Use of oracles is tricky business

[pam]

Calumet

I can't agree that the hex cast is purely random...I have used it too many times where the warning I got was very important and I failed to heed it....recently I was feeling bummed about staying home and thought I would just forget the rest of the stuff I had planned to do and visit the library. I asked the Yi if I would feel better if I just took off for awhile...I got 25.6 > 17....I threw again and asked something similar and got 17.5 > 51. I decided the Yi was just telling me this was not an appropriate question to put to it so I left on my merry way. Got to the library, had a nice chat with a person I met there, picked out some books, went back to my car (4 yr. old Mercedes in great condition) and found a lovely gash in the door - someone had 'keyed' my car in the parking lot.

Got the message. I should have remembered that a warning is usually given for a reason, whether or not I think anything could happen.

One time I DID heed the warning about two years ago, I was asking my usual question about how my day would go before leaving for work and I got 5.1.3.4.6 > 6. I thought about that for a bit and wondered if it meant 'waiting at work, I will encounter conflict' or 'wait now .... there is a conflict.' I decided to wait 10 minutes more and read a bit more of the paper. That way if it meant waiting at work I would encounter the conflict, it would come whether or not I waited in the morning, but if it meant 'wait now', I should wait.

Work was about a 25 minute drive; I turned off at my exit, which flowed right into the street without a stop sign, and encountered a huge fatal accident right there in front of me. Someone had jumped the center divider and the car coming in the same direction I was going ran into them without any possibility of stopping. The accident had only happened a few minutes before - one policeman on a motorcycle was just arriving. The driver whose car jumped the median was lying in the road dying. I stopped to help direct traffic around the accident until another cop showed up. The rest of the day I was in a daze....that might have been my car that jackknifed the car that jumped the median. The driver whose car DID hit him was injured. The other driver died right in front of me, even as the EMTs pounded on his chest.

This information to wait certainly did not come from within me. I have to believe there is some spirit guide or god communicating with me.

 

[calumet]

Pam wrote, "This information to wait certainly did not come from within me. I have to believe there is some spirit guide or god communicating with me."

Why must the information you picked up came from an external source such as a spirit or god? Horses grow restless before an earthquake, not because the gods warn them but because their sensory apparatus tells them something's up. I don't think the human sensory apparatus works much differently. We use the Yi to focus our attention, but in the end we receive and process information much like other animals do. Our perception works in ways that science can't explain just now; but they will turn out to be perfectly understandable and explicable if we ever develop testable theories about them.

So, even after hearing your stories and others, and even after being surprised time and again at how directly the Yi adresses my concerns, I still think the cast is random. What matters is the perceptions and knowledge the individual reader brings to interpreting the response.

 

[jerryd]

Calumet; I could not agree more with your last sentence here, "What matters is the perception and knowledge the individual reader brings to interpreting the response."
I will ask, is not Random the word for the reading but the cast? When a direct question is ask before the cast does not this limit the random nature of the cast. A cast at random would mean to me one throws the cast without reason and then applies the question to it later. I may be looking at this all wrong. I may also be the biggest nit picker in town. {:>)

 

[calumet]

Jerryd wrote:

" ... is not Random the word for the reading but the cast?"

The hex you end up with is the cast. I believe it's random: Each time you cast, you have exactly 1 in 64 chances of getting any given hex. That assumes that you're using a method equivalent to the yarrow stalk method. Coin methods I know of are not precisely equivalent, and I'd guess that a lot of computer programs are skewed away from the 1 in 64 odds. The way I use the term--not saying it's correct, just my way--is that the reading is pretty much the same as the interpretation. You cast a hex, and then give a reading, or an interpretation.

Jerry also wrote:

"When a direct question is ask before the cast does not this limit the random nature of the cast."

Not sure what you mean. Are you saying that asking a question changes the mathematics?

 

[jerryd]

Calumet;
Yes my statement about a question before the cast is vague and confusing. My thought "was" If I ask no question [and] throw the coins then ask a question then read the "cast". I see this as a totally randon process to achieving an answer? I know this is a bit out of line and I have not done it to see if there is any reason to accept this thought. It was more of a mental exersize and it happen to hit the page!!!

 

[pagan]

A few months back we had a discussion about whether the fact that casting for a hexagram is a random process requires the second hypothesis that the random process will come up with the exactly right hexagram to answer the question postulated. Does the fact of randomness rule out the divine nature of the oracle and its precision in addressing the needed information to the questioner?

As I stated before, I did keep track of all of my questions and answers for years and still do. And even though in the long run it comes out as perfectly random, there is always a run of a certain hexagram or line that is very pointed to what I am going through.

There is a question to be considered that if the IC violated the law of probability, then wouldn't it be more suspect, even perhaps evil?

I think it is important to get past the notion that the ultimate truth of existence lies in the field of cause and effect. I think modern day physics is proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that other dimensions of reality exist and that synchroncity and probability ratios replace cause and effect models at the finest/most potent levels of existence.

