Good resources online and book recommendations for I Ching?

kimtsan

bradford said:
I can highly recommend this site as a place to begin:
http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/index.php
There is a free introductory course there.
There are good recommendations for further reading as well.
And a lively discussion forum.
Most of the material on my own site is too advanced, but you might find something of use in the Links, or the Bibliography, or the free booklet on Hexagram Names. http://www.hermetica.info

I do strongly advise against going anywhere near books or pages that are advertised for beginners. They are total crap. Instead, you are better off working a little harder and building a foundation that you won't have to unlearn later. You should study from sources who know the book in Chinese, not people who are just repackaging new age ideas. Get a couple of decent translations, NOT interpretations, but real translations, and take the time to study the introductory material. Alfred Huang's is pretty good. Thomas Cleary's plain and Buddhist versions are worthwhile. Richard Lynn's is OK too. The Wilhelm is almost regarded as canon, but it's dated and not a very accurate translation. Even Legge's is better, though it's dated as well.
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Thank you so much! I will check out those titles. I can read Chinese but I struggle with classical Chinese--one of the reasons I turn to English translations.
 

kimtsan

rachelcat said:
Hey, gregory and bradford, I was just wondering what you think about Kerson Huang? I'm about to spring for his "revised edition" (I have the earlier edition, slim blue book), and I thought I'd ask if you think it's worth it. It looks like the newer edition has the (a?) Chinese version on facing pages, not that I can read Chinese in the very smallest bit, but I thought it might add something . . .

And kimtsan, just so you know, the Legge is available for free around the internet. This is a good site to check it out: http://www.sacred-texts.com/ich/index.htm

ETA: And I second onlineclarity. Good site!
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That's awesome!!! Oh hey I know that site (sacred texts). I go there to check out tarot stuff all the time. :)

Kim
 

kimtsan

Thank you for all your input!!!
 

closerwalking

I was drawn to the I Ching during very difficult time in my life. The guidance that I got from the books that Carol Anthony and Hanna Moog wrote literally saved my life. they have great insight in the western psyche. And wrote deep books that use the I Ching as a psychological self help oracle.
 

Emily

I've just started reading 'The I Ching Workbook' by Roger Green. Its not one of those "Learn I Ching in ten minutes or less" books. It is pretty complex without it being totally over my head, which at my time of life is important :). Because it is a workbook, you work through it following the exercises, takes you through the various methods of casting a hexagram, and then the changing lines, the trigrams. Everything you ever wanted to know about the I Ching.

I have other I Ching books but some of the translations leave me a little wanting, some of them are male biased - makes it feel like that in Ancient China only the men had the time to sit and spend hours contemplating the readings they did (which is probably true). But I like my translations to be a little more modern in the style of writing but not to stray too far from the meaning of the original text.

This book by Roger Green is managing to do this, I'm enjoying working through it.
 

bradford

kimtsan said:
Thank you so much! I will check out those titles. I can read Chinese but I struggle with classical Chinese--one of the reasons I turn to English translations.
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Hi Kimstan
I think I would have answered differently had you said you could read Chinese. Modern is different. The old grammar is a little more flexible and almost all the old words are single characters. But my Volume Two (free pdf download at http://www.hermetica.info) walks you through the translation process, word by word, side-by-side Chinese to English. And it has a large glossary of all the characters used 5 or more times. At the very least you can see where so many pronouns are gratuitously inserted by translators, and assigned arbitrary gender too.
B
 
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