Mirror of the Present Seminars
These seminars are an in-depth exploration of the I Ching as a psychological system in a direct and personal way. Participants are invited to ask a question about a relevant issue in their life, they consult the oracle by the ancient yarrow stalk method, and work on the oracular images received as an answer. The future-oriented divinatory aspect of this process is not particularly emphasized. We use the ancient Chinese oracle as a ‘mirror of the present’, as a map for reading the play of archetypal forces in ourselves and in our present situation. Participants work on the oracular images in a spirit similar to that of dreamwork, ‘rolling the words in their heart’ and allowing all the associations that are activated by those images. The consultant always remains the ultimate interpreter of the answer received.
The text we use is The Original I Ching Oracle, translated from the original Chinese by Rudof Ritsema and myself. This translation aims at offering the original shamanic images of the I Ching in all their power and purity, uninterpreted by the many layers of philosophical commentary that accrued on them in the course of over two millennia. These original images are an essential map of fundamental energy patterns whose validity extends beyond a specific culture and time.
The The Original I Ching Oracle is the outcome of fifty years of I Ching scholarship and a decade of experiential Round Table Sessions at the Eranos East-West center in Ascona, Switzerland.
Leaflet Mirror of the Present (pdf, 92 KB)
If you would like to organize a Mirror of the Present seminar at your center or institute please write to me.