Sunday, July 31, 2011

I Ching for Windows

Yin and Yang SymbolI Ching for Windows is a program I wrote for myself to cast I Ching hexagrams. The hexagrams contained can be used for the purposes of either divination or (in my case) mediation.

Hexagram and trigram descriptions are based on Richard Wilhelm's The I Ching: Or Book of Changes (translated by Cary F. Baynes and published by Princeton Universitiy Press).

The method I use to consult the I Ching is based on a virtual version of the coin toss method as described by Wilhelm. The output includes the upper and lower trigrams, upper and lower nuclear trigrams, and changing lines for the hexagram obtained.

If the hexagram includes any changing lines, it also includes the upper and lower trigrams and upper and lower nuclear trigrams for the hexagram that results from the changes. For a discussion of the results, you should consult a translation of the I Ching such as Wilhelm's. (I've been a fan of Wilhelm's translation ever since learning it was a favorite of Ken Kesey's.)

The program should run on more recent Windows operating systems such as Windows 7 and Windows Vista. It is an update of an old Pascal/Delphi program I wrote several years ago. This version was compiled using Free Pascal with the Lazarus IDE.

The installer was put together using Inno Setup.

Download the I Ching for Windows setup file for 64-bit Windows systems here.

If you have a 32-bit Windows system, download this version.