The ‘Personality of the I Ching

Collected Observations
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The Sage is the name given to the entity that speaks through the I Ching. That this entity has a
certain personality becomes evident when one regularly consults it. We find out, for instance,
that our attitude in approaching it is very important. If we have a prefixed idea that it is
impossible that something could speak through a book, it will not speak with us. That is, the
answers such people receive, once they agree to toss the coins, are totally inapplicable to
anything anyone can think of. If a person is basically of this opinion, but a little bit open, the
answer might be a rather vigorous rebuke. If a person has no particular opinion, and is only
tossing the coins to please someone else, he might get an answer in which the Sage describes
itself as a “resource in case you ever need me.” If someone is insolent and joking toward it, they
might get Youthful Folly (Hex. 4), or the top line of The Creative (Heaven), which says,
“Arrogant dragon, may have cause to repent,” indicating that insolence exposes a person to a
certain danger, because insolence is in opposition to the Tao, or way of the Cosmos. If the person
tossing the coins is truly seeking to know the Cosmic way, the Sage will respond attentively.
When a person is in desperate need and cries out for help (even if only within himself), the Sage
responds quickly with all the help necessary. These are the sorts of experiences that tell
something about the personality of the Sage, and it is through such experiences that we learn
how this entity tolerates and bears with our ignorance and mistakes and perseveres with us
through our trials and growth. We learn that we can bring any question to it without being
chastised, and that it will always respond from a wisdom greater than our own.
Thus also do we find that the Sage responds best to an attitude of humility and accessibility
to being guided, an attitude that the I Ching calls receptivity. Receptivity means listening within
to get in touch with our inner truth. We find that the Sage discourages a slavish, literal, and
unreflecting use of the I Ching, by which we put aside what we already know as inner truth and
look to it even to ask about every detail of our lives, or to form preset strategies for dealing with
problems. Instead, we are meant to contemplate the messages and remain alert to how they are to
be called forth at the right time to be put to use. When we remain inwardly aware, this use shows
itself just at the moment we need it, and in exactly the right way. Much of the time the Sage,
through the I Ching reading, both subtly and sometimes quite directly, mirrors back to us our
attitudes, informing us when they are beneficial and in harmony with the Tao, and when they are
harmful, or even dangerous.
This is not to say that the Sage will not direct our focus to the mundane, when we leave what
it wants to discuss up to it. It is precisely in the mundane that our careless and destructive
attitudes are to be found, where they are not thought to be so important, and it is these that the
Sage wants us to correct, for they are against the way of the Cosmos.
Throughout this book I have made an attempt to avoid speaking of this entity as ‘he’ or she’
because of a meditation I once had during my early years of consulting the I Ching. At the time
of this meditation I had an almost incessant wish to know who the Sage was. I was to recognize
later that this wish had to do with a fear that the Sage might be something I wouldn’t like, despite
the fact that the Sage had always answered as a real friend. The answer to my inner question
came, soon enough, as an experience in meditation. This experience began with my seeing a
somewhat plump Chinese mandarin who wore a cap, had pigtails, and sat on a cushion in a yoga
position. There was something unpleasant in this image: everything but the eyes seemed plastic
and dull; the eyes, however, were sharp and bright, as it seemed that they were merely looking
through the lifeless mask. Being impressed with the whole rather than with the eyes, I gasped,
“Surely this is not the Sage!” At the same time, I tried to adjust my attitude to be open-minded,
in case it was. Immediately after I decided to accept it (if that was what it was), the image
changed to a long-faced, middle-aged, western man whose visage I can only describe as
“blubbery.” Again, the face appeared to be plastic and mask-like, with the same sharp, bright
eyes looking through it. The possibility of the previous image being the Sage suddenly was ruled
out, and I now had to ask, “Is this the Sage?” with the same worry. Then the image changed
again. This time it was the figure of Christ standing beside a river, with one arm outstretched; the
way he stood reminded me of a picture I had seen many times in Sunday School as a child.
Disregarding my observation that the figure was strangely plastic and that the same sharp eyes
were peering through it, I thought immediately that here, thank heaven, was the ‘real’ Sage. I
hastened to kneel and worship, grasping him about the knees. To my astonishment, I grasped
nothing but air! It was only an image, and not the Sage! While wondering what the message of
these images was, I could not help noting how I had wanted the image to be Christ, and how that
would have felt comfortable to me. No sooner had this thought occurred than my entire field of
vision was taken over by a strong light. After a moment, the light began to recede, pulling up and
away, out into the Universe, until it became one of the brightest stars in the whole field of
millions of stars. As I pondered this, a verbal explanation began. It said people want and need an
image of something if they are to understand it. The first two images represented my fear that the
Sage might be someone totally foreign to me, from whom I would ever feel isolated; the third
figure—that of Christ—was an image I preferred to have, because of my past training. All,
however, were incorrect. The image that was the most correct was that of the bright light, for it
represented a highly developed being (the Sage), whose nature is perfected. …
The image of the Sage as a “Being of Light” reminded me of the after-death experiences
recorded by Dr. Raymond Moody in his book. Life After Life, and also of the Great White Spirit
of the native Americans. That the Sage would prefer to remain free of our preferred
identifications explained why in my meditations and dreams the Sage was always seen as
faceless. There had been the faceless tour guide, the faceless teacher, the faceless director, and so
on. Although I often perceived the Sage as a masculine figure, other people have told me they
have seen the Sage as a feminine figure in meditation. It seems that we tend to give it whatever
image that most helps us identify with it. For these reasons Irefer to the Sage in this book
variously as the Cosmos, the oracle voice of the Cosmos, and the Cosmic Consciousness, seeing
that these names best describe what Lao Tzu meant by saying: “The Tao that can be named is not
the Tao.” (Tao Te Ching)
While the Sage obviously speaks through the I Ching, the Sage also communicates through
other means, such as through shock, helpful coincidences, and subtle, humorous happenings.
Once, while I was using the I Ching, the Sage alerted me to see that it might communicate by
other means. This happened about two years after I began consulting it when someone told me I
ought to use yarrow stalks, one of the traditional means by which the I Ching is consulted,
instead of coins, the other traditional means. He asserted that any other method is not true to the I
Ching. As I felt I had been tremendously helped by using coins, I thought I ought to ask the I
Ching about it. I therefore learned the yarrow stalk method and using it, asked the I Ching. The
answer I received made no sense at all. As it was late, I went to sleep. The next morning it
occurred to me to ask the same question by tossing coins. I received the same hexagram and the
same changing line. Neither answer made sense verbally, yet the answer was clear: it made no
difference which method I used. This made me aware that the Sage can communicate through a
variety of means.…
The Sage, working through the I Ching, makes us aware of an inner world existence that
corresponds to and accompanies our outer world existence. We are taught about the power of our
inner thoughts, about the reality of our inner connections with people, and how we may impact,
without any external effort whatsoever, an outer world that is geared to and dominated by
reversed values. These secret aspects of the I Ching are not perceivable by those who approach it
purely as a book, or on a purely intellectual, analytical level; they are revealed only to those who
submit themselves humbly to follow the guidance of the Sage who teaches through it.…
It has been my experience that the Sage ignores superficial questions and speaks only to our
questions of real concern. In consulting it, therefore, it is not necessary to ask a particular
question. One can safely know that it will address the topic that is most important for us at that
given moment. Furthermore, it will stay on the same subject until we have understood the
message. Our real concerns may have to do with money, health, relationships, or issues we
would not ordinarily suspect as having to do with the Cosmos. Nevertheless, they are our path of
the moment to growth and self-knowledge, for it is in how we relate to these things that our
harmony with the Cosmos is established.
The Sage, as mentioned, tends to focus attention on our inner attitude as containing the
answer to the problem of the moment….
These and other experiences show that the Sage is primarily concerned with our true self. In
approaching it there is no necessity to observe rituals or forms, although the Sage does appreciate
small acts that indicate respect and a sincere attitude. On the other hand, it would certainly
remain inaccessible if our attitude had any element in it of flattery, servile obeisance, or bribery.
Were we to allow such thoughts, we would likely receive Contemplation (Hex. 20), line four,
chiding us for seeking to use the Sage as a tool. Nor does the Sage want us to promise to be
good, obey, or join a church of the I Ching. Nor are we meant to accept someone else's
interpretation of the I Ching hexagram lines as ‘the correct interpretation’. While others more
experienced may be of help, when what they say does not resonate with our own sense of truth,
we are meant to listen to ourselves.
While the Sage rebuffs us and becomes distant when we make any form of demands, it
returns as soon as we have been sorry and have again become modest, patient, receptive, and
sincere….

