THROWING the I Ching?

[wandelaar]

Before I knew anything about it I thought the I Ching was literally thrown like Mikado sticks and the pattern of the fallen sticks was then studied and interpreted. At some sites the I Ching is explained that way. Has this any basis in historical facts?

[OldDog]

I have never heard of such a thing. The process of using yarrow stalks has always been a manipulation (division and counting out) of sticks in all the references to the process I have encountered. The method of manipulation may vary slightly but it is still a deliberate process. 

 

Still, I have always wondered how the word "throwing" entered the lexicon. Is it a modern invention? Is there any basis in translation from original older sources for such a word? Perhaps there term derives from use of coins or other devices.

 

Perhaps the idea behind "throwing" is to suggest randomness in the process. As we have seen in the recent discussions on the yarrow stalks method that there is randomness ... then there is randomness. In fact, in the wake of recent discussions, the thought has crossed my mind that maybe the complexity of the yarrrow stalks method was a means to ensure that the stalks could not be manipulated with intent to force an outcome ... nah!

 

Then, the other day, I ran across this in Wilhelm's I Ching. 

 

As divine beings do not give direct expression to their knowledge, a means had to be found by which they could make themselves intelligible. Suprahuman intelligence has from the beginning made use of three mediums of expression—men, animals, and plants, in each of which life pulsates in a different rhythm. Chance came to be utilized as a fourth medium; the very absence of an immediate meaning in chance permitted a deeper meaning to come to expression in it. The oracle was the outcome of this use of chance. The Book of Changes is founded on the plant oracle as manipulated by men with mediumistic powers.

 

Does this suggest that the yarrow stalks (plants) method has primacy over other methods, coins for example? And what about mediumistic powers? Or, is this just added by Wilhelm. He doesn't seem to provide and explanation of how he arrived at that understanding ... or at least I have not encountered it yet.

 

Throwing, plants, mediumistic powers ... good food for discussion.

[wandelaar]

In Dutch, but here it is said that the yarrow stalks are literally thrown on the ground:

 

https://books.google.nl/books?id=X2GnCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT18&lpg=PT18&dq=gooien+duizendblad&source=bl&ots=ZXEDOGfweo&sig=MS2z1tQk1I2XyIaCEHpjeWphMLI&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj02_r9yI_cAhWRNOwKHRsMC1Y4ChDoAQgtMAA#v=onepage&q=gooien duizendblad&f=false

[Harmen]

6 hours ago, wandelaar said:

Before I knew anything about it I thought the I Ching was literally thrown like Mikado sticks and the pattern of the fallen sticks was then studied and interpreted. At some sites the I Ching is explained that way. Has this any basis in historical facts?

 

No.

 

26 minutes ago, OldDog said:

Still, I have always wondered how the word "throwing" entered the lexicon. Is it a modern invention? Is there any basis in translation from original older sources for such a word? Perhaps there term derives from use of coins or other devices.

 

 

Yes, it comes from the throwing of the coins but it seems to be a word that is only used in the West. Chinese texts often talk about yaochu 搖出, which literally means 'shake and go out'. 

 

37 minutes ago, OldDog said:

Does this suggest that the yarrow stalks (plants) method has primacy over other methods, coins for example?

 

The coin method was looked upon with disdain by the Confucian elite because it was mainly used by Daoist mediums, shamans and fortune tellers who represented everything the Confucians disapproved of, so they favoured the yarrow stalks even though for a long time they did not know how to use them and therefore focused on a more philosophical use of the book. In The Old Days yarrow was used alongside the oracle bone method, and there are known cases where the bone was consulted first and since its answer was not decisive the yeaaor was consulted. For more about this see my article The Yijing as oracle bone’s sidekick – a study of ‘heng’ 亨 https://www.yjcn.nl/wp/the-yijing-as-oracle-bones-sidekick-a-study-of-heng-亨/ 

[wandelaar]

Here it is called "shuffling the yarrow-stalks":

