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Blog post: Not being psychic

hilary

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Do you need to be psychic to read the I Ching?
Well, if you do, I’m in trouble. Yet this is something readers – maybe mostly tarot readers – often claim: that their psychic powers have been apparent from early childhood, and it was always clear that they were destined to become a reader.
Me? Well… when I was four I intended to be an opera singer; when I was 8, I planned to run away and live in the jungle like Tarzan; by the time I left school, my lovely German teacher was predicting I would become either a professor or a prominent barrister. I was too busy stressing myself silly about exams to have much of an opinion, but if I’d had to guess I would have gone for academia. ‘I Ching diviner’ was not on the menu.
But after six years, I got fed up with writing essays about literary criticism instead of literature, heard of the I Ching, stumbled across Legge in the Oxfam bookshop and Ritsema/Karcher in the library, and you know the rest. No special psychic gifts were involved – just a series of coincidences that had me falling into this work by mistake, and then noticing I’d landed somewhere I could do something useful.
…because, as I was saying in my previous post about not being special, this isn’t about who I am, it’s about what the universe is.
This is a universe where oracles work.
My favourite analogy for this is that we live in a dark room with its shutters tightly closed, with blazing bright daylight outside. All we need to do is let the light in. (And incidentally, it doesn’t matter if you do this by operating a well-oiled latch, or tripping over the wastepaper bin in the dark and falling headlong through the shutters – you still get the same light.)
Once you’ve let the light in, the rest is

  1. remembering that oracles work
  2. practice
Remembering it works comes first, because without that, you wouldn’t practise. Instead, you’d find a reading baffling and give up. Here’s the great secret: being confused at first is normal.
Stephen Karcher went so far as to say that you should be confused at first, because all your ideas should have been thrown into disarray. I wouldn’t go that far – sometimes a reading speaks with perfect limpid clarity straight away (funnily enough, this seems to happen especially often for beginners). But a quite normal, natural journey through a reading might begin with something like the first line of Hexagram 30, Clarity:
‘Treading in confusion.
Honour it,
Not a mistake.’
So my path through a reading often looks something like this:

  1. Ask.
  2. Be confused.
  3. Dive headlong into the confusion, unfold it and develop it into questions. (See Yijing Foundations for much more on those questions.)
  4. Expect answers to the questions to arrive
No, I’m not psychic – no more than anyone else is.
And… increasingly often, when reading, the part of the reading I feel like dwelling on more than usual, or the illustrative example that pops into my head, turns out to be exactly what resonates with the querent, what was needed to open those shutters for them. I have no sense of tapping into any special knowing; I just don’t forget that oracles work.

psychic-1.jpg
 

Trojina

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@hilary; I just left a comment on the not being special blog expressing some concern about a lack of discrimination that might occur when people begin engaging intently with looking for actual spiritual direction in signs and omens. I related there the macabre dead rabbit 'message' where I realized yes this person might be engaging with unseen energies she saw as spirit guides but if we take such unseen energies as real, which I do, then you'd have to wonder what kind of energy it was that chose dead rabbits arranged in a pattern. More the stuff of horror movies than indication of a kind and all loving universe. That's the problem with the word 'universe' in these things though I use it myself I know it's not adequate.


If 'the universe' is 'everything' we know there's much of it that is not loving and good and kind at all. One only has to look around to see that. There is evil, there is harm and I think what often happens in the whole, well broadly speaking 'new age' spiritualities is that aspect is made to be unreal, just stuff from horror films and so on. I don't say that in a disparaging way because I myself am as much part of that as anyone and there is good stuff in it...and of course the term covers such a wide spectrum it is a bit meaningless to use the term here - but what I'm saying is signs and omens in themselves should be regarded with some discrimination and I don't think too much should always hang on them. For one thing they often just don't mean anything at all - like poltergeists they can be some energies playing with us a little bit and they may be things to be protected from rather than looked at as signs to future growth. I guess one has to ask what purposes they serve...……..ramble that all belongs more on the 'not special' blog but this blog is kind of connected to that one because you are writing about

…because, as I was saying in my previous post about not being special, this isn’t about who I am, it’s about what the universe is.


The universe ? You see thinking of the rabbits - perhaps I should relate it here for other readers


……….a friend who claimed to be in constant touch with her spirit guide was receiving increasingly weird actual manifestations in her life. She found hammer in a wood and this meant something to her, but the weirdest case was where she saw 2 dead rabbits laid head to toe with each other, clearly symmetrically arranged by someone. She showed me a picture. I didn't like this 'omen'. Wherever it was from it didn't feel good and I decided to have more discrimination about what spiritual forces I engaged with either consciously or unconsciously…She thought it was an omen of her transformation or some such


The danger with the term 'the universe' is that all spiritual phenomenon is lumped together as if it were from one big loving place. That is clearly not so. People do actually encounter the darker side of the spirit world quite often, it's real. The new age terms we use like 'the universe' (and I often use it too so this is not a dig) sort of deny the realities of the spiritual realm I think. There can be spiritual manifestations and omens that do not come from love or to use the taboo word 'God' they come from elsewhere and you can see that by the purposes and the feel of the thing. Slaughtered rabbits arranged in a pattern hmm well it could mean something but whatever it is it isn't good.


