Why bring water back to the Yellow River?
Christa Robinson, M.A.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PAPER IS NOT EDITED! IT IS MADE AVAILABLE FOR
READING AT THE JUNG,ASIA,AND INTERCULTURE CONGRESS IN TAIWAN
1Introduction
This presentation may be judged, as the title suggests, to be little more than
bringing some water from Switzerland and emptying it into the Yellow river.
“What an absurd endeavour!” one could say, but even if it is only a tiny
drop in the vast river that underlies and carries your ancient culture, it is
nevertheless an original contribution from a different perspective – that of
Jungian psychology.
We are all aware that we live in troubled and troubling times. The deepseated energies that seem to have grasped our whole world from within and
forced us into a process of transformation are for many people very painful
and can destabilize our identities and values. China is part of these worldwide
changes due to processes such as globalisation and cannot avoid being
affected. Indeed, it is a major player in them. The I Ching’s first, essential
word is yi which means, among other things, “change”, as most of you
here will know. Yi is not the regular change involved in the cycle of day and
night or the natural growth of living things, but unpredictable change. There
is a vivid description of it in another classic, the Shu Jing, the Book of
Documents:
“When in years, months and days the season has no yi, the hundred cereals
ripen, the administration is enlightened, talented men of the people are
distinguished, the house is peaceful and at ease. When in days, months and
years the season has yi, the hundred cereals do not ripen, the administration is
dark and unenlightened, talented men of the people are in petty positions, the
house is not at peace”.
At present we are experiencing a period of yi that is undergoing that
disorderly kind of change, and guidance in order to cope with it could be
helpful and valid for many people. The I Ching offers such guidance. This
ancient yet timeless treasure at the core of Chinese culture can connect people
to the fundamental patterns and energies that endlessly shape the world. C.G.
Jung called these hidden ordering phenomena the archetypes. Crucially, he
claimed that the I Ching makes the dynamic interplay of the archetypes
readable.
The main thesis of my presentation, which I have the honour and pleasure to
present to you, is that the Jungian approach of the Eranos I Ching translation,
which we have used successfully in the West, could also be of value for a
modern China. I say this because these diverse aspects of worldwide change
increasingly demand new answers for and from all of us, both at the
collective level and at the individual level.
Conversely, the I Ching could fill an important gap in a modern approach to
the psyche. Its oracular texts connect the realm of the archetypes, which the
ancient world called the Gods, directly to individual experience. This everchanging connection offers a rich and fascinating opportunity for further
empirical study along the lines adopted by Jung.
I will compare and contrast the so-called “classical” I Ching and the
Eranos translation with its necessity for a precise question. I shall also refer to
the Richard Wilhelm translation which reached the West during Jung’s
lifetime and profoundly impressed him. I will emphasise the use of the I
Ching as an oracle, by which I mean an instrument to deepen our
understanding of a situation rather than to foretell the future.
2 Oracular Traditions
We now know that oracles have, without exception, been part of everyday
life in various forms in all cultures, above all in religious and political life.
Oracles in the great early civilisations of China and the Mediterranean
originally had some common characteristics, but these diverged as the
civilisations developed.
The most famous oracle sites in the West belong to the classical Greek and
Roman cultures of antiquity. The use of oracles for personal goals or aims
only became widespread around the start of the Christian era, but they
continued to be used in this way for a long time thereafter. However, with the
rise of monotheistic religion in the West through Judaism, Christianity and
Islam, the oracle lost more and more of its significance. The priests that once
connected man to the various Gods and could transmit their counsel gradually
disappeared. Nevertheless, popular or private oracles never disappeared from
Western cultures despite varying degrees of religious disapproval. Some old
forms, such as astrology, persisted, and new forms, such as the Tarot,
emerged.
This situation in the West changed radically with the 18th century
Enlightenment. Ever since then, visiting a fortune teller was considered to
indicate a lack of culture and sophistication. No one of any importance would
publicly admit to consulting an oracle, for to do so was ridiculed as a
superstitious remnant of a prescientific age. However, this prejudice misses
the point, for science and mantic procedures give answers to fundamentally
different categories of questions. At no stage of human development have
oracles answered questions that could have been solved through reason alone.
Nonetheless, because of our persistent Western delusion that we live
exclusively in the “Age of Reason”, such prejudice remains widespread.
