I-Ching Classic of Changes
The I Ching
Author(s)	Fu Xi
Country	China
Media type	Book

This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

The I Ching (Wade-Giles) or "Yì Jīng" (pinyin), also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts.^[1] The book contains a divination system comparable to Western geomancy or the West African Ifá system; in Western cultures and modern East Asia, it is still widely used for this purpose.

Traditionally, the I Ching and its hexagrams were thought to pre-date recorded history,^[2] and based on traditional Chinese accounts, its origins trace back to the 3rd to the 2nd millennium BC.^[3] Modern scholarship suggests that the earliest layer of the text may date from the end of the 2nd millennium BC,^[4] but place doubts on the mythological aspects in the traditional accounts.^[4] Some consider the I Ching' as the oldest extant book of divination, dating from 1,000 BC and before.^[5] The oldest manuscript that has been found, albeit incomplete, dates back to the Warring States Period (around 475-221 BC).^[6]

During the Warring States Period, the text was re-interpreted as a system of cosmology and philosophy that subsequently became intrinsic to Chinese culture. It centered on the ideas of the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and acceptance of the inevitability of change.

The standard text originated from the ancient text (古文經) transmitted by Fei Zhi (费直, c. 50 BC-10 AD) of the Han Dynasty. During the Han Dynasty this version competed with the bowdlerised new text (今文經) version transmitted by Tian He at the beginning of the Western Han. However, by the time of the Tang Dynasty the ancient text version, which survived Qin’s book-burning by being preserved amongst the peasantry, became the accepted norm among Chinese scholars.

History[link]

Traditional view[link]

Traditionally it was believed that the principles of the I Ching originated with the mythical Fu Xi (伏羲 Fú Xī).^[7] In this respect he is seen as an early culture hero, one of the earliest legendary rulers of China (traditional dates 2800 BC-2737 BC), reputed to have had the 8 trigrams (八卦 bā guà) revealed to him supernaturally. By the time of the legendary Yu (禹 Yǔ) 2194 BC – 2149 BC, the trigrams had supposedly been developed into 64 hexagrams (六十四卦 lìu shí sì gùa), which were recorded in the scripture Lian Shan (《連山》 Lián Shān; also called Lian Shan Yi). Lian Shan, meaning "continuous mountains" in Chinese, begins with the hexagram Bound (艮 gèn), which depicts a mountain (¦¦|) mounting on another and is believed to be the origin of the scripture's name.

After the traditionally recorded Xia Dynasty was overthrown by the Shang Dynasty, the hexagrams are said to have been re-deduced to form Gui Cang (《歸藏》 Gūi Cáng; also called Gui Cang Yi), and the hexagram responding (坤 kūn) became the first hexagram. Gui Cang may be literally translated into "return and be contained", which refers to earth as the first hexagram itself indicates. At the time of Shang's last king, Zhou Wang, King Wen of Zhou is said to have deduced the hexagram and discovered that the hexagrams beginning with Initiating (乾 qián) revealed the rise of Zhou. He then gave each hexagram a description regarding its own nature, thus Gua Ci (卦辭 guà cí, "Explanation of Hexagrams").

When King Wu of Zhou, son of King Wen, toppled the Shang Dynasty, his brother Zhou Gong Dan is said to have created Yao Ci (爻辭 yáo cí, "Explanation of Horizontal Lines") to clarify the significance of each horizontal line in each hexagram. It was not until then that the whole context of I Ching was understood. Its philosophy heavily influenced the literature and government administration of the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC-256 BC).

Later, during the time of Spring and Autumn Period (722 BC-481 BC), Confucius is traditionally said to have written the Shi Yi (十翼 shí yì, "Ten Wings"), a group of commentaries on the I Ching. By the time of Han Wu Di (漢武帝 Hàn Wǔ Dì) of the Western Han Dynasty (c. 200 BC), Shi Yi was often called Yi Zhuan (易傳 yì zhùan, "Commentary on the I Ching"). Together with the commentaries by Confucius, I Ching is also often referred to as Zhou Yi (周易 zhōu yì, "Changes of Zhou"). All later texts about Zhou Yi were explanations only, due to the classic's deep meaning.

