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Atlas of the esoteric world · Asia · China and East Asia
Master Li Wen
Master Li Wen

Living tradition

I Ching

China, three thousand years ago; the oldest oracle still in use.

Sixty-four hexagrams of whole and broken lines; three coins are thrown six times and the book answers with an image and advice.

How it's done

  1. 01Ask the question aloud.
  2. 02Throw three coins six times, bottom to top.
  3. 03Look up the hexagram and read its changing lines.

With your own tools

Three identical coins and the book; heads count three, tails two.

With Ocluna

I toss the three coins six times for you, line by line, and give you the hexagram, its moving lines and what it changes into. Hold the question before you tap.

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Master Li Wen
Master Li Wen

Your reading

Master Li Wen does your I Ching reading

Master Li Wen
Master Li Wen

What Master Li Wen tells you

  • It is the oldest book still consulted: its 64 hexagrams are about three thousand years old and Confucius wrote commentaries on them.
  • Leibniz saw a perfect binary system in the hexagrams in 1703; Carl Jung wrote the foreword to the translation that made it famous in the West.
  • The ancient method uses fifty yarrow stalks and takes almost half an hour; the three-coin method won out for being quick.
  • Carl Jung wrote the foreword to Richard Wilhelm's translation in 1949 and recounted asking the book itself about its publication in the West.
  • The 64 hexagrams are formed by combining eight trigrams: Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Water, Mountain, Wind, Fire and Lake.
  • The oldest core of the book is called Zhouyi, meaning the changes of the Zhou dynasty; only with later commentaries did it come to be called Yijing.
  • In the tomb of Mawangdui, sealed in 168 BCE near Changsha, a silk copy of the book appeared with the hexagrams in a different order than usual.
  • The commentaries that accompany the book since the Han era are called the Ten Wings, and tradition attributed them to Confucius, although today they are considered the work of several hands.
  • The circular order of the hexagrams, today called Fu Xi's, was established in the 11th century by the scholar Shao Yong, of the Song dynasty, and not in legendary antiquity.
  • The first significant English translation was published by the Scotsman James Legge in 1882, as part of the Sacred Books of the East collection.
  • Richard Wilhelm published his German version in 1924; the English translation that spread it worldwide was signed by Cary F. Baynes in 1950.
  • Before the book, the Shang kings consulted the oracle by heating ox bones and turtle shells until they cracked, and engraved the query next to the crack.
  • The eight trigrams are also ordered in the bagua, the eight-sided diagram that feng shui uses to orient a house or a room.
  • With two states per line, solid or broken, the sixty-four hexagrams are all possible combinations of six lines, not one more.
  • The flag of South Korea features four of the eight trigrams in its corners: heaven, earth, water, and fire.
  • The composer John Cage wrote Music of Changes in 1951, choosing each note and silence with the book's throws.
  • The writer Philip K. Dick said that he consulted the book throw by throw while writing, in 1962, the alternate history novel that brought him fame.
  • The oldest method distributes fifty yarrow stalks, one of which is set aside before starting; the three-coin method became widespread because it is much faster.
  • The eight trigrams have their own names in Chinese: Qian is heaven, Kun is earth, Li is fire, and Kan is water.
  • The bamboo strip manuscript from the Shanghai Museum, from the Warring States period, is the oldest surviving copy of the book.

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This reading is symbolic self-knowledge and entertainment content based on folk traditions. It does not predict the future, is not medical, legal or financial advice, and does not replace qualified professionals.