The I Ching or Book of Changes (135 page)

Thus
hexagram 56
would be the starting point of a development leading, by reason of the situation of the nine in the fourth place and the appended counsel, to the final situation, i.e.,
hexagram 52
.

In the second hexagram the text belonging to the moving line is disregarded.

2.
THE
COIN
ORACLE

In addition to the method of the yarrow-stalk oracle, there is in use a shorter method employing coins: for this as a rule old Chinese bronze coins, with a hole in the middle and an
inscription on one side, are used. Three coins are taken up and thrown down together, and each throw gives a line. The inscribed side counts as yin, with the value 2, and the reverse side counts as yang, with the value 3. From this the character of the line is derived. If all three coins are yang, the line is a 9; if all three are yin, it is a 6.

Two yin and one yang yield a 7, and two yang and one yin yield an 8. In looking up the hexagrams in the Book of Changes, one proceeds as with the yarrow-stalk oracle.

There is yet another kind of coin oracle, employing, besides the hexagrams of the
I Ching
, the “five stages of change,” the cyclic signs, etc. This oracle is used by Chinese soothsayers, but without the text of the hexagrams of the
I Ching
. It is said to be a perpetuation of the ancient tortoise oracle, which was consulted in antiquity in addition to the yarrow-stalk oracle. In the course of time it was gradually supplanted by the
I Ching
, in the more rational form imparted to it by Confucius.

II. The Hexagrams Arranged by Houses

THE
EIGHT
PRIMARY
TRIGRAMS
ACCORDING
TO
THEIR
FORM
(FOR MEMORIZING)

