A Companion Course

ABOUT THE BOOK  |  READ EXCERPTS  |  MEDIA & MORE
TABLES & REFERENCES  |  COMPANION COURSE
AMENDMENTS TO TEXT | SUPPLEMENTAL WORKSHEETS

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What is the I Ching (易經, Yìjīng) Book of Changes?

The Book of Changes is a symbolic representation—and explanation—of the cosmos premised on a binary yin and yang theory for creation and destruction. The Oracle is a sacred text consisting of six-line diagrams, or hexagrams, written in binary code. Through permutations and calculus (the mathematics of change), eight trigrams result in sixty-four hexagrams that represent predictable cycles of change and the universal axioms of change.

Over the millennia, beginning with King Wen and his son the Duke of Zhou around 1046 BC, poetic prophetic lines of text are ascribed to the 64 hexagrams that the binary code is set in, lines steeped in cultural and historical references. Five centuries later, Confucius (or scholars attributing their writings to Confucius) add commentaries that describe, pictorialize, and interpret the hexagrams.

This video lecture introduces the framework of the I Ching, the legend of its origins, and metaphysical underpinnings.

See also: “List of the Most Auspicious Hexagrams”

The Lo Shu Magic Square (雒書, Luò Shū)

(Timestamps provided in the video description box on YouTube)

The Lo Shu magic square is a foundational principle in Taoist cosmology, metaphysics, and occult practice. The Ten Wings describes the Lo Shu as the basis of the I Ching system. The Lo Shu is a 3 x 3 square, whereby the sum of the numbers horizontally, vertically, and diagonally equal 15. These nine sectors of the magic square are the Nine Palaces. The Nine Palaces inform how the Four Faces of the Tao (Si Xiang) control any aspect of the 360° solar path.

After an apocalyptic flood wipes out the first humans, Fuxi and Nuwa recreate humanity. Fuxi devises the eight trigrams. When a second apocalyptic flood threatens humanity again, Yu the Great receives revelation of the He Tu and Lo Shu River Maps from Houtu, the earth goddess. The patterns of the He Tu and Lo Shu River Maps signify numbers for divination and mathematics.

The He Tu River Map is also an allusion to the Milky Way. It is a map of constellations as much as it is a map of land formations, a diagram of how energy flows in the universe. These are laws. This is the automatic operating system of Nature. The He Tu is a rulebook in the form of a computed simulation of the cycles of nature, Heaven and Earth, and human fate.

Meanwhile the Lo Shu is an operating grid system, a calculator that computes for you every method of change to produce any defined result. It is the most essential principle to Taoist ceremonial magic. The Lo Shu River Map is a system for calculating how to harness and control the way energy flows in the universe. The magic square represents a set of formulas. The Lo Shu is machinery, intelligence– a manual operating system for exerting your Willpower. This is how you nurture that which was presented as nature.

The mystic must use the Lo Shu to create Change. But the more the technology of the Lo Shu is utilized to change this universe, the closer we are to destroying our universe.

This lecture will focus on theory and principles.

The Yarrow Stalk Method from Xici 繫辭

(Timestamps provided in the video description box on YouTube)

Part I of II. WORKSHEET DOWNLOAD: Worksheet for the guided reading (PDF) | Historians often date this method to some time between 500 BC and 200 BC, with 500 BC being one of the earlier mentions of the method and 200 BC when more of the details of the process were fleshed out. Sourced from the Ten Wings of the Zhouyi (I Ching).

This video is a hands-on guided step by step tutorial of the yarrow stalk divination method with the Book of Changes. I’ll be narrating every step, guiding you, showing you this divination ritual and at its conclusion, you’ll have received a hexagram reading and experienced divine revelation.

You will need to gather 50 stalks of dried yarrow. Alternatively, source 50 dried sticks or stems of a similar shape and form.

Reference Tables:

See also:
I CHING DIVINATION with MOON BLOCKS 筊杯

Interpreting an I Ching Reading

Part II of II. WORKSHEET DOWNLOAD: Worksheet for interpreting your hexagram reading (PDF) | After an overview of differing traditions and schools of thought on interpreting a hexagram reading, you’ll revisit your I Ching divination result from Part I and consult the translations and annotations.

