The Chinese Book of Changes is the most mysterious mystical book in the world. For instance, does the Chinese Book of Changes not hold the reputation of predicting events, natural disasters, and epidemics, connecting with planetary cycles, and even predicting the end of the world through its signs (hexagrams)? It also serves as a tool for divination, predicting the fates of humanity and individual people, and inspiring artists to choose the color palette for their paintings, among many other inventions derived from its study. To this day, no modern Chinese state official makes decisions without this book; in those distant times, all Chinese emperors chose the mottos of their reigns based on this book, and today any educated Chinese person views the world or speaks with you through the lens of the Book of Changes.
“I Ching.” The Chinese Book of Changes. Predicting the future is an ancient art.
In the eleventh century, the philosopher SHAO-YONG, one of the main creators of Neo-Confucianism—the “Five Masters of the Song Dynasty,” based on the Book of Changes—created numerology. In the seventh century, Emperor TAIZONG, formerly known as Li-Shimin from the SUI dynasty, adopted “Contemplation of Loyalty” as his reign’s motto. He served as the Kagan of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate from 630 to 639 years, during which he ousted his father Li Yuan from power.
History has conveyed to us how Kublai, the Great Mongolian Khan and military commander, who at that time included China, based on the Book of Changes and on the advice of his Han minister, named his state “Yuan,” which corresponds to the first sign—the hexagram in the Book of Changes. And of course, one cannot fail to mention Confucius himself, who is considered one of the later co-authors of the book and who brought most of the changes to it, known to us as the “Ten Wings.”
For example, for modern Chinese people, the Book of Changes holds no less significance than the Bible in the Christian world. Throughout history, the book has served as the primary guide for developing managerial thinking in traditional Chinese culture, often referred to as the “First Book of All Books” in China. China has long used this book as part of the Five Classics canon to learn management; without studying the Book of Changes, one could not integrate into the traditional Chinese management system, a practice known for its emphasis on memorization.
When we address someone, we are, in a sense, encoding meaning in our address. We have the opportunity to understand words in completely different ways, and to interpret these words, imbuing them with different meanings. This constitutes a system that initially teaches us to understand the nature of word meanings, and subsequently, to interpret these meanings over time. The Book of Changes teaches us to comprehend texts that evolve over time, enabling us to make assumptions based on the signs presented in this book.
Over time, texts and words do not mean the same thing they originally did. In their minds, the Chinese have spent their entire lives studying how these characters connect within the system of consciousness and how they change over time. This represents the essence of understanding the arrangement of everything in the world.
According to ancient legend, four people created the Book of Everything. The first to lend a hand in its creation was the primordial ancestor of ancient Chinese mythology and a cultural hero, Fu Xi, the Lord of the East, who, according to tradition, lived several thousand years, during the late Neolithic period, when various high-quality jade items were already being made.
The second was Zhou WenWang, the ancestor of the Zhou dynasty and the Enlightened King, who lived in the seventh century BC.
The third was Zhou Gong—the “Duke of Zhou” from the eleventh century BC. He was just sitting in the prison where the last leader of the Shang dynasty had put him, and there he was creating the true Book of Changes.
Confucius, who wrote the largest part of the Book of Changes, the Ten Wings, many centuries later, was the fourth creator. As contemporaries believe, it is now time to add another part to the Book, as time continues to pass and everything undergoes change.
Mathematics has a connection to the Book of Changes. The American writer, philosopher, and ethnobotanist Terence McKenna discovered what had eluded other researchers. Studying the order of the hexagrams of WenWang, he decided to investigate how many lines change when moving from each previous hexagram. Terence McKenna observed that the total number of even hexagrams is 48, while the total number of odd hexagrams is 16, resulting in a total of 64. Therefore, their ratio is 16 to 48, or one to three.
Terence McKenna developed an entire software package known as the Terence McKenna theory based on his discovery, drawing quite far-reaching conclusions and asserting that such a ratio was not accidental. The cosmos and the Maya pyramids connect all things, and with the aid of his software package, he made several predictions, including the end of the world in 2012, which, as we now know, did not occur.
He claimed that hexagrams are indivisible elements of time, elements of the flow of Dao, and that the Book of Changes itself is something like a periodic table of elements over time.
In general, there are many mathematical patterns identified in the arrangement of hexagrams, but it should be noted that if we rely on the commonly accepted terminology of mathematics, no pattern explains why and how WenWang constructed the existing order of hexagrams in the Book of Changes and how it was possible to arrive at this in the Neolithic era.
Zhuangzi, another Chinese Book of Knowledge and Power, contains a passage that reads, “All objects are alive, and with their breath, they exhale each other, because they breathe each other.” Many serious works assert that the 64 hexagrams from the Book of Changes represent an intelligent, symmetrical system of 64 codons, which are binary triplets of the DNA molecule. Simply put, this is the structure of the universe, a concept that people once had more leisure to comprehend. According to the same philosopher, if there is anything within you, you should theoretically be able to feel and sense it.
People use the Book of Changes equally for personal management, state governance, and managing global processes. The book says not to try to restrain the great with small efforts; instead, restrain yourself first, following the flow.
Since ancient times, the Chinese have lived by the lunar calendar, inextricably linking the Book of Changes to it. For example, the Chinese celebrate their New Year (Spring Festival) annually according to the lunar calendar.
The Book of Changes is composed of 25,000 written characters, known as hieroglyphs, and it is surrounded by 50 or even 100 different volumes of various commentaries that analyze everything said in the book. After all, we understand that the entire world is under the influence of metaphorization, which means that the world is governed by metaphors. Every language in the world is metaphorical; words, expressions, and books all serve as metaphors, reflecting the general meaning.
The history of the Confucian concept clearly demonstrates that events don’t just happen; they accumulate, build up, and only then do they occur. According to a Chinese proverb, it takes more than a single day for an emperor to die or for a father to turn against his son.
We will endeavor to explore further resources on the Book of Changes and share our findings with you. Next, we will provide a brief overview of the “36 Stratagems,” a Chinese military art that remains secret to this day and is taught in top military institutions.
