The I Ching or the Book of Changes, is one of the oldest texts in existence, originating in China over three thousand years ago. It is at once a book of divination, a work of philosophy, and a meditation on change.
The I Ching works through sixty-four hexagrams, figures made of six lines, each either solid or broken. The combination of lines you throw points you to a hexagram and its reading. A question is posed in the mind whilst the lines are thrown and marked down. They are marked from the bottom up when drawing the Hexagram.
I came to the I Ching through Carl Jung, who wrote the foreword to
Richard Wilhelm's translation and whose concept of synchronicity offers
one way of understanding how the oracle works. Wilhelm spent years in
China studying the text with Chinese scholars, and his translation
remains the most complete and philosophically rich edition available in
English. He translated it into German, and Cary F. Baynes translated it
from German into English. You will notice translation comments
throughout the book when a German word has no English counterpart.
It has been on my shelf for over ten years. And although I believe in
its power, I use it to give me advice and comfort in the form of an
answer in times of need. There is no wrong or bad answer, to the modern
mind it is always thought provoking. A way to be in contact with some of
the old balancing ways.
For many years I used the three coin method: shaking three coins in my hands and releasing them, adding their values to produce a line. Heads = 3, and Tails = 2.
Repeat six times, building your hexagram from the bottom up.
| Total | Line | Type |
|---|---|---|
| 2 2 2 | 6 | Old yin — changing broken line |
| 3 3 2 or variant | 8 | Young yin — stable broken line |
| 2 2 3 or variant | 7 | Young yang — stable solid line |
| 3 3 3 | 9 | Old yang — changing solid line |
This app uses the four coin method under the hood, which more closely replicates the probabilities of the traditional yarrow stalk method. See below for the how-to. But in the app as you are simply pushing a button, I have factored in some more randomisation based on the timestamp of when the button is pressed, combined with a standard math randomisation algorithm both combining to give the yarrow stalk 1/16 probability result. But it is an approximation. There is a reason the original method took so long, it was to give you the time to contemplate. Again why I reccomend that this app is only an introduction.
With four physical coins, toss them and arrange them left to right in the order they have landed. Heads = 1 and Tails = 0. After six throws (from the bottom up remember) you will have in effect four binary sequences of 1's and zero's - e.g 1001, 1110, 0001, 1111, etc. You will probably need to create a lookup table for this, similar to the hexagrams themselves in your notebook, here is one i made earlier:
| Coins | Binary | Total | Line | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| T T T T | 0000 | 0 | 6 | Old yin — changing broken |
| T T T H | 0001 | 1 | 8 | Young yin — stable broken |
| T T H T | 0010 | 2 | 8 | Young yin — stable broken |
| T T H H | 0011 | 3 | 8 | Young yin — stable broken |
| T H T T | 0100 | 4 | 8 | Young yin — stable broken |
| T H T H | 0101 | 5 | 8 | Young yin — stable broken |
| T H H T | 0110 | 6 | 8 | Young yin — stable broken |
| T H H H | 0111 | 7 | 8 | Young yin — stable broken |
| H T T T | 1000 | 8 | 7 | Young yang — stable solid |
| H T T H | 1001 | 9 | 7 | Young yang — stable solid |
| H T H T | 1010 | 10 | 7 | Young yang — stable solid |
| H T H H | 1011 | 11 | 7 | Young yang — stable solid |
| H H T T | 1100 | 12 | 7 | Young yang — stable solid |
| H H T H | 1101 | 13 | 9 | Old yang — changing solid |
| H H H T | 1110 | 14 | 9 | Old yang — changing solid |
| H H H H | 1111 | 15 | 9 | Old yang — changing solid |
Once your six lines are thrown, you have a hexagram. Read the judgment and the image — these are the core of the reading. If you have changing lines (a 6 or 9 in your throw), read those line commentaries too; they speak to the specific tensions in your situation. The changing lines then transform into their opposite, producing a second hexagram which shows where things are moving.
The book contains a lookup table at the back — find your lower trigram (lines one to three) down the left side, and your upper trigram (lines four to six) across the top. The number at the intersection is your hexagram.
The I Ching rewards slow reading and quiet reflection. It is not a fortune telling machine. It is a mirror.
This is a personal project, built as a digital companion to the physical book. It is not a substitute for it. The app uses the Wilhelm translation throughout.