I guess this is at a tangent to the blog in a sense but it reminds me that when people say they are 'psychic' or say they are an 'empath' or whatever it really isn't their skills or gifts that matter it is what purpose they use them for and what they are serving through it.



In this blog you are saying anyone can just use Yi because Oracles work and I think that is true but I also think Oracles and signs are not just anonymous machines to be used, not fork life trucks, they have a purpose, an intent. I can't exactly describe it but I think we do sense Yi as a loving oracle, an Oracle that promotes the Good, who's purpose when written was to guide us towards goodness not just to find our keys or what he is thinking although it will do that because of it's boundless generosity. Why do I refer to Yi as 'it', why do we call living things with names of inanimate objects. I guess the 'universe' is a suitably vague and inoffensive term the problem is I think in using that word we strip omens of their intent and purpose and the intents and purposes may differ and I think it's important to realize that.

I also think it's important to realize that when you start consulting Yi you won't have it all your own way because you are actually meeting an Oracle not an object. You don't need to be psychic but you probably do need to activate parts of your mind that haven't been used so much and you will be engaging with a spiritual reality. When you awaken perhaps that kind of connection I think it matters to know this is Yi, you can trust it I believe, but that doesn't automatically mean all omens and signs and weird manifestations are coming from the same trustworthy place. To think that they are is to not be aware of the realities of the active forces for both good and evil in our world and imagine those intents coming through omens are all just Harry Potter make believe. They aren't.
 

hilary

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@hilary; I just left a comment on the not being special blog expressing some concern about a lack of discrimination that might occur when people begin engaging intently with looking for actual spiritual direction in signs and omens. I related there the macabre dead rabbit 'message' where I realized yes this person might be engaging with unseen energies she saw as spirit guides but if we take such unseen energies as real, which I do, then you'd have to wonder what kind of energy it was that chose dead rabbits arranged in a pattern. More the stuff of horror movies than indication of a kind and all loving universe. That's the problem with the word 'universe' in these things though I use it myself I know it's not adequate.


If 'the universe' is 'everything' we know there's much of it that is not loving and good and kind at all. One only has to look around to see that.

My sense is clearly that we live in a benevolent universe - that there's an underlying reality that wishes us well.

I agree about the need to be discriminating on signs and omens, though, yes. Not so much the nature of the sign, as the nature of the interpretation put on it and what people actually do in response. Neatly arranged dead rabbits could be a sign from a benevolent intelligence that's worth following... after all, rabbits, like the rest of us, die. It depends on what message is received. Omen of personal transformation and the death of the old self? Fair enough, could be. Omen that it's time to abandon your two small children? Not so much.

People can interpret signs in an evil way. Does that mean the signs came from something malevolent? I'm not wholly convinced.

(Personally, I would look at the dead rabbits as a sign about foxes or cats hunting in the area. But that's just me. I'm wryly amused by the people who take feathers as signs from angels and hence take lots of feathers as a sign of lots of angels, and not for instance a 'sign' that the fox got a pheasant.)
In this blog you are saying anyone can just use Yi because Oracles work and I think that is true but I also think Oracles and signs are not just anonymous machines to be used, not fork life trucks, they have a purpose, an intent.
Oh, I completely agree. I just wanted to stick some pins in the idea that you need to be an especially 'spiritual person' (whatever that is) or have exceptional gifts before you can even start working with Yi. People need to get past that idea so they can develop and trust in their own relationship with Yi - in the course of which they will probably find out soonish about its nature.
I can't exactly describe it but I think we do sense Yi as a loving oracle, an Oracle that promotes the Good, who's purpose when written was to guide us towards goodness not just to find our keys or what he is thinking although it will do that because of it's boundless generosity.

I don't quite agree here. I think if I genuinely need to find my keys, then the benevolent cosmos wants me to find my keys, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking it to help. Yes, it is a trivial concern, but if I think about the scale of the thing for 5 seconds then all my concerns are insanely trivial. The oracle still works.
I also think it's important to realize that when you start consulting Yi you won't have it all your own way because you are actually meeting an Oracle not an object. You don't need to be psychic but you probably do need to activate parts of your mind that haven't been used so much and you will be engaging with a spiritual reality.
I've an idea that a lot of the time this will look after itself. It did for me - in my first readings, I imagined I was playing round with a random-answer-generating tool to prompt creative thinking. Then it turned out to be talking to me. From what I've heard, a lot of people have that kind of moment of realisation.

I will head blog-ward to answer your question about the coins on the bench.
 

Trojina

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My sense is clearly that we live in a benevolent universe - that there's an underlying reality that wishes us well.


