ASTROLOGY

and the I CHING

or ...

How Life Works

Chrissy Philp. June, 2013

This presentation proposes that Astrology

and I Ching are not separate, unrelated
esoteric systems but, like mathematics and
physics, just different ways of interpreting the
same phenomena, the mysterious phenomena
that is ....

Us Here Now

... the phenomena we call LIFE.

In the late 1980s I began work on a series of books introducing a model of

the brain I had stumbled across lying hidden within the ancient Anima
Mundi.
In Book One, Foundation, I introduced the I Ching, Astrology, and
Modern Physics. At the end of Book One I printed simple diagrams
illustrating the basics of these knowledge systems.
Here are two of the diagrams.

These simple structures were so alike I wondered what would

happen if I treated them as one .........

... so .. at the end of Book Three, Revelation, I published the result. The I
Ching is based on eight trigrams and Astrology is based on twelve signs. This
was no problem. As you can see, mutable signs of the Zodiac are mutable ...
neither one thing nor the other, but either and both.

All that remained for me to do was check out if this arrangement

made interpretational sense.

I Ching basics are very simple. There is an unbroken line that symbolises
YES, and a broken line that symbolises NO. The ancients called these the

opening of the gates YES .. go for it

gates NO .. hunker down.

- and the

closing of the

YANG positive

YIN negative

motion/light/day/male

matter/dark/night/female

YES

NO

Here is a computer. It is a thing

doing NO-thing. What do we need
to make it run?

NO

YES .. We need to supply it with

energy, we need to switch it ON

YES

SEE .. You've got it. You understand!

A physicist would think of these as energy and mass.

Yang is energy which expresses as motion .

zoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom

Yin is mass. Einstein called mass congealed energy, mass is that

which holds things together. Mass can be broken apart.

crack!

On the smallest scales

this can be stupendously
energy consuming
think of the Large
Hadron Collider at Cern.

But the ancients wanted more information than a simple yes or no answer
could supply so they piled up three lines one for heaven, one for earth, and
one for man. These two are the primary trigrams. The Creative Heaven
signifies time and the Receptive Earth signifies space.

=
Time

Space

So now they didnt only have energy and mass, but could work with the
result of the interaction between energy and mass.

Yuzhou/Kosmos

The Chinese binomial most frequently

translated as kosmos is yuzhou, a term that
overtly expresses the interdependence between
time and space.
Daodejung, Ames and Hall,(2003).

Space-time is not a new concept, is it?

Piling up a second line and a third line onto the original single line gives us
eight trigrams to which the Chinese masters gave eight separate
meanings.
It all begins with the mysterious Dao (Tao) .. that which Lao Tzu tells
us cannot be named or spoken: Mystery of mysteries.
THE EVOLUTION of the TRIGRAMS

Basic Rules of the I Ching

The
The
Shock Clarity
Creative Joyous Thunder The
Heaven Lake
(birth)
Sun

The
The Keeping The
Abyss Gently
Still
RecepThe Penetra- Mounttive
Moon
ting
ain
Earth

The eight
trigrams
Four Hsiang

yang

yin negative

positive

The firm and

yielding lines

Tao
Change lines to 1s and 0s in your imagination and you will see that
POLAR OPPOSITES
The I Ching is a BINARY
+ SYSTEM.

Leibniz was interested in the binary system. He could see that it could be
used as the basis of a new language. In 1666, he acquired an I Ching. This
is what Time Life Books says in Computer Basics.

In 1716, fascinated by Leibnizs ideas, the Scottish mathematician

George Boole created a logic system with the AND, OR and NOT,
gates Leibniz had only wondered about.
Then in 1867 Sanders Peirce was teaching Boolean logic in
New York when it occurred to him that the gates (remember the
opening and the closing of the gates) described in Booles binary
system were either on, or off, just like an electric switching device.

Sixty-nine years later Claude Shannon, a student roped in to

care for Bushs massive and unwieldy mechanical computer, wrote
his master thesis inspired by Peirces insight.