But even if you want to keep your reality centered in a cause/effect world, casting the IC for questions and then fully contemplating the answers will make your perception grow by leaps and bounds and will make you more intelligent.

The ICHING pitfall is believing so desperately in oracles that you forget to live your own life.
What I see in most people's questions and reaction to IC answers is this: "I want you to solve the problems I have Sage, and tell me the future, but I don't want to correct anything about myself to create a more perfect character to improve my life on my own".
P.

 

[kevin]

Have you read Gotswami?

Particle physics and the effect of consciousness?

He reports strong evidence that consciousness indeed affects the material world arround us.

Also that particles can behave as if an event has already taken place as long as the event is going to take place.

Plus much else...

As you say physics is demonstrating much.

--Kevin

 

[candid]

Pagan,

I fail to understand how the IC can solve anyone's problems when using it as an oracle. But if you do not ask you can not know its answer by guessing. You can scan your memory and review the many lessons taught in the past, and that's all good, of course. But then you can do that same thing with any book which contains wisdom, including the Bible, Tao of Poo or a book of fables. Every metaphor contains a moral. The only thing that separates the IC is the synchronistic effect that connects the lesson to the moment.

The IC?s pitfall is not in its use, but in not having ears to hear and legs to walk the walk. IC doesn?t solve anyone?s problems; it just sheds light on the path.

 

[martin]

I found something on this page about the physicist David Bohm that is perhaps relevant here:

"in any discipline of science, when scientists describe the behavior of a natural system as random, this label may not describe the natural system at all, but rather their degree of understanding of that system--which could be complete ignorance. Random empirical data provide no guarantee that the underlying natural process being investigated is itself random.
Thus, while "randomness" may usefully characterize the empirical observations of the natural process, this reveals little about the actual nature of the process. Hidden orders or subtle variables may be operating at a level that is beyond the ability of current instruments or concepts to detect. The far-reaching implications of this are evident when one considers, for example, the possibility that the "random mutation" that underpins Darwin's theory of natural selection may soon be regarded as just one arbitrary hypothesis among many. The observed randomness of biological mutations gives no assurance that unknown subtle processes are not operative--hidden beyond the veil of today's empirical science. Such unknown forces could include such "taboo" possibilities as teleological factors, divine design, Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields, and so on."

 

[heylise]

Love your quote, love this thread too, wish I had more time to post,

LiSe

 

[jte]

Calumet, I want to say in advance that I respect and share (to a lesser degree than you) the view you expressed above that humans can perceive more and possibly in different ways than is commonly accepted.

For the sake of explaining the I Ching's apparent ability to predict the future, let me reverse your argument: "Why must the information you picked up came from an external source such as a spirit or god? ... Our perception works in ways that science can't explain just now"

Reversed:

Why must you think our perception works in ways other than what is commonly accepted medically?

The I Ching's information comes fron an external source, something that has at times been called a spirit or god. Science just can't explain it right now.

In regards to the I Ching's apparent ability to predict the future:

1.) You, personally, have had experiences that led you to believe that there is more to perception than is commonly accepted by science.
2.) I, personally, have had experiences that led me to believe that there is an external source that is some type of non-physical intelligence.

So, is there a way to resolve this impasse? I don't see one. So, perhaps we can "agree to disagree"?

- Jeff

 

[calumet]

Jte wrote:

For the sake of explaining the I Ching's apparent ability to predict the future ...

See, I don't know that the I Ching does predict the future. Maybe you've seen it do so; I haven't. I'm a skeptic. To the degree that the Yi can predict the future, I'd say it allows the reader to focus on what she knows or perceives that allows HER to predict what's going to happen.

Jte again:

The I Ching's information comes fron an external source, something that has at times been called a spirit or god.

I don't believe in spirits or gods. I believe that any perceptions, prescience, or wisdom that comes from a Yi reading come from within the reader(s). But I'm happy to agree to disagree.

 

[pam]

Calumet,

I just threw yesterday that I was in for an unexpected shock, something to do with my husband's affection for another woman, a bit of wandering going on - I have long since ceased to care about this anymore since it happened too often over a period of years and my natural defenses just got warn out feeling sad and built a wall to make me stronger. Finally, I am left with calm apathy about these little emotional upheavals of his. So I was kind of thinking 'yeah, so what....?' but had NO INDICATION from him whatever that he was once again feeling this way. In fact, quite the opposite.

So he comes home from work, and later in the evening tells me that he has to take a business trip to a city where one of his old "true loves" lives (my daughter-in-law - now you can see why I have given up on caring) and will probably stay the five days with my son and her.

Now, there was no way I could have known he would be going until he told me - and I was not asking questions about him at all and he rarely travels - I was asking about getting the stove fixed because it has some short in the oven temp switch. The answers just didn't match, so I started asking other things and got the part I told you.

I don't see how I could have predicted this - yet I was correctly able to interpret the reading BEFORE he told me, and his announcement came just hours after the reading. I think this is a case where the I Ching predicted the future perfectly.

