Unlocking the Unknowable: Exploring Intuitive Cognition in the Yijing (Book of Changes)

Any form of divination goes beyond the limits of ordinary knowledge. Fortune-telling always seeks to obtain knowledge about what cannot usually be known, not least because its concern is often – but not necessarily – directed into the future. Whether this is possible at all or is only the result of deception or charlatanry, was and has been the subject of (more or less) scientific investigations for more than 3000 years. Every form of prognostics is just as fallible as it is not always rational or even scientifically verifiable. From an epistemological perspective it is, however, not very helpful to speak of a duality of rationality and irrationality. How does the Yijing itself explain how do we get to know what we cannot know? Based on Peter Struck’s research on “Divination and Human Nature” I will show, that the Yijing (Book of Changes) serves as a platform for divinatory knowledge guided by both intuition and rational understanding. Using the concepts of resonance (gan 感) and contemplation (guan 觀) as we find them in the Yijing-text itself, we will explore the characteristics of the concept of intuitive insight in the context of the divination process. We will see how the different levels of the Yijing – i.e. the symbols of the tri- and hexagrams as well as the hexagram- and line-statements – interact to stimulate intuitive cognition accessible to rational thought.