1716. George Boole creates a

logic system based on
Leibnizs ideas.

BUSH

1867. Sanders Peirce teaches

Boolean logic in New York and
recognises its potential as an
electrical switching device.

Oily gears
and shafts
1936. Claude Shannon looks after Bushs
decimal machine puts Peirces insight to
good use.

I CHING
Leibniz

Boole

Pierce

Shannon

INTERNET!

So now we understand that this binary system also underpins our modern
web based world.
Next we need to decide whether the meanings carried by the I Ching
trigrams correlate with the meanings acquired through combining the binary
system with Astrology. Born of isolated cultures unless there is a
foundation connection there is no logical reason why they should.
The primal pair are made up of all YES lines and called the Creative
Heaven, Chien, and all NO lines and called the Receptive Earth, Kun.

Basic Rules of the I Ching

THE EVOLUTION of the TRIGRAMS

The
The
Shock Clarity
Creative Joyous Thunder The
Heaven Lake
(birth)
Sun

The
The Keeping The
Abyss Gently
Still
RecepThe Penetra- Mounttive
Moon
ting
ain
Earth

The eight
trigrams
Four Hsiang

yang

yin negative

positive

Tao
POLAR OPPOSITES

The firm and

yielding lines

On the astrological model this gives us Aquarius for the Creative and
Capricorn for the Receptive.
Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, and in relation to this model its worth noting
that before the discovery of Uranus (in 1781) Aquarius was also ruled by
Saturn. In astrology Saturn is the element earth at its most structured: stones,
bones, teeth, walls, boundaries, and, when applied to human endeavours,
secular authority.

Here is Saturn in his role as Old Father

Time : Saturn is indispensible but he is
inflexible. This is Riga Mortis: NO, NO, NO.

KUN

Saturns partner is a powerful disruptive force, Revolutionary Uranus:

the awakener. YES, YES, YES.

CHIEN

Leo is fixed fire, Aries is cardinal fire and Libra is cardinal air. The ruling planets are
the Sun, Mars, and Venus. We have already looked at fixed air, Aquarius. The upper
line is always yang on fixed signs and always yin on cardinal signs - I am not yet sure
why but I am sure this is the case. Perhaps the power to make manifest is cardinal?

And look! The trigram Li which means Clarity and whose symbol is the Sun turns
up as Leo, fixed fire. Leos ruling planet is the Sun! Aries, cardinal fire, ruled by
the warlike planet Mars, is Chen, Shock, Thunder. Both Mars and Chen mean
birth. Libra, ruled by Venus, cardinal air, is Tui, the Joyous Lake.

Li: Here is light (yang) emanating

from the atomic reactions in the
centre of the Sun - or a log (yin)
burning on a fire. The I Ching says
fire clings to that on which it feeds.

Chen: Out of the physical emerges

New Life. This is Mars in action.
The I Ching says: Shock, Ha Ha,
laughing words.

Tui: Pollen in water jiggles. It is this

that suggested something (that they

gave the name atom) is continually
active in the water. The lake is active
beneath a surface that reflects its
surroundings; the famous mirror of
Venus - a surface tension so strong
things float on it without sinking.

Cancer is cardinal water, Scorpio is fixed water, and Taurus is fixed earth. The
ruling planets are the Moon and Pluto and, although on this diagram Venus, old
ruler of Taurus, is depicted, for many first-rate reasons, since we first viewed our
planet in 1961, Venus has been superseded by our home planet Earth.

These trigrams also fit with the signs that relate to them on the binary system.
Cancers ruling planet is the Moon. The trigram Kan means the Moon

Kan: Two physical NO lines enclosing a

demand for self-expression, a YES line,
is called The Abyss. Imagine the energy
in a turbulent river trapped in a canyon.
All that yang energy restrained on both
sides by the demands of material reality.
And here is Sun the Gentle
Penetrating Wind. Scorpio is
famously suspicious - well known for
penetrating every nook and cranny.
This trigram is also related to wood
roots growing deep into the earth
supporting new growth.

