Introduction
I first encountered a copy of
the IChing when I met my husband who had a more traditional
copy to the one I ended up purchasing more than 25 years ago.
My copy was the IChing Workbook by RL Wing and if you are just
beginning to use the IChing, then I highly recommend this workbook
because it is easier to understand than other copies I have
read, and also because you can record your questions next to
the hexagrams received, along with the date. This is quite important
because after a time, a pattern will begin to emerge and you
will eventually see 'the light' through the emotional turmoil
of your reality.
I had never seen a divination
book of any kind before, so I was quite excited when I first
used my IChing, yet somewhat skeptical, because I didn't really
believe that a book could tell my future.
My natural instinct was to begin
by throwing the coins however 'reason' pointed out that there
was no use throwing coins if I didn't know anything about them,
so, I began reading.
History
The IChing had many authors
over the years, the first of these being Fu Hsi (ruler of China
during the third millennium BC), who, it is said, discovered
the eight trigrams that form the 64 hexagrams, on the shell
of a tortoise. Later on, Confucius (551-479BC), wrote a series
of commentaries about the hexagrams and put them together in
a book called 'The Ten Wings', and this book is a must for anyone
who wishes to study the IChing as a career.Confucius was also
the first person to use the IChing for his inner development.
In the early 1900's, psychologist Carl Jung could see the inner
workings of the IChing and sought funding to add to the American
edition.
About the IChing
The IChing is all about capturing
a moment in time to see what type of energies there are that
surround the question we are asking. The example that the IChing
uses is as follows:
"Imagine
our reality to be a tube of time extending through space. We
are constantly flowing through the tube along with everything
we perceive. Now if we could slice through the tube and study
its fixed cross sections, we would see all of the elements in
nature that happen to now exist, as well as their immediate
relationships to one another. By evaluating the patterns of
the current relationships among things, we should then be able
to divine what we might expect in our own lives from the available
forces and compelling tendencies in the cosmos."
How does the IChing
work?
I'm not sure, but
I think it has something to do with the electrical impulses
in your brain that is transferred to the coins or sticks being
tossed.