I'm not saying that there isn't I'm saying there also other kinds of spiritual energies that can produce omens and such. That is real and cannot be swept away under the all in one benevolence carpet. There can be a real lack of discernment when people become impressed by weird manifestations and such. There is of course real evil in the world, I hardly need to point that out and just as there is in the human world so there is in the spirit/spiritual world.


I agree about the need to be discriminating on signs and omens, though, yes. Not so much the nature of the sign, as the nature of the interpretation put on it and what people actually do in response. Neatly arranged dead rabbits could be a sign from a benevolent intelligence that's worth following... after all, rabbits, like the rest of us, die. It depends on what message is received. Omen of personal transformation and the death of the old self? Fair enough, could be. Omen that it's time to abandon your two small children? Not so much.


Hmm yes 2 rabbits died without a mark on them to be seen and laid out symmetrically just to show her all about her transformation - or something...

People can interpret signs in an evil way. Does that mean the signs came from something malevolent? I'm not wholly convinced.

I think it is at least necessary to be aware that signs can come from malevolent or tricksy sources. Probably not very often but I have certainly heard of it and of course people do encounter negatively orientated beings in the spirit world, quite ordinary people who aren't pretending to be special at all can find when they move to a place something is not right there and weird things happen.



(Personally, I would look at the dead rabbits as a sign about foxes or cats hunting in the area. But that's just me. I'm wryly amused by the people who take feathers as signs from angels and hence take lots of feathers as a sign of lots of angels, and not for instance a 'sign' that the fox got a pheasant.)


:confused: you think that foxes or cats would kill the rabbits with not a hair out of place then arrange them in a symmetrical pattern on a bridge ? I suppose they might have just shaken them or they were dead already and someone came and arranged them though why they'd do that is hard to figure...any way regardless of how the rabbits actually got there the image she showed me of them was kind of a wake up call for me of 'whatever you think you're involved with it's not somewhere I want to go...'

Oh, I completely agree. I just wanted to stick some pins in the idea that you need to be an especially 'spiritual person' (whatever that is) or have exceptional gifts before you can even start working with Yi. People need to get past that idea so they can develop and trust in their own relationship with Yi - in the course of which they will probably find out soonish about its nature.


Yes though I don't seem to come across so many people with that view, that you have to be extra spiritual to use Yi...or maybe I just don't read them.



I don't quite agree here. I think if I genuinely need to find my keys, then the benevolent cosmos wants me to find my keys, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking it to help. Yes, it is a trivial concern, but if I think about the scale of the thing for 5 seconds then all my concerns are insanely trivial. The oracle still works.


I haven't said anything about it being wrong to ask Yi about keys at all :) That would be similar to saying it's wrong to ask your partner or friend about your keys location. You can ask them and they will care and help but if you only ever spoke about keys and such with each other it would be a pretty one dimensional exchange and one day they might say 'how are you ?' instead

I've an idea that a lot of the time this will look after itself. It did for me - in my first readings, I imagined I was playing round with a random-answer-generating tool to prompt creative thinking. Then it turned out to be talking to me. From what I've heard, a lot of people have that kind of moment of realisation.


Yes, though some people don't and go on using it as a random answering machine and it still works for them though they can get stuck when Yi starts getting personal, as it tends to, and they think it's still actually answering them on the topic they have bought with them. This is the time where Yi might be beginning to say (terrible anthropomorphism) 'I care about you more than the keys' or 'I care about you as well as the keys' which is often how such answers feel. I say 'beginning to say' because I think there are changes in the relationship with Yi over time.
 
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equinox

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crossposted with Trojina

Your discussion is very interesting @hilary and @Trojina. The theodicy question and similar questions are the ones that moves me the most, I think. I wonder if the categories 'good' and 'bad' exist for the universe at all or if they are not just socially constructed. Sometimes I tend to think that energies are initially simply neutral and charged with meaning by us. And this meaning has an incredible power -- power that accumulates when these charging processes occur collectively, like in religious cults for example. Or in war to take an example from the very 'dark' side.

The idea that the universe is actually benevolent and that even the bad things make sense in order to serve our personal growth is more hopeful of course. I also try to live on the basis of this idea.
 

moss elk

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I wonder if the categories 'good' and 'bad' exist for the universe at all or if they are not just socially constructed.

Have you ever cared for a baby?
The natural good is not socially constructed. Virtue is universal,
though recognition of it is not.

Sometimes I read articles and watch interviews with serial killers or mass murderers. (so I can recognize them should I encounter them, because I protect people, and intend to be no ones lunch.)
A sentinment that comes up numerous times from them is that good and evil are human creations.
And that, in a pure logic vaccuum,
seems perfectly reasonable.
And the idea allows them to rationalize murders.
 

Trojina

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Your discussion is very interesting @hilary and @Trojina. The theodicy question and similar questions are the ones that moves me the most, I think. I wonder if the categories 'good' and 'bad' exist for the universe at all or if they are not just socially constructed.


