Post by bluefedish on Jan 7, 2008 13:49:13 GMT -5
Among the many forms of divination is a method using the I Ching or Book of Changes. The book is structured as an 8x8 matrix of 64 hexagrams representin the states and the dynamic relationships of the 8 elements, each represented by trigram. Throughout China's region of cultural influence (including Korea, Japan and Vietnam), scholars have added comments and interpretation to this work, one of the most important in ancient Chinese culture; it has also attracted the interest of many thinkers in the West.
The Process of consulting the book as an oracle involves determining the hexagram by a method of random generation and then reading the text associated with that hexagram, and is a form of bibliomancy. Confucius said that one would not be ready to attempt to use the I Ching for divination until quite old. This work discourages compulsion (i.e. asking the same question over and over in hopes of either a different/better answer or some kind of enlightenment as to the meaning of the answers on gets). Hexagram 4 is a common result of asking the same question 3 or more times.
The text is extremely dense reading. A list of English translation can be found in the main article - I Ching Translations. It's not unkown for experienced soothsayers to ignore the text, building the oracle from the pictures created by the lines, bigrams, trigrams, and final hexagrams.
Each line of a hexagram determined with these methods is either stable (young) or changing (old). There are 4 possibilities for each line, corresponding to the cycle of change from yin to yang and back again:
old yin (yin changing into yang), which has the number 6 and symbol ---x---
young yang (unchanging yang), which has the number 7 and symbol --------
young yin (unchanging yin), which has the number 8 and symbol --- ---
old yang (yang changing into yin), which has the number 9 and symbol ---o---
Once a hexagram is determined, each line has been determined as either changing (old) or unchanging (young). Old yin is seen as more powerful then young yin, and old yang is more powerful then young yang. Any line in a hexagram that is old (changing) adds additional meaning to that hexagram.
Taoist philosophy holds that powerful yin will eventually turn to yang (and vice versa), so a new hexagram is formed by transposing each changing yin line with a yang line, and vice versa. Thus, further insight into the process of change is gained by reading the text of this new hexagram and studying it as the result of the current change.
Some Methods
Several of the methods use a randomising agent to determine each line of the hexagram. These methods produce a number which corresponds to the numbers of changing or unchanging lines discussed above, and thus determines each line of the hexagram.
Cracks on turtle shell: The turtle shell oracle is probably the earliest record of fortune telling. The diviner would apply heat to a piece of a turtle shell (sometimes with a hot poker), and interpret the resulting cracks. The cracks were sometimes annotated with inscriptions, the oldest Chinese writings that have been discovered. This oracle predated the earliest versions of the Zhou Yi (dated from about 1100 BC) by hundreds of years.
A variant on this method was to use ox shoulder bones. When thick material was to be cracked, the underside was thinned by carving with a knife.
Yarrow stalks: Hexagrams may be generated by the manipulation of yarrow stalks. The following directions are from the ten wings of the I Ching. Other instructions can be found here, and a calculation of probabilities here.
One takes fifty yarrow stalks, of which only forty-nine are used. These forty-nine are first divided into two heaps (at random), then a stalk from the right-hand heap is inserted between the ring finger and the little finger of the left hand. The left heap is counted through by fours, and the remainder (four or less) is inserted between the ring finger and the middle finger. The same thing is done with the right heap, and the remainder inserted between the forefinger and the middle finger. This constitutes one change.
Now one is holding in one's hand either five or nine stalks in all. The two remaining heaps are put together, and the same process is repeated twice. These second and third times, one obtains either four or eight stalks. The five stalks of the first counting and the four of each of the succeeding countings are regarded as a unit having the numerical value three; the nine stalks of the first counting and the eight of the succeeding countings have the numerical value two.
When three successive changes produce the sum 3+3+3=9, this makes the old yang, i.e., a firm line that moves. The sum 2+2+2=6 makes old yin, a yielding line that moves. Seven is the young yang, and eight the young yin; they are not taken into account as individual lines.