Modernist view[link]

Replica of an oracle turtle shell

In the past 50 years a "Modernist" history of the I Ching emerged based on research into Shang and Zhou dynasties' oracle bones, Zhou bronze inscriptions and other sources (Marshall 2001, Rutt 1996, Shaughnessy 1993, Smith 2008). In the 1970s, Chinese archaeologists discovered intact Han dynasty-era tombs in Mawangdui near Changsha, Hunan province. One of the tombs contained the Mawangdui Silk Texts, a 2nd century BC new text version of the I Ching, the Dao De Jing and other works, which are mostly similar yet in some ways diverge from the received, or traditional texts preserved historically. This version of the I Ching, despite its textual form, belongs to the same textual tradition as the standard text, which suggests it was prepared from an old text version for the use of its Han patron.

Rather than being the work of one or several legendary or historical figures, the core divinatory text is now thought to be an accretion of Western Zhou divinatory concepts. According to Daniel Woolf, the text reached the form that we know it today at the end of the 2nd millennium BC.^[8] As for the Shi Yi commentaries traditionally attributed to Confucius, scholars from the time of the 11th century AD scholar Ouyang Xiu onward have doubted this, based on textual analysis, and modern scholars date most of them to the Warring States period (475 BC-256 or 221 BC),^[6] with some sections perhaps being as late as the Western Han period (206 BC-9 AD).

Structure[link]

The text of the I Ching is a set of oracular statements represented by 64 sets of six lines each called hexagrams (卦 guà). Each hexagram is a figure composed of six stacked horizontal lines (爻 yáo), each line is either Yang (an unbroken, or solid line), or Yin (broken, an open line with a gap in the center). With six such lines stacked from bottom to top there are 2⁶ or 64 possible combinations, and thus 64 hexagrams represented.

The hexagram diagram is composed of two three-line arrangements called trigrams (卦 guà). There are 2³, hence 8, possible trigrams. The traditional view was that the hexagrams were a later development and resulted from combining the two trigrams. However, in the earliest relevant archaeological evidence, groups of numerical symbols on many Western Zhou bronzes and a very few Shang oracle bones, such groups already usually appear in sets of six. A few have been found in sets of three numbers, but these are somewhat later. Numerical sets greatly predate the groups of broken and unbroken lines, leading modern scholars to doubt the mythical early attributions of the hexagram system, (Shaugnessy 1993).

When a hexagram is cast using one of the traditional processes of divination with I Ching, each yin and yang line will be indicated as either moving (that is, changing), or fixed (unchanging). Sometimes called old lines, a second hexagram is created by changing moving lines to their opposite. These are referred to in the text by the numbers six through nine as follows:

• Nine is old yang, an unbroken line (—θ—) changing into yin, a broken line (— —);
• Eight is young yin, a broken line (— —) without change;
• Seven is young yang, an unbroken line (———) without change;
• Six is old yin, a broken line (—X—) changing into yang, an unbroken line (———).

The oldest method for casting the hexagrams, the yarrow stalk method, was gradually replaced during the Han Dynasty by the three coins method and the yarrow stalk method was lost.^[9] With the coin method, the probability of yin or yang is equal while with the recreated yarrow stalk method of Zhu Xi (1130–1200),^[10] the probability of old yang is three times greater than old yin.^[11]

There have been several arrangements of the trigrams and hexagrams over the ages. The bā gùa is a circular arrangement of the trigrams, traditionally printed on a mirror, or disk. According to legend, Fu Xi found the bā gùa on the scales of a tortoise's back. They function like a magic square with the four axes summing to the same value, using 0 and 1 to represent yin and yang: 000 + 111 = 101 + 010 = 011 + 100 = 110 + 001 = 111.

The King Wen sequence is the traditional (i.e. "classical") sequence of the hexagrams used in most contemporary editions of the I Ching.

Trigrams[link]

The solid line represents yang, the creative principle. The open line represents yin, the receptive principle. These principles are also represented in a common circular symbol (☯), known as taijitu (太極圖), but more commonly known in the west as the yin-yang (陰陽) diagram, expressing the idea of complementarity of changes: when Yang is at top, Yin is increasing, and the reverse.