No I don't think they are socially constructed I think there is a battle between good and evil - and all the stories show that yes good wins and the universe for want of a better word is benevolent....but it's actually ongoing. Of course some stuff is socially constructed but really not all.


Also try telling someone who's child has been killed that the universe is benevolent. It could almost be an insult because no of course the universe does not feel a benevolent place to many people.




The idea that the universe is actually benevolent and that even the bad things make sense in order to serve our personal growth is more hopeful of course. I also try to live on the basis of this idea.


It can be a terribly western and self indulgent mind set for us though don't you think ? You know did the holocaust happen to serve personal growth to take it to an extreme ? Is marine life screwed up because of plastic usage all going to be in the end good for our personal growth ? Meantime real life suffering happens as you know where there isn't the space to intellectualize it. A child who is being raped and abused is not going to be wondering if evil is just a construct.


I think the danger can be going too far into that neutral space of 'oh it's all good in the end' because actually on another level there are very real battles going on internally and externally with real suffering and real loss at stake.


On a personal level what you say does often apply. We can see in our own lives 'well if I hadn't lost that job I may not have met my husband' that kind of thing. I get that. But on a larger scale beyond my life I don't see the suffering many go through as an instrument for personal growth. And as you know there is too much bad stuff happening to feel really relaxed about a benevolent universe. It's the old question of "if it were that actively benevolent why didn't it help that little child not get abused ? why didn't it stop that gun man ?" This of course is what is called I think 'the problem of evil' and there's no easy or certain answers.


But one thing is for sure as long as things like that are happening on our planet we do have to be aware that on some level there is a battle because if we aren't I think we are just self comforting.



I don't actually think BTW either you or Hilary think of this in any kind of self indulgent way, I know you don't, I'm just speaking broadly about where patterns of thinking might lead us.


Oh and before anyone else says it, quoting myself

No I don't think they are socially constructed I think there is a battle between good and evil


We do have to be very careful with the idea of this battle because of course historically we use it to justify wars and all kinds of atrocity so we can't get casual about using the word 'evil' if we are going to make 'evil' anything not in our world view.


However I do think we should take evil seriously. If it isn't taken seriously then it has more of a foothold. There were organised gangs of men who systematically preyed on and raped young girls in the north of England for years. That was evil, that was evil unchecked and it carried on because no one was bothered about it and everyone wanted to look away. That is why we have to take it seriously and not just imagine it's an idea or social construct.


For those girls is the universe benevolent ? Did they see omens and signs while they were drugged and raped night after night ? Well some of them actually have done a great deal of good work in raising awareness since then so there is that.
 

equinox

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A sentinment that comes up numerous times from them is that good and evil are human creations.
And that, in a pure logic vaccuum,
seems perfectly reasonable.
And the idea allows them to rationalize murders.

I agree with you that the argument that good and evil are man-made categories can serve to justify any atrocity. Which, of course, is very problematic.
But don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that good and evil are meaningless categories, as one of the mass murderers you mentioned might do.
 

equinox

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It can be a terribly western and self indulgent mind set for us though don't you think ? You know did the holocaust happen to serve personal growth to take it to an extreme ? Is marine life screwed up because of plastic usage all going to be in the end good for our personal growth ? Meantime real life suffering happens as you know where there isn't the space to intellectualize it.

I would never be so arrogant and cynical to explain to anyone the holocaust, the loss of their child or their cancer with the argument of 'personal growth'. I haven't finished the question for me yet, that is why I said that the theodicy question is the one question that keeps me busy. But I do have the right to explain my own strokes of fate with this theory, or not? I never claimed to explain the meaning of life to anyone. I wouldn't dare to.
 

equinox

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And if you, Trojina and Moss Elk, read my words thouroughly then you would have seen that I wrote:

I wonder if the categories 'good' and 'bad' exist for the universe at all or if they are not just socially constructed.

I never said these are meaningless categories. What I wanted to say here is that that the universe maybe doesn't care about good ore evil like we humans do.

I know that may be in contradiction with the 'benevolent universe' idea, but as I said, I still have no clue about it all. Will never have most probably. I'm just experimenting with thoughts here.
 
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equinox

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Btw Trojina, okay, I agree with you that the idea of personal growth may appear self-indulgent and new agey here. In written communication one should be very careful with the choice of words. My mistake was that I brought the vocabulary "personal" into play -- which is actually a very modern concept in this context. Otherwise the idea that the soul (if one believes in a soul) grows through suffering, but not only through suffering of course, is a millennia-old idea.
 
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equinox

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And if you, Trojina and Moss Elk, read my words thouroughly then you would have seen that I wrote:

I wonder if the categories 'good' and 'bad' exist for the universe at all or if they are not just socially constructed.

I never said these are meaningless categories. What I wanted to say here is that that the universe maybe doesn't care about good ore evil like we humans do.