I also use it for buying stocks - and it is uncannily accurate on market movement. I don't run the stock market and have no wisdom about events that would make it move one direction or another. In fact, even knowing something as little as Greenspan will address Congress on a certain day and the pundits feel that he will have good news won't alter the fact that an unexpected plane crash or tsunami or whatever won't send the market crashing in spite of the good news. Yet, the I Ching will tell me the market will fall bigtime days before the unknown event occurs.

It also told many people on this site about 9/11 - including me - I was one of the people who threw 51 repeatedly in answer to questions that had no reason to be answered that way - my first question the day before was about watering a large plant in my family room. I though I might be underwatering it and asked the Yi "should I water it today?" Answer: 51. I thought that was weird and went over to another palm and asked if I should water that. Answer: 17 - 51. Twice more that day I got 51. The next morning my sister on the east coast phoned me minutes after the first plane hit.

What part of me would have known about 9/11 on 9/10?

 

[jeanystar]

I think the "fact" that is missing here is that none of us are separate from the universe we live in , we are part of the fabric, woven into the threads...we SEE ourselves as separate from the enviroment and each other, but in truth, we are not separate at all, we are part of ONE whole.

In this sense, of course you could know about general trends and movements and events before they happen, because on some level , this knowledge is available to you.

The I Ching is only one oracle....it is random, but it is ALSO completely and synchronistically connected with everything happening simultaneously, including your question.

Here is another random but accurate oracle....walk down a busy street and catch snatches of conversation. The words that you hear clearly are meaningful for you. They are a clue for you to follow, a message for you to decipher. Try it.

 

[calumet]

You think the knowledge you gain from the Yi comes from outside; I think it comes from inside. Like belief in gods and spirits, it's a matter of faith or not-faith. For my purposes, it's the knowledge itself that counts, and not the source.

 

[kevin]

BTW LiSe - Thanks for the Goswami lead - vey grateful - got there in the end

--Kevin

 

[martin]

"walk down a busy street and catch snatches of conversation"
Or watch TV. On some evenings it is as if it's all intended for me and for no one else. Yet I know that a few million others are watching the same programs, well, I don't really know it, I assume it, wrong assumption?
Probably not, but there is something strange going on, apparently, that is not accounted for in our official maps of reality. I am the center of the world, so are you.
So I am the axis of the turning wheel of the world, but this is not simply solipsism or narcism because you are also the axis of the wheel and so are all those billion others.
What kind of wheel is that that turns around billions of axes?
The true nature of reality is dazzling ..

"Nothing is too wonderful to be true." (Faraday)

 

[kevin]

Martin

That's a Magic post for me

Makes me go

--Kevin

 

[RindaR]

We are one body...

Rinda

 

[jeanystar]

NOthing is "outside" of you.......!

 

[candid]

"We are one body..."
"NOthing is "outside" of you.......!"

Swell, but what does one do with that? They are wonderful engagement stoppers; so grand in scope even meaning has no meaning. Floating in ultimate groundlessness, defying anything opposing - all is one so don't even try to think. Back to oneness of Eden and the nakedness of Eve: the destruction of mindfulness.

Serpent

 

[martin]

Damned, can't we for once have a paradise without a serpent?

Adam

 

[candid]

Well Adam! how nice to see you again.

Surely you may. But don't get any fancy ideas about ... well, this is paradise so I can't say it.

Serp

 

[jeanystar]

who says "dont even try to think?" ??

The truth that we are all of ONE may be grand in scope but it doesnt preclude mindfulness and it certainly isnt about groundlessness. NO fun is taken out of the game..in fact, it makes it more fun.

"It means what it means" ...(a quote from Unstrung Heroes)

 

[candid]

Jeany, where does one go from the ultimate? That's the problem with these grand and sweeping truisms. When All is One, there is no need for meaning or exchange. Ok, all is one. Now what?

 

[candid]

By groundlessness I simply mean without a ground - no opposites. Therefore no mind. Only izzzzzzzzzzzz......... or Auooooommmmm......... It makes a nice samante, though.

 

[candid]

And so we have differences. Differences in opinions, perceptions and ideologies. Differences in geneology and culture. Differences in musical taste and sexual attractions. It?s what makes the world go ?round, and it is the universe in which Yi operates. Grounded to earth, yet established in heaven.

 

[lindsay]

I agree with Candid. The Devil is in the details. We all think we have the Big Picture. Never met anyone who didn't.

 

[jerryd]

All is well in eden I see. My sister just e-mailed me from gods country (oklahoma) and has informed me god is trying to make a point of some kind with the all the chaos in the world today. I replied if god wanted to make an actual statement then there would be no need to kill off 160,000 people to make it.

My point is we are all right and probably all wrong in the eyes of the other half.

 

[martin]

Hey snake, who said that there are no differences? To make a difference: "one" is not the same as "equal".
It's true, though, that "all is one" can be just empty words. But if you feel it, that's another matter.
And we feel it!

Adam & Eve

PS: We really love you but please don't try that apple trick on us anymore, okay?