The Secret Art of Fortune-Telling

This is a guide to divination with the I Ching, presented through stories. The author weaves the meanings of the sixty-four hexagrams and the deeper significance of their line texts into vivid tales drawn from everyday life. There are no empty lectures divorced from reality, nor piles of obscure theory. Instead, abstract ideas like yin and yang and the principles of the hexagrams emerge naturally through real-life situations and the choices people make.

The I Ching is a treasured source of wisdom in Chinese civilization. It draws on the laws governing the movement of heaven and earth, and offers guidance on how to navigate life. Its hexagrams and lines hold insights into survival that have remained relevant across the ages. Yet its language is archaic and its principles profound. Many commentaries are either bogged down in dry, difficult textual scholarship or too mystical to apply in practice. This has discouraged many who love the I Ching, leaving them to feel that “the bar to learning it is too high.”

The author has devoted many years to studying the I Ching, building a solid theoretical foundation as well as extensive practical experience. They understand both the confusion of beginners and the needs of seasoned researchers. Using stories as a bridge, they connect profound hexagrams and line texts with everyday gains and losses, difficult choices, relationships, and decisions about when to advance or retreat in one’s career. This makes abstract principles of the I Ching tangible, comprehensible, and applicable.

The principles of the I Ching come from life itself and have never been far from us. May every reader discover its wisdom through these stories, grasp the mysteries of heaven and earth concealed in its hexagrams, and bring that wisdom into daily life. May this ancient discipline flourish anew in the present and light the way forward.