I know that may be in contradiction with the 'benevolent universe' idea, but as I said, I still have no clue about it all. Will never have most probably. I'm just experimenting with thoughts here.

Also here I should have been more precise with words. Of course there is also a biology in humans that seems to be denied by the term 'socially constructed', even if I didn't mean it that way. For me it was less about 'social' or 'biological' than about the reality of humans in contrast to 'the universe' whatever that may be.
 

Trojina

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I wasn't meaning to say you thought XYZ


What I wanted to say here is that that the universe maybe doesn't care about good ore evil like we humans do.


But if it doesn't then why would it send omens unless we take omens as only in the eye of the beholder. I know you aren't saying good/evil are meaningless categories. Also I've gone back to calling the universe 'it' which makes no sense since if it communicates then it will be at least as sentient as us. Yes you have already pointed out there is a contradiction -here

I know that may be in contradiction with the 'benevolent universe' idea,



Of course there are thought to be 2 aspects of God/universe, the personal and the impersonal. Eastern religions appear to stress the impersonal and Christianity stresses the personal


equinox
Btw Trojina, okay, I agree with you that the idea of personal growth may appear self-indulgent and new agey here. In written communication one should be very careful with the choice of words. My mistake was that I brought the vocabulary "personal" into play -- which is actually a very modern concept in this context. Otherwise the idea that the soul (if one believes in a soul) grows through suffering, but not only through suffering of course, is a millennia-old idea.


If you read my words I wrote

It can be a terribly western and self indulgent mind set for us though don't you think ?

...note am using the word 'us' not saying 'you' are self indulgent etc etc that wouldn't make sense because I have the same thoughts about benevolence and the universe myself but I think it can be indulgent or rather something I can afford to entertain because I am not routinely faced with the horrors some people are. I haven't said personal growth itself is indulgent I said seeing suffering and harm as a vehicle for personal growth can be an indulgence of the relatively well off. I think I already explained what I meant in post 7. I did say

I don't actually think BTW either you or Hilary think of this in any kind of self indulgent way, I know you don't, I'm just speaking broadly about where patterns of thinking might lead us.id say quite clearly





I would never be so arrogant and cynical to explain to anyone the holocaust, the loss of their child or their cancer with the argument of 'personal growth'.


I know you wouldn't. I was asking in my own head - asking 'the universe' itself if you like..just expressing ideas.


I am not familiar with the word 'theodicy' will have to look it up
 
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equinox

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Ah, okay, sorry for being so squeamish. Tomorrow I'll write more! Good night!
 

Trojina

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No problem sorry for the mix up and anyway I think we wandered off topic somehow. I don't generally like getting involved in abstract discussions but I got involved in it by answering Hilary then I spun off from there. I say 'spun off' as we seem to be talking in wider and wider circles so I can't sort of track the anchor for the original starting point of conversation and also it's bedtime here. :zzz:
 

hilary

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This has all got way too theological for me, too. I think I should do some admin work for a change...
 

charly

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This has all got way too theological for me, too. I think I should do some admin work for a change...
Hi, Hilary:

I think it is not theological but logical, I understand the reason you have and I also understand the reasons that Trojina has. Things have a lot of complexity, the monster of complexity attacks again:

1934490474.gif

Source: cover of «Tease Monster» (A Book about Teasing vs. Bullying)
Link: https://www.teachingbooks.net/tb.cgi?tid=58679
Everything can be used for good or bad purposes, and even with good intentions, some actions can turn at the service of evil.

In the 2nd.WW, Japanese military consulted the Changes, feeling themselves justified in aggressive expansionist policies and all kinds of crimes.

And it seems that nothing will better if not to a most large term. I believe that God has little to do with it, but homan nature.

The late Professor Kerson Huang said about how the Changes work:

Kerson_Rosemary_I_Ching_Works.jpg
In the 1987 I Ching translation with his wife Rosemary.

Kerson_Huang_On_Divination.jpg
In the first World Scientific Publishing edition of «I Ching the Oracle» there was an Introduction w ith the last paragraph On Divination.

In the 2014 revision if the later there was no article «On Divination».

Things always change.

All the best,

Charly
 
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hilary

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Thanks, Charly. That's an excellent monster you found there.
In the 2nd.WW, Japanese military consulted the Changes, feeling themselves justified in aggressive expansionist policies and all kinds of crimes.
In this connection, I think of something Stephen Karcher told me once, that he had seen Yi responding to people asking to do something malign, and quietly guiding them to their downfall. He meant on an individual level, but come to think of it, the fate of the Japanese military in WWII would be quite a good example. (Under their post-war constitution, they can only have a defensive force, which wasn't even allowed to deploy outside their borders until 20 years ago.)
 

charly

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Dear Hilary:

I believe that in some cases it may happen, but it is not a very general rule.

I always thinked that the Changes should not give a false guidance purposely but that those people who ask with bad intentions could go by themselves to end badly. But that doesn't always happen, often the contrary. Nobody is perfect neither destiny nor the Changes.