The correct probability has been used also in the marble, bean, dice and two or four coin methods below. This probability is significantly different from that of the three-coin method, because the required amount of accuracy occupies four binary bits of information, so three coins is one bit short. In terms of chances-out-of-sixteen, the three-coin method yields 2,2,6,6 instead of 1,3,5,7 for old-yin, old-yang, young-yang, young-yin respectively.
Note that only the remainders after counting through fours are kept and laid upon the single stalk removed at the start. The piles of four are re-used for each change, the number of piles of four is not used in calculation; it's the remainders that are used. The removing of all the fours is a way of calculating the remainder, those fours are then re-used for the next change so that the total number of stalks in use remains high to keep all remainders equally probable.
Marbles or beads (method of 16): This method is a recent innovation, designed to be quick like the coin method, while giving nearly the same probabilities as the yarrow stalk method.
use sixteen marbles of four different colours but the same size, distributed as follows:
1 marble of a colour representing old yin (such as blue)
5 marbles of a colour representing young yang (such as white)
7 marbles of a colour representing young yin (such as black)
3 marbles of a colour representing old yang (such as red)
Place all the marbles in a bag or other opaque container for each of the 6 lines of the hexagram.
Shake all 16 marbles together in the container to "shuffle" them
draw out one marble.
The marble drawn determines the current line of the hexagram
replace the marble in the container.
Once 6 lines have been determined, the hexagram is formed.
A good source of marbles is a (secondhand) Chinese checkers set: 6 colors, 10 marbles each.
Using this method, the probabilities of each type of line are the same as the distribution of the colours, as follows:
old yin: 1 in 16 (0.0625)
young yang: 5 in 16 (0.3125)
young yin: 7 in 16 (0.4375)
old yang: 3 in 16 (0.1875)
An improvement on this method uses 16 beads of four different colors but with the same size and shape (i.e., indistinguishable by touch), strung beads being much more portable than marbles.
You take the string and, without looking, grab a bead a random.
The comments above apply to this method as well.
Rice Grains: For this method, either rice grains, or small seeds are used.
One picks up a few seeds between the middle finger and thumb. Carefully and respectfully place them on a clean sheet of paper. Repeat this process six times, keeping each cluster of seeds in a separate pile --- each pile represents one line. One then counts the number of seeds in each cluster, starting with the first pile, which is the base line. If there is an even number of seeds, then the line is yin, otherwise the line is yang --- except if there is one seed, in which case one redoes that line.
One then asks the question again, and picks up one more cluster of seeds. Count the number of seeds you have, then keep subtracting six, until you have six seeds or less. This gives you the number of the line that specifically represent your situation. It is not a moving Line. If you do not understand your answer, you may rephrase the question, and ask it a second time.
Probability Analysis of I Ching Divination
Most analyses on the probabilities of either the coin method or yarrow stalk method agree on the probabilities for each method.
www.dentato.it/iching/ - alternative calculation of the yarrow stalk probabilities
OrganicDesign:I Ching / Divination - explanation of the traditional probabilites of 1,3,5,7 out of 16
The coin method varies significantly from the yarrow stalk method in that it gives the same probability to both the moving lines and to both the static lines, which is not the case in the yarrow stalk method. The calculation of frequencies (generally believed to be the same as described in the simplified method using 16 objects in this article) using the yarrow stalk method, however, embodies a further error, in the opinion of Andrew Kennedy, author of Briefing Leaders ([1]Gravity Publishing, UK, 2007), that of including the selection of zero as a quantity for either hand. The traditional method was designed expressly to produce 4 numbers without using zero. Kennedy shows, that by not allowing the user to select zero for either hand or a single stick for the right hand (this stick is moved to the left hand before counting by fours and so also leaves a zero in the right hand), the hexagram frequencies change significantly for a daily user of the oracle. He has produced an amendment to the simplified method of using 16 colored objects described in this article as follows:
take 38 objects of which
8 of one color = moving yang
2 of another color = moving yin
11 of another color = static yang
17 of another color = static yin
This arrangement produces Kennedy's calculated frequencies within 0.1%
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching_divination"
Selected Source:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching_divination
The Process of consulting the book as an oracle involves determining the hexagram by a method of random generation and then reading the text associated with that hexagram, and is a form of bibliomancy. Confucius said that one would not be ready to attempt to use the I Ching for divination until quite old. This work discourages compulsion (i.e. asking the same question over and over in hopes of either a different/better answer or some kind of enlightenment as to the meaning of the answers on gets). Hexagram 4 is a common result of asking the same question 3 or more times.
