endeavour. Total failure to understand something is
> not a scenario I am accustomed to. So, I continue to
> question.
>

the material has its roots in neurosciences and cognitive science and as such focuses on what is under the hood of our being. Using that material we can flesh-out details of the IC etc and get at the core representations but as a GENERAL.

Your focus is on your intuitions in particular and that means on experiences and an education system not fully aware as to how 'in here' actually works - we have only had access to these details in very recent times.

Our consciousness is a very efficient context adaptor in that it allows us to IMAGINE contexts and program ourselves to 'fit in' with the imagined contexts and so pre-empt adaptations to change. Very cool stuff, but 'untrained' such that it can imagine things that are physically not possible as far as we know - IOW to operate efficently it needs some 'rules', some general assumptions to aid in adapting.

The IDM material has come up with the properties and methods of GENERAL assumptions hard-coded into our species-nature, our primateness pre 24/7 consciousness.

Understanding those aids us in comprehension of new languages, new specialisations, in that the labels will be different but the qualities they represent the same. IOW the IDM material is the core source of our ability to use analogies, create metaphors. As such it is an AID; due to its generality it itself cannot replace specialisations but it can COMPLETE them. IOW the focus is on coexistence in that it identifies all of the levels of knowing, IN GENERAL, from the 'waving of hands' realm of the ancients to the 'high precision' mathematical points of the current times.

The overall focus in IDM is (a) a seed for a sense of meaning in AI systems and (b) a 'species 101' course for our consciousness, and so ground it in its species-nature - being untrained our consciousness can go off into ga-ga land at times and present a threat to the species! - no need.

Chris.

 

[lenardthefast]

Hi Chris,

Your last two posts addressed my questions very admirably, they were comprehensible to me as the aboriginal, and, I thank you very, very much. I am not saying I totally comprehend yet, but, I now have a viable foundation upon which to proceed with my understanding. I can 'get there' from 'here'.

It may take a while, but, the hull is sound and the seas not nearly as rough.

I DO have differences of opinion with you as regards the validity of intuition versus science and I still believe that the ancients were wiser than you credit them. But, this is actually a minor thing, to my mind, in that these are only differences of opinion and I respect that you have yours, and I, mine.

Chris, truth be known, at the present, I would not wish to live in a world without the mystery of magic, and the thrill of the unknown. But, as we are both aware, things change, and perhaps there will come a time when I will want to know EXACTLY what is happening, precisely, and if I understand you, that is possible with the IDM and the IC+. At least, now I have a basic idea where to begin, should I wish to utilize those materials.

Thank you very much for taking the time to educate me. The post using the thread on 05 was exactly what I asked you to do and you did it with finesse.

For the time being, I have no further questions. With what you have supplied tonight I can go back to the 'links', shudder, and tackle them anew. LOL!)
Namaste,

Leonard

 

[lenardthefast]

Hi Dobro,

I play a Korg Triton/pro 76-key synth and I have it on good authority that both Bach and Beethoven would have given their left bollock for the chance of caressing just eight of those 76 keys. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would have volunteered to become a eunuch for the same chance. So there!

Purists, indeed!

Namaste,
Leonard

young whippersnappers, bah!

 

[misterwu]

Here is an example of a reading done with and through material from Total I Ching. It might throw some light on how this can be used, what difference it might make in a reading, its after effects and its relation to the ili/xiangshu dichotomy.

Say we have the reading 21, 6/2 > 38. This is one that came up for me this morning and part of its focus, certainly, is my relation to this thread and this community ? which has been problematic, to say the least. The first move, to my mind, is to get acquainted with the qualities of the Primary Figure and its Pair. This is a more or less xiangshu move, a focus on structure, that might throw a lot of light on the ili significance and interpretation of words.

Eating Ancient Virtue and Bringing Home the Bride
21 Inspiration: Biting Through obstacles at the Sacred Meal that unites spirits and humans.
22 Field of Realization: Adorning means you begin without a face.

Here we see biting through obstacles to union at the sacred meal and a wedding procession that grows out of it, bringing a new bride and new imaginative possibilities to the ancestral home. It contains a Zone of Radical Transformation at the thresholds of individual experience, a Tiger Transformation where the Bright Omens that guide people?s lives arise from the Tiger?s Mouth. This is the Gate to the third stage of the symbolic life, the Decade of initiation and the search for a Self. Hidden Possibilities: 39:40 > 63:64: re-imagine the situation to release bound energy. Make the crossing and prepare the new.

We are in the ?inspiration? phase, dealing with drives and motivations that might, as they cross to realization, bring home a new imaginative possibility to ?renew the ancestral house.?

21 Biting Through SHI HE
Confront the problem, bite through the obstacle, tenacious, determined, enduring; a time for action and punishment; shared meal in the Tower, ?eating ancient virtue?; site of creative transformation; beginning of initiation ordeal, passing into the Tiger?s Mouth. Season: Summer, ripening the fruits.

Biting Through connects eating and biting through an obstacle with words and questions. The root is mouth, speech and language. It suggests posing a question to an oracle and getting a response, the bird dances of the Wu or Intermediaries that call the spirits and the pulses taken at the wrist in medical diagnosis. It means to bite through to something hidden, to invade or annex territory, to bite through obstacles to harmony and thus to the beauty and union suggested in the following figure.

Biting Through portrays the shared ritual meal that unites spirits and humans held in an Ancestral Temple, and the initiation ritual for young men held in the Tower at the edges of the marshes, when they were passed through the Tiger?s Mouth. It was metaphorically, and sometimes literally, eating the ancestor?s flesh. It is also the punishment and sacrifice of criminals and prisoners who were ?eaten by the ancestor.? It deals with ordeals and the act of judging and punishing, imaged as two dogs that stand guard, and portrays three of the significant punishments: foot-cutting, nose-cutting and the cangue, a heavy wooden yoke strapped across the shoulders that immobilized the hands. It further suggests executions, human sacrifice and reading omens in the remains of sacrifices and bodies that had been ritually exposed.

