is the i ching for real?

[patrick t. cakes]

ive been practicing it for the last two days
and it has given me pretty good advice.

any skeptics out there of the i ching?

or for that matter, believers?

[knowbody0]

1. chrystal clear universal truths

it helps to give new perspectives. I do not think it is magic and it really depends on what translation of the i ching you use.

study it, enjoy it.

[patrick t. cakes]

2. im using john blofelds translation.

but id like to read wilhelms translation, which blofeld praises.

i have to say it is eye and mind opening.
at times it appears to be having a conversation with me.
its quite eerie, but fascinating.

[onager]

5. This great writer appears to be having a conversation with me...

One of the strangest delusions of the Western mind is to the effect that a philosophy of profound wisdom is on tap in the East. I have read a great many expositions of it, some by native sages and the rest by Western enthusiasts, but I have found nothing in it save nonsense.

It is, fundamentally, a moony transcendentalism...It bears no sort of relation to the known facts, and is full of assumptions and hypotheses that every intelligent man must laugh at. In its practical effects it seems to be as lacking in sense and as inimical to human dignity as Methodism, or even Mormonism.--H.L. Mencken

You'd do just as well to enjoy a good Chinese dinner and read the fortune cookie afterwards.

[patrick t. cakes]

11. ok fair enough, but

i asked the same question twice and tried to reword the second question to fool it
and it basically said "though words be spoken they will not inspire confidence"...and, "since what is said
will not be believed it would be a waste of effort to talk"

my question to the i ching was whether shrooms were a way to connect with the universe and
on rewording it for the second question i used "spirit world" instead of universe.

both times it advised against shrooms.

silly i agree, but strange all the same.

[dmallind]

21. But generalized statements will always apply if you expect them to. NT

[BurtWorm]

33. How do you get advice against eating mushrooms from that?

It sounds to me like it was saying you're going to do what you're going to do anyway, so it won't bother telling you what to do.

[omega minimo]

37. Written like a good Western Chauvinist. Disrespectful, flippant, dismissive. What a man!

[onager]

39. Which is exactly what this nonsense deserves.

Unless you have some proof it works.

[omega minimo]

41. That attitude deserves nothing. What arrogance. Toward entire cultures and regions of the planet

[onager]

42. You speak for "entire regions of the planet," and I'M arrogant?

:rofl:

I didn't attack any "cultures and regions of the plant," AFAIK. I just commented negatively on the superstitious belief that throwing coins/straws can foretell the future.

Just to show that I don't harbor a chauvinist bias toward Western superstitions, I consider Xian prayer equally useless.

For the record, I've lived and worked among many different cultures with no problems. e.g., in March I came back to the US after spending nearly 4 years in Egypt. I spent 2 years in Saudi Arabia. I've also gone on extended work-related visits to Europe, Asia, and Central America.

To be polite to my hosts, I've participated in all sorts of local rituals. From Muslim religious festivals to breathing the holy smoke at Sensoji Temple in Tokyo to attending a shindig propitiating Matsu the Sea-Goddess in northern Taiwan.

Some of those events were interesting and gorgeous to watch, but I didn't believe for a minute that they had any effect on the real world. Other than giving people a holiday, always a good thing.

[knowbody0]

7. I bought a second copy for a friend on Amazon

Wilhelms IMO the best. I have used mine for 30 years now. In Wilhelms translation, he explains the history and symbolism.

[BridgeTheGap]

22. I took a graduate level psychology course in college: Esoteric Psychology

The Prof who taught the course basically poo-poo'd all of it with the exception of the I Ching.
He explained that during WWII, he was a communications officer, stationed in rural western China, staffing a radio relay station. The locals used the I Ching. The Prof said that it worked for them.
He couldn't explain how it worked, but he believed it any way.

Much of the I Ching is geared toward self-reflection. Nothing wrong with that.

[trotsky]

3. It's much like horoscopes in the daily newspaper.

Vague and ambiguous enough that it can be applied to just about anyone during just about any time. You get exactly what you want out of it, and thus convince yourself it's accurate.