Ken: You can see that two broken lines

and a straight line on the top represents a
mountain. You need determination to get
to the top but wow what a view when you
get there. ..... WE HAVE LIFT OFF .

Here they are. All EIGHT of them. They look good to me.
O
m
e
d
to

Fixed

Cardinal

Cardinal

Fixed

Cardinal

Fixed

Cardinal

Fixed

This is a slide from the first lesson I give on astrology. I have added the trigrams so that you can see how beautifully they organise themselves on the
Zodiac. I have put the Zodiac up Ptolemaically with Cancer and Leo at the
base. Aries, the first sign, begins at the spring equinox, Aries is 1-1-1.

Secta:
positive 1
negative 2
Quadruplicities:
Cardinal 1
Fixed 2
Mutable 3
Four Elements:
Fire 1 Earth 2
Air 3 Water 4

3
4

2
3

1
2

1 1
2 2
3
3

1
3

1 2

1 2 1 2
1
4

2
1

2
1

4
3

3
2

We have trigrams for cardinal and fixed signs but not for the four
mutables, so now that I have introduced the eight trigrams we can check
out these missing mutable signs - first a look at a very ancient model - the
Fu Hsi or King Wen arrangement.

Here it is, scanned from my original

Chinese edition translated by
Wilhelm into German and Baynes
(from Wilhelm s translation) into
English.
Wilhelm tells us that the eight
primary trigrams are named in a
sequence of pairs that, according to
tradition, goes back to Fu Hsi that
is to say, it was already in existence
at the time of the compilation of the
book of changes under the Chou
dynasty. It is called the Sequence of
Earlier Heaven, or Primal
Arrangement .
This is translated literally as
Before-the-World-Sequence.
There are modern writers who
explain this ancient model as an
expression of the dynamic reaction
of opposites but you will see that this
analysis is not strictly accurate.

They do indeed represent positive

and negative polarities but (apart
from Sun and Moon) they are,
astrologically, polarities that
originally shared a single planetary
ruler. On the Anima Mundi they are
named Complementary Connections
the yang-yin, energy-mass, spacetime expression of a meaningful
whole.
The Sun and Moon offer us a
good example of what
complementary means. Sun and
Moon in astrology, Father and
Mother, might be poles apart in
function, but they are essential to
each others operation they work
as a team. Complementary means
to make complete.
Researching data for this
presentation I came across this in
Wilhelms translation of the Ta
Chuan. I am delighted to learn that
my choice of title for these connections is exonerated: they balance each other. YES!

Here they are again with

old planetary rulers added.

Apart from Capricorn (Saturn)

winter, the seasons do not fit with the signs. I havent yet understood why.

On the diagram on the right they are arranged according to the Ptolemaic
Order. Mutable signs are not included.

Pos

Neg

When we consult the oracle we throw three coins six times, one throw for each line.
Six throws of the coins, beginning from the bottom and working up, gives us a
hexagram.
Tails count as two, they are YIN because they tell us the divisible value of the
coins. We buy things we need using that value. Heads count as three. We know that
one is heavens number but we are physical beings consulting the oracle in a physical
world, so we add that one to two and count three for heads. Heads represent the
idea of authority, the authority invested in the coin, a concept that is indivisible.
Two tails and a head add up to
seven. Seven is YANG, a straight line.
Two heads and a tail add up to eight.
Eight is YIN, a broken line.
Throwing three heads gives us a nine.
This is an old (unstable) YANG so we mark
our line with a circle.
Three tails gives us a six. Six is yin but
also old so we put a cross on our broken line.
Unstable lines give us two hexagrams. The changing lines tell us the actions that
we are applying to the unchanging hexagram. This is all explained in another
presentation for now you just need to know the symbols that apply to unstable lines.

Now we can check out the Mutable Signs. This is where the correlations
get interesting. I shall begin with Pisces, mutable water, ruled by the planet
Neptune.