The characters share a root with shi, the book diviners or book shamans who hold the de or power and virtue of the ancestors in the oracle books and records. It suggests the shi or ?corpse,? the Embodiers who were possessed by ancestor spirits at the shared meals, and the statues and images in the temples that held the spirits. Here the sacred meal is doubled in the image of the diviners ?eating the ancient virtue? of the ancestors through the spirit-books, biting through the words to the bright omens they hide.

The purpose of all this is not to claim that these are the ?real? meanings of the hexagram and the words that give it body. The purpose is to open a ?mythical? perspective that can add to our sense of the significance of the moment and the issues involved. It tells me that issues involved here are divination, ?initiation? and the shared meal, contact with ancestor spirits or energies, biting through obstacles to that union and clarifying punishments, all with the possibility of bringing something to the ancestral home that could release new imaginative possibilities.

In the Time Cycle, this figure is connected to summer and ?ripening the fruits.? It will want to move towards fall, ?harvesting the crop and reaping the insights' which is represented by 35, the moment when something ?comes to light,? is recognized and accepted.

This would then focus on the line, which is at Inner Center, something that can register in the heart, as it were.

Here is the basic omen:

Biting through flesh at the sacred meal, his nose disappears.
This is not a mistake.

This is riding a strong line. Enthusiastically biting through the obstacles to union, you are carried away. Do not worry about your enthusiasm. This is not a mistake. You are on the right track.

Yes, well, that could be me and my enthusiasms. And the inner drive is ?not a mistake.? But what can the crossline omens add to this basic sense? How can they help to open its ?deeper significance??

Inner Center (21.2 > 38.2 : 37.5 > 22.5). Accept this blessing and use it to care for the Myriad Beings. Approach the altar. If you confront the ghosts that haunt this dwelling, you will meet the Hidden Lord of the Crooked Path. What you have to offer may feel small, but completing the ritual of union will open the Way. Co-operate with the on-going process of change.

The images here come from the ?Relating Pair? 37:38 and they are reversed. This, too, is a sort of xiangshu move that is focused on the (ili) sense of interpreting of words and phrases, though the moral principles might differ from the received Confucian sense. These omens might suggest several things: that I must first reach out to the real inner issue, ?the dwelling and the ghosts that haunt it?? - the problem of security, family on the ?inside? and exile to the shadow lands on the ?outside.? This will speak to my own sense of being ?assaulted and cast out? every time I appear in this community, and to the fact that I might be carrying something that is excluded and ?haunts the dwelling,? an important and rather angry ancestor, I must attempt to ?turn conflict into creative tension? by recognizing both the polarity AND the connection.

The first move is to focus on ?care for the myriad beings? (37.5) and approach the dwelling altar where we are united.

By doing so, I might meet the ?Hidden Lord of the Crooked Path? (38.2). Now, this is a ?mythic amplification? of the phrase usually translated as something like ?he meets a lord in a narrow street.? The ?mythic? sense of figure 38 (which is also the Relating Figure here) led me to see each of the lines as embodying a connection with an excluded spirit-figure. Who can I meet? The image probably refers to Yu the Great, certainly a lord of the crooked ways, and it might also refer to Bradford, whose matrix certainly does open some of those hidden ways. The realization line (22.5) shows someone at a marriage ceremony offering gifts that may feel very ?little? but nevertheless make the connection. So, here is my ?gift;? though it might be ?little,? it does have the quality of pure undyed silk and you can inscribe whatever characters on it you wish. It simply offers a sort of ?ground? for further writing.

If I look at the Karmic Nodes, I can see some very interesting personal connections. This might be another way xiangshu or structural analysis crosses over to help with the ?significance? of the words and images. I will not go into the personal associations, but I can say that they all have to do with painful experiences of being excluded and the need to rouse new energy to find a way to carry and communicate what is excluded or repressed. They would ?speak? to me about the need to limit my own negative feelings and experiences and ?make the offering,? even if it is ?little.? What I call the Change Operators show the effective inner attitude or strategy is ?organizing the armies? (7) coupled with an outer attitude or strategy of ?harmonizing the people? (13).

This would then focus us on the Relating Figure, 38. My sense of this Relating Figure (Jigua) is that it is ?the sea in which the primary figure swims,? the atmosphere, ambiance, problem or goal that it ?belongs to? (ji). Now, to my mind, figure 38 is a lot more than just ?discord in the house? or ?oppositional thinking.?

Outside the dwelling, exposed to the night, Diverging points at a bright presence in the night sky, the star mansions of the Ghost Cart (Yugui) that presides over punishments, executions and dire fates. This is the sun and moon in opposition and, metaphorically, the minister cut off and exiled from the royal presence. It suggests the Li Sao, the Nine Songs, an intense and shamanic lament of the virtuous minister betrayed by schemers and cast out by his prince. It is all things outside, wai: isolation, danger, foreigners, wilderness, punishments, the Demon Country. It suggests strange visions, alternate realities and chance meetings with important spirit beings. It combines the themes of discord, punishment and exile with the difficult voyage and traveling in alternate realities.
This is the world of the Wu Gui, the shamans or Intermediaries who deal with angry ghosts and spirits outside the normal, beyond the frontiers. Phonetically and thematically, this links with the cyclic character marking the last day of the ten-day week, a day on which divinations were performed for ghost signs and demons coming from the Four Hidden Lands, excluded ancestors and ghosts who could bring misfortune upon the living. A related character portrays waters running from the Four Directions or Hidden Lands into the center, the Earth Pit and its Underworld or Ghost River. It represents the yin aspect of water, linked with the ghost world and the appearance of a certain set of star clusters or mansions.

The transforming lines center on the terms ?see? (jian) and ?meet?, (yu), carrying through the sense of perceiving the strange suggested by the Name of this hexagram. The Figure as a whole is an extended pun on gui, ?ghost,? which describes the spirits of the newly dead. When a spirit returns (gui) it first becomes a ghost (gui), a human with a demon head. The breath of the Gui is insidious and harmful. Daoists see these as souls who are continuing rebirth as slaves of passion. The word is a curse, directly linked to the Hidden Lands and to all who are outside and foreign. Dealing with these spirits, transforming the negative power of the ghost world into a creative tension with the living is essential to the continuation of human life and culture. This is the job of the wandering sage, the one who voyages outside the norms, the Wu Gui.