In the following lists, the trigrams and hexagrams are represented using a common textual convention, horizontally from left-to-right, using '|' for yang and '¦' for yin, rather than the traditional bottom-to-top. In a more modern usage, the numbers 0 and 1 can also be used to represent yin and yang, being read left-to-right. There are eight possible trigrams (八卦 bāguà):

The first 3 lines of the hexagram, called the lower trigram, are seen as the inner aspect of the change that is occurring. The upper trigram (the last three lines of the hexagram), is the outer aspect. The change described is thus the dynamic of the inner (personal) aspect relating to the outer (external) situation. Thus, hexagram 04 ¦|¦¦¦| Enveloping, is composed of the inner trigram ¦|¦ Gorge, relating to the outer trigram ¦¦| Bound.

Hexagram lookup table[link]

The hexagrams[link]

The text of the I Ching describes each of the 64 hexagrams, and later scholars added commentaries and analyses of each one; these have been subsumed into the text comprising the I Ching.

In the table below, each hexagram's translation is accompanied by a form of R. Wilhelm translation (which is the source for the Unicode names), followed by a retranslation.

Hexagram table references[link]

The hexagrams, though, are mere mnemonics for the philosophical concepts embodied in each one. The philosophy centres around the ideas of balance through opposites and acceptance of change.

Unicode[link]

I Ching trigrams were added to the Unicode Standard in June, 1993 with the release of version 1.1. The other encoded I Ching symbols were added to the Unicode Standard in April, 2003 with the release of version 4.0.

The symbols are spread out between Unicode blocks:

• Miscellaneous Symbols (U+2600–U+26FF):
  • Monograms: U+268A (⚊) and U+268B (⚋)
  • Digrams: U+268C–U+268F (⚌ ⚍ ⚎ ⚏)
  • Trigrams: U+2630–U+2637 (☰ ☱ ☲ ☳ ☴ ☵ ☶ ☷)
• Yijing Hexagram Symbols (U+4DC0–U+4DFF):
  • Hexagrams: U+4DC0–U+4DFF

There is an extension of the "Yi Jing" Unicode characters for the Tài Xuán Jīng (太玄經: Cannon of Supreme Mystery) by Yáng Xióng (揚雄/扬雄; 53 BC-18 AD), from U+1D300 through U+1D356. Their Chinese aliases most accurately reflect their interpretation;^[13] for example, the Chinese alias of code point U+1D300 (𝌀) is "rén", which translates into English as man and yet the English alias is "MONOGRAM FOR EARTH". Five additional digrams cover code points U+1D301 to U+1D305 (𝌁 𝌂 𝌃 𝌄 𝌅) and eighty–one tetragrams cover code points U+1D306 to U+1D356.

Implications of the title[link]

• 易 (yì) used as an adjective, means "easy" or "simple", whilst as a verb it indicates "change" or "the exchange or substitution of one thing for another".
• 經 (jīng) here means "classic (i.e. text)". It is a post-Qin Dynasty term later added to any text that had been officially canonised, hence the same character was later appropriated to translate the Sanskrit word 'sūtra' into Chinese in reference to Buddhist scripture. In this sense the two concepts, in as much as they mean 'treatise,' 'great teaching,' or 'canonical scripture,' are equivalent.

The I Ching is a "reflection of the universe in miniature". The word "I" has three meanings: ease and simplicity, change and transformation, and invariability.^[14] Thus the three principles underlying the I Ching are the following:

1. Simplicity - the root of the substance. The fundamental law underlying everything in the universe is utterly plain and simple, no matter how abstruse or complex some things may appear to be.
2. Variability - the use of the substance. Everything in the universe is continually changing. By comprehending this one may realize the importance of flexibility in life and may thus cultivate the proper attitude for dealing with a multiplicity of diverse situations.
3. Persistency - the essence of the substance. While everything in the universe seems to be changing, among the changing tides there is a persistent principle, a central rule, which does not vary with space and time.

— 易一名而含三義：易簡一也；變易二也；不易三也。 commented on by Zheng Xuan (鄭玄 zhèng xúan) in his writings Critique of I Ching (易贊 yì zàn) and Commentary on I Ching (易論 yì lùn) of Eastern Han Dynasty.

Philosophy[link]

Yin and yang, whilst common expressions associated with many schools of classical Chinese culture, are especially associated with the Taoists.

