To war or not to war...that is the question

[hilary]

No - not bothered about method. I don't think it makes any difference.

Unless anyone especially cares about this?

 

[louise]

If we all ask once we get a clearer result. If some people do 3 castings, it will cloud the result. To be a valid experiment this is definately necessary.

I feel this sort of experiment was bound to occur here sooner or later. The idea has occurred to me before, only, well I never did it - so well done Val for organising it.

 

[hilary]

I'll second the thanks to Val!

Results are trickling in already (7 including Hitchhiker's), and so of course now I have another request. For those people who are including interpretations of their readings beyond 'inevitable/unlikely' etc, could I include those on the page? (Anonymously, but linked to the relevant reading.)

Thanks!

 

[suzy]

You may for mine (though I'm not sure you consider my babbling an "interpretation"!)

 

[lenardthefast]

Dear Hilary,

In response to your question you certainly may include mine!

Namaste,
Leonard

 

[kts]

What about answers we have received to the same or similar questions before this group experiment? The answer I received last week bore an interesting resemblance to the one I got today. Shall we just discuss these in the normal way, or would it help to tabulate these too - the actual questions would vary, of course, as would their dates of asking. It might be interesting to see the development of the situation as seen by I Ching.

 

[louise]

Hilary, you may include my miniscule interpretation if you wish.

 

[django]

Slightly off this thread but still relevant, two days before the twin towers attack I gave a workshop on the I Ching. At the end everybody did a reading for themselves, amazingly three quarters
of those attending got the 51st Hexagram, either as their primary or secondary hexagram.The remainder got the 36th hexagram.Of course all thought this would be a "personal" shock ie something in their private lives.I certainly learned a lesson that day that, if a group reading is done then a group answer is to be expected.[Just a personal opinion.]
Django.

 

[heylise]

In the Midaughter mailing list I posted every day a hexagram of the day. On Sept.11 that was 51.3 .. I had found a way of connecting degrees of the Zodiac with the hex-lines.

Hilary, you can add everything,
LiSe

 

[hilary]

Yes please, any other readings with the same question but a different date would go very nicely in the table. (It has just 8 rows so far.)

Thank you, Django, for the 51 story - I already knew of one or two 51s from that time besides LiSe's, but that 3/4 is remarkable. How many people were there? (Mental note to look out for clusters of answers like that in future, and ask further to find out what they're about!)

The situation here is a little different, in that we all know what is most probably coming, in fact we hardly need an oracle to tell us what is likely. So the Yi doesn't have to call our attention to one single event, and this will be a 'group reading' in some other sense.

It was certainly quite an experience to sit and divine, knowing that we were all doing the same around the globe. Rationality tells me there's no reason that should have any effect; feeling said something quite different. We should do this again.

Maybe when all the answers are in and we've had a while to look at them, this will be a good occasion for our first chat?

 

[cal val]

Django and LiSe...

I have chills from reading your posts. It gives me a whole new slant on Hexagram 36 since three members of your class got 36 that day, Django. I always saw it as "a time to hide one's light," never the extinquishing of light by another...until now. brrrrrr

Anita...

I didn't dream about JFK's assassination, I dreamed about his brother, Robert F. Kennedy's (RFK) assassination.

Hilary...

I love your suggestion about a chat. Please do set a time. The soonest I can be available on week nights is 10:30 GMT. How about setting a time this Sunday maybe? A lot of people are going to be busy Saturday...protesting.

Peace and out,

Val

 

[lenardthefast]

Hi everyone,

I am a fan of satire, and am posting a link here which through satirical means looks at the probable upcoming absurdity with cutting humor. By posting this I am not attemping to trivialise this war but thought it so spot-on that perhaps in the midst of our general feelings of melancholia we could use a bit of levity. Hope ypu enjoy it!
http://www.idleworm.com/nws/2002/11/iraq2.shtml

Namaste,
Leonard

 

[suzy]

Leonard, thanks for posting the link. I have to admit I didn't find it particularly funny, though. I sat here at the computer and played through the little simulation, and felt more and more depressed. Perhaps I just wasn't awake good yet (had just rolled out of bed).

So, Hilary....when do we get to see the results? Not rushing you, just eager!

 

[hilary]

Thanks, Leonard. 'Enjoy' isn't quite the word I would have used, but still...

OK, I've posted the results of our little experiment online: here they are. Please feel free to send extra readings in, though: having created the table on a separate page, it's nice and easy to add extra lines to it.