In the East, the I Ching has been used by rulers over the ages. 3000 years ago
it was used in a shamanistic way for guidance in collective, state-oriented
situations by getting in contact with the invisible and learning about the will
of the Gods. Authentic written documents regarding the oracle were already
extant in the archives of the Shang dynasty. Subsequently, the Confucian
approach to the I Ching emphasised social morality whereas the Taoist
approach was more philosophical. Although the I Ching has never lost its
significance as an oracle, today this use in China is the preserve of fortunetellers in temples, midnight markets or their own homes. In these settings the
centre of attention is not the well-being of the state but finding answers and
solutions to everyday personal problems. The standardized temple oracle is
mainly consulted by simple people, whereas the private oracles are used by
the middle and upper classes.
The I Ching can be viewed as a treatise at the centre of all classical Chinese
thinking, giving both Confucianism and Taoism essential inputs which
enabled it to survive until today. Its differentiation and further development
was a task of their best scientists and philosophers.
3 The I Ching in the West
3.1 History
The I Ching has been known of in the West since the 17th century. Various
translations in Latin still exist, but it was Richard Wilhelm’s epochal work,
based upon the Palace Edition of 1715, that first made it widely known in the
West. The English translation from Wilhelm’s German, and a foreword by
Jung, led to the breakthrough, and it soon got the questionable reputation of
being a “New Age Bible”. On the basis of that English translation, many
others in different languages followed. I am particularly moved that we can
witness some of its history in the remarkable film by Wilhelm’s
granddaughter screened during this conference.
The Eranos I Ching translation was started in 1944 by Rudolph Ritsema who,
after 1962, was the director of the Eranos Foundation. Eranos, Latin for
picnic, was founded in 1933 by a Dutch woman, Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, on the
lovely shores of Lake Maggiore in Switzerland. It was here that, for almost
70 years, eminent scholars from East and West came together annually for a
dialogue on a given theme from their perspectives grounded in very different
fields. The results of these encounters were annual yearbooks that are to be
found in most university libraries around the world.
Ritsema learned Chinese for his translation into the four main European
languages, (English, German, Italian, French), each time returning to the
original Chinese (Palace Edition) text. Many of the errors the Wilhelm I
Ching underwent in further translations by non-Chinese-speaking authors
could be avoided in this way. The Eranos version also included the Universal
Compass (PICTURE) and the Concordance for the first time ever in a
Western language. Ritsema received a Doctorate in recognition of his 50
years of labour.
3.2 Challenges to the Western Mind
The I Ching way of looking at situations very often presents problems to the
Western way of thinking, and using it for guidance can create confusion in
Western individuals. In Western thinking, a causal perspective is generally
more prevalent. For example, if I drop a coin it will inevitably fall because of
gravity. Such causal connections can be tested and verified empirically and
shown to be universal, reproducible and falsifiable – the essential criteria of
modern Western science. This view of reality is diametrically opposed to that
of the East. The texts of the I Ching acquire their full range of meaning when
they are understood in the context of correlative thinking, which seeks to
reveal the intrinsic dynamics of all phenomena through their various
interrelated cycles.
The language of the I Ching is very concrete, and at the same time very fluid
and poetic. Moreover, Chinese ideograms express a way of perceiving reality
through a different grid from that of any Western language. They embrace
clusters of meanings that slide into each other by a sort of free play of the
imagination. With Chinese ideograms the Westerner has the impression of
looking at iridescent gems whose colour appears different depending on the
angle from which one looks at them. This fluidity of meaning is remarkably
similar to the interconnectedness which characterizes the archetypal realm.
Willard Peterson, a Princeton University sinologist, said:
… if we understand only that the Book of Change imitates, or represents
symbolically, or is an ideational counterpart of the realm of heaven - andearth and has no ontological standing of its own, then in answer to the
question, how can such a divination text “connect” with the cosmos?, we
must answer that it does not, except on the conceptual level of our seeing it
imitate or represent.
Although the “Commentaries” of the fourth to the second centuries BCE
have a strong commitment to pairs, they do not use them in catenary
sequences. These “Commentaries” do not claim that being of the same
category leads to moving or responding on the part of the members of the
category. Moreover, the intention in the “Commentaries” do not seem
primarily to be to present us with explanations of events in the realm of
heaven-and-earth. Rather, alluding to contemporary claims that the whole
cosmic process -the Way or Dao -should be our human way, the
Commentaries take the examples used in making such claims and then in
effect say, look, those all are in the Book of Change; the book and its
techniques have them.