THE
EIGHT
HOUSES

1. The House of the Creative

1. THE CREATIVE is Heaven (
1
)

2. Heaven with Wind is COMING TO MEET (
44
)

3. Heaven with Mountain is RETREAT (
33
)

4. Heaven with Earth is STANDSTILL (
12
)

5. Wind with Earth is CONTEMPLATION (
20
)

6. Mountain with Earth is SPLITTING APART (
23
)

7. Fire with Earth is PROGRESS (
35
)

8. Fire with Heaven is POSSESSION IN GREAT MEASURE (
14
)

2. The House of the Abysmal

1. THE ABYSMAL is Water (
29
)

2. Water with Lake is LIMITATION (
60
)

3. Water with Thunder is DIFFICULTY AT THE BEGINNING (
3
)

4. Water with Fire is AFTER COMPLETION (
63
)

5. Lake with Fire is REVOLUTION (
49
)

6. Thunder with Fire is ABUNDANCE (
55
)

7. Earth with Fire is DARKENING OF THE LIGHT (
36
)

8. Earth with Water is THE ARMY (
7
)

3. The House of Keeping Still

1. KEEPING STILL is Mountain (
52
)

2. Mountain with Fire is GRACE (
22
)

3. Mountain with Heaven is THE TAMING POWER OF THE GREAT (
26
)

4. Mountain with Lake is DECREASE (
41
)

5. Fire with Lake is OPPOSITION (
38
)

6. Heaven with Lake is TREADING (
10
)

7. Wind with Lake is INNER TRUTH (
61
)

8. Wind with Mountain is DEVELOPMENT (
53
)

4. The House of the Arousing

1. THE AROUSING is Thunder (
51
)

2. Thunder with Earth is ENTHUSIASM (
16
)

3. Thunder with Water is DELIVERANCE (
40
)

4. Thunder with Wind is DURATION (
32
)

5. Earth with Wind is PUSHING UPWARD (
46
)

6. Water with Wind is THE WELL (
48
)

7. Lake with Wind is PREPONDERANCE OF THE GREAT (
28
)

8. Lake with Thunder is FOLLOWING (
17
)

5. The House of the Gentle

1. THE GENTLE is Wind (
57
)

2. Wind with Heaven is THE TAMING POWER OF THE SMALL (
9
)

3. Wind with Fire is THE FAMILY (
37
)

4. Wind with Thunder is INCREASE (
42
)

5. Heaven with Thunder is INNOCENCE (
25
)

6. Fire with Thunder is BITING THROUGH (
21
)

7. Mountain with Thunder is THE CORNERS OF THE MOUTH (
27
)

8. Mountain with Wind is WORK ON WHAT HAS BEEN SPOILED (
18
)

6. The House of the Clinging

1. THE CLINGING is Fire (
30
)

2. Fire with Mountain is THE WANDERER (
56
)

3. Fire with Wind is THE CALDRON (
50
)

4. Fire with Water is BEFORE COMPLETION (
64
)

5. Mountain with Water is YOUTHFUL FOLLY (
4
)

6. Wind with Water is DISPERSION (
59
)

7. Heaven with Water is CONFLICT (
6
)

8. Heaven with Fire is FELLOWSHIP WITH MEN (
13
)

7. The House of the Receptive

1. THE RECEPTIVE is Earth (
2
)

2. Earth with Thunder is RETURN (
24
)

3. Earth with Lake is APPROACH (
19
)

4. Earth with Heaven is PEACE (
11
)

5. Thunder with Heaven is THE POWER OF THE. GREAT (
34
)

6. Lake with Heaven is BREAK-THROUGH (
43
)

7. Water with Heaven is WAITING (
5
)

8. Water with Earth is HOLDING TOGETHER (
8
)

8. The House of the Joyous

1. THE JOYOUS is Lake (
58
)

2. Lake with Water is OPPRESSION (
47
)

3. Lake with Earth is GATHERING TOGETHER (
45
)

4. Lake with Mountain is INFLUENCE (
31
)

5. Water with Mountain is OBSTRUCTION (
39
)

6. Earth with Mountain is MODESTY (
15
)

7. Thunder with Mountain is PREPONDERANCE OF THE SMALL (
62
)

8. Thunder with Lake is THE MARRYING MAIDEN (
54
)

1
.
Le Livre des mutations
, texte primatif traduit du chinois par Charles de Harlez, présenté et annoté par Raymond de Becker (Paris, 1959).

2
. Dover Publications, New York, 1963.

3
.
I Ching: Book of Changes
, translated by James Legge, edited with introduction and Study Guide by Ch’u Chai and Winberg Chai (New Hyde Park, New York, 1964).

4
. Le Maître Yüan-kuang,
Méthode pratique de Divination Chinoise par le “Yi-king”
(Paris, 1950); Meister Yüan-kuang,
I Ging: Praxis chinesischer Weissagung
translated by Fritz Werle (Munich, 1951).

5
. John Blofeld,
The Book of Change
: a new translation of the ancient Chinese I Ching…with detailed instruction for its practical use in divination (London and New York, 1965).

6
. I cannot make myself take seriously the claim that Confucius did not know the Book of Changes.

1
. Legge makes the following comment on the explanatory text for the individual lines: “According to our notions, a framer of emblems should be a good deal of a poet, but those of the Yi only make us think of a dryasdust. Out of more than three hundred and fifty, the greater number are only grotesque” (
The Sacred Books of the East
, XVI:
The Yi King
,.2nd edn., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899, p. 22). Of the “lessons” of the hexagrams, the same author says: “But why, it may be asked, why should they be conveyed to us by such an array of lineal figures, and in such a farrago of emblematic representations” (ibid., p. 25). However, we are nowhere told that Legge ever bothered to put the method to a practical test.

2
. [Cf. “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle,”
The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche
(Coll. Works of C. G. Jung, vol. 8).]

3
. Cf. J. B. Rhine,
The Reach of the Mind
(New York and London, 1928).

4
. They are
shên
, that is “spirit-like.” “Heaven produced the ‘spirit-like things’ ” (Legge, p. 41).

5
. See the explanation of the method in Wilhelm’s text, p. 721.

6
. For example, the
invidi
(“the envious:”) are a constantly recurring image in the old Latin books on alchemy, especially in the
Turba philosophorum
(eleventh or twelfth century).

7
. From the Latin
concipere
, “to take together,” e.g., in a vessel:
concipere
derives from
capere
, “to take,” “to grasp.”

8
. This is the classical etymology. The derivation of
religio
from
religare
, “bind to,” originated with the Church Fathers.

9
. I made this experiment before I actually wrote the foreword.

10
. The Chinese interpret only the changing lines in the hexagram obtained by use of the oracle. I have found all the lines of the hexagram to be relevant in most cases.