One thing we can safely say is that Yi hasn't provided us with neat patterns and regularities to point to and show off to our friends and family, saying 'See, I told you it worked!' There's no general agreement on likely outcomes, either.

I suspect that what we have here are descriptions of many different aspects of events: a 'group reading' in the sense that we might have to look at all the readings together to make sense of it all. I felt increasingly silly filling in the 'diviner's prediction' column, in fact, when the diviners in question began to show awareness that what they'd received wasn't categorisable in this way anyhow.

I'm rubbish at time zone conversions, and not sure whether I might not be out on Sunday evening, so I'll get back to you on chat times.

Looking forward to some comments!

 

[lenardthefast]

Hi Susy,

Satire, like Scotch whiskey, requires development of the taste buds. I actually looked upon this particular program as being more 'instructive' to the 'hawks' in our society than as 'real' satirical humour. I do have a tendency to look for the humourous side to things that I percieve as 'bad', especially in absurd times such as these, and in regard to this particular situation. Sorry that you had an adverse reaction. I am not a 'hawk' and it certainly was instructional to me as regards the possible proliferation problem. Perhaps anyone who does not see the humour could forward it to the 'hawks' on their list for the aforementioned 'instructional' purposes. Different strokes, different folks.

Namaste,
Leonard

 

[suzy]

Leonard,
I enjoy satire too. I was disappointed in myself not to be able to have a laugh at the program -- I guess I just regard it as all too likely to come true. Funnily enough (pun intended), there is a great deal in the current situation that I find hysterically humorous, though I reckon it's a kind of gallows humor. I laugh out loud at least one or twice every day at the news. Yesterday it was Colin Powell's earnest testimony that "the Afghans are learning now, just as the Japanese and Germans did in the past, that America comes in peace." It's funny because it seems that's what we've come to -- a nation has to be occupied by the U.S. to discover that we're really the good guys. To most of the world right now, Powell's statement sounds like the Borg: resistance is futile -- trust us, this is for your own good. Doesn't matter that he's actually correct (a serious, long-term occupation by American forces is just about the best thing that can happen to a country's economy and political stability).

What is so sad here is that you know and I know and most all Americans know that we really are good guys, and if other countries just "got to know us" they'd realize it. The problem is, instead of winning friends and influencing people, our foreign policy just has the effect of making us internationally obnoxious. We're still an isolationist nation vaunted into world superpower status, and we've never quite figured out how to cope with allies.

 

[suzy]

Okay, now this made me laugh!!!

http://www.theonion.com/onion3905/north_korea.html

"North Korea Wondering What It Has To Do To Attract U.S. Military Attention

PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA?As the U.S. continues to inch toward war with Iraq, a jealous
and frustrated North Korea is wondering what it has to do to attract American military
attention...."

 

[lenardthefast]

Dear Susy,

I rarely watch TV news(I have high blood pressure) and I tend to get just a tad worked up by the 'voodoo politics' extant in the world today. I certainly would have LMAO if I had seen that statement by Powell, though!
Its been my own personal observation, gleaned through sailing my last sailboat to many countries around the world, that the people in every country I visited were usually wonderful, curious, kind and compassionate. It was their blasted governments that were a PITA.
Its also been my personal experience that MOST
Americans are 'good' people; kind, generous, helpful and willing to reason, if given half a chance.
The present administration bears small resemblance to my experience of the American people as a whole. I see 'them' as greedy, power-hungry and certainly aggressive to the max. Lets face it, this war has nothing whatsoever to do with 'our' best interests/safety and everything to do with 'their' attainment of power, energy and wealth. The founding fathers are probably spinning so fast in their graves that by now theres naught more than beige powder occupying the caskets. I pray eveyday for a Jefferson, JFK, RFK, etc. to suddenly appear and save us from vulgar greed, outrageous disinformation and outright lies.
As it stands now, Dubya has stripped our country of more of its civil rights in 7 months than Reagan managed to do in 8 YEARS. Ashcroft is so scary he makes me weep.
I don't know about you, but to me, "Homeland Security' sounds as if it came directly from the lips of Goebbels(sp?)...but you get my drift?

"a serious, long-term occupation by US troops would be good". Pardon me, Susy, time for another round of LMAO here. With the possible exception of Japan, I am unable to think of ONE such case in the past.(And I believe that the industriousness of the Japanese had more to do with that than anything MacArthur contributed). After we occupy we generally install the most ruthless dictataor imaginable, his only qualification, that he follow our 'leaders' orders. 'They' care 'little' afterwards about how the people of the 'occupied' countries are treated, and 'everything' about them being controlled with their mouths sewed shut.