Carol K. Anthony, The Philosophy of the I Ching, “The Sage”

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Most people begin consulting the I Ching with the assumption that they are consulting “a
book of ancient wisdom.” This assumption has led to a reverence of the book as a text written in
stone, which contradicts its very nature as an oracle. An oracle is an alive consciousness that
wants to communicate with us in the context of our time and circumstances. Some people among
the ancient Chinese had the correct intuition that there existed an invisible entity that answered
through the I Ching. In Hexagram 4, Youthful Folly, this entity is called “the teacher.” This
teacher is described as having a certain attitude toward the person consulting the oracle, which is
defined in that hexagram: it is patient if the person is modest and unassuming, but it will make
him aware that it is about to retreat if he is arrogant and presumptuous. It has a certain
personality which always remains true to itself, and a dignity that it will not breach.
The Judgment of this hexagram has often been taken incorrectly. It reads, “It is not I who
seek the young fool; the young fool seeks me. At the first oracle I inform him. If he asks two or
three times, it is importunity. If he importunes, I give him no information.” These words
correctly scare away people who only regard the I Ching as a game; unfortunately, they also give
the sincere person the false impression that he may only ask one question at a time. For some
people, this has led to the practice of tossing a hexagram only once a year. This idea totally
contradicts the fact that the I Ching makes itself available at all times to the person who sincerely
seeks to understand.
When recognized as an alive, but invisible consciousness, the Sage also appears in
meditations and dreams. It often shows in a variety of forms that give clues to its true function to
act as a translator into words of our wordless inner truth. In one dream, for example, the Sage
appeared as a master and a servant simultaneously. This was its way of saying that it is neither a
master nor a servant. As mentioned earlier, the Sage also may at one time show itself as a male,
and at another as a female; at other times it may appear as an animal, such as a chameleon. This
is why we speak of the Sage using the pronoun “it.” In accord with the Cosmic Principle of the
equality of all aspects of the Cosmos, the Sage relates to the student not as a superior, but as an
equal with his true self.

