I built a free I Ching oracle web app

henrychannel•about 4 hours ago

Classical Wilhelm-Baynes translation, three coin method, 64 hexagrams. No signup, no ads, free to use.

It also has an optional AI interpretation layer - but the classical text is always shown first, fully intact. Built it because I wanted something that treated the tradition seriously.

Carl Jung wrote the foreword to this exact translation and credited the I Ching with shaping his theory of synchronicity.

yubblegum•about 3 hours ago

Carl Jung also warned that the occult are not to be trifled with and that I ching was not for amusement. It's funny I was just going through some notebooks from 4 decades ago when I was a young thing and saw page after page of questioning "should I do this?" "should I do that?" The misuse of the I Ching is an excellent way to lose your own independent judgment. Beware. (I made some poor choices based on misusing this book.)

Wilhelm's translation is indeed wonderful and for the thoughtful reader of the book, I strongly suggest spending time with 'Book Two' of his translation that focuses on Confucius' metaphysical commentary - it is profound.

Also recommended for the serious reader of the Ching is Richard Wilhem's Lectures On The I Ching - Constancy and Change, also published under the Bollingen.

HerbManic•about 3 hours ago

A counter point is that if you are stuck in a 50/50 position, out sourcing the decision to some random other thing can break the dead lock. Like flipping to a random page on a book and going with the first word you see that is positive or negative (Bibliomancy).

The occult language can make it sound mysterious but it can also sometimes just be a cover for a delegation of decisions.

yubblegum•about 2 hours ago

It's a weak counter point in that it does not consider the long term effects.

Using I Ching to make decisions is like using an LLM to think. At some point, you will atrophy the faculty of independent decision making.

You are also neglecting that I Ching outcomes come with text and commentary that are by definition designed to affect your mindset -- "the image" -- (for the good of course but see below for that). This is precisly what Dr. Jung was saying about trifling with the occult. It affects you at an sub/un-conscious level - this is not some random book. It is the I Ching, and like all world scripture it has a textual potency that affects its readers.

If you are stuck at a 50/50 position, just throw a single coin. Average 3 if you must. Spare yourself the commentaries.

Correct and effective use of the I Ching requires a degree of maturity and self development (think Carl Jung) that is surely lacking in most of us when we are first introduced to this occult artefact in 20th and 21st centuries. That is because in this age of facile information we get our hands on matter that in previous eras were obtained after spending years at the feet of some guru or master!

sublinear•about 1 hour ago

This perspective always fascinates me. I'm not trying to be negative, but am genuinely curious.

If you're truly split like that, why is any ceremony necessary? Just pick one. Does every choice have to be explained? Are you doing this to amuse yourself?

If you don't delegate to a source of randomness, do you feel guilty or ruminate about why you were un/successful? Are you afraid of your own thoughts misleading you once the outcome is clear?

jazzyjackson•about 2 hours ago

Are you at least using a TRNG?

henrychannel•about 2 hours ago

Currently Math.random(). random.org’s API would give true randomness sourced from atmospheric noise.

Might add it in a future release.

__patchbit__•31 minutes ago

How good is the RNG on NetBSD's ching(6)?

I built a free I Ching oracle web app

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