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Miscellanea

A selection of essays, articles, and notes on the Book of Changes and related subjects, plus an archive of hard-to-find scanned Yijing diagrams.

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Keep track of fresh additions to the site.

The Mandate of Heaven

S J Marshall's 2001 book about the hidden historical narrative in the Yijing is now available here in PDF and EPUB formats free of charge.

Maqian ke [PDF] – REVISED Aug 2012 (last version June 2012)

A translation and commentary by Steve Moore of the Maqian ke, a curious prophetic text attributed to Zhuge Liang incorporating hexagrams. This monograph was originally intended to be the third in the occasional series of 'Oracle Papers', but it is being published for the first time here instead. (The first 'Oracle Paper', again by Steve Moore, is also available on the site: Structural Elements in the King Wen Sequence of Hexagrams [PDF]).

Change in a parallel world

Steve Moore examines the life and ideas of the eccentric Yijing enthusiast and magician C F Russell, also bringing in Louis Culling. This article first appeared in 'Strange Attractor Journal'.

The Power of the Dragon’s Yang and the Tiger’s Yin

An exploration of the 'ascent of the dragon lines' and 'changing like a tiger', yang and yin power pathways in the I Ching. This article by Steve Marshall first appeared in 'Kindred Spirit' magazine.

I Ching patents

Steve Marshall digs out a collection of patents for I Ching devices, some of them wonderfully mad.

The I Ching on YouTube

A selection of video links with comments.

Nigel Richmond and the I Ching

Nigel Richmond's two books on the oracle have been out of print for many years, and the second one wasn't widely distributed. Mr Richmond died in August 2005, aged 83. In addition to this article about him and his work, we have made his books available once again.

Glossary of Chinese Yijing terms

The Chinese characters of technical terms used on this site, together with a brief explanation.

Yijing hexagram sequences

I had planned to write something on Yijing sequences for my introductory notes for beginners, but kept putting it off due to the complexity of the subject. Wuwei being what it is, I found myself writing a short review of a website dealing with sequences for the 'Links' section that kept expanding until I was adding graphics and animations and had to give it a page of its own. This essay deals with the Fuxi sequence, binary notation of hexagrams, Shao Yong square, Xiantian diagram, Jing Fang's 8 Palaces, the 12 'waxing and waning hexagrams', Mawangdui and King Wen sequences.

King Wen sequence animation

A larger animation of this sequence than shown in the above essay, with a note on an interesting pattern that emerged when the animation was optimised.

Scans archive

I originally started this archive to present a collection of Chinese Yijing diagrams I had scanned from the 'Zhouyi Tushi Dadian' or 'Encyclopedia of Zhouyi Diagrams'. Later I scanned Arthur Waley's marvellous 1933 paper 'The Book of Changes', which is extremely hard to get hold of, buried deep in the dusty vaults of academic libraries. In time, other material will be added. I have jotted a few notes on some of the diagrams.

A ‘compass rose’ star in the circular Xiantian diagram

A star pattern that appears to have eluded observation before is shown here for the first time.

Squaring the circle

An idea I had to extend the Xiantian circle to a rectangle.

Reading hexagrams off the Xiantian diagram

Examples showing how the Xiantian progression is read.

The pattern of the King Wen sequence

The King Wen sequence in a form inspired by Shao Yong's Xiantian diagram, to aid pattern recognition.

Received to Mawangdui [PDF]

Those using Edward Shaughnessy's book on the Mawangdui Yijing often express frustration that he gives a chart listing the hexagrams in Mawangdui order but not in the received King Wen order, making it difficult to look up a hexagram if one knows the King Wen number but not the Mawangdui number. I made a PDF chart to solve this problem, conveniently sized so that after printing out it can be trimmed and glued at the back of the book.

Lingqijing: The Magical Chess Classic

An introduction to a Chinese oracle that is related to the Yijing. The translation of the Lingqijing by Ralph D Sawyer and Mei-chün Lee Sawyer is also reviewed on this site.

Bob Dylan and the I Ching

It is well known that John Cage used the oracle to foster creativity, but Dylan used it too.

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