Carol K. Anthony, I Ching: The Oracle of the Cosmic Way, “The Sage that Speaks through the
Oracle”
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…according to the old tradition, it is “spiritual agencies,” acting in a mysterious way, that
make the yarrow stalks give a meaningful answer.4 [They are shên, that is “spirit-like.” “Heaven
produced the ‘spirit-like things’” (Legge, p.41).] These powers form, as it were, the living soul of
the book. As the latter is thus a sort of animated being, the tradition assumes that one can put
questions to the I Ching and expect to receive intelligent answers.
…The I Ching does not offer itself with proofs and results; it does not vaunt itself, nor is it
easy to approach. Like a part of nature, it waits until it is discovered. It offers neither facts nor
power, but for lovers of self-knowledge, of wisdom—if there be such—it seems to be the right
book. To one person its spirit appears as clear as day; to another, shadowy as twilight; to a third,
dark as night. He who is not pleased by it does not have to use it, and he who is against it is not
obliged to find it true. Let it go forth into the world for the benefit of those who can discern its
meaning.

C.G. Jung, Foreword to Richard Wilhelm Translation of the I Ching

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The Personality’ of the I CHING

The more familiar one becomes with the personality of the I Ching, the more one understands
what this wise, gentle-stern friend is trying to say to you. An excellent example of the I Ching’s
‘personality’ is the sometimes harsh realism with which it answers questions. When I first began
using the I Ching many years ago, I became enchanted by its seemingly appropriate responses to
my questions. I recall, however, being slightly irritated by the vague and obscure words and
phrasing. I was unfamiliar with the Eastern mentality at that point in my life, and fired by a
combination of curiosity and irritation, I kept asking question after question. If I did not
understand a phrase or word I would ask what that phrase meant, hoping to get some further
insight into the book’s cryptic messages. On the fourth repetitive query about an answer the I
Ching had previously given me I came up with the fourth hexagram. This hexagram, called
`Youthful Folly’ or ‘Youthful Inexperience,’ advises the questioner about ‘propriety’ and
‘respect’ and warns one not to importune the oracle. ‘I do not go and seek the youthful and
inexperienced, but he comes and seeks me,’ the hexagram reads. ‘When he shows the sincerity
that marks the first recourse to divination, I instruct him. If he apply a second and third time, that
is troublesome; and I do not instruct the troublesome.’ I need not add that I stopped being
troublesome. It was my first experience with the unique personality of the I Ching.

Raymond Van Over (ed.), I Ching, “Introduction”

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Like Jung, I have been struck by the extraordinary sensation aroused by my consultations of
the book, the feeling that my question has been dealt with EXACTLY AS BY A LIVING
BEING in full possession of even the unspoken facts involved in both the question and its
answer. At first, this sensation comes near to being terrifying and, even now, I find myself
inclined to handle and transport the book rather as if it had feelings capable of being outraged by
disrespectful treatment!
As to how the book succeeds in giving answers which produce this uncanny effect, I do not
know. A number of explanations may all be near the mark, as with the opinions of several
witnesses who have observed the same traffic accident from different places in the street. If you
say that the oracle owes its effectiveness to the subconscious of the one who asks the questions,
or to the unconscious (which Is probably universal and therefore common to all men), or to the
One Mind (In the Zen sense), or to God or a God or the Gods, or to the philosopher’s Absolute, I
shall be inclined to agree with every one of these suggestions, for I believe that most of all of
these terms are imperfect descriptions of a single unknown and unknowable but omnipotent
reality. Rather than attempt an explanation of my own, I bear in mind two sayings—LaoTsu’s
‘He who knows does not speak, he who speaks does not know’ and the old English adage ‘The
proof of the pudding is in the eating’. In other words, I am entirely satisfied with the results
produced by the I Ching, but do not presume to explain the lofty process by which they are
achieved.
…Then came the Communist revolution and my departure from China, perhaps for ever. By
a curious chance, the Wilhelm version found its way into the trunk containing the relatively
small number of books I decided to carry away with me. It was not until I had been in Siam for
something like ten years that a chance remark made me study the book with some care and try
my hand at using it for divination. The very first time I did this, I was overawed to a degree that
amounted to fright, so strong was the impression of having received an answer to my question
from a living, breathing person. I have scarcely ever used it since without recovering something
of that awe, though it soon came to be characterized by pleasurable excitement rather than by
fear. Of course I do not mean to assert that the white pages covered with black printer’s ink do in
fact house a lively spiritual being. I have dwelt at some length on the astonishing effect they
produce chiefly as a means of emphasizing how extraordinarily accurate and, so to speak,
personal, are its answers in most cases. Yet, if I were asked to assert that the printed pages do not
form the dwelling of a spiritual being or at least bring us into contact with one by some
mysterious process, I think I should be about as hesitant as I am to assert the contrary.