And, by the way, why haven't we come up with bin Laden yet. Surely with all the billions spent each year on and by the CIA/FBI/DIA/NSA these idiots can't find this person and his cohorts. Please....this definitely strains the imagination. I would like to know how bin Laden transformed into "Goddamn Insane" so suddenly, who by the way, was once one of our staunchest allies.

Enough of this, I feel faint and don't wish to see vomitus appear on my keyboard and screen should I continue. I really get worked up by the fact that millions more people don't see what is so obvious to me. WE ARE BEING LIED TO AND INNOCENT PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE!!!!

Namaste,
Leonard

 

[lenardthefast]

Thanks, Susy,
That is indeed funny. Your tastebuds appear to be properly educated. ;-))

Namaste,
Leonard

 

[suzy]

Leonard, you wrote:
"After we occupy we generally install the most ruthless dictataor imaginable,
his only qualification, that he follow our 'leaders' orders.
'They' care 'little' afterwards about how the people of the
'occupied' countries are treated, and 'everything' about
them being controlled with their mouths sewed shut."

That's why I specifically referred to "serious, long-term" occupation as being potentially beneficial -- emphasis on the serious and long-term. By that I mean well-conceived and executed, with a deep, long-term commitment to stabilizing and re-building the occupied country. Occupied Japan was good, West Germany and the Marshall Plan were good (in my opinion, though I recognize that you may disagree). Unfortunately, we haven't done too much of that in the past 40 years. I wouldn't go as far as you do in describing our policies, but I do agree that all too often we have left some nasty messes behind. We seem to have lost the knack or the will for nation-building. In fact, that is one of the reasons I am wary of messing with Iraq (aside from the bare fact that I'm not persuaded war is necessary). I'm not convinced that Bush really has a sustainable, feasible program for post-war Iraq. And even if he does, the American public can by no means be relied upon to support such a program. Heavens, already the polls are showing that while most Americans support the war, most oppose significant involvement in Iraq afterwards. It's our isolationist tendencies roaring to the fore again. But we simply cannot have it both ways -- throwing our weight around as the world's leading power, then picking up our marbles and going home when we're done.

On the other hand -- and I'm going to shut up here in just a moment -- I recognize that we're going to make plenty of mistakes and enemies no matter what we do. I sometimes wonder if we (the U.S.) should try more to emulate Britain at its imperial zenith. A century ago Britain was in a similar position to us now -- the most powerful nation in the world, with a national self-image that was as much about "rightness" and "justice" and "civilization" as about pure self-interest. The British, too, also found themselves playing the world's policeman, sometimes very much against their inclination. Without going into a whole big analysis, I would argue that the British Empire did a better job of a) managing its allies, and b) cleaning up after itself. It is easy to look back at the British Mandate system in the Middle East as some kind of horrible colonialism, but that misses the point that the British really felt they had an obligation there. And they tried to live up to it. Nevertheless (and this, finally, is my point), the British still incurred much enmity, some of which endures to this day. I used to work with an Indian guy who simply could NOT stop ranting about the British imperialists (50 years after independence, hello?). And of course he had his points; I certainly don't mean to belittle the Indian people's sense of historical injustice. Maybe being the world's superpower is a no-win game, no matter what.

By the way, Leonard, I've had the same experience as you in my encounters with the world's citizens. No sailboat, but I worked for years at a multinational and before that at the International Monetary Fund. You're right -- most people are great. Funny thing at the IMF -- the Russians and the Americans got on like a house on fire, because we were very much alike: gregarious, warm, fun-loving, much less formal than the Western Europeans.

 

[suzy]

Back to the point of the forum:

Anybody come up with a Grand Unified Field theory yet on the group divination?

 

[cal val]

It looks to me like the I Ching possibly reflected each individual's own outlook on the possibility of war.

I'm curious, though, about the preponderance of the nuclear hexagram 54. I really know nothing about nuclear hexagrams. Is that normal to have so many the same like that? And how important is the nuclear trigram in a reading?

Ciao for now,

Val

 

[candid]

Yes, looks that way from here also, Val. And its interesting, as you've said, that 54 pops up in nuclear hexagrams, predominantly. I've never gotten hold of the nuclear hexagram concept, though lord knows, Hilary's tried to teach it to me. A mental block I guess.

Maybe 54 is saying that we, as a group, shouldn't become too attached to it? Do not marry the maiden?

I don't know. This is a head scratcher.

