Probing the Mysteries of the I Ching Part 1

Philosophy, Divination, or Rorschach Test

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The Book of Changes, or I Ching, is approximately 3,000 years old, so it can’t possibly predict events, dispense valuable wisdom for modern people, or tap into my subconscious.

Yet it does all three. Or, as some people think, I do all three and imagine this book is doing it.

The Book of Changes, to the Western mind, is irrational, unscientific, and illogical. It can’t work. Yet it does.

So, I began a deep dive into the I Ching for no other reason than to try to make some sense of what I found when I consulted it.

When I was younger, and before I took the I Ching seriously, I read the old James Legge translation for light entertainment. It held the same status for me as my horoscope in my morning newspaper. Later, after noting that it was usually fairly accurate, I began to examine the Wilhelm/Bayne translation. Both translations were by Western missionaries, so a soupçon of Christianity slipped in.

I call this the “fortune-telling” period of my relationship with this book. To me, it was a quick way of getting a handle on life’s little problems. It wasn’t until later that I realized that here was a book that has shaped East Asian thought, culture, politics, and military events for thousands of years. It has been studied, amended, discussed, and refined by sages and scholars for millennia.

The I Ching is not an easy book to read. It’s written in metaphors, often referencing ancient Chinese history, usually the Shang and Zhou dynasties. It frequently seems to contradict itself. At times, it reads like a riddle, with a lot of virtue signaling. Occasionally, aspects of both astrology and astronomy pop up. And it can reveal both stern warnings and hopeful messages.

Bob Dylan, in a 1965 interview, said the poetry of the I Ching is fantastic, but I didn’t see it. Of course, he won a Nobel Prize for his poetic lyrics, so I didn’t fault the book for my inability to recognize good verse.

Then, a couple of years ago, I came across a 900-page tome by Benebell Wen, who, according to her bio, is “…a true descendant of the Yellow River People, a child of the Dragon.” Her book, I Ching: The Oracle, is, for me, the seminal translation from its ancient hieroglyphic origins on oracle bones to modern Chinese and English.

Her definition of the book, while accurate, is pretty nerdy:

“The Book of Changes (I Ching) 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 of six-line diagrams, or hexagrams, written in binary code. Through permutations and calculus, eight trigrams result in sixty-four hexagrams that represent predictable cycles of change and the universal axioms of change.”

I think if I had read that definition before experiencing the power of the I Ching, I might have looked elsewhere in my efforts to tap into the cosmic flow of hidden knowledge.

Now that I treat the book with more respect, and with Benebell Wen’s assistance, the answers I receive, even to trivial questions, are astoundingly accurate.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. On a recent morning, I lost the rubber “O” ring to my blender. After diligent searches in my kitchen, including using a flashlight to explore the drains in the sink, I asked the I Ching, “Where is my blender O-ring?”

The answer from the book was, “You don’t need divine intervention for this. You can see it with your eyes.”

No, I couldn’t, I argued, or I would have found it. So, in a bit of a huff, I ordered a replacement online.

Five days later, with the replacement en route, my wife found the missing “O” ring. It was on the kitchen counter, sitting in plain sight on a colorful placemat with a picture of fractals consisting of various-sized, colored rings, including gray.

I could indeed, “see it with my eyes.”

However, there was a lot more information in its answer, advising me to be more orderly and methodical when searching. It also issued a warning that, at first, didn’t seem to apply to me. “When abundance becomes opulence, the king will fall.” Then I remembered that I had purchased four bags of potato chips instead of one. A single bag would have sufficed for my current diet, but four was leaning into opulence.

As author Philip K. Dick said in an interview, “Consulting the I Ching is amazing for its accuracy and how it would often seem to answer the hidden question behind the question. The I Ching gives advice beyond the particular, advice that transcends the immediate situation.”

Because there are 64 hexagrams in the book, and I got the one that told me to use my eyes, I could have chalked it up to coincidence. However, since I’ve found that it was one of multiple accurate responses, I’ve come to believe that the odds against each accurate answer being due to chance are astronomical. Something else is going on.

I’ve found that if I approach the I Ching seriously, as I would a wise, old friend, and with a well-thought-out question, I receive a well-thought-out response, one that I can use. I find that its answers are more profound as I unpeel layer after layer of insights into the issue or situation that brought me to the book in the first place.

In my next installment of my journey with the I Ching, I’ll share more of its history and philosophy, including ideas from psychologist Carl Jung and mathematician Gottleib Leibniz. Stay tuned.

1. Prakash, Disha, I Ching Book of Changes: Ancient Book of Wisdom. https://www.notesforsapiens.com/i-ching-book-of-changes-ancient-book-of-wisdom/ October, 2018

2. Legge, James, I Ching Book of Changes, Random House, reprint of 1899 edition.

3. Wilhelm, Richard, The I Ching or Book of Changes, translated from German into English by Cary F. Baynes, foreword by C.G. Jung, Princeton University Press, 1961

4. Walker, Brian Browne, The I Ching or Book of Changes, St. Martin’s Griffin, 1992

5. Wen, Benebell, I Ching the Oracle, A practical guide to the Book of Changes, North Atlantic Books, 2023 – this is the text I recommend.

6. Dick, Philip K. "I Ching According to Philip K. Dick." Interview on Joe Nolan's Insomnia, published August 13, 1982.

7. Bob Dylan, interview with Joseph Hass, Chicago Daily News, 1965,

There is a book called the "I-Ching", I'm not trying to push it, I don't want to talk about it, but it's the only thing that is amazingly true, period, not just for me. Anybody would know it. Anybody that ever walks would know it, it's a whole system of finding out things, based on all sorts of things. You don't have to believe in anything to read it, because besides being a great book to believe in, it's also very fantastic poetry.

5. For the latest theories on the binary universe, https://youtube.com/shorts/O4FcShJxxBY?si=8E-JEX-vA5zbMSQw