John Blofeld, I Ching: A New Translation of the Ancient Chinese Text

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The responses to be won from the Book of Change are sometimes of such tremendous import that
they may save us from a lifetime of folly, or even from premature death. It must be treated with
the deference due to its immense antiquity and to the wealth of wisdom it contains. No living
man can be worthy of equal deference, for it is no less than a divine mirror which reflects the
processes of vast and never-ending cosmic change, those endless chains of actions and
interaction which assemble and divide the myriad objects proceeding from and flowing into T’ai
Chi—the still reality underlying the worlds of form, desire and formlessness. It has the
omniscience of a Buddha. It speaks to the transient world as though from the Womb of Change
itself—Change, the one constant factor amidst all the countless permutations and transformations
of mental and material objects which, when the eye of wisdom is closed, appear to us as
meaningless flux. That their infinite number can be mirrored in so small a compass is because
they all proceed according to adamantine laws and all are facets of that spotless purity and
stillness which some men call T’ai Chi or the Tao and others the Bhūtatathatā, the Womb of the
Tathāgatas (Buddhas), the Source of All.’ (Extract from a Chinese newspaper article.)

John Blofeld, I Ching: A New Translation of the Ancient Chinese Text

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The I Ching is an eccentric oracle. Anyone who has used it for any length of time will
discover that it has a distinct personality. It could be that it takes on the personality of the user,
although it frequently assumes a startling and unpredictable posture. At times, it likes to carry on
a witty and multifaceted conversation; and at other times it petulantly dwells upon a particular
issue or problem. If you ask the same question over and over again, it often gives you the same
advice couched in various nuances. At other times it may become irritable and insulting when
you become insistent. Generally, the answer you receive will be as clear and comprehensive as
your state of mind.
It is a good practice to briefly note the answer you receive in a few words under your
question. Then, when you next return to the book, after the situation has resolved itself, you can
reevaluate the true meaning of your last hexagram. In this way, you will enhance your
understanding of the personalized language you are developing with the I Ching.
Keep in mind, too, that the I Ching may not directly answer your question, but may instead
address itself to your motives or subconscious urges in asking. Or, sensing a coming crisis or
significant change, the oracle may take the opportunity of the conversation you’ve initiated to
alert you. You may find it a willful book —neither to be put off, nor to be used aimlessly. As
your relationship with the I Ching becomes more familiar, it may embarrass you, startle you,
tease you, frighten you, and occasionally share a good laugh with you.

R.L. Wing, The I Ching Workbook, “How to Consult the I Ching”

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The most popular use of the I Ching is for divination, and perhaps always has been. From the
earliest of times, following its inception, it has been the basis for oracles and predictions for
kings and rulers. Beyond doubt, others used it for such purposes, too. Even Confucius did (as the
footnote on p. 91 of the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the I Ching shows), while at the same -
time emphasizing its additional aspects and usages in his commentaries on the text. For those
who are experienced with it, understand it and are ready to accept that the I Ching knows much
more about any given situation than humans do, it can be of great value as a guide. Basically, it
is the aura of the questioner which determines the way the yarrow stalks are divided or the coins
are cast. The aura reflects man’s inner self and the inner self is in contact with the Divine
storehouse of infinite wisdom and knowledge. Hence the use of the I Ching is a means of telling
man what he inwardly knows but hasn’t been able to discern for himself at the beta level of
consciousness. It is probable that some readers will not agree with the foregoing statements. This
is relatively immaterial, since all the guidance given by I Ching is of an ethical nature.
Consequently there never is any danger of following advice which conflicts with a person’s own
beliefs regarding the validity of the oracles and whether chance or otherwise controls the fall of
the coins or yarrow stalks. Experience will gradually show that the I Ching is a valid guide and
that it does reflect greater consideration than mortals give to any situation. In other words, it
cannot of itself be of harm to anyone. It only helps. That is why it has withstood criticisms and
tests for over 5,000 years. Regrettably, those who interpret the hexagrams often do not know as
much as they should about a given situation, so that even though thoroughly sincere and honest
at the time, they may give erroneous predictions.
Furthermore, it is only with hindsight that one truly knows what the I Ching meant. For
example: two acquaintances of ours once asked the I Ching whether they would take a trip to
Mexico the following week. All their plans had been laid and many preparations had been made.
There was nothing to indicate that they wouldn’t make their journey. The answer the I Ching
gave was ‘No’. As it turned out, on the day they were to have left the uncle of one of them was
taken to hospital, the doctor advising them that the illness was terminal. Family affairs dictated
that the trip should be postponed, which it was. This situation could not have been foreseen at the
time the question was asked. Innumerable other cases could be cited. In our own case, experience
has proved that our intuitive evaluation of the I Ching’s response to any question we have put to
it has been between 70 per cent and 90 per cent accurate (according to our level of evaluation).
We never cease to be amazed at its profound insight.
As stated above, the throwing of the coins or the separation of the yarrow stalks is a matter of
the individual’s own aura impinging upon and controlling the results. Each one of us is
connected with Universal Intelligence at all times. A man whose development was at a
sufficiently high stage and who was adequately spiritual would have no need for a ‘go between’
such as the I Ching to give him guidance. He would either intuitively know what to do or else
ascertain it from higher sources, since all is already known in what the I Ching calls ‘heaven’.
(Others speak of higher planes, etc.) Through the unconscious powers within man, one’s inner
self makes contact with the storehouse of Universal Knowledge and the response is given to us in
a manner which comes up heads or tails when the coins are tossed, in such a way that the
hexagram indicated will be the one best understood by the individual’s intuition. There is no
outside force controlling the manner in which the coins are tossed. Neither is it chance. It all
stems from within one’s own self. That is why it is so important to make the questions clear
when formulating them, to concentrate on them while tossing the coins, and to meditate on the
responses before implementing them.
…Like everything else, the more experience one gains, the closer to perfection one comes.
One must remember, however, that, irrespective of who makes a prediction and how good it may
be, it is only with hindsight that the full and true import of the oracle can be seen. The I Ching
will grow on you, and the more you use it, the more its value to you will increase, and the more
benefit you will be able to derive from it. Like any other gem, its value increases with age.

