tao, i-ching, squares and pairs

Terence & Dennis McKenna

Part 3: the I-Ching, and the King Wen Sequence

Quoting from The Invisible Landscape, by the McKenna brothers.

Chapter 8: The I-Ching as Lunar Calculator and Astronomical Calculator
Chapter 9: Time, Change and Becoming

the King Wen Sequence
(read from left to right, top to bottom)

“The earliest arrangement of the hexagrams of the I Ching is the King Wen sequence. It was this sequence that was chosen to be studied as a possible basis for a new model of the relationship of time to the ingression and conservation of novelty. In studying the kinds of order in the King Wen sequence of the I Ching a number of remarkable discoveries were made. It is well known that hexagrams in the King Wen sequence occur in pairs. The second member of each pair is obtained by inverting the first. In any sequence of the sixty-four hexagrams their are eight hexagrams that remain unchanged when inverted. In the King Wen sequence, these eight hexagrams are paired with hexagrams in which each line of the first hexagram has become its opposite (yang (—) changed to yin (- -) and vice versa)”

“No known basis exists for determining why pairs are arranged as they are or why one member of a pair precedes another.

First Order Transitions in the King Wen Sequence
“First order of difference refers to how many lines change as one moves through the King Wen sequence from one hexagram to the next. the first order of difference will always be an integer between one and six.”

“1. Order among the thirty-two pairs was determined by a wish to absolutely exclude transition situations with a value of five.
2. order among the thirty-two pairs was secondarily determined by a similar wish to absolutely exclude transition situations with a value of one. (53-54 & 61-62)
3. A three to one ratio of even to odd transitions was maintained.”

Franklin’s Magic Square
the sum of each column and row is 260 – equivalent to the number of days in human gestation, and the 260-Day Calendar.

Franklin’s Magic Square

16	50	9	55	11	53	14	52	= 260
1	63	8	58	6	60	3	61	= 260
64	2	57	7	59	5	62	4	= 260
59	15	56	10	54	12	51	13	= 260
48	18	41	23	43	21	46	20	= 260
33	31	40	26	38	28	35	29	= 260
32	34	25	29	27	37	30	36	= 260
17	47	24	42	22	44	19	45	= 260
= 260	= 260	= 260	= 260	= 260	= 260	= 260	= 260