If the Changes perceive malice in the query, should not they warn about the value of the answer they are going to give? I believe that always the consultant must be responsible for the use of the oracle. The Changes have no desk no telephone and no line to handle complaints.

Like used cars, answers, sometimes advices, are delivered in the state they are in, without guarantee. And isn't the emotion there?

All the best,

Charly

P.D.:
Restraining military role to defense more than a punishment for the guilty is, I believe, a blessing for the people. The weapons are usually turned against the own population.

Ch.
 
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marybluesky

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I always thinked that the Changes should not give a false guidance purposely but that those people who ask with bad intentions could go by themselves to end badly. But that doesn't always happen, often the contrary. Nobody is perfect neither destiny nor the Changes.
Do you mean that they achieve better results not following the I Ching advice?
I believe that always the consultant must be responsible for the use of the oracle.
Interesting point. I'm pretty new to the I Ching, and eager to learn how I should apply it to my outer life. I really love and appreciate the I Ching, the wisdom behind it and how magically it sometimes matches the real world situations. But what connection it has to the life? How much trust should I put in it, and in what way? Is it mostly about emotions/the inner life? Could it predict/help us with tangible things?
I want to know.
 

charly

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Do you mean that they achieve better results not following the I Ching advice?
Hi, Mary:

I meant that the Changes must not be seen like a punitive god that, being able to guide us by the correct path, let us take the path of evil, allowing us to hurt others and letting ourselves go to our ruin.

The Changes, as we know it, is a tool built by the work o many people through a long history, as any tool it can be applied to its proper use or not, it can be used with kindness or with evil. As any collective, cumulative work carries all sorts of messages, often even contradictory, that reach us trough many apparent and hidden streams. Those pertaining to the mainstream, called ortodox or traditional and also minorities called heterodox, alternatives an so on.

We, diviners or querents, are always responsible for the use we make of the tool, for how we decode the messages, for the voices we decide to listen and for those we decide to ignore.

If diviner and querent are different persons, each has each has his own responsibility. But diviners are but a little new drop lost somewhere in the multitude of streams, a little grain of sand in the succession of times.

The querent charges with the responsibility of being the last subject in the chain of decisions, who will be under risks an who will pay for the consequences of his behavior. We must grant him the right to reject the answer of the diviner, however good it may be, if it doesn't fit him like a tailored suit.

The Changes always makes its work, developping and increasing. The fortune-teller does his job as he knows or can. If the querent gets no true insight the consult has failed. The querent must be warned of his share of responsibility for trusting or not trusting the messages or advices he believe to receive.

Not that I say things are always so but, at least, I believe it should be so. Of course, I also believe that answers must be fruits of collaborative work in which querents have always the last word.

All the best,

Charly
 
D

diamanda

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But what connection it has to the life? How much trust should I put in it, and in what way? Is it mostly about emotions/the inner life? Could it predict/help us with tangible things?
I want to know.
The I Ching is a form of divination (divination means "The practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means.", Oxford dictionary). It can be about inner life, or outer factors, or luck, etc etc etc. Yes it can predict tangible things, this is one of its most fundamental functions. How much trust you should put in it - well, the same amount of trust you put in divination as a whole. If you don't really know if you believe in divination, then give it a go to keep an archive of readings and their results. See how the predictions and results match up. Then you'll have some facts to base your decision on.

We, diviners or querents, are always responsible for the use we make of the tool, for how we decode the messages, for the voices we decide to listen and for those we decide to ignore.

If diviner and querent are different persons, each has each has his own responsibility. But diviners are but a little new drop lost somewhere in the multitude of streams, a little grain of sand in the succession of times.

The querent charges with the responsibility of being the last subject in the chain of decisions, who will be under risks an who will pay for the consequences of his behavior. We must grant him the right to reject the answer of the diviner, however good it may be, if it doesn't fit him like a tailored suit.

The Changes always makes its work, developping and increasing. The fortune-teller does his job as he knows or can. If the querent gets no true insight the consult has failed. The querent must be warned of his share of responsibility for trusting or not trusting the messages or advices he believe to receive.

So perfectly phrased.
 

marybluesky

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it can be used with kindness or with evil. As any collective, cumulative work carries all sorts of messages, often even contradictory, that reach us trough many apparent and hidden streams.
It leaves me puzzled. If the I Ching predicts the future accurately, how it comes that we affect it in good and evil ways?
We, diviners or querents, are always responsible for the use we make of the tool, for how we decode the messages, for the voices we decide to listen and for those we decide to ignore.
So we may interpret a reading positively then it turns out bad. While visiting older pages of this forum, I came across some very promising readings that, however, didn't end in the desired result.
One may say that the "good fortune" referred to the less tangible aspects of life such as spirituality and personal growth, and indicated a positive outcome in the long run despite the momentary loss. OK, but doesn't it decrease the I Ching's reliability in the terms of divination?
When I ask "will I come together with X" I am talking about my desire to be with this person. If I get an auspicious reading but X finds another girl tomorrow, I suspect the divination.
The querent charges with the responsibility of being the last subject in the chain of decisions, who will be under risks an who will pay for the consequences of his behavior.
So everything is uncertain, isn't it?
 