W.A. Sherrill & Wen-Kuang Chu, An Anthology of I Ching

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C.G. Jung was convinced of the I Ching’s extraordinary power to foretell the future; he even
asked it about the prospects of American sales of a new English translation of itself and got an
optimistic answer. More recent pundits who are deep into occultism – Colin Wilson, for
example-have written about their experiences with the l Ching’s terrifying oracular accuracy.
...The book must never be consulted lightly. If you ask it something frivolous or in a
skeptical mood, the book gives frivolous or meaningless answers. One should be completely
relaxed, physically and mentally. It is essential to think of nothing, throughout the ceremony,
other than the question being asked.
...The Wilhelm-Baynes volume includes the famous foreword by Jung in which he explains
the oracular power of the I Ching by his theory of “synchronicity,” a theory defended by Arthur
Koestler in his recent book The Roots of Coincidence. According to Jung, the I Ching’s
predictions, and relevant events that actually happen, are not causally linked in the Western
scientific sense. They are “acausally” related in the Eastern metaphysical sense of being parts of
a vast cosmic design that lies beyond the reach of science but is partially accessible to the
subconscious mind of the person who casts the sticks. The 64 hexagrams and their meanings are
Jungian archetypes, deeply engraved on the collective unconscious of humanity.
...Tender-minded believers in the occult, who have not yet consulted the I Ching and who
long for powerful, mysterious magic, are hereby forewarned. This ancient book’s advice can be
far more shattering psychologically than the advice of any mere astrologer, palmist, crystal gazer
or tea-leaf reader.

Martin Gardner, “The Combinatorial Basis of the I Ching,” Scientific American (January, 1974)
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I can only say that a close acquaintance with the I Ching and its symbols soon begins to
reveal a remarkable inner consistency, and that such meanings become obvious. At first the
landscape is strange and disconcerting; soon it becomes familiar, and everything is seen to be
logical.
…In Man and his Symbols, edited by Jung, there is a lengthy account by Jolande Jacobi of
the analysis of a repressed, over-intellectual introvert named Henry; Henry was eventually
persuaded – much against his will – to try throwing the three coins and consulting the oracle.
‘What he found in the book had tremendous impact on him. Briefly, the oracle to which he
referred bore several startling references to his dream, and to his psychological condition
generally. The hexagram was number four, Youthful Folly, and contained a warning against
entangling oneself in unreal fantasies and empty imaginings. The judgement also forbade
consulting it a second time. But two nights later, after a dream in which he saw a sword and
helmet floating in empty space, he opened the book casually, and came upon the thirtieth
hexagram, Li, which has weapons – particularly helmets and swords – for its symbol.
As to my own personal experience of the I Ching, it has certainly disposed me to treat it as
perhaps the foremost of all such works. I first came across it in the period I have already spoken
of, when I was living in Wimbledon. Obviously, the first thing that any would-be writer consults
an ‘oracle’ about is his future as a writer; he wants a ‘long-range forecast.’ I took three pennies,
and threw them down six times. Each time, there was a preponderance of heads, giving a
hexagram made up of six Yang lines: the first one in the book, with a judgement that reads:

The creative works supreme success

Furthering through perseverance.