In a way, that is me; in another way it might be the way of seeing things that I am somehow carrying. It might also be the attitude of polarizing issues and seeing the ?other? as something to be cast out and excluded. So the ?advice? here might speak to all of us.

Diverging describes your situation in terms of opposition and discord, being outcast. The way to deal with it is to change potential conflict into dynamic tension. Separate and clarify what is in conflict while acknowledging the essential connection. Small things are important now. Be flexible and adaptable in all your affairs. That generates meaning and good fortune by releasing transformative energy. Be open to strange occurrences, sudden visions and non-normal ways of seeing things.

I hope this helps to show how this material might be used and what it can bring to a divination and its after effects. In consultations, I personally have experienced time and again how this material opens a deep perspective on things that can have a real ?healing effect? by connecting us to the ?magical and transformative inner world? of Change.

Best wishes

Stephen

 

[hilary]

I've had the same experience - for myself and the people I read for. In that context, it can be quite disconcerting: tentatively sharing things while having no clue how or whether they might make any sense at all, and being greeted by stunned recognition. No question: in divination, this stuff works.

Stephen, what strikes me most about your reading here is actually how different it is from the way I'd approach it. Given that more or less the entire 'tool kit' I use in readings started life in your books, this comes as quite a surprise!

I'd start with the hexagram names. Biting through opposition. To me, that would be 'what it says' in simplest form.

My first thought on 38 (after 'hello, Stephen's leitmotif again') would be to connect it with your feeling of alienation here and being pushed 'outside', not allowed 'in'. As you say. 38 for me (having spent most of my life on the outside of groups) can also mean the reaction against the Dwelling and a personal desire to be different. So I'd think that - assuming this reading was for yourself - what you have here is an opportunity to bite through it all.

Biting Through I think of as a process of 'taking in' - getting your head/jaws around something in order to process it, work down to the essence. So... could you be being asked here to chew through Chris's ideas (spot the Polarity...), encompass the system, and create a unity at the end of it? (If so, I'm almightily glad this is not my reading. My teeth aren't up to it.)

I've an idea this is how you have worked with other sets of ideas initially alien to your own: enlarged the 'dwelling' accordingly. Taking in and even nourishing yourself on the opposition: could that be the first step?

Change patterns/ operators: inspired by personal sense of mission and something to be achieved come what may; worked out in practice, though, through finding common ground with this very disparate bunch, overriding tribal differences. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it..."

21,2 Getting stuck in. No call to stand back and sniff things first. Suspending your 'better judgement' for a while in the service of your greater enthusiasms.

Looking or aspiring towards 22,5: maybe the enthusiasm and inner will is such that the scale of the offering is irrelevant? This line pair together sound to me like reassurance from Yi about what you have to offer her/him. Neither ideas nor relations have to be comprehensive or perfect to be Beautiful.

38,2. Or meeting him in a long, narrow forum thread. The meeting in the narrow street is coincidental, potentially awkward, very hard to avoid, and no bad thing.
37,5. A benevolent ideal to inspire your approach and meeting! And being aware of yourself in this role might make the approach a lot easier.

What I haven't managed so far is to find some necessary connection between the lines that come more from your perspective, in 37-8, and the lines of the immediate challenge to you, in 21-2. That is, I haven't found a simple, unifying theme for the 'square game'. Anyone?

The more I go on here, the more my own small rolls of silk look to me like a very weedy pocket handkerchief. Maybe - hopefully - they show the possibility of 'adopting' your ideas to enlarge one's own personal Dwelling. Some radical work on the foundations, a lot of dividing walls knocked out, and plenty of exercise ahead in climbing all those stairs to the new storeys...

Anyway, to mix another metaphor, thank you for lending me the toolkit.

 

[hilary]

P.S. Almost forgot to ask: please, what is the crooked path, where does it lead, and are there references to it in a Chinese source somewhere?

 

[misterwu]

Hi Hilary

To me, your observations are mostly quite good and I do not see a big contradiction. I personally tend to kick things up (or down) to a mythological level very early on, so I tend to take a different view of the central theme of 38, seeing it not first as a reaction against the dwelling (though getting kicked out may well be the start of the journey) but as a sort of "call" to go out to the borders to find out what is there, what may be haunting things. It may be that here we move across the border of the personal into the more collective. And it may be that our differences as diviners is that I move to that level more instinctively. Thus I might see the reading as speaking both to me and to those within the dwelling.

I do not really understand your questions about the "necessary connection" and the "unifying theme." Could it be that the question of biting through here (yes, eating and digesting things, but also setting up the Tiger eat away the corruption - 21 sets up the Tiger's Mouth in 27) is directly referred to the problems of the "inside and the outside", what is accepted and what is rejected, to emerge in the tentative gifts that announce a marriage?

In any case I will post another message talking about my own perspective on what Chris' work sets off in me.

all best

Stephen

 

[misterwu]

Perhaps I can defuse some of the polarization here by articulating what I personally do and do not find valuable in Chris?s work and why. I admit I find his ?written personality? arrogant and abusive, but this may come from a long-term lack of recognition, something that his mode of communicating reinforces. Vicious circle, as they say. I know about it well.

First off - my first encounter with Chris was when he sent me an email telling me that he had already completely explained the ?Pairs? I was working with. I did visit his website and looked at the work, which I simply did not find helpful at the time. I wrote him back thanking him for the suggestion, but indicating that, at the moment, I was focusing my attention on EOC word-meanings.

Now, I feel the ideas of ?recursion? and the process of what I might call ?transforming emotion? are very interesting. It is just that I cannot really accept the idea that neuro-cognitive mapping of these areas is sufficient unto itself. This too is a language and a logic that is very culture specific, no matter what it is trying to express ? late 20th and early 21st century academic brain scientist?s language. To me, it does not explain or take in vast areas of my own experience. I suppose I am still stuck in the old mind-brain controversy, but my experience is that a lot of what we call mind or spirit is somehow outside our physiological brain. The old Chinese fellows called this shen.

