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heylise

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tetra-moon.jpg

In an old Europese oracle the figures are tetragrams: they consist of four lines, each of one or two dots. 'Even' and 'uneven'. They are built up from top to bottom. Anyting which will yield even and odd numbers or whatever else which can be seen as even or odd can be used for obtaining a tetragram. A dice, a handful of beans which you count, a coin for which you decide if heads or tails is odd or even.

via.gif
“Via” the road, all yang, like hexagram 1

populus.gif
“Populus”, people, all yin, like hexagram 2, the earth or the masses.

laetitia.gif
“Laetitia”, joy

LiSe
 

Sparhawk

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LiSe, before that, he also wrote "Ars Punctatoria: The I Ching and Geomancy" in The Oracle, Vol 1, Isuue 1, Spring 1995. I have them both.
 

charly

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... old Europese oracle [/URL]the figures are tetragrams: they consist of four lines, each of one or two dots. 'Even' and 'uneven'. They are built up from top to bottom. Anyting which will yield even and odd numbers or whatever else which can be seen as even or odd can be used for obtaining a tetragram. A dice, a handful of beans which you count, a coin for which you decide if heads or tails is odd or even...
LiSe:

I remember that a heavy I Ching user like A. Crowley wrote about geomancy, maybe this Liber Gaia belongs to him?

http://www.esoblogs.net/IMG/pdf_liber096FR.pdf

I remember some reports about african geomancy (1) but I don't know about the origins or relations with the YI.

Binary divination is not exclusive of chinese people, but what about the origins? Geomancy is surely prehstoric, is it originated in Africa? Maybe chinese people were anciently africans?

I go to look for my notes and post assap.

Maybe Twiligh or Luis could provide some resume on the bonds between geomancy and the Yi as presented in «Oracle» ?

Yours,


Charly

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(1) Picture is a quote form the Book of Gaia ...
 

martin

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I like this. Just checked a few holiday :cool: destinations with it (one tetragram for each destination). Simple clear unambiguous answers. A is good, B is not so good, C is horrible. Right, that's what I need, good old fashioned fortune telling.

Tried it also with the Yi and for one place it said that I had lost my horses and shouldn't go after them, or something like that. What the hell is that about, I don't have a horse! :rant:

I think I will stick with tetragrams from now on. The Yi is way too complicated and vague for a simple soul like me. :)
 

heylise

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Struggling with a computer which badly needs a doctor, so I had no time at all to do anything else but backupping and installing everything on another one.

Martin, nice that it works! I also need sometimes a clear simple yes or no.

And for a poetic in-between, without the work you have to do for the Yi, but with a bit more sophistication than this one, I use the LingQiJing. "Fate extending to where the winds and clouds conjoin", yummy. Or how about "Clusters of immortals gather etherially round the jewelled terrace.. Balmy spring days in succession have I been drunken", and more such beauties. Really gloomy ones as well, color enough.

LiSe
 

martin

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Love that, is it available for download somewhere? I seem to remember that you and Harmen were working on a translation or was that something else?

I hope you will soon find a doctor for your jewelled computer, one that is not drunk. :D
 

Sparhawk

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And for a poetic in-between, without the work you have to do for the Yi, but with a bit more sophistication than this one, I use the LingQiJing.

Hi LiSe. What do you use to cast the LingQiJing? I have refrain myself from using it seriously until I find the proper wood for the tokens.
 

heylise

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I use 12 regular coins, 4 different ones.
The Dutch before-euro coins had big copper 5-cents, that is earth, vey small siver 10-cents, that is man, and bigger silver 25-cents, that is heaven. Or lower-middle-upper line. I only count the ones with heads up.

I throw them all at once, but i don't think one by one makes any difference.

The trigraph about the extending fate was the very first one I ever got. I did not know any way out of a very difficult situation, and it gave me the 'bigger view'. After a while the situation cleared itself up.

The one about being drunk was just what came up when I opened it at random when typing the above post.

LiSe
 

fallada

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Tetragrams used for divination in afro-caribbean cults are called ‘odu’ which is the aequivalent to ‘gua’. Their tradition derives from western african region, mostly Nigeria, Benin.
Double odus (octagrams) are called ‘odu-ifa’ and their interpretation process resembles the inner-outer dichotomy of the two trigrams in a hexagram. Principally they are derived from top to bottom. Their meaning differs completely from european geomancy figures.

I’ve heard from Sateria-practioners, that there is an oral tradition, that african geomancy has been imported to china by the orisha obatala, or one of his incarnations. Personally I find this rather obscure……

The only scientific (and ethnographi)c source on the topic of Ifa-divination I know:
Bascomb, W. (1969).Ifa Divination: Communication between Gods and Manin West Africa. Bloomington: Indiana U. Press.

hello martin, this one's for you ;) :
There is a short form of divination with tetragrams, called the obi-oracle (with coconut peaces, mmmhhh), mostly used to find out if a god or spirit or ancestor would be pleased with the sacrifice and at the same time asking the spirit questions:
4 blacks: no, danger or ancestor present
3 blacks: no
2 blacks 2 white: yes
3 white 1 white: not ‘no’ – maybe (wrong question?)
4 white: yes. with pleasure

google for odu, olodu, odu-ifa, obi oracle, ifa divination

 

charly

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martin

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Thank you Fallada! I will buy a coconut tomorrow. :D
 

charly

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Sacred Texts have a whole section devoted to Africa. among other stuff:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/yor/yor03.htm

See in this document the chapter about Ifá, God of divination

Ifa, god of divination, who is usually termed the God of Palm Nuts, because sixteen palm-nuts are used in the process of divination, comes after Shango in order of eminence. The name Ifa apparently means something scraped or wiped off: he has the title of Gbangba (explanation, demonstration, proof). Ifa's secondary attribute is to cause fecundity: he presides at births, and women pray to him to be made fruitful;
YORUBA-SPEAKING PEOPLES OF THE SLAVE COAST OF WEST AFRICA
by A. B. ELLIS [1894]

Charly
 

fallada

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Charly,
the article above refers to a tradition of interpretation that differs by far from the Yorbua as described by Bascomb and as it spread from its diaspora into the modern world and so became hegemonial for the notion of african ’tetragrams’. This tradition was declared a cultural heritage by the UNESCO in 2005. The sources in the net are mostly religious sources or – to say the least - inspired religiously. Academic litertuare hardly deals with the divinatory meaning of the tetragrams – except Bascomb. This can cause severe frustration when choosing an ethnological approach.

My main intention was to create a starting point for people who come across this thread and haven’t heard about it. I’m pretty familiar with ifa divination and the sources on the net. Sorry for not expressing myself clearly and misleading you, but I’m glad to see you can see the fascination of this world.

fallada
 

fallada

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LiSe,
thank you so much for literally ‘linking’ me. I was not clever enough to realise the possible connection. Investigations starting right now ……
 

charly

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... but I’m glad to see you can see the fascination of this world.

Fallada:

I'm profane on African Geomancy not less than on European Geomancy. I wonder if the first is not only more primitive but maybe more ancient that the European. Too much times the YI users think about the YI as if there were nothing similar under the sky.

I begin to be interested in african geomancy when I see the importance given to the cowries in the chinese history and script, and cowries are used to divination by american-african people up to our times. Another primitive peoples shared the same interest in cowries.

Cowries also mean women, Venus.

As you say, the fascination is great.

Yours,

Charly
 

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