 

https://books.google.nl/books?id=eRBXJThEuJsC&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=book+monkey+yarrow+stalks&source=bl&ots=sxhAz6ILfZ&sig=P5FWikBKUbabgoFynZ0Pwc8Nu6Y&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwic8u3X2I_cAhULJ1AKHdq_CLsQ6AEIVzAI#v=onepage&q=book monkey yarrow stalks&f=false

[Harmen]

9 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

Here it is called "shuffling the yarrow-stalks":

 

https://books.google.nl/books?id=eRBXJThEuJsC&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=book+monkey+yarrow+stalks&source=bl&ots=sxhAz6ILfZ&sig=P5FWikBKUbabgoFynZ0Pwc8Nu6Y&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwic8u3X2I_cAhULJ1AKHdq_CLsQ6AEIVzAI#v=onepage&q=book monkey yarrow stalks&f=false

 

I have looked up the relevant passage in the Chinese original, starting with 'There are three hundred and sixty schools of wisdom':

 

祖師道：「『道』字門中有三百六十傍門，傍門皆有正果。不知你學那一門哩？」 悟空道：「憑尊師意思，弟子傾心聽從。」祖師道：「我教你個『術』字門中之 道，如何？」悟空道：「術門之道怎麼說？」祖師道：「術字門中，乃是些請仙 、扶鸞、問卜、揲蓍，能知趨吉避凶之理。」悟空道：「似這般可得長生麼？」 祖師道：「不能，不能。」悟空道：「不學，不學。」
 

What is translated as 'shuffling the yarrow-stalks' is actually sheshi 揲蓍; 揲 is almost exclusively used in combination with 蓍 'yarrow' and in this combination it simply means 'to consult/sort/divide/take the yarrow'. At least 'shuffling' is a better translation than 'throwing'.
 

[Michael Sternbach]

1 hour ago, OldDog said:

I have never heard of such a thing. The process of using yarrow stalks has always been a manipulation (division and counting out) of sticks in all the references to the process I have encountered. The method of manipulation may vary slightly but it is still a deliberate process. 

 

Still, I have always wondered how the word "throwing" entered the lexicon. Is it a modern invention? Is there any basis in translation from original older sources for such a word? Perhaps there term derives from use of coins or other devices.

 

Perhaps the idea behind "throwing" is to suggest randomness in the process. As we have seen in the recent discussions on the yarrow stalks method that there is randomness ... then there is randomness. In fact, in the wake of recent discussions, the thought has crossed my mind that maybe the complexity of the yarrrow stalks method was a means to ensure that the stalks could not be manipulated with intent to force an outcome ... nah!

 

Then, the other day, I ran across this in Wilhelm's I Ching. 

 

As divine beings do not give direct expression to their knowledge, a means had to be found by which they could make themselves intelligible. Suprahuman intelligence has from the beginning made use of three mediums of expression—men, animals, and plants, in each of which life pulsates in a different rhythm. Chance came to be utilized as a fourth medium; the very absence of an immediate meaning in chance permitted a deeper meaning to come to expression in it. The oracle was the outcome of this use of chance. The Book of Changes is founded on the plant oracle as manipulated by men with mediumistic powers.

 

Does this suggest that the yarrow stalks (plants) method has primacy over other methods, coins for example? And what about mediumistic powers? Or, is this just added by Wilhelm. He doesn't seem to provide and explanation of how he arrived at that understanding ... or at least I have not encountered it yet.

 

Throwing, plants, mediumistic powers ... good food for discussion.

 

Talking about Wilhelm's conspicuous mention of mediumistic powers, there is a debate regarding this also in the field of Tarot divination. Some say that there is nothing psychic to consulting the Tarot, others feel there is. As for myself, I try to decide intuitively what card to draw, and also how to shake the coins/when to let them go. And intuition does tie in with psychic perception, IMO and IME.