Now, to me, one of the reasons this language is inadequate is that it ignores what has been called ?the primacy of the psychic image.? That outmoded thinker C. G. Jung made a very interesting point ? ALL our experience presents itself to us as a psychic image, sensory or otherwise; the image triggers the emotions or feelings. So I do not quite accept the ?ladder? Chris refers to so often as an accurate description of the hierarchy of experience.

Then comes the problem of language, words and ?culture.? We are all shaped by our language to a certain degree (indeed deconstructionists would say our identity is a product of our language). This might be why knowing and using other languages than our mother tongue might help us to get a certain degree of reflection on how our identity is put together. It certainly has helped me. And the language, I would say particularly the written language, somehow carries the culture. We cannot get out of culture, and scientific language with its attempt to be universal and objective is no exception. What we can do, however, is to let another culture permeate us to a certain degree, so that it points out the shadows, lacunae or marginalized areas in our own, ?compensating? them by activating what we have repressed or ignored. We in the west have repressed a lot in the development of our essentially positivist attitudes and our heroic egos ? Jung called it our ?greedy piracy.?

Which leads us to Yijing. I feel that, tactically, neuro-cognitive modelling is an imaginative subset of Yijing, not the other way around. Like other perspectives, we can and should pick it up when it works as a tool to understanding and put it down when it tries to usurp the entire field of observation. And, like it or not, ?ancient Chinese culture? and language is an integral part of that field. It cannot be simply marginalized. We certainly do not have to turn into Chinese ? indeed it would not be a good idea at the moment - but we do have to understand something of the culture that gave birth to the Yi, for it has something to say to us, now, that is in my opinion of great importance. It is a kind of ?mirror,? to use Jung?s term, in which we can see ourselves and, most importantly, our shadows, what we, individually and culturally, have marginalized and repressed, often quite violently. Just ask any witch or diviner!

What does it offer? Access to the ?mythological mind? (our primary mind) and its shaping capacities; a way to understand the symbols generated by that mind that Helmut Wilhelm called ?image-concepts? uniting the two halves of our ?thinking?; a way to see ourselves and our experience in a non-causal way, what Jung called synchronicity; a sense of the nature and importance of acting from a non-ego base; a truly vast matrix in which the events of culture are ?inscribed," a matrix that gives us access to the archetypal depths of our own imaginations; and a way or technique to talk with that ?sage-mind? individually and creatively. But all of this, to my mind, depends to a certain extent on accepting and exploring the ?culture? that gave it birth. In this way, we can let it act on us, rather than simply imposing our own models on it.

The people who have contributed to this community have done extraordinary work in this respect. If we can accept and understand that work, rather than turning it into another ?empire of meaning,? I feel we can go a long way towards opening the Gates of Change. Anything I have offered here is in that spirit, as is my consistent refusal to be involved in what I have called a ?battle of the jealous gods? ? a phrase from the descriptions of the Bardo Worlds where each being tries (continually unsuccessfully, of course) to annihilate the ?Other? and establish supremacy.

By the way, the title of my book Total I Ching was a publisher?s suggestion, the original title was I Ching: Myths for Change. I like the title, but it is simply meant to express the fact that I was attempting to re-unite the separated parts of the tradition, what we might call Zhouyi and Yijing, putting the ?old? world and the newer one into contact and letting them deconstruct each other. Part of doing that was my exploration of the nature of the ?words? as multifaceted ?keys?, having all their meanings present at any given time; part of it was reviving what I saw as a very old way of ?thinking in pairs?, of trying to hold the opposites in one thought on the most specific levels I could find. This is not meant to suggest that I have all the answers, just that I feel these are fairly basic tools in exploring further.

Best wishes

Stephen

 

[misterwu]

Hi again Hilary

As far as I can see, the crooked path points at the Steps of Yu. Remember too this is 38, and 39, with its comings and goings, implications of dynastic change and all that water is one of his major sites. It leads to "deliverance from suffering" (40) and the emergence into the city from the wilderness.

best wishes

Stephen

 

[chrislofting]

As I have said before, Stephen, you are starting too far up the ladder and so in the context of coming up with the "TOTAL I CHING" way out of your depth.

As for shen etc, as our knowledge has developed re our species nature and our consciousness nature so the attempts by the ancients to describe reality through anthropomorphism of 'out there' have slowly reduced the bounds of that circle to now be focused 'in here'. Consider:

"Nature, 2002 Sep 19;419(6904):269-270

Neuropsychology: Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions.

Blanke O, Ortigue S, Landis T, Seeck M.

'Out-of-body' experiences (OBEs) are curious, usually brief sensations in which a person's consciousness seems to become detached from the body and take up a remote viewing position. Here we describe the repeated induction of this experience by focal electrical stimulation of the brain's right angular gyrus in a patient who was undergoing evaluation for epilepsy treatment. Stimulation at this site also elicited illusory transformations of the patient's arm and legs (complex somatosensory responses) and whole-body displacements (vestibular responses), indicating that out-of-body experiences may reflect a failure by the brain to integrate complex somatosensory and vestibular information."

These sorts of neurological 'anomolies' have elicited thousands of pages of text on the 'spiritual' realm - what the ancients would label as 'shen'.

Have a look through the research on temporal lobe 'thunderstorms' where such events elicit vivid images (sets off the object oriented neurons in this area) such that there is a marked focus on 'instant conversions' to spiritual perspectives as the individual's mind goes off to find ways to create that original event -- an event from neurological sources, not from 'out there'.

Another point: our instincts and habits are encoded into the input areas of our neurons. This reflects the efficency of our species-nature in adapting to context in that this form of encoding allows context to PUSH us. The development of consciousness is POST speciesness such that our minds have been 'puzzled' by feelings of being 'guided', a sense of being 'pushed' and have come up with stories of a spiritual world etc. (as given earlier, see http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/angels.html) - what this misses is the level of refinement in our instincts where a very small change in a context can elicit a strong 'vibe' in an individual that appears to the mind to be 'irrational' whereas in fact an ancient instinct has been set off and so the body swings into action and the mind is left floundaring, eventually following along as it has no choice!

