China’s Magical Creatures Weekly Report #1
- Lauren B
- 0
- on Sep 09, 2022
This week our readings were focused on divination and other methods used to infer information about the future including oracle bones, omens, and oracles. All methods mention how important it was to Chinese culture and how vital it was for understanding the world around them. It was really interesting to look at events that happen not through a modern lens but a historical one. All those years ago the Chinese people wouldn’t know that if an earthquake occurred it meant that tectonic plates were shifting, all they knew was that something happened so they would use divination as a way to figure the cause behind something. I also really enjoyed casting my hexagram (picture above), I had never done anything like that before and I found that the meaning of my hexagram not only actually applied to my question but reaffirmed one of my long standing beliefs. There was a part of me that didn’t think it would work or if it did the meaning wouldn’t make any sense in relation to the question but it did. My question was how can I make the most out of college and the meaning of hexagram simplified was to stay true to yourself, something I think will truly make a difference in my college experience.
Currently there’s nothing on my to-do list for this course though if I have time I want to dive back into the PDF by Michael Loewe. It was really hard to get through adn properly understand and after going to class and seeing Dr D break it down I want to see if when I read it again I understand it a bit more than I did before.
I have a few questions pertaining to divination and the other methods I mentioned above. I know that oracle bones were favored by the Shang but were the other methods favored by any different groups? I’m also interested in if any of these methods are still in use today and if so how have they evolved and changed since their origin?
