Friday, July 31, 2009

New Age – I Ching

The I Ching or Chinese Book of Changes is the only divinatory system I consult with any regularity these days. I have always found its advice to be spot on. It was famously used in the Phillip K Dick novel, The Man in the High Castle.

I have discovered that I have quite a few versions of the I Ching, but I think the Richard Wilhelm version (translated by Cary F Baynes with a forward by C G Jung) is the best by far.

iching_wilhelm

Interestingly enough one can draw up a hexagram through binary numbers as below:

Think of a number, say 62

62 by 2 = 31 (quotient 0)
31 by 2 = 15 (quotient 1)
15 by 2 = 7 (quotient 1)
7 by 2 = 3 (quotient 1)
3 by 2 = 1 (quotient 1)
1 by 2 = 0 (quotient 1)

The hexagram for the number 62 is derived by counting 0 as a broken line and 1 as an unbroken line resulting in Hexagram 43 Kuai (Breakthrough/Resoluteness) –quite a favorable hexagram.

hex43

Anyway, here are the various versions of the I Ching in my possession except the Alfred Douglas (no he was not Oscar Wilde’s lover) version, published by Penguin in 1971 which is too battered to scan and moreover at my workplace. It is however one of the better versions of the I Ching and readily available second hand.

iching_anthony iching_reifler iching_riseman

Next – Amulets, Charms and Talismans

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