YES about to change to NO .... NO about to change to YES

MUTABLE
In Astrology, Pisces, the fishes, rules the Twelfth House, the house just
above the Ascendant. The Ascendant, representative of 00 Aries on the
diurnal chart, is the place of birth, so planets in the twelfth can be
understood as assembling themselves in a womb.
The month belonging to Pisces has both snow and snowdrops. Is it
winter or spring? Everything is in flux but there is a promise in the air.
Neptune has no fixed form but is full of expectation.
dolphin embryo
and
human embryo

So here is an example of a mutable sign made up of a mix of cardinal and fixed

in the element water. Remember, I explained that The Gently Penetrating
means both wind and wood. The hexagram The Well gives us an image of
roots drawing up water from Kan, The Abyss, or a wooden bucket doing the
same job. The second hexagram is called Dissolution. The Ching says: wind
blowing over the water disperses it as mist: Neptune is connected
astrologically with mist and fog. These hexagrams are neither fixed Scorpio
nor cardinal Cancer, but both. By a change in the top line of the trigram from
yin to yang we get a portrait of a double-bodied sign.
F

CHING
The Well

HUAN
Dissolution

This is my favourite example. Here is the King on Mount Olympus

brandishing his thunder bolt: Greek Zeus, Roman Jupiter, ruler of Sag. Leo
is the king. The I Ching says: The king attains abundance be not sad be
like the sun at midday. We call Jupiter The Law Giver. The I Ching tells us
that in Biting Through laws are laid down, in Abundance they are applied and
enforced.
F

FENG
Abundance

SHIH HO
Biting through

Here is mutable earth the hexagram Modesty - does this sound like Virgo?
I have explained in previous presentations why I think Chiron and all the
asteroids between Jupiter and Mars rule Virgo they are a proto planet in
bits and they explain this hexagram Splitting Apart. The I Ching tells us that
devotion and docility will see us through. These are monastic qualities highly
valued by the nuns of the Virgin in the previous age and my friend Nick
Oakley-Smith writes about Virgos critical analysis breaking things apart.
F

CHIEN
Modesty

PO
Splitting Apart

In Breakthrough: the I Ching

says one must resolutely make
the matter known in the court of
the king. Mercury is the
messenger of the gods isnt he? It
adds it must be announced
truthfully. This might be difficult for
Mercury.

In Treading we are told the superior

man discriminates between High and Low
and fortifies the thinking of the people.
This hexagram describes a young tiger
biting dads tail. Its a warning to take care
when playing with ideas. Does Mercury
play with ideas? I think he does.

KUAI Breakthrough

LU Treading

Ta Chuan Page 335 The hexagram Breakthrough has Tui , words, above, and
Chien, strength, below. It means giving permanence to words. .. Here the
significance of writing in the organisation of a large community is emphasised.

Having looked at the mutable signs I thought I would give you an example of a
hexagram constructed out of two trigrams that are not specifically related. This one is
made up of fixed earth, Taurus, and cardinal air, Libra. The Joyous Lake over the
Mountain. Venus rules Libra and she is old ruler of Taurus and this hexagram is
called Wooing! The I Ching says: to take a maiden to wife brings good fortune.

INFLUENCE, WOOING

Remember a hexagram grows from the base up, like this little flower.

Doubling the trigrams gave the

ancient oracle masters sixty-four
separate situation hexagrams. I
like my friend Suzies word when
consulting the oracle she says the
hexagrams supply CONTEXT.
Here is a page showing all of
the hexagrams. It is from The
Wilhelm I Ching.
We have looked at 31, Wooing,
and we have looked at the
hexagrams that describe the
mutable signs; 10, Treading and
43, Breakthrough: these are
Mercurial. 15, Modesty, and 23,
Splitting Apart: these are
Virgoan. 21, Biting Through, and
55, Abundance: these are
Jupitarian, 48, The Well, and 59,
Dissolution - Neptunian. Now we
need to take a look at the allimportant primal pair.