In the hundreds of times I have consulted it since then, the coins have never given six unbroken
lines. Obviously, I was disposed to be convinced. The only other time when I have seen the coins
fall in this way was when the oracle was consulted for the first time by the writer Bill Hopkins.
He said flippantly: ‘If it gives a good judgement. I’ll believe in it. If it doesn’t, I won’t.’ The
oracle fulfilled expectations and produced the first hexagram again.
I clearly recall only one other instance of the book’s accuracy from that time. In Wimbledon
I consulted it about the old man we were living with, who was charming and extremely difficult
by turns. The hexagram obtained was Sung, Conflict, with a judgement that reads:

Conflict. You are sincere

And are being obstructed.
A cautious halt halfway brings good fortune.
Going through to the end brings misfortune.
It does not further one to cross the great water.

This told me exactly what I wanted to know: whether to get out of the place as soon as possible.
‘A cautious halt halfway brings good fortune. Going through to the end brings misfortune. I
couldn’t think what was meant by the reference to the great man but the text explains that the
great man refers only to ‘an impartial man whose authority is great enough to terminate the
conflict.’ The only such man we knew was the brother of my wife’s patient; accordingly, we
consulted him and explained the problem. He certainly succeeded in smoothing matters over for
a short time. As to crossing the great water, we had considered moving across the Thames, back
to North London, where I was working. The oracle proved to be right there too. Our move to
Earl’s Court, after the old man’s death, brought a worsening of the situation.
What most impressed me about this particular occasion was the last line; I had obtained three
heads; therefore, the commentary applied - nine at the top means:

Even if by chance a leather belt is bestowed on one.

By the end of the morning
It will have been snatched away three times.

One of the old man’s most infuriating habits was to give my wife presents when he was in a
good mood, and then take them back again, or even give them to someone else. The lines in the I
Ching apparently refer to being decorated by the king – a leather belt was the equivalent of a
medal – but it certainly fitted our situation.
In his preface to the I Ching, Jung describes how he consulted it about the question of the
new edition which he proposed to introduce to the Western mind. The answer was Ting, the
Cauldron, which the commentary describes as a ritual vessel containing spiritual nourishment;
i.e. the I Ching describes itself as such a vessel. The last ‘line,’ which was a strong one, even
prophesied the incredible success that the book has met with in America in the past decade
(where it continues to sell almost like the Bible):

The ting has rings of jade.

Great good fortune.
Nothing that would not act to further.

(Carrying handles of jade signify that the ‘vessel’

becomes something that is greatly honoured.)

But for our present purposes, the most important of the ‘lines’ obtained by Jung was this:

A ting with legs upturned.

Furthers removal of stagnating stuff.
One takes a concubine for the sake of her son.
No blame.

Jung interprets this to mean that the I Ching refers to itself as a cauldron that has long been
out of use (i.e. kept upside down). But the important lines here are the ones referring to the
concubine. ‘A man takes a concubine when his wife has no son,’ Jung comments, ‘so the I Ching
is called upon when one sees no other way out. Despite the quasi-legal status of the concubine in
China, she is in reality only a somewhat awkward makeshift; so likewise the magic procedure of
the oracle is an expedient that may be utilised for a higher purpose. There is no blame, although
it is an exceptional recourse.’
And although Jung does not dot the i’s and cross the t’s, this is clearly a deprecation of the I
Ching’s role as a fortune- telling device. It should be an exceptional recourse, not a party game.
For the real and permanent significance of the book is not as an oracle but as a book of wisdom.
The first thing noticed by anyone consulting the I Ching is its frequent references to ‘the
superior man.’ And its counsels, whether favourable or unfavourable, always include advice for
the ‘superior man’ on how to deal with the situation. And anyone who has ever consulted the I
Ching in a time of crisis will vouch for the mentally refreshing effect of this approach. ‘Life is
many days,’ says Eliot. But human beings are usually trapped in the present, and respond to
problems with a tension and anxiety that treats every problem as a matter of life and death.
Johnson once said to Boswell, who was complaining about some trivial anxiety, ‘Come, sir,
think how little you will think of this in ten years’ time.’
And this indicates the significance of the title of the Book of Changes. As I live through the
present, all the phenomena of life seem ‘real,’ solid, of permanent importance. In reality, they
flow like the surface of a river. The ‘I’ that looks out through my eyes will be unchanged in ten
years’ time, but many of these ‘permanent’ things around me will have disappeared.
 …Anyone who simply reads and studies the I Ching while thinking about its symbols and
ideas, and ignoring its powers as an oracle, becomes aware that this is its profoundest level of
meaning. Like great music, it produces a state of sudden intense delight, of inner detachment, of
‘breathing space.’ The reader who becomes absorbed in the I Ching begins to see it as a whole,
and will probably become more skilled in using it as an oracle; like water-divining, this power
can be developed simply by making the effort. He will also become aware that the book’s power
to foretell events is an unimportant by-product of its real purpose.

