Customer Reviews

The Numerology of the I Ching: A Sourcebook of Symbols, Structures, and Traditional Wisdom

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This would not be a book for someone unfamiliar with the Yijing (Wade-Giles: "I Ching"), but for someone who has already cultivated a relationship with the Yijing, this book is invaluable. I have never seen so much about the inner meaning of the Yijing explained so clearly. Here the reader will find illumination about the He Tu ("The Yellow River Map"), the Lo Shu ("The Lo River Writing"), lines that are "central" and "correct" (aka "Governing" and "Constituting" rulers), the nuances of different judgements, and numerous traditional Yijing diagrams. Everything that is most obscure in, for example, the Wilhelm-Baynes "I Ching" is made clear here. Again, this book might be hopelessly confusing for someone new to the Yijing, but for someone who has spent time working with the oracle and who wants to deepen a relationship with it, I can think of no better book than this.

All I can say is read this book, one chapter at a time. Then After each chapter, go back and take notes. It is very well explained, and more than worth the time and energy. It has made my practice of using Master Alfred's Complete I Ching much smoother, and it demystifies a lot of nuts and bolts in the I Ching's stucture, while tracing the origins back to the He Tu and Lo Shu diagrams. Yet it is mainly a gateway, one that takes a lifetime to put into practice. One feels incredibly lucky to have discovered such wisdom in his/her own lifetime! I've seen many gimmicky packages of the I Ching that are unauthentic, but this version here rings true throughout.

For anyone studying the I Ching, the translations available often cover a few basics, then jump right into the Hexagrams. - and this includes some of the translated works today. However, for those seeking deeper meanings, Alfred Huang's work explores the mathematics, origins, and deeper meanings of the trigrams, hexagrams, and patterns of the I Ching.

There are looks at the different arrangements (Earlier/Later Heaven) of Trigrams, the Lo Shu and He Te diagrams and their relevances. Discussion of King Wen's arrangements of Hexagrams. Mathematical analyses. Speculations. And far more.

Any student of the I Ching, simply, needs this book. If there's a flaw to it its that it will leave you wanting more depth in a market that's often quite shallow. You could reread this book many times and each time find something new.

There is two ways to understand I Ching, first, the thematic approach and second, the structural approach. Mostly all books I have encountered for years were discussing I Ching from thematic approach and never explaining purpose of each line that represented Changes.

The Numerology of The I Ching is a quite different book. It was explaining I Ching from the view of structural approach. It was quite enlightening and giving a deep understanding about true nature of every line that represented Changes. I will recomend it to every I Ching lover without doubt.

I'm engineer. The numeric world and the I CHING is a splendid combinations of mutations. The real world and the real life have a constant: mutations. Read numbers and see mutations...

Good book about basis of I Ching.
It has been written so that everybody understands.
Sometimes the core of detailed information is missing.

This book may not be large but the information has clarity and is far reaching. Delving into the Mathmatics of the I Ching is something that has always intrested me and when (thanks Amazon) I found this here.. it was one of those buys you knew you had to have. It has not disappointed. Not only is this a text that takes you thru much of the history, it is also a valued text for those that enjoy getting to the core of the I Ching. A must have book.

After reading the book I feel like I paid 10 bucks just to read this one idea in this book that is interesting and unique to other I Ching book. So here it is, read it, and then read the rest of my review to decide whether or not to buy this book: "The mystery of the mutual gua of each of the 64 gua will be either Initiating, Responding, Already Fulfilled, or Not Yet Fulfilled." (For those of you who use a different translation, basically they are hexagram 1, 2, 63, and 64)

That's it about this book. Everything else covered in this book is covered in other books but more in-depth and detailed.

But let's start from the beginning. First of, when you see the title "Numerology of the I Ching," you'd think this book would be very technical and sophisticated in discussing the mathematical implications and the numerology behind I Ching, that it would be a thick volume. Well the whole thing was about 170 pages. And if I didn't believe that page numbers justify a book, I now do.

This book would be a good entry-level book for beginners that covers everything I Ching. And as an introductory level book, and ONLY an introductory level book, it is decent in covering the philosophy behind the trigrams and hexagrams, the development of them, their special arrangements. It even goes into talking about how the arrangements of the Guas correspond with the sequences of binary code, which most entry level I Ching book does not cover. It also explains about the judgments, the ruling line of the Gua, the mutual Gua, etc, which is pretty expansive.

However, the book tries to cover too many things within limited pages, which makes the whole reading experience feel superficial. It makes me want to scream, "Dig a little bit deeper please!"

The author treats the readers like retards, which is another thing that puts me off. For example, when explaining the Lo Shu, the author says that each horizontal, vertical, and diagonal line add up to be 15. He also shows a diagram of the square with all the numbers. That alone was sufficient. But then the author goes so far as to add up all the numbers in each line to show that they in fact add up to 15. And he did it for all the lines! I would assume that any normal human being would have no problem adding up single digit numbers such as " 1+9+5 = 15"

Idiotic and unnecessary listings like this occur everywhere in the book. For example, the author also lists the twelve months and their corresponding hexagrams. Such as this, "Fourth Month, May Initiating, Beginning of summer." Then on the next page he says, "The fourth month is made up of Beginning of Summer and Grain Full. The yang energy reaches its fullness. It is symbolized by Initiating." And he does that for all 12 months!

There is trying to be thorough or restate things to reinforce an idea, but then there is just being plain repetitive. If someone edited out all the repetitive and unnecessary restatements in the book, the book's length would probably be reduced to half, and most likely even more.

Also, counting out how many times each judgment appear in each hexagram for all 64 hexagrams and listing them for like 10 pages is not numerology! It is completely useless in understanding I Ching while the author wrote a whole chapter on counting the number of times "yuan, heng, li, zhen" appear in the judgments in all 64 hexagrams. I just don't see how that's any helpful unless you memorize exactly which Yao of which hexagram that these judgments appear...wait, no, even then it's still useless.

In all, the book does have some interesting ideas and discoveries that not many I Ching books cover. But such valuable information takes up maybe 5 pages, in a almost 200-page book. Moreover, this book is for people who wants to study and understand the I Ching. It is for I Ching scholars rather than people who just want to cast the coins and get a reading. If you use the I Ching at an entry level but are curious to learn a little more about it, I would recommend this book. If you want access to the maybe 5 pages worth of interesting info or you are a completist, get it. If you want something deeper to chew on, look somewhere else.

This book would be appreciated for serious students of I Ching. I do not recommend it as a starting point for exploring I Ching.

This book interprets I Ching from a Taoist viewpoint. It is an excellent supplement to the author's translation of I Ching (The Complete I Ching)which presents a Confucist viewpoint.

Numerology of the I Ching presents material from multiple viewpoints. It may seem repetitious to some, however, I found that each way Huang presented the material was an opportunity for new insight.

I was pleased with the condition of the item. It was timely delivered in accordance with the representation from the seller.