Total I Ching

by Stephen Karcher

Book Overview

The I Ching (pronounced ee-ching) is the oldest and most respected oracle or divinatory system in the world. There are currently two translations available which offer somewhat conflicting interpretations - the popular Confucian version and an earlier Taoist version called Zhouyi. Reconstructed by twentieth-century scholars and archaeologists, Zhouyi presents the highly imaginative world of myth and ritual that is the hidden base of thousands of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 074993980X
• ISBN13: 9780749939809
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: Piatkus
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.0" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

One of the best indepth books on I Ching.

This is the 2nd book I have bought written by the author Stephen Karcher.This book is very indepth and offers more guidance on all matters.The advice is easy to understand but beginners might want to find suitable learning books before adding this book to your collection.The number of pages for each hexagram can vary from about 4 pages and some are up to 6 pages long.Thats a bit too much for my liking,but,some people might like it.Consider that factor before you buy this book. The print in this book is smaller compared to the authors "Symbols of love" book.Both books are very similar but "Total I Ching" is for all matters. I also recommend these books: 1)"I Ching:a new interpretation for modern times."By Sam Reifler. 2)"Practical guide to the I Ching".By Kim-Anh Lim.

Could give this one TEN STARS!!!

This is one of the BEST I-Ching Translations I've ever read. I had found several before, most notably the Legge Version and the Idiot's Guide. These are awesome versions for the basic Divination Student, but the depth and wealth of connections, syncronicities, and interrelationships between all the Hexagrams is best related in this text. I highly recommend this one, as well as the Karcher I-Ching with Concordance, and the simpler How to Use the I-Ching by Karcher as well.

Awesome Awesome Awesome

If I could give this book six I would.If you love the I-Ching; If you read every single one you can find; this book is simply eons beyond all the rest. The other I-Chings I used to really like were the one by Alfred Huang, and the one by Rudolph Ritsema. This is like taking the best aspects of both of those two and combining them and making them even better. Check it out!

Revealing the ancient to us moderns

Stephen Karcher's approach to translating and presenting the famed Chinese oracle "I Ching" appears to take on board Jung's famous invocation to "dream the myth onward". The result is a paradoxical conjoining of the ancient and the modern. For each hexagram, Karcher takes us on a penetrating exploration of its deepest roots in Chinese history and mythology, slowly unfolding each little symbol's big picture, and revealing the archetypal material the hexagram might encourage us to consider in context. The result is deeply psychological and gives the modern occidental reader unique access to the ancient oriental wisdom implicated in the oracle's poetry. If you use an oracle to divine, explore, and contemplate rather than to "tell fortunes", then I expect you'll come to marvel again and again at Karcher's wondrous work with this most intriguing old book, as I have.

The Best I Ching Available

As a 30 year I Ching user, teacher of Taoist qigong and inner alchemy meditation, I was very skeptical when yet another I Ching translation arrived in the mail. But I knew Karcher's scholarship was superb and was hoping for at least a few gems. Was I surprised to discover that this is the best I Ching I've ever used - it literally lives up to its name, The Total I Ching. I used to consult both the Wilhelm (elegant, but too confucian) and Wu Jing-Nuan's "shamanic" Chou version to get a full spectrum of readings. Karcher's Total I Ching version is both elegant, scholarly, and shamanic. It brilliantly integrates in the living elements of the shen (spirits) who are actually the agents of change, we could say the "managers" of shifts in the larger chi field that play out in our bodies and lives. There is only one test of an I Ching, and that is to use it in real life situations and see how "alive" and accurate the responses are for you. I found this version to be far superior to the other readings I previously used. Yin & Yang trigrams can be reduced to abstract and lifeless mathemtical symbols, or they can be experienced as living pulsations, voices from inner space. Total I Ching opens up the voices of the spirits, without losing the bracing clarity of the symbolic language. I am thrilled to find such a breakthrough work in a field of translations that are generally lacking in spiritual brilliance. Total Ching is a must have for I Ching lovers.