The I Ching & the pips of the Tarot
Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 19 Nov 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.
| jmd |
19 Nov 2004 |
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There is another thread I once started - quite some time ago - in what was the Marseille & Historical Forum. The thread (very short indeed) is now in the History section of the boards:
In a recent post in the thread (in Using Tarot) titled Court Cards and Myers-Briggs, rachelcat asks about a correlation I mentioned between the I Ching and the pips.
A number of people have made various correlations (such as Haindl, Crowley and others). None, as far as I am aware, have however made a full hexagrammatic correlation to the pips as I presented in an advance course in the early nineties.
The correlations there were based and presented as an experiment in careful meticulous thinking, the four elements, and reflections on the emergent meanings which results from possible correlations.
In the first instance, it may be shown that some hexagrammes have a different form when reversed, whereas others have the same form when either 'upright' or 'reversed'. For example, an unbroken Yang line as base followed by five broken Yin lines, when flipped, looks different (let's call this pattern A); in contradistinction, an unbroken Yang line as base followed by four broken Yin lines followed by another unbroken Yang line, when flipped, repeats exactly the same pattern (let's call this pattern B).
Pattern A thus has two different forms: upright and reversed, which are closely connected (in the I Ching, these reversals usually follow each other in sequence). Pattern B are hexagrammes that are vertical palindromes.
If one adds all the patterns A and the patterns B, the total becomes 36. The sixty-four hexagrammes are thus 'contained' within 36 'archetypal' forms, 28 of which are of the asymmetrical pattern A type, and eight of which are of the symmetrical palindromic pattern B type.
__________
If one now considers the pips, the Aces seem to somehow be of a different nature to the other nine pips in each suit. The pips, without the aces, also number 36.
Here is the beginning of a possible correlation: we at least have quantitative equivalence.
The qualitative equivalences also begin to emerge when one considers the quality of numbers. Rather than making a post so long as to be equivalent to a handout of a number of pages and yet quite dense, I'll proceed to a principle of correlation in a further post.
If what I have written above is too confusing, I shall of course attempt to clarify my explanation.
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| Fulgour |
19 Nov 2004 |
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As one who has spent many (happy) hours sketching
the organic and geometric pattern flows of the I Ching,
it is evident to me that too literal or enforced patterns
confine and restrain the inherent liberties of the lines.
Perhaps you could post some diagrams to illustrate?
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| jmd |
19 Nov 2004 |
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I've extracted twelve pages from my book and a couple of handouts for those interested. The combined document lacks some of the flow it has in the full context, but offer it here nonetheless.
Please also note that the handout part (probably difficult to tell which is which) was made in specific context of a class many years ago in which we were also taking as a working assumption the correlations of Swords to Air - which I personally did not, and do not, favour.
The content is relatively dense - probably reflecting its author - but I have attempted to make the whole at least have a semblance of integral flow.
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| rachelcat |
19 Nov 2004 |
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Thank you so much for the info. I haven't read it all yet, but I printed it, and it's the next thing on my reading pile! Maybe I'll use my Visual I Ching as a visual aid and really study! I didn't know this was your theory. That makes it even better! (And me even more grateful for your sharing.)
Do you know if the hexagram correspondences in Banjaf's "The Crowley Tarot" are Crowley's, or is Banjaf making them up on the fly? [as she guiltily picks your brain for even more info . . .]
Thanks again. I can't wait to get into it!
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| Gardener |
19 Nov 2004 |
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Wow. JMD, thank you so much for posting this excerpt here for us to play with and possibly even learn from. As Rachelcat says, I'm going to need to print it out, but I am very excited to explore this. I've known that a number of people make the correlations, but it was always too obscure to sort out. Your excerpt may in fact be somewhat dense, but at least it's not obscure! Thank you again.
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| jmd |
19 Nov 2004 |
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It is worth reading whatever is presented with quite a critical eye... by which I mean not a negative view, but a questioning one.
Also of interest may be another thread also earlier mentioning a little some of what is in the attached extracts:
Tarot, as Tarot, is, to my personal way of thinking, nonetheless independent.
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The The I Ching & the pips of the Tarot thread was originally posted on 19 Nov 2004 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.
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