Colin Wilson, The Occult: A History

__________________________________

Jung also preferred to keep silent about another ‘occult’ interest, the Chinese book of oracles
known as the I Ching. This ancient text contains sixty-four ‘oracles’, and is consulted by a
chance procedure involving coins or yarrow stalks. The simplest method is to throw down three
pennies. A preponderance of heads gives a straight line; a preponderance of tails a broken line.
When placed on top of one another, these lines form a hexagram which indicates which of the
sixty-four oracles contains the answer to the question. (The question must be clearly formulated
in the mind before consulting the oracle.)
Obviously there is no possible scientific justification for the procedure; yet Jung was
studying — and consulting — the I Ching from 1920 onward. He did not admit to it until
1950 when, after an accident that brought him to the verge of death, he obviously felt that it was
time to speak frankly. Then he justified his interest in the I Ching by discussing what he called
‘synchronicities’ — those baffling, apparently meaningful coincidences that give us the feeling
that fate is trying to tell us something. Jung gives an example from his own experience: after
making a note about a mythical creature that was half man and half fish, he had fish for lunch,
someone mentioned the custom of making an ‘April fish’ (April fool) of someone, a patient
showed him a picture of a fish, he saw an embroidery of fishes and sea monsters, and, finally, a
patient told him about a dream of a fish that night. On the day he wrote all this down, he found a
large fish on the wall by the lake.
Writing an introduction to Richard Wilhelm’s translation of the I Ching, Jung was confronted
with the problem of how to justify such ‘occult’ notions in scientific terms. He compromised by
describing synchronicity as ‘an acausal connecting principle’ — a completely meaningless term
meaning a cause that is not a cause. But it sounded more or less scientific, and Jung later tried to
justify it by publishing his essay on synchronicity in a book that also contained an essay by the
physicist Wolfgang Pauli, arguing that the astronomer Kepler had invented the idea of
‘archetypes’.

Colin Wilson, Beyond the Occult: Twenty Years' Research into the Paranormal
__________________________________

It took me awhile to get acquainted with the “personality” of the I Ching. For example,
sometimes I would query and get an answer that seemed to have nothing to do with my question.
Then it would click. Aha! The answer was pointing me elsewhere, to something I’d overlooked
and required my attention

An early incident that gave me respect and trust:

I admit that, as with any good friend, it took a while to break the ice and get to know it. For
example, once, when I was relatively new to the book, on an early winter morning in Spring
Green, I woke up with a bad feeling and consulted the I Ching for feedback. Its advice, in
essence: “Don’t move. Don’t go anywhere. Anything you do now will go wrong.”

My friends debunked it. I was scheduled for a job interview that couldn’t be missed. When the
bald tires on my vintage Buick skidded on the ice, spinning me into a snow bank along Willow
Gold Farm’s long driveway, they refused to give in. They drove up a tractor and jammed a
curved metal hook under the front fender to pull it out. This punctured the radiator, which
emptied its yellow-green fluid onto the crystal white snow. I wasn’t going anywhere that day. Or,
after their “help,” even the next.

This was definitely a book to be taken seriously!

https://rethinkingsurvival.com/part-1-the-gate-keeper/
__________________________________

Some of the more complex systems of divination are not as easily dismissed. Certainly, the most
impressive is the Book of Changes, or I Ching. This began as a series of oracles written more
than three thousand years ago, which has been expanded and annotated so that, complete with
commentaries, it now constitutes a formidable body of material. But the value of the I Ching lies
in its simplicity. It is basically a binary system built up on a series of simple alternatives. To
form each of the traditional patterns, the person consulting the oracle divides a number of yarrow
stalks or tosses coins to get what amounts to a yes or a no answer.

This is done six times in succession, so that the final result is a hexagram, or pattern composed of
six horizontal lines, which are either intact or broken, according to the results of the draw. There
are sixty- four possible combinations of the two types of line, and each of these hexagrams has a
name and a traditional interpretation. In casting the stalks or the coins, the character of each line
is determined on a majority basis, but if all the stalks or all the coins indicate the same choice,
then this line in the hexagram is given special significance and opens the way for further
possibilities of interpretation.

As with all methods of divination, a great deal depends on the person who interprets the results.
In most systems success is possible only due to the intuition and psychological awareness of the
‘seer’, who literally sees what people need or want to know by observing them very carefully.
But the I Ching has a character of its own, a sort of inner consistency that almost defies
description. Carl Jung noticed this and, I think, put his finger right on the answer. He was at that
time interested in his idea of synchronicity and the theory of coincidences, and suspected that the
unconscious might have something to do with the way the patterns came out. I feel certain that
he was right and that the power of psychokinesis has a great deal to do with the weird accuracy
of the I Ching.

All commentaries on the Book of Changes say something like, ‘The more familiar one becomes
with the personality of the I Ching, the more one understands what this wise gentle-stern friend
is trying to say to you.’ (327) And this is absolutely true. As soon as one becomes familiar with
each of the hexagrams and comes to know that a solid line in a certain position has special
significance, then the patterns begin to come out right and give the kind of advice one
consciously or unconsciously expects to hear.