1. The Creative Heaven

2.The Receptive Earth
The hexagrams The Creative
and The Receptive are
distinguished from their trigrams
by the capital letter on the
definite article, the word the.
A single yang line represents
energy and its complement, a
yin line, signifies mass. Three
lines in a trigram give us time
and space.
When these trigrams are
doubled it supplies a depiction
of the space-time environment
that our brains are designed to
interpret .

Here is a slide from my presentation introducing the model I found hidden in

the Anima Mundi. It shows how The Receptive Earth and The Creative
Heaven work as a team. Whether they are interpreting or constructing our
life experience is a moot point.
LEFT

The
Body

Sensing

RIGHT

The
Thinking
Imagination

The Receptive
Earth

The Creative
Heaven

YIN

YANG

Feeling

Intuition

EARTH

AIR

WATER

FIRE

Yes yes yes yes yes yes ... action, action, action, action, action, action.
The Creative Heaven, we are told, is strong and untiring.
Shout STOP at the Sun or Moon or stars, expect our planet to stop in its
tracks and see if it has any effect. On the Anima Mundi, The Creative is
responsible for our right brain processes air and fire, thinking and intuition
- these work complementarily with our receptive left brain.
We are constructed out of the material of The Receptive Earth. She is
mother nature, she supplies the food that sustains us, responding to all our
needs. In our cognitive system she is earth and water, sensing and feeling,
in our brains it is her job to connect our consciousness to its internal and
external physical environment.

AIR

EARTH

FIRE

WATER

So .. are we clear on this point? The Receptive

and The Creative are a single interacting unit.
Yang/yin, energy and mass, built up into
hexagrams are the primal constituents of ...

... Life the Universe

and Everything.

Here, again, is hexagram 1. The Creative Heaven. There is only ONE heaven.
We experience the constant motion produced by energy as TIME. To study time
we watch the sky. The Sun rises and sets; our response to day and night is
inherent in our being. Astrologers are experts on time. They dont (like clocks
and watches) model only the Sun, they take into account other moving bodies
in the heavens.

This is the cosmic

environment set for this moment
at this place. The variables are so
great it is unlikely to look exactly like
this ever again.

Zodiac from
Solar Fire

63. After Completion

64. Before Completion
After and Before Completion,
the last two hexagrams also
have special significance. Just
as The Creative and The
Receptive have between them
decided the layout of our
brains, so the last two
hexagrams in the I Ching can
be seen in the layout of our
Zodiac.
Time never stops it is
always before or after the
completion of a moment in time.
Since our Zodiac is a big
Cosmic Clock calling these
hexagrams Before and After
Completion is relevant.

So hexagram 1.The Creative is made up of all positive lines and hexagram

2. The Receptive is all negative lines. When mixed up in all possible ways
they create sixty-four different patterns.
The lines in the last two hexagrams, hexagram number 63, After
Completion, and 64, Before Completion alternate.

YANG

YIN

YANG

YIN

YANG

YIN

YIN

YANG

YANG

YIN

YANG

YIN

YANG

YIN

YIN

YANG

YANG

YIN

YANG

YIN

YANG

YIN

YIN

YANG

The Creative
1

The Receptive

Before

After

Completion

Completion

64

63

All hexagrams have ruling lines that convey their meaning most

expressively. You can see that if we line the Zodiac up according to the
Ptolemaic Order the ruling lines of the hexagrams define the equinoxes.

Before Completion

After Completion

The Spring equinox falls

BEFORE the ruling fifth line

The Autumnal equinox falls

AFTER the ruling second line

YANG

YIN

YIN

YANG

YANG

YIN

YIN

YANG

YANG

YIN

YIN

YANG

In The Book of Revelation ,Time is described as a dragon waiting

to devour mother Earths children from the moment they are born.
Here he is.

Ruing line of The Creative Heaven.

9 in the 5th place means:
Flying dragon in the heavens. It furthers one to see the great man.