 

It is true that pretty much anybody can throw the coins and get useful results, though. Notwithstanding Wilhelm's comment, you most definitely don't have to be a full-blown medium for that. Then again, tapping into psychic information is much easier than a lot of people believe - just attend a Silva Mind Control seminar and marvel at the level of ESP skill demonstrated by 'ordinary' people after just a few days of training!

 

True, somebody may be blocking their intuition and psychic perception respectively. I especially feel this with pronounced skeptics. Personally, it just baffles me how anybody could categorically deny the existence of psychic phenomena. I sometimes wonder if it's because in their experience, these things really just don't occur. Or is it that those folks, indoctrinated by  the Materialism/Positivism of the modern era, unwittingly filter any hints at them out?

 

Be that as it may, this topic also leads us back to the recent/current discussion in some other threads. How does chance (some call it synchronicity) tie in with psychic action? The respective discussion of C.G.Jung with quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli may offer some clues, if studied carefully.

 

Bottom line (at my current level of understanding) is that somebody with more advanced psychic perception (due to talent or training) may be able to get somewhat more accurate replies from the Yijing. But it's just a matter of degree, at the most.

 

And then there is another part to a reading that involves intuition and psychic perception respectively. That's when it comes to interpreting the oracle's reply. Similar assessments like the ones I just mentioned apply to that as well, in my view.

[OldDog]

23 minutes ago, Harmen said:

At least 'shuffling' is a better translation than 'throwing'

 

Agreed, but "shuffling" almost carries a different connotation. Just as to my ear "throwing" suggested an assurance of randomness through the action of letting the coins bounce around, "shuffling" seems to suggest the need to randomize the stalks themselves as if the individual stalks could be distinguished.

 

Language is funny.

 

Was there ever a yarrow stalk ... or similar method ... use where the stalks were distinguishable, one from another, with significance attached to individual stalks? 

[Taoist Texts]

8 hours ago, wandelaar said:

I thought the I Ching was literally thrown

Cool topic. Not quite, but they were shaken to shuffle them first, and to select one stick to put aside.

 

2 hours ago, OldDog said:

Does this suggest that the yarrow stalks (plants) method has primacy over other methods

Yes, because the main but forgotten idea behind the yarrow stalks divination was to ask the stalks themselves. Yarrow was a sacred plant who knew the answers. 《博物志》言：“蓍千岁而三百茎，其本已老，故知吉凶” An old plant of course: "a 1000 year old milfoil is old, hence it knows favorable from unfavorable".

[OldDog]

38 minutes ago, Michael Sternbach said:

pretty much anybody can throw the coins and get useful results, though.

 

Well ... maybe. Many have expressed faith in the coins or even go so far as to suggest the manner of producing the hexagram is not so important. But the even balance in outcome of the coins bothers me a bit ... maybe more than a bit. As amply demonstrated in other threads, the yarrow stalk method is not evenly balanced. Surely, the ancients could flip a coin and obtain evenly balanced results ... but they didn't. Instead, the yarrow stalks method was developed. And I can't help but think there was a purpose to the inherent uneven balance. They  must have felt that the yarrow method produced a better modeling of real world change. 

 

38 minutes ago, Michael Sternbach said:

How does chance (some call it synchronicity) tie in with psychic action?

 

Maybe, it is not chance. I think people are predisposed to believe that what is perceived as random is assurance that any result is beyond human manipulation ... that it must come from some unassailable source that expresses itself synchronisticly through the process. This notion appeals to me and is probably why I think that I is important for the inquirer to be intimately involved in the process ... to assure that connection is established between the question and the result.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2018 by OldDog
Typo

[wandelaar]

@ Michael Sternbach

 

Both positions (paranormal phenomena exist and paranormal phenomena don't exist) can be defended. What made me appreciate the sceptical position was Rob Nanninga's Dutch book Parariteiten.

 

Also very good is: https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Parapsychology-Exploring-Boundaries-Capability/dp/0710208057

 

The last one is not a book by sceptics but a book about parapsychology that makes abundantly clear how easy ones naive observations and anecdotal evidence can mislead one into believing in the paranormal when actually nothing of the sort happened. Most people who claim to have witnessed paranormal events don't know and very often don't want to know how to properly investigate the paranormal to rule out fraud, (self)deception, etc.