They might be understood as analogues, not in a loose sense of analogies by
which one seeks to elucidate one of two things or circumstances, or
verbalizations as having certain similarities and otherwise being quite
different, but in the stricter sense of one thing being proportional to another,
of the two things having an equality of ratio.
In this sense, two triangles, the sides of which are in the ratio of 3:4:5, are
analogues; their definitional characteristics are the same, regardless of the
dimensions or the units of measurement. They are formal although not actual
duplicates. And they are analogues of all other triangles with sides in that
ratio. None imitates or represents the others as they all are credited (here)
with equal standing. Now if we could conceive of a much more complicated
case, the cosmos as a whole, including all of its ten thousand constituent parts
as they alter and transform, as having an analogue in which everything is in
proportional relation, then we may be closer to understanding what the
“Commentaries” were proposing. This is not the common
microcosm/macrocosm “analogy”, which is merely conceptual. We must
imagine, or believe, that the Change actually is a formal and processual
duplicate of the realm of heaven and earth....They duplicate them in the sense
of “to double, to be a double” but not to imitate. A twin can be understood
to be a double but not to be an imitation. How this duplication can be
accomplished is still difficult to grasp. How can two wheels continue to roll
along together if they are not connected by an axle or the frame of the vehicle?
The "Commentaries" do not provide us with a ready answer.
According to Joseph Needham, a Cambridge University sinologist, scientist
and historian, this correlative thinking has its logic in Order and above all
Pattern.
3.3 Jungian Perspectives
This essentially different view of reality in the East was and is also the view
of certain philosophers and poets in the West, and it is one of Jung’s merits
to have formulated a psychology in “soul-terms”, soul as a system of
resonances that follows certain laws and patterns. It is thanks to Jungian
psychology that we can now investigate this on a broader and empirical level.
Jung’s concept of the archetypes corresponds to the Chinese principle of yin
and yang, the eight trigrams and their evolution as represented in the
Universal Compass. This correspondence enables us to make a psychological
reading of the I Ching, and thus it can become a tool that gives voice to
“our inner inborn wisdom". In Jungian terms, this can be the unconscious
urge to individuate, to become what one intrinsically is meant to be, but
any specific, conscious decision that needs to be made remains the
responsibility of the individual.
It would be fascinating to compare the Chinese notions of different souls and
capacities with possible Western correspondences. How could we visualize
kuei, which means the power to create individual existence, and a union of
volatile soul, hun (spiritual and intellectual power) and dense soul, p’o
(bodily strength and movement) from Western perspectives such as Jung's
theory of animus and anima, modern research into ego-states or, on a more
pathological level, to dissociative identity disorders? These questions could
open a dialogue of mutual benefit between our cultures.
While the Western mind carefully sifts, weighs, selects, classifies and isolates,
Chinese science encompasses everything down to the minutest detail because
all of the ingredients make up the observed moment. The hexagram generated
at a certain moment coincides with it in quality no less than in time because it
is understood to be the indicator of the essential situation prevailing at the
moment of its origin. Jung called this principle synchronicity.
The concept of synchronicity needs some explanation. It means taking the
coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than
mere chance, namely a peculiar interdependence of objective events among
themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer. So
synchronicity is to Jung what the I Ching is to the Chinese. In the I Ching,
the only criterion of the validity of synchronicity is the observer’s opinion
that the text of the hexagram amounts to a true rendering of his psychic
condition. In this sense the ancient Chinese mind, as expressed in the I Ching,
contemplates the cosmos in a qualitative, resonant way. This way of looking
at the cosmos is comparable to that of quantum physics. According to the
Copenhagen Interpretation, the quantum observation includes the observer
just as much as the reality underlying the I Ching includes an individual’s
psychic condition in the totality of the momentary situation.
Let me emphasize at this point that Jungians do not believe that the I Ching
can foretell the future because we do not assume that the future is
unequivocally predetermined. A latent tendency in the present situation may
actually develop into an actual consequence, but that is in no way a foregone
conclusion. What is most important from our human standpoint is that the
outcome can be affected by our choices and our actions. Thus we view the I
Ching as an instrument that can help the individual to make decisions that
align his or her ego with what you call Dao and we call the path of
individuation. The I Ching can do this by offering additional information, but
it remains the task of the ego to make the decision.