Your statement that:

> Now, I feel the ideas of ?recursion? and the process of what
> I might call ?transforming emotion? are very interesting. It
> is just that I cannot really accept the idea that
> neuro-cognitive mapping of these areas is sufficient unto
> itself. This too is a language and a logic that is very
> culture specific, no matter what it is trying to express ?
> late 20th and early 21st century academic brain scientist?s
> language. To me, it does not explain or take in vast areas
> of my own experience. I suppose I am still stuck in the old
> mind-brain controversy, but my experience is that a lot of
> what we call mind or spirit is somehow outside our
> physiological brain. The old Chinese fellows called this
> shen.
>

shows a lack of research into the spiritual expressed through the brain. IDM recognises the roots of the spiritual in group protection, as a feeling of integrating the group in that there appears to be two main instincts at work in social species - (a) each sensation is POTENTIALLY meaningful and (b) all sensations are POTENTIALLY linked together. This is basic survival 101 in that it stops one becoming dinner for some other life forms.

Consciousness has exaggerated that sense, anthropomorphised it, removed the term POTENTIALLY, and with the other mentioned 'sensations' created a realm that is unecessary in understanding our being - both as a species and as a conscious species. That said, our consciousness IS creating a 'mind made' reality in the form of a hybrid one made-up of the material universe and our idealism.

Furthemore, the language used in all of this has its roots in categorising the dynamics of emotions from other neuron-dependent life forms to a degree where it can explain well the 'vast areas of [your] experiences'.

> Now, to me, one of the reasons this language is inadequate
> is that it ignores what has been called ?the primacy of the
> psychic image.? That outmoded thinker C. G. Jung made a very
> interesting point ? ALL our experience presents itself to us
> as a psychic image, sensory or otherwise; the image triggers
> the emotions or feelings. So I do not quite accept the
> ?ladder? Chris refers to so often as an accurate description
> of the hierarchy of experience.
>

This is understandable - to accept it means your whole universe in your head has some problems and as such would be in need of a severe clean-up.

If you read the literature, and the IDM material, you would see the passage of data from 'out there' through senses into the brain and encoded into the generic distinctions, the FEELINGS, of WHAT/WHERE, objects/relationships and the overall set of qualities derivable from recursion of these dichotomies into a rich set of qualities to be labelled for a specific context - e.g. Analytical Psychology (and the MBTI etc etc). - the IDM qualities are the foundations for any specialisation, and that includes the works of Jung, Freud, and mnay other specialists in the field of psychology and psychiatry.

The development path from sense to brain goes through a LOT of hierarchy and in the realm of instincts does not need to reach the brain other than recognition of the response (as in "why the hell did I say THAT?")

Our consciousness is a PART of our being and operates on a delay where actions take place that the mind follows but never leads - our speciesness is the source of the WHOLE through its IMMEDIATE responses to stimulus via the hard-coded instincts or the soft-coded habits. Our species-experiences are holistic, immediate, but our conscious experiences are not, they are stretched out over time since that is how the parts nature works; it takes a spectrum of the moment, stretches it out over time, refines it, and the re-transmits it in the form of language, SERIAL language. No serial, no consciousness but still speciesness. Thus a hexagram from the conscious perspective is stretched from general to particular. A hexagram from the species perspective is more a rich quality, immediate, whole, no cuts, no 'lines' etc. - it is our consciousness that imposes the lines and in doing so can cut-off a lot - but in analysis of the I Ching THROUGH IDM we can identify the qualities represented in that we can map the method of their derivation - recursion.

As our consciousness has developed so we have moved from a perspective that was GENERAL, APPROXIMATE, STRONGLY FIGURATIVE in language, and especially focused on identifying things by IMPLICATIONS stemming from pattern matching that reflected a degree of using ANYTHING available at the moment IN GENERAL to try and define something IN PARTICULAR. Thus a range of associations were made that spanned what today we call specialisations in that the lack of specialisations ment no PRECISE identification.

This realm of the implicit in the brain is strongly geometric in perspective and as such meaning is derived from reading charts, spreads, stone patterns and anything else (even tea-leaves) to try and identify and predict.

As our collectives have developed, so the precision focus moved from the geometric to the algebraic, from the field to the point, from dimensions to the dimensionless, and so an increase in precision, to EXPLICIT identifications, to creation of definite universals. BUT the precision issue, the extremes in consciousness, have made us too precise, and so too fragmented in thinking to a degree where many cannot cope. - but fear not, since the increase in universals leads to an increase in efficiency so individuals start to use the same algorithms and so 'sameness' develops to a degree where a phase transition can take place. IOW there is no need to 'go back' in that all that is needed to understand the IC IN TOTAL is already here.

Jung, Freud, etc etc all worked from APPROXIMATIONS but with the work from neurosciences etc so we can be more precise and in doing so 'speed up' the phase transition state.

> Then comes the problem of language, words and ?culture.? We
> are all shaped by our language

...you see, you are stuck on this level of analysis. Go deeper into IDM and meet the ONE language of ALL neuron-dependent life forms in the format of the set of generic qualities that form the foundations of all analogies, all metaphors, and so all languages. At that level there is no culture, only the species and so the qualities are true 'universals' in that they fit into any context the species can come up with.

The mapping of the qualities to hexagrams allows for each hexagram to be FELT free of any particular context such that with experience there can develop an immediate communication of context-to-individual without words, just feelings, resonance. The categories, the feelings, to be learnt are small but their combinations allow for extension and their application to the infinite number of possible contexts means a rich form of communication is possible PRIOR to the use of the spoken/written word. These feelings then work as feedback in refining our understanding of the IC not as a uniquely Chinese text but as a methodology for interpreting reality for the whole species, for all collectives.

No matter how hard you will try, to achieve an understanding of the 'TOTAL I CHING' you will have to go through the IDM material in that it is the only way to COMPLETE a specialisation - you have to step out of the specialist box, and so into the generalist box to acquire some 'fresh blood' to continue - otherwise one becomes decadent and sterile and if not careful folds in upon oneself.

Chris.