D

diamanda

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So we may interpret a reading positively then it turns out bad.
This means that the interpretation was wrong.

When I ask "will I come together with X" I am talking about my desire to be with this person. If I get an auspicious reading but X finds another girl tomorrow, I suspect the divination.
This means that the reading was not auspicious after all and the interpretation was wrong.

If you suspect divination of being wrong as a whole, and you do not suspect that it was its interpretation that was wrong, then maybe divination is not your kind of thing after all. You can very well muse on the issue, and remain in full uncertainty about everything, without casting.
 

moss elk

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It leaves me puzzled. If the I Ching predicts the future accurately, how it comes that we affect it in good and evil ways?

As a boat goes down the river,
you hold the rudder in your hand to steer left or right, around rocks or into them.


Oh, Yi predicts the future on things that are set: someones hardened disposition, a binding legal document signed by all parties, a deteriorating mental state, a big rock in your path..etc
You can see how things Are, and how they are likely. Real example: the lost document that was returned to me was already in the mail truck on the day Yi advised me of its coming.

make sense?
 
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hilary

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So we may interpret a reading positively then it turns out bad. While visiting older pages of this forum, I came across some very promising readings that, however, didn't end in the desired result.
One may say that the "good fortune" referred to the less tangible aspects of life such as spirituality and personal growth, and indicated a positive outcome in the long run despite the momentary loss. OK, but doesn't it decrease the I Ching's reliability in the terms of divination?
When I ask "will I come together with X" I am talking about my desire to be with this person. If I get an auspicious reading but X finds another girl tomorrow, I suspect the divination.
Yes, of course you do. Anybody would, especially when our prevailing culture persistently tells us that divination is a nonsense, an impossibility, and we're just deluding ourselves. Suspecting the divination is the natural, default reaction.
This means that the interpretation was wrong.
Agreed. (Or, sometimes, that the connection with Yi was damaged by repeated questioning, such that by the time the auspicious reading showed up, Yi was no longer answering the original question.)

And... this is probably going to be small comfort. You can conclude, 'the I Ching is wrong,' or 'There's always the possibility I'm interpreting it wrongly, and there's no way to know,' and the effect in practice is much the same, isn't it?

diamanda said:
If you suspect divination of being wrong as a whole, and you do not suspect that it was its interpretation that was wrong, then maybe divination is not your kind of thing after all. You can very well muse on the issue, and remain in full uncertainty about everything, without casting.

This is where I disagree, for a few reasons. For one thing, I started out with Yi with absolutely no expectation that it would really answer my questions - I thought it was a tool to stimulate the creative imagination, something like a Rorschach blot. I used it in that way for a while, and then noticed what it was really doing.

I think quite a few people start off more or less agnostically - hence all the stories of people who suddenly got Hexagram 4 and practically fell out of their seats in shock at the realisation that there were two participants in this conversation.

So suspicions (or assumptions, or even conviction) that divination doesn't work make a perfectly good starting point. Also, as I was saying, they are an absolutely normal starting point nowadays. It's only from the experience of readings that we can ever travel beyond it.

Also - someone must have said this already, but it bears saying a lot - there is more to divination than predicting the future. Understanding the present moment, for instance, and knowing how to steer the boat now - far more helpful than speculating about the rocks three meanders away.
 

charly

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...
When I ask "will I come together with X" I am talking about my desire to be with this person. If I get an auspicious reading but X finds another girl tomorrow, I suspect the divination.
Hi, Mary:

Trust has little to do with Truth. If you need to ask for divination you do not handle all the information required or lack the ability to process it correctly, how could you evaluate the answer with accuracy?

If you decided to trust must halt suspicion.

Imagining how the story you bring would follow:

... then you think «the Changes said LUCKY but Mr.X flew with another girl, the divination has failed. Lucky was for them».

In the 7th. day you read in the newspapers that Mr. X made the girl jump out the window of a 20th floor. He is in jail and the girl in the cemetery.

Then you could think «after all it was better for me»

But in fact all the story of the newspapers was a nightmare. You wake up and consult the Changes . He says «dont worry, do not run behind Mr.X, he will come back by himself on the 7th day. This day he comes with the tail between the legs and face of repentance. «It was a moment of foolish».

You forgive him and think «I'm lucky, the divination was true!» The next month he asks you to put all your savings in a joint bank account, as proof of love.

Then you remember the dream and that the Changes advised you not to run after him, that they warned you that he would return by himself...

In a world where everything can change, does it seem reasonable to ask about the future?

