Yarrow-stalk divination

Yarrow-stalk divination is the method described for producing figures used in consulting the I Ching: stalks are manipulated into lines and hexagrams, whose meanings are then read through the judgments associated with King Wen and the Duke of Zhou. In the book’s account, the practice is not a means of simply foretelling every future event; it tests the likely fortune or misfortune of plans and circumstances under consideration.

Historical Setting and Materials

Divination by shells and stalks is presented as an ancient Chinese practice. The account cites an early text that refers to tortoise-shell divination and describes a later use of plant stalks with the lineal figures. The plant is identified as Ptarmica Sibirica, cultivated around Confucius’s grave, where the author reports having seen it growing. The stalks therefore belonged to a practical tradition of consultation, not merely to abstract speculation about the figures.

The book also places divination within King Wen’s political circumstances. While imprisoned at Youli under threat from the ruler of Shang, he was occupied with the lineal figures, whose divinatory use was already familiar in his country. The author suggests that their study might have appeared innocuous to his keepers, but presents that possibility as speculation rather than established motive. In his broader account, the figures became a means of expressing judgments about the qualities of things, human society, and the kingdom’s condition.

Procedure and Formation of the Figures

The described procedure uses forty-nine stalks. For each line, the stalks are manipulated three times; six lines therefore require eighteen manipulations to form a hexagram. The process is described as intricate enough to demand considerable time and thought from a student learning its operations.

Numbers derived from the River Map help determine the lines. Odd numbers produce strong, undivided lines, while even numbers produce weak, divided lines. The procedure assigns particular roles to the emblematic numbers 6, 7, 8, and 9 in combining lines and forming figures; the account further associates 9 with the undivided line and 6 with the divided line. It treats these numbers as instruments for constructing the figure, not as principles that cause the material existence or transformations of all things.

Consultation and Interpretation

Once the lines have formed a hexagram, the operator turns to the hexagram judgments attributed to King Wen and the emblematic line statements attributed to the Duke of Zhou. The procedure thus joins a material operation to a textual interpretation: the stalks yield the figure, while the inherited texts supply the terms through which its significance is considered.

The stated object of consultation is limited. It is to determine whether contemplated schemes and conditions are likely to turn out well or badly, not to know future events absolutely in advance. A cited passage on examining doubts likewise treats divination as a guide to action: when the tortoise-shell and stalks both oppose people’s views, stillness is fortunate and active operations are unlucky. The passage frames the result as counsel about whether to proceed, rather than a disclosure of an unavoidable future.

Belief, Criticism, and Limits

The account distinguishes the procedure’s operation from the belief that its materials possess special efficacy. An appendix calls the tortoise and plant spirit-like things produced by Heaven, and its writer attributes to them an invisible virtue fitting them for divination. The book reports that some later writers questioned such efficacy, describing the stalks as withered grass and the shell as withered bone, and arguing that people should rely on their own judgment rather than seek knowledge from objects.

The author is sharply critical of divination and of the appendix’s claims about the stalks, calling the method no less absurd than other forms of divination. He nevertheless draws a distinction between using numbers to generate a hexagram and treating number as the underlying principle of reality, as he says the Pythagoreans did. In his account, numbers assist the operator in making the figure; interpretation then depends on the hexagram and line texts. The procedure’s historical and textual importance therefore lies both in its practical role in consulting the I Ching and in the later debate over whether that consultation can disclose anything beyond a judgment about a proposed course of action.