How many times have you flipped a coin to make a
decision? Once? A thousand times? A million?
Everyday people around the world turn to the simplest
of ways to make decisions when they find themselves
stuck, sometimes for the smallest things, but to us who
do it, it is putting our trust not in luck, chance or random
chaos, but trusting that ancient balance will help us see
which way to go when faced with a small but tough
choice, like "Heads Carolina, tails California" [Jo Dee
Messina].
But what's so great about this that there would be
an oracle around it? Historically, the rulers of ancient
China, and even the big business moguls of today will
turn to the method of divination known as I-Ching (pr.
Yee Jing), or "Book of Change". I-Ching originally used
stalks of the yarrow plant, picked apart at random to
produce a result of static and changing lines, referred to
as Gua. In later years a method was developed that
was much more practical and so much more common
and handy: the same lines could be established through
the flipping of coins. Once the stalks were seperated or
coins had all been flipped and Gua drawn, the ancient
manuscripts of the Book of Change were consulted and
interpreted in order to glean the pattern of how the
balance of Yin and Yang were influencing everything
from crop rotation to war to merchant commerce, and
throughout the Far East the Book of Change is still
used to this day for even these things.
The use of manuscripts to reference is called
Bibliomancy, quite literally "book divination". Another
classic example of bibliomancy is how some people will
open the holy text of their faith to a random page,
seeking guidance from the words on the page that falls
open.
I-Ching is practiced by our own Duncan, and you
can find out more about him and other oracles he uses
here.
decision? Once? A thousand times? A million?
Everyday people around the world turn to the simplest
of ways to make decisions when they find themselves
stuck, sometimes for the smallest things, but to us who
do it, it is putting our trust not in luck, chance or random
chaos, but trusting that ancient balance will help us see
which way to go when faced with a small but tough
choice, like "Heads Carolina, tails California" [Jo Dee
Messina].
But what's so great about this that there would be
an oracle around it? Historically, the rulers of ancient
China, and even the big business moguls of today will
turn to the method of divination known as I-Ching (pr.
Yee Jing), or "Book of Change". I-Ching originally used
stalks of the yarrow plant, picked apart at random to
produce a result of static and changing lines, referred to
as Gua. In later years a method was developed that
was much more practical and so much more common
and handy: the same lines could be established through
the flipping of coins. Once the stalks were seperated or
coins had all been flipped and Gua drawn, the ancient
manuscripts of the Book of Change were consulted and
interpreted in order to glean the pattern of how the
balance of Yin and Yang were influencing everything
from crop rotation to war to merchant commerce, and
throughout the Far East the Book of Change is still
used to this day for even these things.
The use of manuscripts to reference is called
Bibliomancy, quite literally "book divination". Another
classic example of bibliomancy is how some people will
open the holy text of their faith to a random page,
seeking guidance from the words on the page that falls
open.
I-Ching is practiced by our own Duncan, and you
can find out more about him and other oracles he uses
here.
~I-Ching~