The I Ching (pronounced ye jing), or Book of Changes, is one of the world's oldest books and also one of the most enigmatic. For more than 2000 years it has been used in the East as a book of divination and it still is studied with awesome reverence as a rich source of Confucian and Taoist wisdom... The early history of the I Ching is unknown. Most likely it began as early as the 8th century BC as a collection of peasant omen-texts, then slowly over the centuries these documents became combined with stick divination practises. A few centuries before Christ, near the end of the Chou dynasty, it acquired its present form and became one of the great classics of the Confucian canon.
The combinatorial foundation of the I Ching consists of 64 hexagrams. They display every possible permutation of two types of line when taken six at a time. Each hexagram has a traditional Chinese name. The two kinds of line proclaim the basic duality of Chinese metaphysics: the broken line corresponds to yin, the unbroken line to yang...
...the book (aside from its "Ten Wings", which are appendices by Confucian metaphysicians) consists essentially of the 64 hexagrams, each followed by a brief explanation of the symbol and six "appended judgements". If the book is to be used as an oracle, one of the hexagrams must be randomly selected, and this must be done in such a way that the rules tell how to transform the chosen hexagram to a second one.
The oldest selection procedure, still followed by those who take the I Ching most seriously, calls for 50 yarrow stalks, each one to two feet long. If yarrow stalks are not obtainable, 50 thin wooden sticks will serve. They should be kept in a lidded receptacle at a spot not lower than a man's shoulders. The I Ching, carefully wrapped in clean silk, is kept alongside the sticks.
The book must never be consulted lightly. If you ask it-, something frivolous or in a skeptical mood, the book gives YOU frivolous or meaningless answers. One should be completely relaxed, physically and mentally. It is essential to think of nothing, throughout the ceremony, other than the question being asked.
Let us assume that you are asking the I Ching a question and also casting the sticks. Your first step is to unwrap the book, spread the silk on the table and place the book on top. (The cloth protects the I Ching from impure surfaces). An incense burner and the receptacle containing the sticks are placed beside the book. With your back to the South, make three kowtows, touching your forehead to the ground; then, still kneeling, pass the 50 sticks three times through the incense smoke by holding them horizontally and moving your hand in a clockwise circle.
Return one stick to its container. It plays no further role in the ceremony.
Put the 49 sticks on the cloth, then with your right hand quickly divide them randomly into two piles. Call the left pile A, the other B. Take a stick from B and put it between the last two fingers of your left hand. With your right hand, push away four sticks at a time from pile A until one, two, three, or four sticks remain. Place those sticks between your left second and third fingers. Next diminish pile B by pushing away four sticks at a time until one, two, three or four sticks remain. Place these between your left first and second fingers. Your left hand now holds either five or nine sticks (1,1,3; 1,2,2; 1,3,1; 1,4,1). Put all those sticks to one side.
The remaining sticks are bunched together and exactly the same dividing procedure is repeated with them, beginning with random division into two piles. At the finish your left hand will hold either four or eight sticks (1,1,2; 1,2,1; 1,3,4; 1,4,3). Place these aside, next to the group put aside previously.
Bunch the remaining sticks and repeat the dividing procedure a third time. Your left hand again will hold either four or eight sticks. Put them aside, next to the two groups already there.
The number of sticks that now remain will be either 24, 28, 32, or 36. Count them by groups of four (that is, divide the total number by four). The quotient will be 6,7,8 or 9. These four digits are the ritual numbers, which indicate the character of the bottom line of the hexagram. If the digit is even (6 or 8) the line is Yin (broken); if it is odd (7 or 9) the line is yang (unbroken)...; seven and eight mean that the line (whether Yin or Yang) is a stable line that cannot be altered. Six and nine indicates a "moving" line that can be changed (for reasons soon to be explained) to its opposite.
All 49 sticks are now bunched together and the entire ritual is repeated to obtain the hexagram's second line from the bottom. Four more repetitions give the remaining four lines. The entire ceremony, performed without haste, takes about 20 minutes.
Look up the chosen hexagram in the I Ching and study its accompanying text carefully. The text will answer your question and give counsel with reference to the present situation. If all six lines of the hexagram are stable, that is the end of the matter. But if one line or more are moving, change them to their opposites and look up the new hexagram. The commentary will pertain to what you can expect in the future if you follow the counsel of the first hexagram.
After the one or two hexagrams have been written down and the relevant passages of the I Ching have been read and meditated on, light another stick of incense, make three more kowtows of gratitude, put the sticks back in their box, rewrap the I Ching in its silk, then put the book and sticks back in their us ua1 high place ...
Tough-minded skeptics who test the I Ching realize, at once why the book seems to work. The text is so ambiguous that, no matter what hexagrams are selected, it is always possible to interpret them so that they seem to apply to the question Indeed, the scope for intuitive interpretation is so great that in China before Mao there was a large class of professional. I Ching interpreters whose services were available for a fee on street corners, at fairs and in marketplaces . . .
And if the I Ching's predictions fail to materialize? Well, perhaps the text was not correctly interpreted, or maybe you were not in the right frame of mind when you were tossing the sticks or the coins. Besides the future is not completely determined. The I Ching, like the stars of astro1ogy, does no more than indicate probable trends.
Tender-minded believers in the occult, who have not yet consulted the I Ching and who long for powerfu1, mysterious magic, are hereby forewarned. This ancient book's advice can be far more shattering psychologically than the advice of any mere astrologer, palmist, crystal gazer or tea-leaf reader.
Needham adds: "If the I Ching had been no more, than a divination text, it would merely have taken its place with a host of others of a similar kind. But the addition of detailed appendices gave it a higher ethical and cosmological status... --perhaps they would have been wiser to tie a millstone round the neck of the, I Ching and cast it into the sea." (Needham 183-184)