Consult the ancient Chinese oracle. Discover the 64 hexagrams, their psychological meaning, and quantum wisdom.
Consult the ancient oracle
Explore the psychological and symbolic meaning of each hexagram to decode the messages from the universe.
The history of the Yi King, or Book of Changes (I Ching), has roots so deeply embedded in ancient Chinese history that its true origins blur with myth and legend. Over three millennia old, this foundational text is undoubtedly the oldest manual of wisdom, divination, and strategy in the world. It is not the work of a single mind, but the result of a philosophical sedimentation spanning several centuries, unifying the thoughts of shamans, emperors, sages, and philosophers.
The legend has it that the mythical Emperor Fu Xi (around 2800 BC) is the originator of the Yi King. Observing the patterns on the shell of a turtle emerging from the Yellow River (the famous He Tu diagram), as well as the constellations in the sky, Fu Xi perceived a fundamental matrix governing the universe. He translated this observation into linear symbols: the continuous line (representing the active, luminous, creative principle: Yang) and the broken line (representing the receptive, dark, malleable principle: Yin).
By combining these two fundamental traits in groups of three, Fu Xi created the Eight Trigrams (Ba Gua). These trigrams (Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Water, Mountain, Wind, Fire, Lake) became the symbolic alphabet used to describe all the forces at work in nature and in human affairs.
Centuries later, during the tumultuous transition between the Shang dynasty and the Zhou dynasty (around 1046 BC), King Wen, then imprisoned by a tyrant, spent his time meditating on these eight trigrams. He had the brilliant idea of layering them two by two, thus creating the 64 Hexagrams. King Wen wrote the "Judgments" (the main texts associated with each hexagram), offering poetic and strategic advice on how to conduct oneself according to the energetic configuration of the moment. His son, the Duke of Zhou, completed the work by adding comments on each individual line, giving birth to the canonical text of the I Ching (the Zhou Yi).
Finally, tradition holds that Confucius (551-479 BC) was so fascinated by the Yi King in his old age that he used the leather straps that connected the bamboo tablets of his copy three times. He and his disciples added the "Ten Wings", a series of philosophical commentaries that transformed the Yi King from a simple divination manual into a true masterpiece of ethical and cosmological wisdom.
The structure of the Yi King is not a chaotic collection of mystical poems; it is based on an unyielding mathematical logic, a true theory of information before its time. The entire system is built on a perfect binary code.
Each hexagram is composed of six lines, read from bottom to top. A line can be in one of two fundamental states: Yin (broken line, numerically associated with 0 or even) or Yang (solid line, numerically associated with 1 or odd). Since there are 6 positions and 2 possibilities per position, basic arithmetic gives us 2 raised to the power of 6 = 64 possible combinations. These 64 hexagrams describe the entirety of the "field of possibilities", each configuration representing an archetype, a particular moment in the universal dynamics.
The mathematical beauty of the Yi King does not stop there. In the 17th century, the German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was working on the development of binary arithmetic (base 2), composed solely of 0 and 1. This system is now the foundation of all modern computing: everything you read on this screen is processed by your computer in sequences of 0 and 1.
In 1701, Leibniz received from the Jesuit father Joachim Bouvet, a missionary in China, a diagram of the order of the 64 hexagrams according to Fu Xi. Leibniz was astonished: he immediately realized that the Yin and Yang lines corresponded exactly to his 0 and 1. The arrangement of the hexagrams on the Chinese diagram (which is several millennia old) counted from 0 to 63 in pure binary code! The Yi King is therefore, fundamentally, the oldest formal expression of the numerical code on which our contemporary technological civilization is based.
The word "Yi" means "Change" or "Mutation", and "King" means "Classic Book". Unlike classical Western thought (inherited from Plato and Aristotle) which seeks to isolate fixed, eternal, and independent entities, Chinese thought perceives the universe as a continuous flow, an uninterrupted process of transformations. Nothing is permanent, except change itself.
The postulate of the Yi King is that every situation contains within it the seed of its opposite. Extreme Yin inevitably transforms into Yang, just as the darkest night turns towards dawn, and the harshest winter prepares for spring. When consulting the oracle, one does not seek to freeze the future (as the future is not written), but to understand in which phase of the cycle we currently find ourselves, and what are the invisible lines of force that are about to manifest.
The role of man is not to oppose this cosmic flow (the Dao), but to align with it. The Sage of the Yi King is the one who acts at the right moment, who waits when necessary, and who knows how to withdraw when the energy declines. He rides the wave of time rather than rowing against it.
How can a book of wisdom specifically address an individual's problem? It all lies in the method of consultation, which involves what we now call "chance." The idea is to generate a hexagram through a physical random process.
The oldest and most orthodox method uses 50 stems of yarrow (a sacred plant). Through a complex process of dividing and counting the stems between the fingers, the consultant gradually obtains the values of each line, from bottom to top. This process is slow, ritualistic, and meditative. It allows time for the mind to calm down, to focus on the question, and to let the unconscious "tune in" to the energy of the moment.
A faster and widely used method since the Song dynasty uses the toss of three coins (traditionally holey cash coins). A value is assigned to each side (Face = Yin = value 2; Tail = Yang = value 3). By tossing the three coins simultaneously, a sum ranging from 6 to 9 is obtained.
The throw is repeated six times to construct the complete hexagram. What makes the Oracle fascinating is the possible presence of "changing lines" (the 6 and the 9). If your reading contains changing lines, it means that the situation is highly volatile. After reading the main hexagram, these changing lines change polarity, generating a second hexagram (the derived hexagram), which indicates the future trend, the direction in which the initial situation is evolving.
At Ynivers, to virtually recreate the essence of this "pure chance" and ritual, we have chosen not to use computer mathematics (Math.random), but to connect to the laboratories of ANU to utilize the fluctuations of the quantum vacuum. It is a return to a physical process, fundamentally unpredictable, that respects the spirit of the original draw.
The Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was one of the first great Western intellectuals to take the I Ching very seriously, to the point of writing the preface for Richard Wilhelm's mythical translation in 1950. Why would a rational psychiatrist be interested in divination by yarrow stalks?
Jung noticed that the Western mentality is almost exclusively based on the principle of causality (A causes B). However, during a Yi King reading, there is absolutely no causal link between the coins that fall on the table and the complex situation the consultant is experiencing (a work problem, a couple's crisis, a life choice). Yet, time and again, with his patients and himself, Jung found that the text of the obtained hexagram perfectly resonated with the psychological situation of the moment.
To explain this phenomenon, Jung coined his fundamental concept of Synchronicity, which he defines as "the temporal coincidence of two or more events without causal relationship, but carrying the same meaning". According to him, during a reading, the arrangement of the pieces and the psychological state of the consultant are the simultaneous expression of the same "quality of the moment".
The collective unconscious, composed of the great universal human archetypes, finds in the 64 hexagrams a perfect form of expression. The Yi King is therefore not "magic" in the superstitious sense of the term. It is an extraordinarily fine mirror held up to our own mind. The process of drawing, by bypassing the rational brain (the mind), forces the user to project their intuition and repressed feelings onto the poetic text of the hexagram.
In the section below, we have undertaken a titanic task: to offer you, for each of the 64 hexagrams, not only the image and the traditional Chinese judgment but especially a modern reading grid based on Jung's depth psychology and the notion of quantum synchronicity. The Yi King is no longer a dusty oracle; it is a tool for therapeutic introspection of formidable power.