Another view holds that the I Ching is primarily a Confucianist ethical or philosophical document. This view is based upon the following:

• The Wings or Appendices are attributed to Confucius.
• The study of the I Ching was required as part of the Civil Service Exams in the period that these exams only studied Confucianist texts.
• It is one of the Five Confucian Classics.
• It does not appear in any surviving editions of the Daozang.
• The major commentaries were written by Confucianists, or Neo-Confucianists.
• Taoist scripture avoids, even mocks, attempts at categorizing the world's myriad phenomena and forming a static philosophy. However, Taoist ritual frequently uses the eight trigrams, and they are fundamental for alchemical practice, both internal and external.
• Wú wéi (无为), is an important concept of Taoism with regard to understanding when to act and when not to act. The understanding is one of instinctive wisdom rather than exemplified by natural action, such as the planets orbiting the Sun; they do without doing — without ends or means, effort or error. Thus, understanding when and how to act is not knowledge in the sense of calculating the right time and way, what is free of toil and care does not hesitate and cannot falter. Action without action, "wu wei wu", is effortless action.

The fact that both Confucian and Taoist texts make reference to a pre-existing zhouyi suggests to some that it predates both,^[15] and is, therefore, at the heart of early Chinese philosophical thought, serving as a common ground for the Confucian and Taoist schools. Partly forgotten due to the rise of Chinese Buddhism during the Tang dynasty, the I Ching returned to the attention of scholars during the Song dynasty. This was concomitant with the reassessment of Confucianism by Confucians in the light of Taoist and Buddhist metaphysics, and is known in the West as Neo-Confucianism. The book, unquestionably an ancient Chinese scripture, helped Song Confucian thinkers to synthesize Buddhist and Taoist cosmologies with Confucian and Mencian ethics. The end product was a new cosmogony that could be linked to the so-called "lost Tao" of Confucius and Mencius.

Binary sequence[link]

In his article Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire (1703) Gottfried Leibniz wrote that he found in the hexagrams a base for claiming the universality of the binary numeral system.^[16] He took the layout of the combinatorial exercise found in the hexagrams to represent binary sequences, so that ¦¦¦¦¦¦ would correspond to the binary sequence 000000 and ¦¦¦¦¦| would be 000001, and so forth.

The binary arrangement of hexagrams is associated with the famous Chinese scholar and philosopher Shao Yung (a neo-Confucian and Taoist) in the 11th century. He displayed it in two different formats, a circle, and a rectangular block. Thus, he clearly understood the sequence represented a logical progression of values. However, while it is true that these sequences do represent the values 0 through 63 in a binary display, there is no evidence that Shao understood that the numbers could be used in computations such as addition or subtraction.

Richard S. Cook states that the I Ching demonstrated a relation between the golden ratio (aka the division in extreme and mean ratio) and "linear recurrence sequences" (the Fibonacci numbers are examples of "linear recurrence sequences") :

...the hexagram sequence, showing that its classification of binary sequences demonstrates knowledge of the convergence of certain linear recurrence sequences ... to division in extreme and mean ratio... that the complex hexagram sequence encapsulates a careful and ingenious demonstration of the LRS (linear recurrence sequences)/DEMR (division in the extreme mean ratio relation), that this knowledge results from general combinatorial analysis, and is reflected in elements emphasized in ancient Chinese and Western mathematical traditions. ^[17]

Divination[link]

In China the I Ching had two distinct functions. The first was as a compendium and classic of ancient cosmic principles. The second function was that of divination text. As a divination text the world of the I Ching was that of the marketplace fortune teller and roadside oracle. These individuals served the illiterate peasantry. The educated Confucian elite in China were of an entirely different disposition. The future results of our actions were a function of our personal virtues. The Confucian literati actually had little use for the I Ching as a work of divination. In the collected works of the countless educated literati of ancient China there are actually few references to the I Ching as a divination text. Any eyewitness account of traditional Chinese society, such as S. Wells Williams The Middle Kingdom, and many others, can clarify this very basic distinction. Williams tells us of the I Ching, "The hundreds of fortune- tellers seen in the streets of Chinese towns, whose answers to their perplexed customers are more or less founded on these cabala, indicate their influence among the illiterate; while among scholars, who have long since conceded all divination to be vain..". (The Middle Kingdom, vol. 1, p. 632)