Candid

 

[suzy]

Val and Candid:

Richard Gill's nutshell summary of 54: "Any action will bring misfortune. There is really nothing favourable in this plan."

Suzy

 

[suzy]

General question:

Did anybody have an "omigod, that's exactly what I was thinking" experience when they divined? I'm testing the theory that the Yi basically just played back each individual's viewpoint.

Here's my story: My reading was 13 changing to 47 (the second one in the table). An alliance, a faction forming within the alliance, someone hiding weapons, somebody not being believed. It...um...majorly weirded me out (if you'll forgive the phrase) because the whole NATO/U.N. thing was exactly what I'd been thinking about. I'd had the news on all morning and was absolutely fascinated by the big split in NATO. I had been thinking to myself that, regardless of what happened with Iraq, perhaps the real story was this historical turning point with the U.S. and its allies. Then I got 13, started reading it, and it seemed like it was pointing at exactly the same thing: It's the alliance, Stupid. Once I had picked my jaw up off the floor, I began to have the eerie sensation that the whole reading was just me talking to myself, somehow through the agency of the I Ching.

 

[anita]

So I got my hexagram on war last night at 10 p.m.
41 with moving lines 1,2,3,4 changing to 56.
Looks rather unlikely to me. It seems there may may a change of heart either on the part of US or Iraq. One of the lines in 41 specifically addresses the disadvantage of marching to war.

Best for your Quest

Anita

 

[candid]

Still stumped by the readings, I threw the coins this morning and asked, " what do all the readings mean?" The result was 52 line 3 changing to 23.

Keep still. Don't let thoughts go beyond my (our?) situation. Pondering will suffocate the heart and restrict freedom of movement.

Strip away and generously tend to practical matters at hand. "This suggests that one should submit to the bad time and remain quiet. For it is a question not of man's doing but of time conditions, which, according to the laws of heaven, show an alternation of increase and decrease, fullness and emptiness. It is impossible to counteract these conditions of the time. Hence it is not cowardice but wisdom to submit and avoid action." ~ Wilhelm

I don't know if this applies to the group but I'll take it as applying to me.

Peace,
Candid

 

[kts]

Dear Candid,
Isn't the image in H52/3 that of something that has built up a head of steam and won't be held back or it will burst? Especially followed by H23, which in the context looks like a zip fastener which has burst open. Does this sound like your position? I thought you were calmly standing on the sidelines in this debate. It looks to me more like a description of the momentum towards war.

Keith

 

[lindsay]

Happy St. Valentine?s Day! Not sure this is a global holiday, but it makes me happy the dour US can find at least one day a year to celebrate erotic love and simple friendship.

I think this group reading has been an extraordinary experiment. Nothing like this was possible before the spread of the internet, bringing together so many people with different backgrounds from different places. And I personally have never heard of anyone doing a coordinated reading before us using the net. This could be the first time in 3,000 years the Yi has been tested thus. Perhaps it deserves some serious attention.

I have been following this thread with great interest and gladly participated in the experiment, even though I have severe reservations about politicizing this forum. I do not love war. As a young man, in 1969-70, I served as a Vietnamese linguist in an Army combat unit along the Cambodian border. Not only did I witness and participate in all the usual activities of war as a soldier (you?ve seen the movies), but I also had the misfortune of being able to talk directly to the civilian population. That was the hard part for me. I see future wars, ever more impersonal and technological, as increasing awful for people I regard as essentially innocent. Collateral damage, they call it. Well, this is a personal statement, not a political one, and no one should give it more weight than one man?s opinion is worth.

Concerning the experiment, here are a couple of initial thoughts:

(1) Nuclear hexagram 54. There are, of course, only 16 possible nuclear hexagrams. Because of the way they are built, line2 = line4 and line3 = line5, and this cuts down considerably on the possible number that can be generated. Each nuclear hexagram has a ?family? of four regular hexagrams that contain it. One of the great unsolved mysteries of the Yi, in my humble opinion, is how we should interpret these nuclear hexagram families. What do all the hexagrams that have 54 as their nuclear hex have in common? In what way is Hex 54 at the heart of its four family members? Anyone who solves this enigma will be doing us all a great favor.

(2) Yi reading vs. Yi interpretation. Even if we believe the Yi?s answer is always absolutely correct, we can still falter by misinterpreting the answer. How many of us have said, days after a reading, slapping our foreheads, ?So that?s what the Yi meant!? In many of these cases, we had already worked out a different (wrong) interpretation. I do not know how to counter this problem. Possibly more experience helps us to be more accurate diviners, possibly it is a matter of spiritual development, possibly it is a combination of internal and external factors. It would probably be worthwhile thing to discuss sometime what factors contribute to making divination accurate.