 

So my current position on this is that one has to study the arguments of both sides in the debate before taking a stand, and when one has done that one might very well end up like myself: in a state of indecision.

 

I wrote this post not to start another war about are there or are there not paranormal phenomena, but to share my own position. I have nothing to defend and consequently won't participate in any further debates on this question. Those kind of debates are completely useless because the currently available evidence isn't strong enough to solve the issue one way or another.

[Lost in Translation]

15 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

So my current position on this is that one has to study the arguments of both sides in the debate before taking a stand, and when one has done that one might very well end up like myself: in a state of indecision.

 

Wisdom.

[wandelaar]

Found it:

https://translate.google.nl/#nl/en/De stengels van deze plant worden al eeuwen gebruikt bij het raadplegen van het orakelboek de I Ching. 50 rechte stengels van gelijke lengte vallen als mikadostokjes en men kiest er een hexagram uit. Uit dit hexagram is dan weer te lezen welke veranderingen in de toekomst te verwachten zijn.

 

Source: https://plazilla.com/page/4295039402/duizendblad-uit-het-medicijnkastje-van-oma

 

Not exactly an academic citation, I admit. Nevertheless the idea that the yarrow stalks are used as a kind of oracular Mikado seems to float around here and there..

[Michael Sternbach]

2 hours ago, wandelaar said:

@ Michael Sternbach

 

Both positions (paranormal phenomena exist and paranormal phenomena don't exist) can be defended. What made me appreciate the sceptical position was Rob Nanninga's Dutch book Parariteiten.

 

Also very good is: https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Parapsychology-Exploring-Boundaries-Capability/dp/0710208057

 

The last one is not a book by sceptics but a book about parapsychology that makes abundantly clear how easy ones naive observations and anecdotal evidence can mislead one into believing in the paranormal when actually nothing of the sort happened. Most people who claim to have witnessed paranormal events don't know and very often don't want to know how to properly investigate the paranormal to rule out fraud, (self)deception, etc.

 

So my current position on this is that one has to study the arguments of both sides in the debate before taking a stand, and when one has done that one might very well end up like myself: in a state of indecision.

 

I wrote this post not to start another war about are there or are there not paranormal phenomena, but to share my own position. I have nothing to defend and consequently won't participate in any further debates on this question. Those kind of debates are completely useless because the currently available evidence isn't strong enough to solve the issue one way or another.

 

I agree that debates about this are useless. You need to experience psychic phenomena yourself in order to truly know. And once you have experience them on a regular basis, doubting them will make about as much sense as doubting the taste of vanilla ice cream when you are eating it. But I am also just writing this to share my position. Please note that I brought this issue up in the first place as part of a longer reply to OldDog who seems to be interested in discussing the psychic side of Yijing divination.

[wandelaar]

@ Michael Sternbach

 

Just out of interest, have you studied the sceptical position on the paranormal? In particular concerning personal experiences and anecdotal evidence?

[Michael Sternbach]

3 hours ago, OldDog said:

 

Well ... maybe. Many have expressed faith in the coins or even go so far as to suggest the manner of producing the hexagram is not so important. But the even balance in outcome of the coins bothers me a bit ... maybe more than a bit. As amply demonstrated in other threads, the yarrow stalk method is not evenly balanced. Surely, the ancients could flip a coin and obtain evenly balanced results ... but they didn't. Instead, the yarrow stalks method was developed. And I can't help but think there was a purpose to the inherent uneven balance. They  must have felt that the yarrow method produced a better modeling of real world change. 

 

While IME the coin throwing method works well enough, I agree that the more orthodox yarrow stalks method may, by the mathematics intrinsic to its design, yield even better results. Although practically speaking, that will depend on other factors as well, especially on the state of the reader. And in regards to that, the more elaborate process of a divination with the yarrow stalks may actually contribute to making the mind of the reader more receptive.