[pscot]

4. Way better than the horoscopes in the paper

You cast your own oracle. I mean, it's like personal revelations that come from deep within.
:hippie:

[omega minimo]

38. "You get exactly what you want out of it, and thus convince yourself it's accurate."

Exactly as "skeptics" do. :hi:

[jgraz]

6. I have a system that I guarantee will work just as well, if not better

Just send me $1000. PM me for the PO Box.

[Speck Tater]

8. It's as valid as an ink blot test.

What you get out of it depends on what you bring to it. Think of it as a mirror that helps you uncover what's rolling around in your subconscious.

As for anything mystical or magical about it, I'm afraid that's just nonsense.

[eShirl]

9. My Tarot-reading friend says of reading the cards, "It's bullshit, but it works."

He is certain it is the human mind's act of interpreting the cards, and not the cards themselves, that "works."

[blue cat]

10. can anyone recommend

an easy book on i ching?

[patrick t. cakes]

12. im reading

"i ching, book of change" by john blofeld. picked it up second hand.
seems easy enough for me.

[conscious evolution]

31. IChing Workbook by R L Wing

[valerief]

13. No. nt

[patrick t. cakes]

14. why bother?

[valerief]

16. Yeah, it's just crazy woo-woo magic stuff. nt

[patrick t. cakes]

17. ok. thanks for the reply

[Strong Atheist]

24. +1 nt.

[CrispyQ]

15. I have two spiritual books, Tao Te Ching (Mitchell version) & the I Ching (RL Wing version).

I've been throwing for over 2 decades & it has enriched my life & IMO, helped me become less judgemental of others. When I first started, I tried a few different versions & settled on "The Illustrated I Ching" by RL Wing.

I don't throw often - maybe 6-8 times a year, but I worked with a woman who threw 6-8 times a day. My I Ching is well worn & many pages are no longer bound to the spine. My "Tao Te Ching" went through the car wash in my book bag in the back of my truck. It looks even worse! Great books, both of them.


http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-I-Ching-R-L-Wing/dp/0385177895/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243386454&sr=8-16

http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Stephen-Mitchell/dp/0060812451/ref=tag_dpp_lp_edpp_img_in

[patrick t. cakes]

18. thanks for the links.

i enjoy the tao te ching as well.

[conscious evolution]

32. Check out the Lao Tzu's Wua Hu Ching

It goes much deeper.

[ZombieHorde]

19. Divination can give a new perspective because of the strange and vague wording.

But any method you can think of is just as valid as any other because there is no supernatural force involved, just a semi-random alternate perspective.

[struggle4progress]

20. bingo

[deutsey]

23. Carl Jung saw it as an example of synchronicity

Excerpts from his foreward to a copy of the I Ching:

This assumption involves a certain curious principle that I have termed synchronicity,<2> a concept that formulates a point of view diametrically opposed to that of causality. Since the latter is a merely statistical truth and not absolute, it is a sort of working hypothesis of how events evolve one out of another, whereas synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance, namely, a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers.

The ancient Chinese mind contemplates the cosmos in a way comparable to that of the modern physicist, who cannot deny that his model of the world is a decidedly psychophysical structure. The microphysical event includes the observer just as much as the reality underlying the I Ching comprises subjective, i.e., psychic conditions in the totality of the momentary situation. Just as causality describes the sequence of events, so synchronicity to the Chinese mind deals with the coincidence of events. The causal point of view tells us a dramatic story about how D came into existence: it took its origin from C, which existed before D, and C in its turn had a father, B, etc. The synchronistic view on the other hand tries to produce an equally meaningful picture of coincidence. How does it happen that A', B', C', D', etc., appear all in the same moment and in the same place? It happens in the first place because the physical events A' and B' are of the same quality as the psychic events C' and D', and further because all are the exponents of one and the same momentary situation. The situation is assumed to represent a legible or understandable picture.

