by Edward Hacker

 

This is the best compendium of study aids and state-of-the-art information now available on the ancient Book of Changes. It contains knowledge that allows the reader to achieve a deeper level of understanding of the I Ching and provides the reader with a formal presentation of the subject that is not found elsewhere.

Students and scholars of the I Ching will welcome the numerous references given in the footnotes and appendices. The book is well researched and there are two annotated bibliographies: one of books on the I Ching (including unpublished Ph.D. dissertations), the other of journal articles. There is also a glossary of technical terms and a very useful concordex to the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the I Ching.

The subjects covered include the traditional and scholarly theories regarding the origin of the I Ching, the trigrams and their attributes, the translations of the names of the hexagrams, nuclear hexagrams and their classification, the problem of the textual sequence of the hexagrams, various ways of using the I Ching as an oracle, probability and the hexagrams, hexagram stories, hexagram cycles, and hexagram flowers.

The appendices give an annotated list of the I Ching devices including the I Ching computer, I Ching cards, and also contain the source code for an I Ching line analyzer and a number of tables. One table gives the yarrow stalk probability of obtaining any hexagram from any other hexagram, another lists pairs of hexagram opposites, hexagram stories, cycles, and flowers.