 

3 hours ago, OldDog said:

Maybe, it is not chance. I think people are predisposed to believe that what is perceived as random is assurance that any result is beyond human manipulation ... that it must come from some unassailable source that expresses itself synchronisticly through the process. This notion appeals to me and is probably why I think that I is important for the inquirer to be intimately involved in the process ... to assure that connection is established between the question and the result.

 

 

Exactly. The observer can never take themselves out of the equation! They are intimately involved in the process, random as the latter may seem. All the more since it's the 'observer' who is throwing the coins or dividing the stalks.

[Lost in Translation]

1 hour ago, Michael Sternbach said:

The observer can never take themselves out of the equation! They are intimately involved in the process, random as the latter may seem.

 

This is key to my understanding. The same is true for all forms of perception. For example, a camera may record a view but it is only when a conscious being observes the view that any significance develops. Divination is the same. We can randomly sort yarrow or toss coins all we want but absent a questing individual to make sense of the results we are lost. Once you add the individual to the equation then any/all minutia will suddenly grow in significance.

 

For example, a month ago I was concerned about my cat's health so I divined via yarrow stalks. One (of the many) attribute associated with the response was leg/foot. For some reason that caught my attention so I wrote it down. Three weeks later the animal had a blood clot form and flow into the front right paw, making him lame in that limb.

 

Coincidence? Perhaps. But nonetheless I was warned that he would suffer a foot malady and it did indeed happen.

[wandelaar]

32 minutes ago, Lost in Translation said:

For example, a month ago I was concerned about my cat's health so I divined via yarrow stalks. One (of the many) attribute associated with the response was leg/foot. For some reason that caught my attention so I wrote it down. Three weeks later the animal had a blood clot form and flow into the front right paw, making him lame in that limb.

 

Coincidence? Perhaps. But nonetheless I was warned that he would suffer a foot malady and it did indeed happen.

 

Could be that you already unconsciously suspected something of the kind on the basis of unconscious observations, and that then one aspect of the multi-interpretable result of the divination helped your concern to surface. That's how a sceptic could explain the case. And that's also what makes it so incredibly difficult to isolate what is still normal and what is paranormal for the events that happen in daily life. But admittedly, as regards the practical use of the I Ching it doesn't matter much how it works, as long as it does.

[Lost in Translation]

30 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

But admittedly, as regards the practical use of the I Ching it doesn't matter much how it works, as long as it does.

 

Excellent point! I consulted the I Ching because I wanted information. I was given information. The information was accurate. Does it really matter beyond that?

[wandelaar]

52 minutes ago, Lost in Translation said:

Excellent point! I consulted the I Ching because I wanted information. I was given information. The information was accurate. Does it really matter beyond that?

 

It depends on what you are interested in. From a purely practical viewpoint it doesn't matter. But I am not an active I Ching user myself, and to make matters worse I am not a practical guy either. I am mainly interested in the question of whether or not paranormal processes are involved. But that's another topic.

[OldDog]

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

That's how a sceptic could explain the case.

 

Yes, this is my dilemma. On the one hand, I am sufficiently grounded in a western scientific view of things to want definative evidence of something outside of normal experience. On the other hand my personal observation has given me enough soft evidence to suspect strongly that more is at work than can be explained in the traditional scientific way. I personally have no direct concsiouness of any such workings, although I have had, for as far back as I can remember, a resonably strong intuitive sense of things that I rely on, if that counts. But it is not always something I can deliberately connect with. I just have to remain open to the experience when it choses to make itself present.

 

So, I tend toward a general philosophical taoist view and see the I Ching as a source of wisdom. (And yes, I do believe that the I Ching is part of a greater taoist tradition, in spite of the arguments I have heard to the contrary.)  Whether or not I can reliably access the I Ching in an oracle sense remains to be seen. The proof of the pudding, they say, is in the tasting. Guess I just need to taste more pudding.