Nor do Jungians assume, to cite Lai Chih-Te (1525 - 1604), that the I Ching
offers any imperatives, moral or otherwise. Quite understandably, when we
are in a quandary, we would very much like to be told what to do, which is
the right choice, and we might be tempted to approach the book hoping that
in there we will find the answer. An I Ching consultation produces symbols,
hsiang, a series of images which, as in a dream, are connected to a given
situation and a given question. Jung, referring to the I Ching, pointed out that
“these archetypal images are produced directly by the unconscious...they
exhibit its contamination of content to a very high degree....like in dreams.”
These images may give us a clearer sense of what we have to do in this
situation, but they never tell us what to do. And as in dreams, it is crucial to
realize that the responsibility for all choices always rests with the consultant.
(TABLE) This table is an attempt to summarise the equivalences between
Eastern, Western and Jungian worldviews that I have described. I present it
only for the sake of an overview that is open to corrections, and not as a
dogmatic statement.
3.4 The Wilhelm Translation
Richard Wilhelm set out to make a difficult and obscure book, the I Ching,
accessible to the Western mind by translating it as a discursive text that fit
into his Neo-Confucian perspective. He produced a remarkably readable,
poetic and profound text that succeeded in making the I Ching known to the
West. But the price paid for this method is that the reader is bound to his
definitive interpretation. We lose the openness of the oracle texts, the multifaceted nature of the characters, and their relative autonomy in the context of
the sentence. Returning to the analogy of the oracle and the dream, the
Chinese text of the I Ching is like the “raw” form of a dream, whereas a
discursive translation is like ordering the images of the dream into a specific
interpretation.
A drawback of a discursive translation such as Wilhelm’s is the fact that
any specific term in the original Chinese language may have been translated
into just one of a range of possible words according to context. Conversely,
different terms in the original may have been translated into a single word.
This presents one of the main difficulties in the oracular use of the Wilhelm
translation, because it makes it impossible to identify the original ideograms
throughout the book.
4 The Eranos I Ching
4.1 Principles
The Eranos translation is an attempt to deal with this problem. Its oracular
text adheres strictly to the original I Ching ideograms, but adds another
possibility, namely its use in individual situations in the West where the
teacher-student tradition is not so common. It attempts to go behind the
historical, philosophical and philological analyses to revive the divinatory
core and the psychological root of the book as a living practice by paying
particular attention to the resonances the images of the oracle have in the
system of correlation. And because these patterns and correlations are
archetypal, part of the world psyche (anima mundi), a psychological,
albeit demanding, access becomes possible. While acknowledging deeply the
age-old Confucian and Taoist insights and their value in shaping the culture
and the states of China over time, in these times of global transformation its
emphasis on psychological aspects is especially needed.
Technical criteria of the Eranos I Ching include the following:
• It contains only the oracle texts, without the traditional philosophical
commentaries (the Ten Wings).
• Each Chinese ideogram is translated consistently into the same word.
• The semantic field is described in the Associated Contexts following the
texts. All the meanings listed resonate together in the Chinese ideogram.
• In general the word order of the oracle text has been strictly preserved,
and no words have been added or removed.
The Eranos translation is considered a tool for the jun zi, that is the ideal of a
person who uses divination to order their life in accordance with Dao rather
than willful intention. It provides us with symbols (hsiang), which are images
invested with intrinsic power to connect the visible and the invisible. The I the way of the I Ching - offers direct analogies to the movement of energy in
the invisible. Symbols are also versatile, and the words act like traps for Dao.
There is a saying: You put out a fish trap, but once the fish is in it, you do not
care about the trap anymore. The words stimulate a process which indicates
what is in tune within us and what is not in tune with the present time and
Dao. This is an exploration of potential synchronicity. The apparently random
manipulation of the yarrow stalks, or the tossing of coins, can offer valid
insights into the archetypal energies active in the consultant’s situation
and psyche, and the developing tendencies contained therein. This ability
results from the interaction of the related I Ching texts with the associative
process carried out by the consultant. Used in this sense the I Ching is a
mirror of the present.
The Eranos translation attempts to preserve as much as possible of the
mirroring potency of the oracular language. Therefore each ideogram is
translated consistently to correspond as much as possible to the “centre” of
a field of associated meanings. However, this is not to be taken as a complete
rendering of the iedeogram, but rather as a core word. The “field of
meaning” that follows immediately contains all the associations that
resonate together in the ideogram. This allows we Western readers to access
the range of meanings that a Chinese reader immediately perceives, and
prevents us from adding our own associations that are not implied. When
reading our answer it is important to listen to any special resonance that core
words, or others from the “fields of meaning”, have in us.