All the best,

Charly
 
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Trojina

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It leaves me puzzled. If the I Ching predicts the future accurately, how it comes that we affect it in good and evil ways?


I wouldn't recommend anyone use the I Ching if they go into it thinking it will 'predict the future accurately', not just for that and that alone. You cannot use Yi for divination and stay the same person because all it's answers are teaching you and so changing you. If you try to hold onto the reins, to have 'mastery' of it, and see it as just a 'tool' to predict the future then wrong interpretations are bound to be made since it's no little genie in a bottle. Hence really there are no I Ching 'masters' only I Ching students.

We can misinterpret at any time of course it's just pretty much inevitable when a person is fixed on seeing it only as a predictive 'tool'.


We don't affect it in good and evil ways so not sure what you mean ? I don't think a person can truly understand, truly interpret and then go and do evil. However many can consult who believe they have understood and then go and do evil. All a bit of a woolly generalisation area however, not exactly hard facts to be had here.




So we may interpret a reading positively then it turns out bad.


Well you have seen this I guess


https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?8682-Positive-and-Negative-Hexagrams

While visiting older pages of this forum, I came across some very promising readings that, however, didn't end in the desired result.


I've come to the hypothesis that for relationships Yi sometimes offers a picture of the highest level of connection there can be between 2 souls regardless of their role or 'name' in your life. I don't know if you are familiar with the Course in Miracles ideas but it does remind me a little of that. I'm not a follower of it but gathered they think that any connections between people are already pure love, there's nothing else there The bad stuff that happens between people they see as an attempt to get love. I couldn't place that philosophy onto Yi (never a good idea to plaster any philosophy onto Yi) but do think when it answers me about relationships it often doesn't seem to be answering within my own current 'standards' or even categories of what I think relationships are. I get the sense the answer is coming from higher up the mountain where I can't yet breathe in the altitude. Well higher up the mountain or higher up the chimney, I think Yi 'sees' when things are rising to heaven in the smoke of the ending way before I can. So I think Yi is 'ahead' of us not simply in the predictive sense but answering us, ourselves, addressing us from a higher perspective where there's more view and so more understanding.


Of course receiving more understanding can look like 'it doesn't understand at all !'. Think of the times when you were a child and someone gave what seemed to you a crazy answer about something but later you understood because you had to 'grow into' that answer. It is that way about, we grow into Yi's answers it doesn't shrink to accommodate us - although of course it might sometimes if it's the right thing for the person - I cannot speak for Yi but I do see how, like a teacher, it will seemingly alter the way of responding to meet the level of the student.

Ultimately I believe Yi's real 'job' is us ourselves regardless of whether it is answering on lost keys or lost love the important work that is happening is the change those answers brings in us.


One may say that the "good fortune" referred to the less tangible aspects of life such as spirituality and personal growth, and indicated a positive outcome in the long run despite the momentary loss. OK, but doesn't it decrease the I Ching's reliability in the terms of divination?


Well the word for 'to guess' in French is 'deviner' and I don't think it's a diviner's job to impose certain predictions on anyone, even the angels won't do that since we have free will and it is injurious to a person's free will to claim to know their future as a fact.


When I ask "will I come together with X" I am talking about my desire to be with this person. If I get an auspicious reading but X finds another girl tomorrow, I suspect the divination.
So everything is uncertain, isn't it?

Well as I said earlier seems to me in relationship answers Yi often steps outside the roles we give to people. You mean 'come together' as in be a one to one intimate unit in the terms of modern society's norms about what that entails. But our time is a drop in the ocean and this is an ancient oracle. Perhaps in one years time you will have a deep friendship and be together in another sense more than you would have been the set up you had been hoping for. Whether or not that person comes to be labelled your 'boyfriend' may not be so much to do with what your relationship simply is, transcending time and space.


It's funny that although Yi appears, especially in some translations, to have a very traditionalist approach to relationships one finds through consulting it actually manages to transcends that and can be quite radical in advice. It's a 'free spirit' if you will, beyond time and customs of any age, an Oracle for any century



Although people most commonly start consulting Yi about relationships it's actually the worst way to get to know Yi IMO because of all these factors. I'd recommend instead doing a cast for each day, which can give startlingly predictive answers (or not) or asking about small everyday things because then you can see how it's answering and so build a relationship. That way you have the space to see what the answer is and can relate it to tangible things whereas asking about relationships, especially ones that don't exist yet, can leave you all at sea.
 

moss elk

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We don't affect it in good and evil ways so not sure what you mean ?

I think she means, is the future predetermined?
and if so, how are we able to influence outcomes with our choices?

Well, because it's not.
That's where our choices come in,
and why it is important to learn to make good choices. What is determined is that the future will come, it is our responsibility to see that we are here when it does (don't eat poison berries) and to be prepared for it. (be healthy and awake, with knowledge and skills)
 

marybluesky

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Thanks everybody. Different angles, different viewpoints, worthy of reflection.
 

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