 

[misterwu]

But you see, I simply do not accept the idea that IDM is not a specialist box in itself. Much of what you say is quite interesting, but I keep coming back to the idea that first off we have to recognize the "otherness" of these complexes and paths and talk about them in specific ways, using the language that THEY propose. This takes us back into the worlds and perspectives that IDM so glibly abandons. That is how we "make soul" or real imagination and put ourselves in the position of the therapeutes, those who "served the gods," not reduced them to abstractions of brain patterns. And to me, at least, this traditional world of gods and spirits is an important and valuable place: it is, in Jung's world, the "god in our disease," the return of the culturally repressed. So why not go there and let your language be changed by the experience, rather than reducing the experience to a set of abstractions seen in academic papers (and, yes, I am aware of them). The direct experience of "spirit" and the Way is not just an illusion, it is an experience. Why not use your knowledge to look at the individual reality of this experience rather than reducing it to a scientific abstraction. To my mind, that would make the pathways you are outlining come alive and mean something to us other than a theory that is being pushed down our throats at all cost, for whatever reasons. That way you do not "become decadent and sterile and fold in upon yourself".

best wishes

Stephen

 

[lenardthefast]

Hi Stephen,

I hope that some of the immediate foregoing posts do not indicate that you are considering no longer posting here?

This thread reminds me of Tarot trump nr. 14, Temperance, in that the ongoing process is alchemical in nature. Out of the melding/transformation of disparate ideas, we may actually reach the gold!...and, isn't that why we are all gathered here in cyberspace? Provided by the generous efforts of Hilary, thank you very much.

Namaste,

Leonard

 

[hilary]

Hi Stephen,

One of the first things I learned about Hexagram 38 was that you could do all manner of interesting things with the polarity, but not - I think - defuse it.

...maybe the contentious issue of what is a subset of what is also a 37-38 question?...

I also am quite sure there is more to experience than brain function. The experiment Chris cites proves, as far as I can see, only that the brain is a gateway to consciousness. Neurology can work its way steadily closer to showing that spiritual terms to describe experience are not necessary for a complete explanation, and that is enough to make them irrelevant to the scientific mindset. (Which I am not about to use my computer and internet connection to bash - too much sense of irony.)

But I am not much good on this grand scale - all too aware that I'm not a scientist, for one thing.

What is really interesting me now is that crooked path. What are you pointing to here? Do you think that the simple 'lane' in the Chinese was a reference at the time to a myth or tradition of a crooked path? Or are you expanding beyond 'authorial intent' (something I'm not particularly attached to) to connect into another mythical or psychological system? And if so... I'd love to know more about it.

Well, that's probably a fair indication of the scale on which my brain works...

Now I'll take a deep breath and try to assimilate Chris's last post.

(And also email the web host about getting extra bandwidth this month!)

 

[Sparhawk]

<BLOCKQUOTE><HR SIZE=0><!-Quote-!><FONT SIZE=1>Quote:</FONT>

'Out-of-body' experiences (OBEs) are curious, usually brief sensations in which a person's consciousness seems to become detached from the body and take up a remote viewing position. Here we describe the repeated induction of this experience by focal electrical stimulation of the brain's right angular gyrus in a patient who was undergoing evaluation for epilepsy treatment. Stimulation at this site also elicited illusory transformations of the patient's arm and legs (complex somatosensory responses) and whole-body displacements (vestibular responses), indicating that out-of-body experiences may reflect a failure by the brain to integrate complex somatosensory and vestibular information."<!-/Quote-!><HR SIZE=0></BLOCKQUOTE>

All fair and dandy, it only explains that some OBEs can be externally induced in the lab. It does not explain though the spatial geometry of the experience for the subject. And said difficulty of explanation is compounded the farther away, from a body perspective, the experience takes you. Unless, of course, every visual perspective in our world is somehow encoded in our DNA and we are just accessing frames of that 3D movie.

Chris, I believe that by now everybody in every single known, English speaking, Yi board on the Web knows how passionate you are about your views and theories. You've really made a strong case for them and will continue to do so, if past experience is any clue for the future. Personally, in what regards to them, I remain an observer, not a convert. And if I know myself a little, I'd say that conversion is unlikely. Still, I accept your views for what they are and I respect them. Also, I would still jump to buy your book, if it ever sees the light of day.

At this point in time, a cuestion remains in my mind: have you ever quantified the number of people, in this and other forums, who actually agrees with ALL of your work? I realize that to you we must be a bunch ostriches in the utmost of denials - perhaps not hopelessly, otherwise you would have stopped writing a long time ago - but still, I would venture to say that for most you are still 'the' green alien entity who comes to steal their souls and wonder.

It really takes a special kind of mind to see everything from a materialistic point of view, where all can be explained in neurons, chemical interactions, DNA sequences, binary code, congnitive science, etc. I know, perhaps in purposedly denial, that I'll never be part of it. However, as with everything else in life, I can say that to be part of that, or any other minority, does not automatically validates it as veracious (and that goes for majorities too, mind you...) That's a practical fact that even you must accept and deal with.

I know you'll beg to differ though...

Luis

 

[dobro p]

Chris keeps talking about the way the brain's wired; Stephen keeps talking about experience. Jung talked about the archetypes, and that idea doesn't seem very far from Chris' IDM idea in some ways, except that Jung talked about archetypes as the foundation patterns of mind, not brain.

Mind, brain - for me, it doesn't matter. I'm looking for better ways to understand and use the Yi. Stephen's 'Total I Ching' helps me do that by adding a lot of context and important mythic background to the meanings of the lines and hexagrams. Chris' description of the difference between 5 and 9 above was really interesting for me as well - it got me looking at those hexagrams through other eyes (and I think they're eyes that see something). Stephen draws on the cultural context of the Yi, and Chris taps into the structural basis of it - it's like he's taken Jung's idea of archetypes and said something like: "Yeah, but what are the archetypes made of? Let's do a subatomic analysis of them."

I'd like someone to bridge the gap. I'd like the third to arrive. I'd like a synthesis. I'm not asking for me, am I? lol

 

[dobro p]

"I'm not asking for me, am I? lol"

I'm not asking for much, am I? (now it's your turn to laugh).

