Why would one use I Ching/Yìjīng/易經 ?

There are many books on Yi Jing out there (and many translations/interpretations of the core text as well). Practically all of them will tell you Yi Jing is used as a divination manual and also as a book of wisdom. That is true - those are the two faces of the same thing. One is yin side (divination) when we are on the receiving end of the ancient wisdom and another is yang when we take an active role and project that wisdom outwardly.

Starting with Confucius and to this day Yi Jing was valued primarily as a book of wisdom. In the Song dinasty Zhu Xi 'rediscovered' Yi Jing as a divination manual however the stigma of divination remains to this day. To be wise is still more desirable than to be a diviner or "fortune-teller". This is just another one of many socially induced stereotypes which perpetuates itself throughout generations and societies. Yang has been and still is seen as a preferred force in the inseparable duo of yin and yang.

Guessing about future events is an everyday occurance when it comes to weather forecasting, economic forecasting, predicting likely outcome of certain medical conditions etc. However all of those have avoided stigmatization by putting on the cloak of almighty science which works as innoculation against (most of the) doubt and scepticism. Predictions made by use of Yi Jing are likely to be ridiculed for a simple reason - people do not understand how it works and worse yet they do not even understand how on earth it could possibly work.

Is it really possible to make truthful predictions about future events?

Yes, it is. Future, however, is purely a product of our mind - what we experience through our senses arguably and to a certain extent has existence unrelated to our mind, however categories of time such as past, present and future are purely products of our mind's inner workings. Future is present unfolded (past is also present unfolded). Future is like a tea-spoon of Longjin tea in a glass teapot - pour a cup of hot water over it and watch how it comes alive. Yet it is no different than the tea leaves still on the tea plant, no different than the tea leaves after being dried and packaged, it merely changed its shape according to the circumstances.

All our futures are already here and now, ready to unfold.

Five thousand years ago ancient Chinese did not think Yi Jing belonged to the magic arts, present day scholars also don't claim Yi Jing has magical properties.

No one exactly knows how Yi Jing works. Most convincing hypothesis so far is that by Carl Jung who explained Yi Jing prognostication abilities through the workings of our subconscious mind (synchronicity).

Good thing about Yi Jing forecasting is that one can always validate predictions - if you want to know what will happen let's say 6 months from now, you ask the question, get your answer and six months later go back and see if the prediction was correct. Based on that logic and my own experience with Yi Jing I claim with confidence: Yi Jing can be used to make reliable predictions about future events. Which is not that difficult considering that the future does not really exist except as a concept of our mind.

All predictions published on this web site can be verified in the same manner. The main idea behind this web site is to demonstrate the practical value of this amazing book called Yi Jing.

This sounds so interesting, where can I learn more?

You can dive into the ocean of books out there or you can simply check out this Wikipedia article and take it from there.

Last edit: March 2017