Abstract

Although often written about, studied, cited, and referred to casually, the I Ching or “Book of Changes” as it is commonly known in English is not well understood in the context of Chinese metaphysics. In this paper, we wish to set the I Ching in the context of a particular space-time model of the Chinese. By “space-time”, I mean the relationship between the events in time, and locations of those events in physical space. I will also look at this classic work in the context of what is poorly rendered into English as “divination”. Indeed, the I Ching is often referred to as a book of divination or fortune-telling, when it is clear that it is not this at all, but rather a kind of “mental map” designed to guide the reader (or rather user) through this Chinese space-time environment.