 

[misterwu]

Yep, Hilary, you are right. To me the point of 38 is to set up a structure where difference (indeed polarity) is recognised but seen as part of a connection, an axis. Jung described the archetypes as manifesting on a sort of spectrum from psychoid - that would be the "material" side or "brain" - to the spiritual/imaginative - that would be the images and the "mind." So the "structure" comes from both ends and includes both. You can talk about the basic structure from either side, atoms or images. It is certainly obvious which end I have made my priority, and which is Chris' end. But they do not have to try to annihilate each other. I too think some of the connections Chris makes are extremely interesting and am willing to see this perspective as a part of things, though not my own part. But not the whole.

As far as out-of body experiences go, certainly they can be lab induced. But I have had a few at critical moments in life and I wouldn't want to simply reduce them to chemicals moving around. Even though the chemicals may indeed be moving around, they cannot explain the unique quality and value of the experience. To me, this is a metaphor for the misuse of the scientific perspective - the individual experience, the "words" and "language" that give real context, are lost. It's like looking through one-way (polarized) glass. Isn't there a way we can see things from both ends without losing either?

No, I ain't gonna stop posting.

More on the "crooked path" coming up soon.

best wishes

Stephen

 

[frandoch]

Regarding the OBEs stimulated in the brain in the laboratory.

Surely all our 'real' experiences are the result of our perception based on electrical patterns in the brain. Which is exactly what is occurring when our brain cells are stimulated with electrodes. The end result's the same. It's theoretically possible to mimic any series of electrical impulses - to exactly match those impulses which tell us there is a reality 'out there'. We wouldn't know the difference.

So re the stimulated OBEs, why aren't they just as real or unreal as the real (or unreal) ones LOL ?

Michael F.

 

[candid]

The mind which perceives in only one direction isn?t capable of seeing beyond or peripherally around it?s focus. Someone who has studied Yi for 40 years and has yet to witness the ?magic? of synchronicities will never see beyond it?s self in this lifetime. Regarding one?s way as not only superior to other?s way but exclusive in it?s correctness is deaf, his ears disappear. So why argue?

 

[hilary]

Well, so far we're getting a list of things Stephen can't persuade Chris of and vice versa. This could be the exposition to an interesting development, you never know...

 

[heylise]

"temporal lobe 'thunderstorms' where such events elicit vivid images" ..
an event from neurological sources, not from 'out there'".

To me this is no proof it comes from the brain. The thunderstorm might just as well cause the borders of/in the brain to collapse, giving a wider view. I am quite sure that what the brain can understand or produce is only a tiny part of all there is.

I also liked Chris' 5 and 9, very often I come across interesting things in his work. I just don't manage to read more than one or two paragraphs per post, and when I come across personal remarks, I stop reading and move on to the next post.

And the miracle finally happened: I actually got hold on Stephen's way of dealing with the Yi! And I like it! I am enjoying (and experiencing) the images.
I am not going to use it on its own though, but in combination with a 'sober' one (only referring to the images).

LiSe

 

[chrislofting]

Hi Luis,

you wrote:
>
>
> All fair and dandy, it only explains that some OBEs can be
> externally induced in the lab. It does not explain though
> the spatial geometry of the experience for the subject. And
> said difficulty of explanation is compounded the farther
> away, from a body perspective, the experience takes you.
> Unless, of course, every visual perspective in our world is
> somehow encoded in our DNA and we are just accessing frames
> of that 3D movie.
>

My point overall is that there is no need for the 'out side of us' hypothesis, so favoured when dealing with the still 'unknown' - most have no appreciation of the capabilites of us as a species and from that as a conscious species.

If you focus on such research in neurosciences/psychology as that on identical twins you find an inkling of something connecting at the 'core' level regardless of distance/time, IOW a pure sense of the 'immediate', the now. The key word here is PURE in that when we focus on crystals, in particular the old 'raw' types use for radio crystals, we find that their pure form, ment that the use of 'natural' axis to cut along (call it 'X/Y') was disfavoured in that these sorts of crystals would jump frequencies 'at random'. Avoid the natural cut and the problem was removed. The suggestion being that the now seperated crystals in fact were not such that actions on one, regardless of distance, caused some form of change in the other.

Now lets focus on claims in such work as Sheldrake and note that in such experiments on lab rat populations and the claim that 'train one and the other learn quicker' out pops one factor - inbreeding, IOW the rats are 'pure'.

Now focus on some 'edge' Science perspectives on cancer cells where the claims are that take a cell group, seperate into two, 'independent' groups and kept far apart (in vitro) and there seems to be some form of 'communication' going on - again note that the cells have lost their sense of specialisation and become 'general' - a bit like stem cells in reverse! This 'general' nature reflects SAMENESS and so again 'purity'.

One property of a developing sense of the universal is that as more and more individuals take on 'best practice' behaviours, and so become more 'same' and so more representative of a universal, so a phase transition can occur where all of the individuals 'join up' to be 'one' - this is reflected in gas into liquid, liquid into solid (steam to water, water to ice) - and it reflected at the core level of particle physics in the concept of the Bose-Einstein Condensate (which BTW requires it to be REALLY cold! - so the focus here is on fractal behaviours, same GENERAL pattern, LOCAL differences)

All of this focus on 'purity' and 'phase transitions' etc etc reflect characteristics commonly associated with the spiritual and yet there is no 'spiritual' in any of the above, it is all 'basic' nature of power laws and phase transitions - all reflected in the brain. (for IDM concepts and categorisations of fundamental particles see http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/symmetry.html)

Thus 'synchronous' events can be mapped to 'like-mindedness'; education can do this (same school, culture etc increases the chances of running into someone at, say, a bookshop where the context alone can remind you of that other person and 'loe and behold' they walk through the door!) - but so can 'purity' at the genetic level.

