Info on how to consult the oracle

Basically, the way the oracle is 'consulted' is as follows.

You form a question or 'charge' to the oracle and write it down....
then you create a series of broken or unbroken lines ( --- or - - ) by one of several techniques.
the 'classic' technique involves counting bunches of yarrow stalks between the knuckles and dividing into groups to work out if you have a yin 'broken' line or a yang unbroken line.

Nowadays most people use the 3coin method:

flip 3coins...count heads as 3 tails as 2 and write down the value
repeat 6 times. (once for each line)
6 = changing yin
7 = nonchanging yang
8= nonchanging yin
9= changing yang

a changing line means that you will receive 2 hexagrams as the answer to your question.....

for example results from coin throws= 8,7,9,7,8,8
building the hexagram from the bottom gives

8 - -
8 - -
7 ---
9 --- X (changing)
7 ---
8 - -

now the 1 changing line becomes the opposite kind of line in the 2nd hexagram
8 - -
8 - -
7 ---
9 - - X (changing)
7 ---
8 - -





however there is yet another method which is apparently matches the same probabilities as the original yarrow stalk method.
called the 16 marbles or other tokens in four colors.

* Five of the first color, which represent the value 7
* Seven of the second color, which represent the value 8
* Three of the third color, which represents the value 9
* One of the fourth color, which represents the value 6

this is also the easiest to reproduce mathematically on a computer which is handy for us ;-)


Have a look at the Wikipedia site for I Ching divination

This source describes how to consult using marbles