The I Ching and Doug

by Doug Wilson

When I was eleven years old, my mother gave me some Rune stones for my birthday. It was an amazing and eye opening experience. They felt odd in my hands. I have always had an unusual connection with animals, trees and stones. Each is a unique expression of creation and contains its own flavor of energy. I’ve always loved the feel of that force. I’ve spent hours sitting among the trees or leaning against a boulder or even just holding a bunch of rocks in my hand.

But, these blobs of pressed clay felt different somehow. They felt powerful and full of portent. And they vibrated in my hand. They captured my imagination. How could they possibly provide useful answers to the questions I asked? They were inanimate. And yet they did, time after time. I knew something was going on there, but I didn’t know what.

Through the years, I have searched for an answer to what was happening in all sorts of places. I first sought answers in the world of science. The scientific world has been proven wrong countless times over the eons: No, the world is not flat. No, the earth is not a hollow ball with a sky painted on the inside. No, the earth is not the center of the universe. No, sucking the evil bile from a person does not make them well. And no, atoms do not behave the way planets do. And yet, the scientific community still clings to the notion that it “knows the truth” about our physical reality. Anything that is not “provable” is considered mythical and thus rejected.

So, maybe the scientific community doesn’t know quite as much as it claims to. And maybe, just maybe, there is a form of energy flowing throughout the universe that can't be detected by scientific means. And maybe this energy interacts with our world in ways we don’t understand. I decided I needed to explore all this from other perspectives beyond the scope of science. So, I went to church, but found that experience ultimately unsatisfying, along with the teachings of Wicca, Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism. I also checked out spiritual writers like Sonya Raman Rasha and Eckhart Tolle, who have talked about how we can influence reality by our thoughts and actions. But they have not adequately explained how this process works.

Finally, I returned to the ancient wisdom of the Runes I had let go of so long ago. They still gave me uncannily “accurate” answers, but now I had questions about how they worked. I took up the Tarot and found similar questions.

Around this time, I accepted a contract with an inventor in Whitefish, Montana, who was creating a light therapy product based on the I Ching. This seemed to fit well with my renewed attachment to things metaphysical. The project was funded by an astonishing woman named Janet Morrow. Ultimately, the project fell through. But, my friendship with Janet blossomed. We shared a common purpose and vision: helping ourselves, each other and people in general on their spiritual journey.

Working on the light therapy project had given me more pause for thought. There must be an explanation based in our physical world for the amazing answers I was receiving from the Runes and Tarot, and also for the benefits of light therapy. I looked back to physics to explain how the Runes, Tarot and I Ching worked. At the deepest levels of physics, with master mathematicians like Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr, I found what I had been looking for: Quantum Energy. I was excited to find this answer and intent to help others begin experiencing it for themselves.

I began looking for other work that could fulfill my desire to help people, leverage my strengths and allow me to work with people I love. I found it with Janet and a mutual friend, Tara McKinney, who shared our beliefs and vision. We started Inner Sight as a platform for developing tools that could assist people both in their daily lives and in their spiritual growth. iChing 2GO is our first offering. Maybe through this and other divination applications to come we can help others tap into the same Quantum Energy that makes the I Ching work. It’s the same Quantum Energy that makes Runes and Tarot work. It’s the same Quantum Energy that flows through animals and trees and stones.

For me, the iChing 2GO project has certainly been an experience in personal growth. When I started the development for this application, I had only been a user of the I Ching for about a year. Honestly, back then I was much more likely to reach for the Runes or Tarot when I needed insight into some aspect of my life than to reach for the I Ching. I found it very inconvenient. In order to use it, I first had to write my question down, then create the hexagrams and search through one of my hexagram tables for the response. And invariably, the answer was archaic, cryptic and difficult to interpret.

Then one day, while setting up a video recording session to capture coin tosses for the iChing 2GO application, I opened a new I Ching translation I had just received. It was a tiny little book by Juan Echenique Pérsico called I Ching: The Book of Changes. I’d ordered it specifically for the Chinese coins that came with it. But, it turned out to be an absolute gem. It was beautifully illustrated, clear, concise and simple to use. It was still relatively inconvenient, but the simple lookup table and straightforward language that Mr. Pérsico provided made it far less of a chore. I found myself using it every couple of days.

As the iChing 2GO application came together, I found myself using it more and more. At first, I just used it to toss the coins, looking up the hexagrams in Mr. Pérsico’s book. Now that the application is complete and I can put down the book, I am turning the the I Ching several times a day.

Whatever happened to that first set of Rune stones my mother gave me for my eleventh birthday has been lost to the fog of my memory in the intervening years. But, I will never forget how they felt in my hands the first time I held them. And I will always be grateful for the path of inquiry they inspired in me which has now come to fruition with the iChing 2GO project. Janet, Tara and I set out to create a tool that could bring the great wisdom and insight of the I Ching into people's everyday lives. I'm very happy with the outcome.