What the purity focus allows for overall is communication by resonance; instruments tuned to the same frequency can resonate when one of them is played. Thus INSTINCTS encoded in all members of the species can allow for one individual to 'set off' the instincts in others - resonance - without consciousness realising what is going on. (gets into such things as people living together developing same body cycles etc)

At the consciousness levels we have states where individuals making LOCAL distinctions, interacting with their immediate environment, can elicit patterns across the collective not reducable to any one individual at that moment; IOW a collective can set off behaviours of its own and more than the interactions of the parts - but that is 'random'; when we feed in the data mentioned re 'purity' and so 'sameness' then the patterns of a collective of CONSCIOUS individuals can orchestrate patterns in the collective - what we call 'flocking behaviour', reflected in the flock of birds flying around, can be managed into a group interaction etc - this is all areas either not yet investigated or under investigation.

The IDM concern is on the border areas of consciousness and speciesness and so predicts the possible use of orchestrated group dynamics, but is not focused on this SPECIALISATION, only on the GENERAL.

Neuroscience work on the brain reflects properties and methods of our SPECIES nature such that electrical 'thunderstorms' elicited over the temporal lobes 'at random' elicit 'spiritual' experiences. Knowing this, and knowing how consciousness serves to use IMAGINATION to elicit 'novel' contexts to adapt to, so orchestrated consciousness can elicit 'spiritual' experiences on demand. That also gets into eliciting OBE experiences 'on demand' rather than as a response to neural 'anomolies' - which is their ROOT cause, their SPECIES-NATURE cause.

There is still no need for a 'god' or 'spirit' world to be claimed to be at work here - it is all US and the apparent focus on 'purity', on 'sameness' that allows for these sorts of events.

A fundamental problem in our development as a conscious species has been in the fact that we have lacked knowledge about 'in here' where our consciousness operates out of the realm of the PARTICULAR and it believes that position to be 'primary', to be 'originating' and so develops the concept of idealism.

In fact, that realm of the particular is SECONDARY where the brain areas concerned with the particular develop after those of the general - the development path is from the overally integrated, the species-nature, to the overally differentiated, our consciousness-nature.

Thus the dynamics of idealism/materialism is more idealism FROM materialism and THEN a dynamic that oscillates (small world networks from 'egalitarian' to 'aristocratic' and back etc) to give us a hybrid reality but one that is OVERALL increasingly aristocratic, idealist - IOW as Science comes up with 'best' algorithms and formulas so universals form and we all head for that 'phase transition' by all adopting the 'best practice' behaviours and so all become 'same', despite the push to be 'different' - and so reflect the concept of enantiodromia : yin into yang, yang into yin....

Nowhere in all of this is there any requirement for some 'external' source of the spiritual etc. The basic properties and methods of differentiating and integrating, combined with time and oscillations, allow for all that we perceive. What many miss is the DEPTH that we are dealing with, a depth well reflected in the IC, but way beyond 'eight trigrams and sixty-four hexagrams'!

The realm of the integrated is the realm of linking things together IN GENERAL but it is the realm of the differentiated that the 'phase transitions' occur in that the intensity in the focus, the energy involved leads to collapse or 'transcendence' an that is all US, our neurology at work - basic properties of complexity/chaos etc etc etc - revolution and evolution at work.

FROM there comes the issues of what we can do with our consciousness and one of the things we can do is learn the feelings of the ONE languge, the language of our species-nature in the form of basic feelings, that allow us to resonate 'as one' - that means removing all words other than basic terms to aid in differentiating the core feelings (blend, bond, bound, bind etc) and from there get as close as possible to CONSCIOUS interactions at an almost immediate level with any moment, any context.

THEN can come the words to give 'fine details'. Resonance means EMPATHY, to be empathic 'instinctively' means to be one with the FEELINGS without labels since the act of labelling is an act of differentiating and so pushes AWAY X from all else. The feelings allow us to INTEGRATE WITHIN what has been differentiated and so elicit a STRONG sense of SELF, BUT ALSO OF OTHERS.

I do not need a belief in anything/one outside of our species to develop these forms of interaction. I DO need a belief in, an understanding of, our species-nature, that which links us all regardless of local differences in cultures. IOW species is the ground from which we work, our humanity can move mountains when focused and needs no additional 'aid'.

IDM allows for establishing an understanding of the GENERAL set of qualities that are used in information processing. FROM THERE specialisations develop but knowing the properties and methods of the general (as in inevitable development paths, phase transition points etc) so these specialisations can be refined as metaphors reflecting the general. No 'spirit' world required other than that of our own making, the hybrid that is the materialism of the universe mixed with the idealism of our consciousness.

As to the question of 'how many people agree with your work' - I have no idea. The feedback I get is enough to lead me to believe I am not 'nuts', more 'pioneering' and so considered to be 'nuts' by many! ;-)

In the realm of creativity, there is innovation and adaptation. In developing an education/collective etc the adaptive elements are sourced more from the core of that collective, its 'stable' areas where 'bits of paper' assert that one 'resonates' with the core perspectives of that collective. At these points one loses one's innovativeness in that the source of innovations is on borders, the realm of complexity/chaos and so of emergence; as you move 'in land' so one starts to 'lose it' as one becomes more stable, established in the collective and so 'still' and so defending one's faith against the attacks of others - very 12. - and so 'young' professors start to lose their innovative edge as they mature; they forget that change is inevitable and so one needs to keep on the edge to keep being innovative - which reflects our current socioeconomic dynamics of capitalism - lots of innovations, many of which are short term sellers, long term cr#p! - and so a need to not go too far, to be 'discerning', to maintain a level of 'perculating' along rather than boiling, or else experience collapse or 'transcendence', phase transition, but it is the structure of the universals, the icons of the age, that determine which way we go!

If the icons are not clear then the establishment of 'sameness' by copying etc is reduced - this reflects the transition from 'yin/yang' to T'ai Chi - if you can still see the yin/yang then you are not 'whole' (see my page http://www.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond/tao.html to cover the alchemy focus in the IC) and so the 'phase transition' will fail and all that is left are 'lumps' of fused 'bits' etc).

The whole history of alchemy reflects this unconscious influence on development, to head towards the 'phase transition' and so the transcendence point and that history such reflects the product of 'mindless' differentiating/integrating - so our consciousness has a lot of work to do to develop itself but MUST have a clear understanding of from where it came from - our species-nature.

Chris.