(3) Apparently inconsistent results. I say ?apparently? because I cannot see the pattern, if there is one. Nevertheless, I think there need not be one to find. In some ways, I would be disappointed in the Yi if all our answers had agreed, because that would have implied the Yi is a simple, straightforward prediction machine. Can the unfolding future be that simple? I think the present carries eggs for hundreds and thousands of potential baby futures, but only one is born. The Yi alerts us to the more likely candidates.

We all know there is a sense that everything determines everything else. A butterfly in Africa can unleash a causal chain of events that creates a hurricane in Florida. The outcome of a great battle was determined by loose horseshoe. The fate of Iraq, the US, and the UK may hang on George Bush?s mood in a particular instant. Does he have heartburn from last night?s dinner? Did he just hear a particularly good piece of news about one of his children? How can the Yi know this?

It seems possible to me that the future looks different depending on where you are. Thus multiple readings of the same predictive question are entirely possible. If unborn circumstances in Lindsay?s world come into being, there may be war. If those in Anita?s world come to pass, there may not be war. Anything less would lead to pre-determination.

Enjoy your friend or lover today!

Lindsay

 

[hilary]

Thanks Anita, yours is added to experiment.html

Is one person ever going to synthesise all those readings? I doubt it - but I think it's very important that having requested these answers, we really set ourselves to work on them now. Here are some initial outlines...

18: something is wrong and something will have to be done about it. The tenor of this hexagram reminds me strongly of the US government line on Saddam. Others might see it differently, but the basic meaning is the same: the situation cannot carry on as it is, there has to be some climax, 'kill or cure' maybe. No moving lines, no specific outcome predicted...

The other unchanging hexagram is 11. From all I've seen of this one, I don't think of it as especially peaceful, particularly not when it's unchanging. Again, something great has to happen, small things have to be swept aside - but the outcome, or the specific way in which this happens, isn't given. So I think of both 11 and 18 as scene-setting.

Aside: yes, they do share a nuclear hexagram. This isn't a very spectacular pattern: there are only 16 possible nuclears, after all, and there must be quite a high chance of the same nh for both primary and relating hexagrams (beyond my maths to work that out, though. Remo?). Still, I agree it's the nearest to a pattern we've got. One meaning of 54 is going through a change you're not ready for, into a situation you can't control. When I had it as 'hexagram of the month' in the newsletter, someone wrote in to say this reminded them of being bounced into war by their government.

There is a 'specification' for 11, though, in the 11 >> 26 reading. The line sounds like a kind of snowball effect, much as described in that satirical Flash program Leonard linked to - except that here the outcomes are good. Many issues bound together at the root, under the surface. Maybe if this war goes ahead, US and UN will simply have to do something about the Palestinian situation? (No harm in optimism, is there?)

13>>47, People in Harmony in a state of Oppression, surely has to be what Suzy was focussing on as she asked, namely the NATO alliance and its mutual mistrust. I wouldn't like to interpret those lines in detail... Still, lines 2 and 3 sound like different voices. UK tabloids shout 'Shame! After all the US did for France in WWII!'. France and Belgium say they're ready to defend Turkey if need be, but let's hide the weapons for now and seek a longer perspective. If line 6 does indeed follow, then this doesn't look like a very severe quarrel.

60 changing to 8 looks to be about something similar...

Are there any other readings we can narrow down to a specific area of activity in this way? It might just help in pulling them together.

I'm a very long way indeed from managing to synthesise all the readings - I suspect that will also have to be a group effort, paying a lot of attention to the approach/aspects each individual had in mind as s/he cast. (For instance, was LiSe thinking 'can it be stopped?'?) If we start with the broad brushstrokes of the two unchanging hexagrams, then we know some large, dramatic change has to take place - this can't just peter out, I don't think. Then it seems to be in the balance whether 'fools rush in' and create a hideous mess, or whether the various alliances between them manage to bring about necessary changes more intelligently. I think the 8 to 2 (mine, following on from my preoccupation with the 'hunter' imagery) comes in this area, showing a way carnage might with luck be avoided: something Bush can do to make this possible, though Saddam's response isn't predicted.

Hopefully with some co-operative work we can get rather less vague and woolly than that.

Since we know what 5pm GMT amounts to, how about 5pm GMT Sunday for the chat? If anyone can't 'come', suggest a different time. If there's no-one here on PST maybe we could move it earlier so it's not so late for Anita?