I-CHING and repeated draws
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In my experience, it's pretty common, over time, to get a few commonly recurring hexagrams that stand out from the rest.
I've tended to look at this from the point of view that life keeps trying to send me the same message and I must not have heard it yet!
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@H.469 said
"
5(being the number of times rolled)-relating(31)
5-growth(46)
5-oppression(47)
5-the well(48)
5-revolution(49)
4-cautious(10)
4-fading like(36)
4-resolution(43)
4-the maiden(54)
while.. most of the other hexagrams have 1 or 2 repeats and a lot of them i never even rolled."Your description doesn't sound right (see highlighted). If using the coin method, you're supposed to toss them 6 times to generate a hexagram.
Anyways, I agree with Jim's comment. At least that has been my experience with the I Ching.
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I can't speak for H.469 (whose username reminds me of U2's song Hawkmoon 269, by the way...), but I interpreted the initial numbers (5's and 4's) as the number of times that each of those hexagrams was divined over the course of the year. (It sounds like he's using "roll" to refer to the full set of 6 coin tosses.)
On the face of it, it's pretty statistically significant to do something like 52 divinations (where there are 64 possible outcomes) and have more than three quarters of them be limited to only 9 particular hexagrams.
I can relate something similar from my own (gulp... quarter century!) experience with the I Ching, but it's not as much of a clear "outlier" as H.469's results. I'd need both fingers and toes to count the number of times that Hexagram 2 ("the receptive," or pure Yin) came up as a result. Especially as the final destination of a changing hexagram. Something's trying to tell me to loosen up and not be so darned Yang...
I greatly prefer the yarrow stalk method over the coins, by the way. It gives you a good 20 to 30 minutes to meditate on the issues, while your hands are doing something automatic and mindless. I think it gives the subconscious a more subtle set of ways to influence the result, too. (Despite H.469's example, I've always found the coins too random!)
Steve
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yes Steve, i used the word "roll" to describe a full set of 6 tosses.
I have heard of using these sticks but that's it. Could you describe for me what its all about and how you do it???
I have also heard that Timothy Leary designed something of a computer program that did a reading everyday (if I am getting this right, it was awhile ago that a friend read the book and told me about it), but the readings were meant to be that of the earths, and they were progressively getting worse. He has also referred to a computer as being something like a scrying screen, because what you will to see, you can see.
if anybody's read the book, please refresh my memory. i had already looked for a site to help and i cannot.
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@H.469 said
"I have heard of using these sticks but that's it. Could you describe for me what its all about and how you do it???"
Here you go:
www.hermetic.com/sabazius/yijing.htm
Btw, I worked with Sabazius' modified coin method, which is supposed to approximate the yarrow stalks more closely, but the readings were very confused (it's possible, however, the confusion was a reflection of my environment at the time.)
If you feel like it, here's something to try when using the coin method. The I Ching is based on Taoism, the interplay of yin and yang. It makes no difference whether the coin reads 2 or 3. What counts is the play of polarities with regard to the question posed.
Based on that logic, try reversing all the lines in your cast hexagram to create a "mirror" reading, like a chiaroscuro. The reversed reading will not cancel the initial reading, but complement it in unexpected ways wherein one side (which cannot be predicted in advance) will describe your subjective state and the other side will describe the objective situation.
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Sabazius' article is good. There are some alternate ideas (with links to still others) on the wikipedia page too. It's not so much the probabilities that have influenced my preference for the yarrow stalk method, though -- it's mainly the more extended period of meditative time that it takes to do the operations.
h2h: interesting idea about the chiaroscuro-opposite hexagrams. I wonder if anyone's ever done a detailed study of the 32 opposing pairs to see how truly "opposite" they are...
Steve
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@h2h said
"Your description doesn't sound right ... If using the coin method, you're supposed to toss them 6 times to generate a hexagram. "
Your comment doesn't sound right. There is (at least) one Thelemic lineage that teaches one to throw 6 coins once! See the instructions in Crowley's Yi King, published in 1968.
There is also a 3 coin method that is somewhat popular wherein the coins are thrown 6 times. Regardless of how one arrives at a hexagram and moving line(s), the ONLY method that really counts is the one that you agree with yourself about. There is no "you're supposed to" method for *Yi King *or Tarot or (while we're at it) anything else.
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well what has worked for me is what the instructions said in the book that came with the coins... toss three coins, six times
i tried the mirror readings, but i also tried just taking the changing lines and making a new hexagram with the lines changed.
and just the other day, i got 4, youthful folly with the 3rd and 5th line changing.
the next day(full moon) i got the reading just the same only the changing lines from the day before were ..changed, but still the only changing lines. so i got 57, gentle wind
i wish i could describe that better. anyways, i found it very interesting and cool!
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@H.469 said
"well what has worked for me is what the instructions said in the book that came with the coins... toss three coins, six times"
While we're on the broader topic, has anyone read Crowley's I Ching? I was amused by his poetic translation of the different stanzas. I am curious if it's even in print anywhere (other than online text documents - which I generally shun).
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Yes, Weiser's has a nice edition with foreword by HB and watercolor drawing by Austin Osman Spare on the cover.
AC attempts to correlate the hexagrams to the Tree of Life in his translation and states of his effort:
If any Sinologist objects to anything in this translation, let him go absorb his Yang in his own Yin, as the Americans say, and give me credit for an original Masterpiece. Whatever Lao-tzu said or meant, this is what I say and mean.
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@h2h said
"Yes, Weiser's has a nice edition with foreword by HB and watercolor drawing by Austin Osman Spare on the cover."
I think you mean the Tao Te Ching... I know Crowley also did the I Ching but I don't think it's ever been printed as a mainstream release. Plus, it's like 40 pages so more of a pamphlet than book. I am curious why it wasn't at least added to the Tao Te Ching, or to some other work.