http://www.iging.com/intro/foreword.htm

Also, composer John Cage used the I Ching to compose many of his works:

http://www.ichingmeditations.com/2009/03/john-cage-music-of-changes-and-i-ching/

. . Music of Changes was the second fully aleatoric work Cage composed (the first is Imaginary Landscape No. 4, completed in April 1951), and the first instrumental aleatoric work by him. He was still using Magic Square-kind charts to introduce chance into composition, when, in early 1951, Christian Wolff presented Cage with a copy of the I Ching (Wolff’s father published a translation of the book at around the same time). This Chinese classic text is a symbol system used to identify order in chance events. For Cage it became a perfect tool to create chance-controlled compositions: he would “ask” the book questions about various aspects of the composition at hand, and use the answers to compose. In effect, the vast majority of pieces Cage completed after 1951 were created using the I Ching.

. . . The title of Music of Changes is derived from the title sometimes given to the I Ching, “Book of Changes.” Cage set to work on the piece almost immediately after receiving the book.

[BurtWorm]

25. How are you doing it? With coins or with straws?

[sohndrsmith]

26. I only know one author of the I Ching interpretation (mid-1970's). And I only

of it because the author was one of my father's best friends I'm trying to figure out how all this connects, and have yet to do so successfully.

I am skeptical - based on my own ignorance. There was an awful lot of pot smoking going on back then, but the conversations were fascinating. I have read that the author I'm referring to was a bit embarrassed that his interpretation was reprinted so many times - even now.

I think any narrowly defined conclusions are usually incomplete. That's as much as I can offer.

[Taitertots]

27. Ask the exact same thing 200 times

Ok, now how many different answers to the exact same question did you get. Exactly

[DeadEyeDyck]

35. Better yet

Have 100 people ask the exact same question, independently and compare the results

[PufPuf23]

28. The Man in the High Castle

Philip K Dick is said to have written this book using the I Ching.

After reading The Man in the High Castle, I purchased a Wilhelm/Baynes translation about 30 years ago and became familiar with the real work. Because of his introduction, I read Jung's Synchronicity and Memories Dreams and Reflections.

My nature and upbringing are not religious and I am most comfortable with the natural world. I am educated as a scientist and have worked in scientific research, academia, federal government, and small and corporate business with pragmatic ecological and quantitative specialties. I am not a "Believer" in anything but like exploration -- my excuse is that humans are hardwired to know only a small slice of reality but one can experience glimpses out of the ordinary.

I have kept a notebook about 25 years documenting my rare use of the I Ching (from 3X in a year to breaks of as much as 5 years). I left 16 years of federal employment, attended an MBA program, left a lucrative job in management consulting post MBA, left one woman for another, and left a marriage after tossing coins and meditating on the reading, playing close attention to the moving lines. I use old Chinese coins even though yarrow is a common native weed in my yard.

The I Ching has made my life more interesting and with one exception the results were good but neutral. The exception and 3X in one year was over leaving one woman for another at age 40 and the affair was a huge fiasco. I was not centered nor calm at all and this shows in my notes and are a humorous insight into a hurtful and confused time.

My experiments indicate that the I Ching can be useful for serious contemplation. The experience occurs in one's brain and, if one pays any validity to Jung, one's subconscious. There is nothing magic about the I Ching nor can one tell the future. But with an envelope of quiet and calm, the I Ching can expand one's consideration of serious issues. I would hesitate to make the I Ching a steady habit nor think one can tell the future; one could easily get "nutty". To repeat, the experience is in one's brain.

[JuniperLea]

29. It's all about the brain...

If only we could learn to use it properly.

The I Ching offers excellent advice, and much can be learned by reading it cover to cover... in case anyone is afraid of being labeled a "woo woo." :)

[omega minimo]

43. yes some organized septic attitudes around here make that a scary concept

[conscious evolution]

30. Absolutely

It never fails me.I might not get the answer I want but I allways get the answer I need.

[onager]

40. Xians say exactly the same thing about prayer.

n/t

[Taverner]

34. Of course a bunch of vague truisms are going to make sense

You can make Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies work in your life too

But there's no magic behind it

[omega minimo]

36. It's very personal

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=247x25757