The text is extremely dense reading. A list of English translation can be found in the main article - I Ching Translations. It's not unkown for experienced soothsayers to ignore the text, building the oracle from the pictures created by the lines, bigrams, trigrams, and final hexagrams.
Each line of a hexagram determined with these methods is either stable (young) or changing (old). There are 4 possibilities for each line, corresponding to the cycle of change from yin to yang and back again:
old yin (yin changing into yang), which has the number 6 and symbol ---x---
young yang (unchanging yang), which has the number 7 and symbol --------
young yin (unchanging yin), which has the number 8 and symbol --- ---
old yang (yang changing into yin), which has the number 9 and symbol ---o---
Once a hexagram is determined, each line has been determined as either changing (old) or unchanging (young). Old yin is seen as more powerful then young yin, and old yang is more powerful then young yang. Any line in a hexagram that is old (changing) adds additional meaning to that hexagram.
Taoist philosophy holds that powerful yin will eventually turn to yang (and vice versa), so a new hexagram is formed by transposing each changing yin line with a yang line, and vice versa. Thus, further insight into the process of change is gained by reading the text of this new hexagram and studying it as the result of the current change.
Some Methods
Several of the methods use a randomising agent to determine each line of the hexagram. These methods produce a number which corresponds to the numbers of changing or unchanging lines discussed above, and thus determines each line of the hexagram.
Cracks on turtle shell: The turtle shell oracle is probably the earliest record of fortune telling. The diviner would apply heat to a piece of a turtle shell (sometimes with a hot poker), and interpret the resulting cracks. The cracks were sometimes annotated with inscriptions, the oldest Chinese writings that have been discovered. This oracle predated the earliest versions of the Zhou Yi (dated from about 1100 BC) by hundreds of years.
A variant on this method was to use ox shoulder bones. When thick material was to be cracked, the underside was thinned by carving with a knife.
Yarrow stalks: Hexagrams may be generated by the manipulation of yarrow stalks. The following directions are from the ten wings of the I Ching. Other instructions can be found here, and a calculation of probabilities here.
One takes fifty yarrow stalks, of which only forty-nine are used. These forty-nine are first divided into two heaps (at random), then a stalk from the right-hand heap is inserted between the ring finger and the little finger of the left hand. The left heap is counted through by fours, and the remainder (four or less) is inserted between the ring finger and the middle finger. The same thing is done with the right heap, and the remainder inserted between the forefinger and the middle finger. This constitutes one change.
Now one is holding in one's hand either five or nine stalks in all. The two remaining heaps are put together, and the same process is repeated twice. These second and third times, one obtains either four or eight stalks. The five stalks of the first counting and the four of each of the succeeding countings are regarded as a unit having the numerical value three; the nine stalks of the first counting and the eight of the succeeding countings have the numerical value two.
When three successive changes produce the sum 3+3+3=9, this makes the old yang, i.e., a firm line that moves. The sum 2+2+2=6 makes old yin, a yielding line that moves. Seven is the young yang, and eight the young yin; they are not taken into account as individual lines.
The correct probability has been used also in the marble, bean, dice and two or four coin methods below. This probability is significantly different from that of the three-coin method, because the required amount of accuracy occupies four binary bits of information, so three coins is one bit short. In terms of chances-out-of-sixteen, the three-coin method yields 2,2,6,6 instead of 1,3,5,7 for old-yin, old-yang, young-yang, young-yin respectively.
