More Information
Consultation methods
A direct yarrow stalk method that skips the noncontributory steps of the traditional method, while preserving the feel and giving identical results.
Using coins to consult the I Ching. These are the simplest, most logical, and easiest to remember coin methods. Four coins reproduce the yarrow stalk probabilities; three coins retain the traditional coin probabilities.
Using playing cards to consult the I Ching. The origin of this method had nothing to do with blackjack. Honest, I swear.
Dynamic Line Energies. Imagine if each line type’s odds of changing vs. not were uniquely determined ahead of time.
Dynamic Playing Cards along the lines of the above.
The Way of 16,777,216 lets you choose a hexagram from the 16,777,216 possibilities of the yarrow stalk method with one click.
The Fractal I Ching generates hexagrams using a simple fractal algorithm.
Another Fractal I Ching generates hexagrams using the color data from fractal images of the Zaslavsky web map.
A Command Line I Ching is a Bash script that allows you to use the I Ching from the command line.
Rules of interpretation
Rules of Interpretation: a summary of rules from various contemporary authors, in some cases handed down from others.
Chu Hsi’s Rules of interpretation from I-hsüeh ch’i meng (Introduction to the Study of the Classic of Change), with an analysis of the difficult rule for three changing lines in particular.
The Nanjing Rules as derived from the Zuo Commentary and Guoyu, with a simplification based on analysis of the data, what I personally think of the rules, and why.
Texts
The Pocket I Ching Oracle by Nigel Richmond is a download that you can print on half-letter-sized (8.5 × 5.5 inches) or A5 (210 × 148 mm) sheets, fold in half to make a booklet, and put into your pocket.
The Zhouyi text of the Takashima Ekidan
Basic binary concepts
The Case for Little-Endian: why the binary sequence of hexagram numbers should ascend from bottom to top.
Binary applications
The Anti-Hexagram, made by changing the non-moving lines in the original hexagram, is what the current situation is not changing into, or what is being avoided by the indicated change. Here is an explanation of its relationship to the other hexagrams, a comparison with the reversed primary hexagram, and some examples of its use.
The Pang Tong Yao: the I Ching, with the hexagrams presented as pairs of reversed, rather than inverted, opposites, for detailed comparison of the judgments and line texs.
Changeable Lines, Zhi Gua, and Fan Yao displays the changed hexagrams which result from changing every single line in the I Ching, together with the corresponding lines in the changed hexagrams.
The Boolean I Ching displays selected hexagrams in pairs, and the hexagrams resulting from the application of boolean operators such as AND, OR, XOR, XNOR, and NOT. You can browse the various combinations to your heart’s content.
Extended binary applications
Hexagram Transitions lists all possible pathways of transitional hexagrams between any two hexagrams. If all lines change, there are 720 different pathways.
Gray codes are single-line transition pathways that traverse all 64 hexagrams.
Daisy chains are paths through all 64 hexagrams via changing lines chosen as if cast by coins.
Memory wheels are sequences of 64 digits that contain all the hexagrams of the I Ching in an overlapping sequence.
Miscellaneous
Inverted King Wen Pairs is similar to the Pang Tong Yao above, but displays the line texts of the King Wen pairs inverted top-to-bottom, for comparison.
Ascending Hexagrams are the five overlapping hexagrams that link a pair of hexagrams.
The Graphic I Ching: what the yin and yang lines look like when expressed graphically, according to seven different ordering schemes.
The Mathematics of the Ling Qi Jing, a Taoist oracle that dates back to the first few centuries CE.
The Mathematics of the Tai Xuan Jing, an eclectic oracle based on three line types for heaven, earth, and man, dating from about 2 BCE.
Consulting the Shen Shu, a minor divination system with unclear origins that has fairly recently made its way from China to the west.
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A few good books . . . |
Forty-four Translations of the I Ching
Here are 44 translations of the text and first lines of Hexagrams 3 and 36 of the I Ching.
The Virtual Yarrow Stalks I Ching — online light version, 197 KB.
Links
Hermetica.Info by Bradford Hatcher
Steve Marshall’s site at Yijing Dao
Yi Blog by Luis Andrade
Yi Jing, Oracle of the Sun by LiSe Heyboer
I Ching consultation methods: yarrow or coin? at Clarity
Probability and the Yi Jing by Sabazius, a very clear description of the yarrow stalk and coin probabilities
Casting I Ching Hexagrams (an updated version of www.dentato.it/iching/), which describes a large number of alternative consultation methods
“Shén Shù,” the Spirit Numbers of Zhuge Liang
How to use the yarrow stalks at the Earth Heart page
See Probabilities with coins and yarrow stalks at Steve Marshall’s site for another perspective
I Ching and I Ching divination at Wikipedia
The Internet Sacred Text Archive: Taoism and the I Ching