I Ching
The I Ching (易經, Yìjīng, “Book of Changes”) is the ancient Chinese cosmological and divinatory text (~1000 BCE), consisting of 64 hexagrams — six-line figures composed of broken (yin) and unbroken (yang) lines. Each hexagram represents a specific situation or archetype within the flow of change, accompanied by cryptic oracular texts.
The I Ching and Synchronicity
Carl_Jung was deeply influenced by the I Ching and wrote the foreword to Richard Wilhelm’s landmark translation (1950). Jung saw the I Ching as the premier practical application of his theory of synchronicity: the hexagram generated by a casting is not caused by the question but is meaningfully connected to it through an acausal principle. The I Ching thus provides empirical evidence for the existence of a dimension of experience where inner states and outer events mirror each other.
See Also
- Taoism — the philosophical tradition underlying the I Ching
- Synchronicity — Jung’s acausal connecting principle, demonstrated through I Ching divination
- Carl_Jung — who wrote the foreword to Wilhelm’s translation
- Wu Wei — the effortless action the I Ching helps discern
- Tarot — the Western divinatory parallel to the I Ching
- Comparative_Religion — the I Ching in cross-cultural context