But The Creative is helpless alone. It is totally dependent on The

Receptive. Here is another example of this axiom.
Light permeates space but space is black - just like this slide ...

.. until it bumps into some receptive hardware.

And here is another precious

piece of hardware, this one is so
special it reflects the energy of The
Creative with uncanny complexity.
This is our home planet, our
Earth, so hyper-receptive is our
planet she doesnt just reflect light
she has allowed for the evolution of

intelligent life.

The Receptive
Earth.

And this is The Receptive Earths ruling line.

6 in the 2nd place means:

Straight square great, without purpose,
yet nothing remains unfurthered.
A cube symbolises space. A cube has three dimensions that we can move
around in - up down - side to side - back to front. This mouse is exploring
these dimensions. Of course he also needs time to do this exploring in - he
couldnt do this not for one moment - without the Creative, which is why
physicists sometimes call time the fourth dimension. This line applies, of
course, to our primal instincts which this mouse is also utilising to explore
this space.

So now we are
coming to the end of
this presentation.
Here is a hand
drawn version of this
integrated model
published in the
Astrological Journal,
July/August 1991. I
had forgotten how
long ago it was that I
came up with this
combination of the two
systems of Astrology
and the I Ching.
Soon after, my
young friend Nick Oakley-Smith also wrote an interesting article published in
the Journal on this same subject. Charles Harvey, the then President of the
Astrological Association, was a friend and he and Roger Eliot were interested
in my ideas, but when they died the interest faded away.
The time was not right.

The next diagrams are from my academic essay Treading on the Tigers
Tail (remember Gemini, Treading). I wrote this essay in 2006. Treading is
the title of the hexagram the I Ching gave me when I began writing this
essay, during the writing, and at the completion.
In this essay I asked; Is there an archetypal constant?
Clearly there is, but in a university environment where known facts are
sacrosanct and creativity frowned upon I was up to no good. I caused a
kerfuffle. The first marker was so impressed with this essay he gave me
unusually high marks and that worried the second marker who remarked
you cant make eight trigrams fit with twelve signs, and marked me down.
Did I mind? No - the oracle warned me that I was stomping on the
mores.

In the hexagram Treading, rebellious

Uranus, the Creative, is sitting on top of
Libra-Tui, which we now know means
words; revolutionary ideas are disturbing the
waters of the lake. Ooops.
With Uranus conjunct Saturn on my
MC, the place where the Sun is at midday, and
Jupiter conjunct Mars in Gemini making a
Sextile to Mercury conjunct the Sun in Aries, I do this all the time.

You can see these three

systems match at their
foundation level

Computer Binary

I Ching Binary

I included genetics in
my essay once eight
control genes developed
there was a long period
called The Cambrian
Explosion when
mutations flourished.
You can read this
essay on my website. It
has a lovely Chinese
picture of a tiger on the
front!
Astrological
Binary

LAST WORDS. There you have it. These two esoteric systems work
because they are based on something real ...

.. this is How Life Works.

Life is a binary system, just as Leibniz suspected, and the I Ching and
Astrology are ancient, spectacularly successful attempts to interpret its
natural expression.
Few scientists are aware of the genius of Astrology and the I Ching.
Its not their fault. They think these subjects are occult hangovers from a
previous superstitious age, but these systems are no more occult than
esoteric equations concerning string theory or multiple universes. I
understand how scientists feel, I was also educated to think like them, but in
my case Saturn, who is responsible for traditional values, cannot command
unquestioning allegiance despite flaunting impressive qualifications, not with
Uranus snuggling up to him in such a prominent position on my birth chart.
Uranus insists I think for myself: He also awards me creative energy - he is
the Creative after all. Saturn enables me to see the structure of things and
even Uranus appreciates that!
Uranus might be rebellious but he is not stupid.
I am up to date with scientific thought, I read The New Scientist every
week but recently it has begun to frustrate me. Until they take on this
information they are bound to be floundering and its hard for me to watch ...

Hi scientists,

WAKE UP

Please ....

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