Colin Wilson describes this relationship well: ‘We know, theoretically, that we possess a
subconscious mind, yet as I sit here, in this room on a sunny morning, I am not in any way aware
of it; I can’t see it or feel it. It is like an arm upon which I have been lying in my sleep, and
which has become completely dead and feelingless. The real purpose of works such as the I
Ching ... is to restore circulation to these areas of the mind.’ (342) Consulting the Book of
Changes at a time of personal crisis amounts almost to a session with your favorite
psychoanalyst. There is nothing in the fall of the coins or in the text of the book that is not
already in you; all the I Ching does with its beautifully organised patterns is to draw the
necessary information and decisions out and to absolve the conscious mind of the burden of
responsibility for these decisions.

Symbols have a great appeal for the unconscious mind. It uses them to squeeze its ideas past the
censor of the conscious in the I Ching, in dreams, and in the somewhat less benign system of
divination that involves the tarot. (260) The tarot pack consists of seventy-eight cards, most of
which are similar to ordinary playing cards, but twenty-two carry colorful symbols that were
popular in the Middle Ages. There are emperors, popes, hermits, jugglers, fools, and devils - all
characters with a high emotional content for someone who lived at that time. They still provide a
sort of alphabet by means of which the ‘seer’ can work out his interpretation or the questioner
can cross-examine his unconscious, but they lack the elegant precision of the I Ching. And it is
more difficult to see how the unconscious can organise the order of the cards in a shuffle than it
is to assume that mind offers something to the momentum of a falling coin. With its ominous
symbols and its emphasis on violence, the tarot undoubtedly crashes into unconscious areas, but
it looks like a coarse bludgeon in comparison to the subtle probe of the I Ching.

So even the most popular systems of divination are largely concerned with expanding present
potential and seem to have very little to do with actually forecasting the future. Mechanical
systems such as these are often manipulated by professionals on behalf of their clients, or they
may be abandoned in favor of purely mental prophecies that are given with or without props such
as crystal balls. But no matter how the divination takes place, the method of operation is the
same. Symbols are used to open up the present or the past in such a way that one seems to get a
glimpse of the future. A client is drawn into providing information about himself that ends up
looking as though it came from the seer. No hypnosis need be involved, but the technique is very
similar. The subject is induced to do things to himself under the impression that someone else is
responsible and must therefore be exercising supernatural powers. Even the best-known prophets
show up in a poor light when stripped of these subjective impressions. Mental sleight of hand,
usually practiced by ourselves on ourselves, conceals the limited success most performers really
enjoy.

Oracular double talk is as old as Delphi. If anyone were really able to predict the future with any
accuracy, he would need only a year or two to become absolute ruler of the world. I have looked
as carefully as one can at the case histories of some of the world’s most wealthy and influential
people and can find there no evidence of supernatural abilities. They achieve their success
through application and some luck, but all make mistakes, often very elementary ones, and none
have taken gambles that were not based largely on experience. Full precognition seems to be
non-existent, but there is some evidence that some people sometimes have access to snippets of
information that cannot be explained in any other way.

William Cox, an American mathematician, has recently completed an interesting survey in an

attempt to discover whether people really do avoid traveling on trains that were going to be
involved in an accident. Cox collected information on the total number of people on each train at
the time of the accident and compared these with the number of passengers who traveled on the
same train during each of the preceding seven days and on the fourteenth, twenty-first and
twenty-eighth day before the accident. (309) His results, which cover several years of operation
with the same equipment at the same station, show that people did in fact avoid accident-bound
trains. There were always fewer passengers in the damaged and derailed coaches than would
have been expected for that train at that time. The difference between expected and actual
number of passengers was so great that the odds against its occurring by chance were over a
hundred to one.

It would be fascinating to make further investigations of this kind. So much of the material
dealing with prophecy and prediction is anecdotal and impossible to analyse or view objectively,
but statistical surveys could show that some of the other ‘hunches’ so popular in folklore are
indeed mathematical realities and that there is some kind of collective awareness of things to
come. Survival in a biological sense depends almost entirely on avoiding disaster by being able
to see it coming. An antelope turns away from the water hole where a lion is lying in wait,
because it catches a trace of smell on the wind or hears a bird making sounds that show it is
disturbed.

An otter flees from its stream because a minute change in vibration warned it of an approaching
flash flood. In assessing examples of apparent precognition, we need to be aware of life’s
receptivity to very subtle stimuli that tell us that the future has already started. They enable living
organisms to anticipate the future by expanding the present. In the unconscious areas that
respond to subliminal signals from the environment, the future already exists. We cannot change
it; if we could, it wouldn’t be the future, but we can alter the extent to which we will be involved
in it. In a very real sense this is tampering with time, but it is made possible by entirely natural
extensions of our normal senses, which give up a more than usually acute view of distant things.

In biological terms precognition therefore means knowing not what will happen but what could
happen if…

Lyall Watson, Supernature