Study of the I Ching has its own name: Yì Xué, meaning I Ching scholarship. I Ching scholarship has almost 3,000 years of notable contributions from scholars of diverse ethnic and philosophical backgrounds, so there are different and often conflicting systems of thought when it comes to interpreting the hexagrams. Explained in simplest terms, there are two prevailing approaches to interpreting the I Ching.

The first is to discern the images of the yin and yang line formations and to assess the six-line diagrams through Yin-Yang, Wu Xing, and Ba Gua metaphysical correspondences, in addition to scrying into the hexagram image. The Image and Number Tradition focuses heavily on metaphysical correspondences.

Whereas the Meaning and Principle Tradition is likened to engaging in the Socratic Method with the Book of Changes, to be in knowledge and conversation with the Oracle. The second is to apply critical theory and adopt any number of the schools of philosophical or sociological traditions to interpreting the hexagrams. The second approach will rely more heavily on the Confucian-based text appended to the hexagram images, in addition to accounting for historical and cultural references.

This lecture will also introduce the Six Temples, or six schools of mystery traditions of the Yi: (i) the divination or receiving prophecy method, (ii) invocations; signs and omens, (iii) spell-crafting; casting and transmuting; (iv) the Ancient ways; (v) the humanist-rationalist approach; (vi) the historical method.

Wu Xing: Five Movements (五行, 오행)

The concept of five dynamic forces is prevalent throughout Asian mysticism and metaphysics. Whether you’re learning Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, tai chi, qi gong, feng shui, any system of East Asian astrology, divination, or fortune-telling, the I Ching, then first and foremost you’ll be taught foundational knowledge in the Wu Xing.

  • Wood is the germinating and sprouting of the initial seed. It corresponds with the Ba Gua trigrams Wind and Thunder.
  • Fire is expansion and amplifying, to assert. It corresponds with the trigram Fire.
  • Earth is transformation, physical changes, and peaking toward a point of stability. It corresponds with the trigrams Earth and Mountain.
  • Metal is harvest, requiring the scythe to cut the stem. This is dissemination, distribution, division, and separation. Metal corresponds with Heaven and Lake.
  • Water is purging, catharsis, dissolution; it’s ending, cessation, and also preparing for another beginning—it is amniotic fluid. It corresponds with the trigram Water.

After the video, CONTINUE on to the written addendum and download the Wu Xing reference table.

Taoist Spirit Maps (靈圖, Língtú)

Líng Tú 靈圖, or spirit maps are oft referenced in canonized Taoist grimoires, most notably in the Spirit Maps of the Mysterious Cavern Scrolls 洞玄部靈圖類 from the Taoist Canons 道藏經.

This lecture will cover three Lèi, or classifications, of spirit maps. The first type is a diagram of a region on the astral plane that you can send your consciousness through and journey into. The second type of spirit map is one that enshrines a spirit or god – a shen, or an immortal – a xian. Through the spirit map you can communicate with that spirit. The Spirit Map of the Butterfly Immortal is such an example. The third classification of spirit maps is the Fu, a magical talisman or sigil.

There will also be a brief introduction to Book of Supreme Mysteries (Tài Xuán Jīng, 太玄經), a book of 81 diagrams similar to the I Ching, dated to the Western Han dynasty (2 BC). Whereas the I Ching consists of a binary code forming 64 six-line images, the Book of Supreme Mysteries consists of a ternary code (called triple gods, or trinitarian spirits) forming 81 four-line images. The mandala formed by the 81 tetragrams is referred to as a Spirit Map of the Myriad Palaces of Heaven (Yǔ Zhòu Wàn Líng Tú, 宇宙萬靈圖).

Read more about it in a companion essay here.

I Ching: Philosophy or Fortune-Telling?

(Timestamps provided in the video description box on YouTube)

Philosophy is the systematic study of nature, reality, and analyzing the fundamental questions of our existence. Divination is the systematic practice of reaching beyond the limitations of our own capacity to receive insights into nature, reality, and the fundamental questions of our existence. How do you approach the I Ching, as philosophy or as divination and fortune-telling?