[Nungali]

What 'yarrow stalk' ?     Chinese yarrow must be different. I have been growing yarrow for years ( for use of its other properties) and kept the old dried  'leaf' and flower stalks , neither of them seemed suitable -  fragile and easily broken .

 

 

I was surprised how well it works in its application to stop blood flow and heal wounds ... bad wounds  (also called 'Soldiers herb or woundwart ....  and soldiers wounds , back then, were not all that trivial !  ... sword and axe cuts !    But how does its properties apply to divination ?  What makes yarrow a plant for divination ?

[wandelaar]

@ OldDog

 

But what do want to see proven? The (reasonable) sceptics don't deny that the I Ching could work, they only explain its working differently. Eating more pudding will not solve this issue.

 

Proving that the I Ching involves paranormal processes will have to be done scientifically. For instance the program written by Lost in Translation could be used if only it were very much faster to measure deviations of the probabilities of the hexagrams. See the topic:

Perhaps letting the lines of the hexagrams be determined directly through real random numbers in their appropriate probabilities will do the trick?

 

 

Or you could take the opposite road of trying to prove that paranormal influences are completely unnecessary to explain the working of the I Ching by using the binary digits of pi as a way of throwing the I Ching and seeing whether or not your results are less accurate than when you used coins or yarrow stalks. See:

 

 

Probably some other approaches are also possible. I will be happy to see some experiments done.

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2018 by wandelaar

[OldDog]

On 7/8/2018 at 6:24 PM, wandelaar said:

But what do want to see proven?  ... Proving that the I Ching involves paranormal processes will have to be done scientifically.

 

I'm not sure I am asking for anything to be proven ... perhaps more demonstrated than proven. I don't hold the scientific method and proofs produced by it as the gold standard of credibility. The scientific method works pretty well for the world of matter and form but I think there are some areas where science, as it has developed so far, is not adequate for describing or validating phenomena. History is certainly full of examples where the state of science could not produce an explanation ... or even produced a false explanation. That's not saying it will never get there.

 

As far as the I Ching goes, I still have a ways to go before I will be able to trust in it as an oracle; as a book of wisdom, yes, but not as an oracle. Right now, I am in the information gathering phase ... trying to develop an understanding of the mechanics of arriving at a hexagram and how to go about reading it. Inevitably, I will have to start putting what I think I have learned into practice. As I do so, I will be looking for evidence of two things: does the hexagram produced by an inquiry accurately represent the situation asked about and are the changes born out as the situation unfolds. I won't be worried too much about the role of randomness or statistical probabilities, as these are tools that belong to science, which I have already pretty much decided is not yet ready to apply in divination.

[wandelaar]

7 hours ago, OldDog said:

As I do so, I will be looking for evidence of two things: does the hexagram produced by an inquiry accurately represent the situation asked about and are the changes born out as the situation unfolds. I won't be worried too much about the role of randomness or statistical probabilities, as these are tools that belong to science, which I have already pretty much decided is not yet ready to apply in divination.

 

How are you going to decide whether the hexagram produced by an inquiry accurately represents the situation asked about? For instance are you also going to test whether other hexagrams would have represented the situation just as well or even better?

 

Today I heard someone say she found it surprising that she was born under the Chinese sign of the horse, because she liked horses when she was young. I asked whether she had also looked at the other signs whether they would have been any less surprising. But no - she hadn't because she wasn't interested in any other signs than hers. That's how it goes. There is a will to believe in those things, and other suggested approaches that might conceivably deliver results that could weaken the belief are simply ignored.

 

Of course you are free to test the I Ching as it is commonly used, and I consider it highly likely that you will find surprising results (as I have found them myself when I tried the I Ching). But does that have anything to do with the credibility that the hexagram produced by an inquiry accurately represents the situation asked about? Don't think so - the hexagrams are much to multi-interpretable for that. But the system "I Ching + I Ching user" might fare better.

Edited July 10, 2018 by wandelaar