In 'The Man in the High Castle', characters use an ancient Chinese book, the I-Ching, to perform divination and seek answers to their questions. In fact, the author of The Man in the High Castle, Philip K Dick, used I-Ching divination himself when writing the novel! But how does this ancient form of I-Ching divination, using Yarrow Stalks, actually work?
Prof John Lai explains the practical how-to of I-Ching divination and the symbolic significance of the numbers it generates. John Lai is based at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and is a Wadham alumnus (DPhil Oriental Studies, 2001). He was also a Wadham Visiting Fellow during the academic year 2022-23, when this video was recorded. Prof Lai's research includes the reception of the I-Ching in western and Christian traditions.
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00:00 The ancient Chinese book behind The Man in the High Castle
00:37 Frank Frink and I-Ching divination
01:47 Historical context of bringing questions to the I-Ching
02:50 Our question for the I-Ching
03:05 How to divine an answer in the form of a hexagram
08:04 The names of the 4 possible remainders
08:31 Line 1 of the Hexagram
09:01 Line 2 of the Hexagram
09:12 Line 3 of the Hexagram
09:20 Meaning of the lower trigram
09:47 Line 4 of the Hexagram
10:03 Why some lines are 'changing' lines
10:38 Line 5 of the Hexagram
10:48 Line 6 of the Hexagram
11:14 Meaning of the upper trigram and the whole hexagram
12:00 Moving lines give us a second hexagram!
12:37 Meaning of the second hexagram
13:37 The I-Ching's answer to our question
14:12 A final quote from The Man in the High Castle
14:41 Spiritual reflections