The Eranos I Ching translation, I must admit, is for this reason more difficult
to access than the more poetic one of Richard Wilhelm. It is hard work to
learn the language of the universal soul (anima mundi) and its demands on us.
But it rewards us with the clarity and calm of the jun zi.
4.2 Examples of Ideograms
Let me now give you a few examples of I Ching ideograms used in a
psychological way, beginning with the jun zi. In Wilhelm's translation it is
called the “noble person”. This aspect remains more or less consistent in
us during our life time. In some it is strong and may result, beyond the
solution of present troubles, in a calling to individuation. If this urge
manifests we find the term “actualizing-Dao”, de, which means
“acquiring that which makes a being what it is meant to be”. It means
realizing Dao in action, also virtue, power, and the ability to follow the
course traced by the ongoing process of the cosmos.
Let us look at other terms, for example the “small” – in Wilhelm “the
commoner” – and the “great” – in Wilhelm “the great man”. If
traditionally “commoners” alludes to the working class that supports the
social hierarchy but are not integrated into its structure, the “small” can
also be seen as undeveloped potential in the individual. In the Eranos I Ching,
the “small” (xiao) is furthermore regarded as the flexible adaptation to
what crosses one’s path in everyday life. For example, you are about to
finish a long work session at the computer when the screen goes black and
your work is lost. Here you need “flexible adaptation” to find a solution
and the ability to move in harmony with this vicissitude.
Eranos associations to the “great” (da) are noble, important, orient one’s
will toward a self-imposed goal, meaning the ability of a person to set
themself a goal and lead their energies towards acquiring it. Note that it does
not say anything about the goal itself, which may be materialistic or spiritual,
depending on the person. In the Eranos translation the “small” and the
“great” are considered to be two different, but equally important, psychic
functions within the same person. We need them both, although we might
have been tempted to consider the “noble” as more desirable.
4.3 Formulating the Question
Divination does not replace critical reflection and introspection, for it is out
of this examination of yourself, of looking at all the different angles of your
situation, that the appropriate question will arise. Therefore the Eranos
translation pays great attention to how a question should be formulated, as
follows:
Ask only questions that are emotionally significant for you because it is the
emotional charge that activates the archetypal images in the answer. A
question asked out of idle curiosity rarely gets a meaningful answer because
sufficient psychic energy is not available.
Avoid asking the I Ching what to do, or questions with only a yes or no
answers. The symbols (hsiang) are images connecting the visible and
invisible, and it will be up to you to say yes or no based on the resonances
that those images call up in you.
Avoid alternatives like “should I do this or that?”, because it will be
unclear whether the images contained in your answer refer to “this” or
“that”. Instead make a tentative choice, maybe that which is closer to your
heart or demands more courage. Then let go and open up to whatever may
come up from the answer, inside you, and often the answer will indirectly
illuminate the other option too. Formulations we often used at Eranos are
“give me an image of...” or “what would be the meaning of…” this
choice.
Be as specific as possible. The answer to a too-general question, such as
“what is the purpose of my life?”, is often difficult to interpret because the
images can be read in too many different ways. Conversely, starting from a
concrete and emotionally significant question, the answer frequently expands
to include larger issues in the consultant’s life.
4.4 In Practice
Finally I would like to present a short example to show how the openness of
the oracle texts can be unsettling at first for a Westerner. We may feel
overwhelmed by a flood of potential meanings. But this wealth of
possibilities is an expression of the archetypal nature of oracular language.
The guiding principle for reading these texts as an oracle is listening to what
resonates inside oneself.
Sometimes just the name of the hexagram fully answers our question. At
others it is necessary to read all the texts more than once, listening to our
emotional response, focusing on the words and sentences that seem most
directly relevant to our situation. The Chinese commentary tradition
beautifully suggests that “turning and rolling the words in one's heart” is
the key to accessing the “light of the Gods”. Since the emotional content
of the question is important, we must let ourselves be touched by the answer.
The texts have no a priori meaning independent of the consultant and the
question. The I Ching in its use as an oracle speaks to individual people, to
their reason and emotion, in their concrete existential situation.
I have also chosen this example because one of the central points is a moral
question, that of losing one’s righteousness (yi). This term may have
different emphasis in our two cultures, but in both it is a painful issue.