Note that only the remainders after counting through fours are kept and laid upon the single stalk removed at the start. The piles of four are re-used for each change, the number of piles of four is not used in calculation; it's the remainders that are used. The removing of all the fours is a way of calculating the remainder, those fours are then re-used for the next change so that the total number of stalks in use remains high to keep all remainders equally probable.
Marbles or beads (method of 16): This method is a recent innovation, designed to be quick like the coin method, while giving nearly the same probabilities as the yarrow stalk method.
use sixteen marbles of four different colours but the same size, distributed as follows:
1 marble of a colour representing old yin (such as blue)
5 marbles of a colour representing young yang (such as white)
7 marbles of a colour representing young yin (such as black)
3 marbles of a colour representing old yang (such as red)
Place all the marbles in a bag or other opaque container for each of the 6 lines of the hexagram.
Shake all 16 marbles together in the container to "shuffle" them
draw out one marble.
The marble drawn determines the current line of the hexagram
replace the marble in the container.
Once 6 lines have been determined, the hexagram is formed.
A good source of marbles is a (secondhand) Chinese checkers set: 6 colors, 10 marbles each.
Using this method, the probabilities of each type of line are the same as the distribution of the colours, as follows:
old yin: 1 in 16 (0.0625)
young yang: 5 in 16 (0.3125)
young yin: 7 in 16 (0.4375)
old yang: 3 in 16 (0.1875)
An improvement on this method uses 16 beads of four different colors but with the same size and shape (i.e., indistinguishable by touch), strung beads being much more portable than marbles.
You take the string and, without looking, grab a bead a random.
The comments above apply to this method as well.
Rice Grains: For this method, either rice grains, or small seeds are used.
One picks up a few seeds between the middle finger and thumb. Carefully and respectfully place them on a clean sheet of paper. Repeat this process six times, keeping each cluster of seeds in a separate pile --- each pile represents one line. One then counts the number of seeds in each cluster, starting with the first pile, which is the base line. If there is an even number of seeds, then the line is yin, otherwise the line is yang --- except if there is one seed, in which case one redoes that line.
One then asks the question again, and picks up one more cluster of seeds. Count the number of seeds you have, then keep subtracting six, until you have six seeds or less. This gives you the number of the line that specifically represent your situation. It is not a moving Line. If you do not understand your answer, you may rephrase the question, and ask it a second time.
Probability Analysis of I Ching Divination
Most analyses on the probabilities of either the coin method or yarrow stalk method agree on the probabilities for each method.
www.dentato.it/iching/ - alternative calculation of the yarrow stalk probabilities
OrganicDesign:I Ching / Divination - explanation of the traditional probabilites of 1,3,5,7 out of 16
The coin method varies significantly from the yarrow stalk method in that it gives the same probability to both the moving lines and to both the static lines, which is not the case in the yarrow stalk method. The calculation of frequencies (generally believed to be the same as described in the simplified method using 16 objects in this article) using the yarrow stalk method, however, embodies a further error, in the opinion of Andrew Kennedy, author of Briefing Leaders ([1]Gravity Publishing, UK, 2007), that of including the selection of zero as a quantity for either hand. The traditional method was designed expressly to produce 4 numbers without using zero. Kennedy shows, that by not allowing the user to select zero for either hand or a single stick for the right hand (this stick is moved to the left hand before counting by fours and so also leaves a zero in the right hand), the hexagram frequencies change significantly for a daily user of the oracle. He has produced an amendment to the simplified method of using 16 colored objects described in this article as follows:
take 38 objects of which
8 of one color = moving yang
2 of another color = moving yin
11 of another color = static yang
17 of another color = static yin
This arrangement produces Kennedy's calculated frequencies within 0.1%
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching_divination"
Selected Source:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching_divination
