Contemporary I Ching: message from Jan Enuma

This is a message of a former student of mine. Anyone interested in his proposal should contact him directly.

Contemporary I Ching
Jan Enuma is forming a study group of I Ching adepts, who are interested in a present-day approach of the I Ching, which goes beyond restyling the language of the old Classic. René van Osten in Germany and Chris Lofting in Australia are examples of this approach. At the moment Jan is preparing a comment on Lofting’s book “The Emotional I Ching”.

Jan adds the following. The emotional element regards the nature of brain processing a particular hexagram. Both afore mentioned writers stress the Ordnung and Structure of the I Ching. There is no other change than according to these rules. And what to think of coincidence, synchronicity and resonance? What sort of world view fits this approach, and what are the differences with the Classic’s worldview? In Lofting’s book and his internet pages there are no references to “myths, legends or other 10th century BC perspectives, nor the use of random or miraculous methods of hexagram derivation”. No room for sinological, historical or exegetical deliberations. Lofting’s method is based on pre-language images, derived from human discernment along lines of differentiation and integration, much like yang and yin, but more abstract, less particular, but fitting the whole human race.

If the Classic is a template, it means other I Chings with particular backgrounds can be compared with it or with Lofting’s general domain model of differentiation/integration, as long as these models correlate with each other, meaning they are all based on 64 hexagrams. This promising possibility of comparison has been worked out for classification of psychological typology, but could also stretch out to sociology and political economy, and e.g. Spiral Dynamics.

Anyone who fancies a well prepared adventure into terra incognita, with according perseverance (Lofting’s translation of Heaven as an inner hexagram) should contact Jan: contemp.iching@live.nl.