Elisa arrived at my practice, prompted by her analyst who was away for a
while. She said that she did not have a clear question and felt confused, but
experienced a certain sense of urgency that she had to decide about her life.
She had gone to university, afterwards choosing a teaching job below the
level of her training to remain at home with her mother who was around 80.
A few months ago she had resigned from her job, and was doing nothing but
taking care of her increasingly helpless mother and going out for walks. The
nursing of the mother was heavy going, but she felt a moral obligation to
“serve” her.
The only question she felt like asking was: “What orientation should I give
my life” which is exactly one of those general questions that do not
constellate a precise answer. We need to push the question to the point where
our emotion is involved to the extent that, as I sometimes say, it burns under
our fingernails. Then the oracle activates images beyond conscious control,
like in dreams.
But then it turned out that there was a concrete question, emotionally charged
although she intellectually considered it unimportant. It was a job offer that
would involve her skills, but was not too well paid and some distance away.
This would mean putting her mother into an old people’s home. Elisa
finally agreed to ask about this situation, but thought it rather limited.
However, here there was emotional pressure. The answer from the Eranos I
Ching was Hex. 56, Sojourning, with a single transforming line, nine at the
third place, changing to Hex. 35, Prospering.
Immediately two important elements stand out, in the Image and the
Sequence: The central image of the hexagram “Sojourning” means
“staying in places other than your home, temporary residence”. The
answer touched on the core of Elisa’s situation, her being bound to her
mother’s home. And it said “it’s time to let go of residing in your
parent’s home”.
Moreover it addressed the issue of the job offer and Elisa’s preoccupation
about it not fulfilling her ambitions. It described the job as a “temporary
residence”, implying that it would not be an irrevocable commitment, but a
temporary step in the process of “letting go of her residing”.
The texts of the third transforming line were even stronger and more specific:
Sojourning, burning one's resting place.
Losing one's youthful vassal.
Trial. Adversity
When “resting place” is taken to refer to her parent's home, the active
form of the verb “burning” makes sense. It is time for her to “burn her
resting-place”. But this is by no means the only possible reading of the
sentence. In a different situation the intransitive form of the verb might be
more appropriate, and the sentence might be read as “one's resting-place
burns”.
Similarly, “losing one's youthful vassal” has a very specific inner meaning
in Elisa's case: it is her attitude as a “youthful vassal” which must be lost.
It also involves “actually, truly using injuring” and therefore “one’s
righteousness lost indeed”. It would be necessary to accept the fact of
injuring her mother by putting her in an old people’s home, but also her
own sense of moral obligation, her moral integrity, something she had never
done before.
This is an example of how a concrete situation gives meaning to a text which
is difficult to understand out of context. But this need not be the only
interpretation: in other cases it could be an outer helper or servant who is lost.
It is interesting to compare these remarks with the Wilhelm-Baynes
translation of this line:
The wanderer's inn burns down.
He loses the steadfastness of his young servant.
Danger.
Here everything is clearly spelled out, all the events are taken as external, and
the overall situation has negative overtones. This is a possible interpretation
of the Chinese text, but it is not the only one. In Elisa's situation it is not
appropriate, and applying this line to Elisa's case highlights the fact that in the
oracle statements there is no sharp distinction between “negative” and
“positive”. In her circumstances, the “burning inn” has a very positive
implication and the “danger” (or rather “adversity”) is a difficulty
which must be struggled with in order to grow, and not something to be
avoided. This example shows how the words of the oracle have multiple
layers of meaning, which the Eranos I Ching tries to preserve and make
available as much as possible.
This small question opened up to touch the basic issues in Elisa’s existential
situation. The hexagram generated by the transforming line was 35,
“Prospering”, which is arguably the brightest and most sunny hexagram in
the I Ching.
5 Conclusion
To use the Eranos I Ching as an oracle in the way I have outlined offers the
user the possibility to gain specific information about their individual
situation, unlike its traditional Chinese application. For a Jungian user, it
additionally offers the possibility to gain insight into the workings of the
archetypes. I have explained how this can be done from the background of
Jungian psychology as a bridge for people who find themselves caught in the
tension between tradition and modernity. I have the impression that women
especially get caught in this dilemma.
In this presentation I have tried to show one possible basis for an ongoing
meeting of East and West, which was the founding idea of Eranos in 1933. I
do not know how you say it in China but in my country at this point I would
say, thank you from my heart for the opportunity you have given me to
present this Eranos I Ching translation. So I thank you from my heart.
END