The revival of the I Ching
In 1924, a man named Richard Wilhelm completed a great work: He finished translating the I Ching into German. But first in the 70’s, it became popular in the West.
Its popularity can be explained as follows. In the first place, the wisdom it contains is not based on some mystical revelation of one man, but is the result of the hard work of a group of men. They retreated together, fasting and meditating, contemplating and discussing, until they reached agreement. Their goal was to write down what can be known about all there is between heaven and earth in such a way that it would be a guidance to the people in making wise decisions. They gave it the form of an oracle. Not an oracle that would predict a certain predestined outcome, but an oracle that showed which outcomes would be likely given the circumstances and conditions, and a certain course of action. As to those courses of action, they added advice for wholesome outcomes and showed what courses of action would give harmful outcomes.
It is the only scripture in the world that is a guidance in a particular situation, with room for free choice. Of course many sceptics back in the 70’s at first did not see any sense in using it, as its working is based on a scientifically unexplained relation between asking a question and getting an answer by means of throwing with sticks or coins. Yet when they put it to the test and found benefits in it, they starting using it. Whether it was by using it as an oracle or else just contemplating its wisdom.
It is some law of nature, 20% of our actions give 80% of the effects; the other 80% is actually quite useless and uneffective. It is called the Pareto principle, and we find it everywhere. The reason is, that the only effective actions are actions that take into account all causes and conditions. But even if we are perfectly capable of distinguishing right from wrong, even if we know which ideas come from lower instincts like anger and fear, pride and prejudice and which ideas come from love, reason and concern for others; even if we are capable of being perfectly loving, good at explaining and very generous, even if we have great insight in reality, it is not enough. This is because we are heavily interdependent and interconnected with everything, so we can never oversee all causes and conditions.
The ’70s were a time of great prosperity in my country (the Netherlands); we built very good and just social systems in that time, of which people still benefit. Of course, there is no way I can ever prove this has something to do with the use of the I Ching. Still, it is remarkable how this wave of inspiration died out, after the use of the I Ching declined with the coming of many modern editions, small books that left much of the text out and reflected the views of the author, not the original wisdom.
So I think, the time has come to use this source of guidance again in its authentic form. In these times of moral crisis in the world, we could surely use this inheritance from our anchestors, to help us through those difficult times.