The historical origins of the I Ching is to receive understanding of Tiān Mìng, 天命, the Mandate of Heaven. It was birthed at the cusp between the fall of a 500-year dynasty and the rise of a Golden Age—the Zhou dynasty. During that Golden Age, we see the development of Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism, which were heavily influenced by the I Ching. Thus, the Book of Change became a seminal text on Eastern philosophy.

Yet the legends of the origins of the I Ching point to it as being divinatory. While imprisoned by the King of Shang, King Wen of Zhou receives revelation of the I Ching hexagram images and uses those images to divine that the Mandate of Heaven has passed from the Shang to his clan. The I Ching was birthed when wū shù 巫術 shamanism was the primary religious point of view, and thus the Oracle is shamanistic in its origins and cultural context. It is first and foremost a divinatory tool of the wū shī 巫師.

Reference Tables for the Three Exercises:

The Eight Trigrams (八卦, Bā Guà)

(Timestamps provided in the video description box on YouTube)

The Eight Trigrams (八卦, Bā Guà) are the eight elements formed by the Wu Xing, five forces of change, which we express as Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water, which is to say energy rises, expands, transforms, divides, disseminates, or it dissolves and disintegrates. These are the eight classical elements of Taoist metaphysics, explaining the fundamental material nature of all that you perceive.

Traditionally, the order the eight trigrams in the sequence are Heaven, Lake, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Water, Mountain, and Earth.

  • Heaven is the sky; genius, divine inspiration, artistry, creativity.
  • Lake corresponds with the marshlands; nutrients, fertility, joy, social exchange, prosperity.
  • Fire is the flame; to mesmerize, to attract and manifest; intellect, rationalism, science, logic.
  • Thunder is the electrical charge and of storms; incitement, provocation, justice.
  • Wind is the unseen influence, carrier of change; rhetoric, economic exchange.
  • Water is the element of oceans and seas, the colors of dark blue and black; mystery, the arcane, shape-shifting, medicine, healing.
  • Mountain is the peak and heights of land formations; wisdom, serenity, knowledge.
  • Earth is the golden fields and rich soil; to receive nourishment, that which is nutrient-dense, stability and security.

After the video, CONTINUE on to the written addendum and download the Ba Gua reference table.

Lady of the Nine Heavens and I Ching, The Oracle

(Timestamps provided in the video description box on YouTube)

Jiǔ Tiān Xuán Nǚ 九天玄女, or the Lady of the Nine Heavens, is a Taoist goddess of the occult arts, martial arts, and military strategy. She was a disciple and is now a divine messenger of the Primordial Sacred Queen Mother (Shèng Mǔ Yuán Jūn, 圣母元君), a heavenly mother figure later syncretized with the Queen Mother of the West (Xī Wáng Mǔ, 西王母). When humanity faces a civil crisis, the Queen Mother will send her protégé, the Lady of the Nine Heavens, to the human world as an emissary of Heaven’s Will.

One of my essential purposes for sharing I Ching, The Oracle is to introduce you to the Lady of the Nine Heavens, and to key my approach to the Oracle in alignment with the Xuan 玄, or Mysteries.

After the video, CONTINUE on to the written addendum.

All Transcripts of the Companion Course Lectures

To help facilitate knowledge retention, the transcripts of all videos in this companion course video series are provided. See below links for downloads.

The documents are printable on standard US Letter size, 8.5″ x 11″ and have been formatted with mirror margins to allot room for hole punches. That way it can be easily added to a three-ring binder of study notes.

Click to download the
PDF file

Click to download the
DOCX file

I also heartily welcome volunteers willing to translate the video scripts to then upload them onto the YouTube videos as subtitles so that there is multilingual accessibility. Thank you!

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ABOUT THE BOOK  |  READ EXCERPTS  |  MEDIA & MORE
TABLES & REFERENCES  |  COMPANION COURSE
AMENDMENTS TO TEXT | SUPPLEMENTAL WORKSHEETS