General Papers

The material presented here is relatively non-technical in content, at least from a mathematical perspective. I have divided it into two groups:

Introductory Material

An Introduction to the Yi Jing - this provides a brief, general overview of the Yi Jing. It provides a short sketch of the history of the book, including its journey to the West, along with an introduction to the ideas of yin and yang and their representation in the symbols of Change.

For those completely new to the Yijing, there is also a short description of the energies of the trigrams.

There is also a glossary of important Chinese terms, compiled from a variety of principle sources.

Specific Topics

The Nature of Divination - this paper, which originally appeared in a shorter version in the Spring/Summer 2004 edition of the journal Counselling in Scotland, pp6-8, looks at the process of divination and develops a simple theory based on the cosmology of the Yi Jing itself.  This theory of process links together the circumstances generating the question, the person asking the question and the Book of Change and suggests that these three entities stand in the same relationship as the domains of Earth, Man and Heaven. The original article is still available here.  Counselling in Scotland is the journal of COSCA.

Waxing and Waning - Yin and Yang Throughout the Year - this note describes how the modern astronomical calendar fits with the seasonal symbols from the Yijing. New Year, as , in 2008 was January 20. The next is 2009 January 19. The rotation group X> n should always have an up-to-date calendar, and there is also an Open Office spreadsheet or a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet which will let you calculate the dates for yourself. A good site for the raw data needed for the calculations is Wolfram Research's Science World.