Symbolism[link]

The flag of South Korea, with Taegeuk in the centre with four trigrams representing Heaven, Water, Earth, and Fire (beginning top left and proceeding clockwise). File:Old Flag Of Vietnam.svg Flag of the Empire of Vietnam used Trigram Li - Fire

The Flag of South Korea contains the Taiji symbol, or tàijítú, (yin and yang in dynamic balance, called taegeuk in Korean), representing the origin of all things in the universe. The taegeuk is surrounded by four of the eight trigrams, starting from top left and going clockwise: Heaven, Water, Earth, Fire. In addition, the Republic of Korea Air Force aircraft roundel incorporates the Taiji in conjunction with the trigrams representing Heaven.

The flag of the Empire of Vietnam used the Li (Fire) trigram and was known as cờ quẻ Ly (Li trigram flag) because the trigram represents South. Its successor the Republic of Vietnam connected the middle lines, turning it into the Qián (Heaven) trigram. (see Flag of the Republic of Vietnam).

Influence[link]

The I Ching has influenced countless Chinese philosophers, artists and even businesspeople throughout history. In more recent times, several Western artists and thinkers have used it in fields as diverse as psychoanalysis, music, film, drama, dance, eschatology, and fiction writing.^[18]

Prior to the Tokugawa period (1603–1868 AD) in Japan, the I Ching was little known and used mostly for divination until Buddhist monks popularized the Chinese classic for its philosophical, cultural and political merits in other literate groups such as the samurai.^[19] The Hagakure, a collection of commentaries on the Way of the Warrior, cautions against mistaking it for a work of divination.^[20]

Commentary[link]

Early Chinese civilization, as with western civilization, accepted various pre-scientific explanations of natural events, and the I Ching has been cited as an example of this. As a manual of divination it interpreted natural events through readings based on symbols expressed in the trigrams and hexagrams. Thus any observation in nature could be interpreted as to its significance and cause. This might be compared to the Roman practice of basing decisions on the state of animals' livers. While usually sympathetic to the claims of Chinese culture and science, Joseph Needham, in his second volume of Science and Civilization in China (p. 311) stated: "Yet really they [Han dynasty scholars] would have been wiser to tie a millstone about the neck of the I Ching and cast it into the sea".^[21]

Abraham (1999) states that Confucius' ten commentaries, called the Ten Wings, transformed the I Ching from a divination text into a "philosophical masterpiece". It was this form of the I Ching that inspired the post-Warring States Taoists. It has influenced Confucians and other philosophers and scientists ever since.^[22] However, Helmut Wilhelm in his Change/Eight Lectures on the I Ching, cautions: "It can no longer be said with certainty whether any of the material—and if any, how much—comes from Confucius' own hand".^[23]

Translations[link]

Latin

• Régis, P. Jean-Baptiste (1736). Y-King: Antiquissimus Sinarum Liber quem ex Latina Interpretatione. Stuttgart, Tübingen: Cotta, 1834, 1839.

English

• Anthony, Carol K. and Moog, Hanna. (2002). I Ching: The Oracle of the Cosmic Way. Stow, MA: Anthony Publishing Company, Inc., ISBN 1-890764-00-0.
• Balkin, Jack M. (2002). The Laws of Change: I Ching and the Philosophy of Life. New York: Schocken Books. ISBN 0-8052-4199-X.
• Barrett, Hilary. (2010). Walking your path, creating your future. London: Arcturus Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-84837-453-9.
• Benson, Robert G. (2003). I Ching for a New Age: The Book of Answers for Changing Times. New York: Square One Publishers.
• Blofeld, J. (1965). The Book of Changes: A New Translation of the Ancient Chinese I Ching. New York: E. P. Dutton.
• Cornelius, J. Edward and Cornelius, Marlene (1998). Yî King: A Beastly Book of Changes, Red Flame: A Thelemic Research Journal, Issue 5. Aleister Crowley's notes and comments.
• Huang, Alfred (1998). The Complete I Ching: the Definitive Translation From the Taoist Master Alfred Huang. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions.
• Hua-Ching Ni (2nd ed. 1999). I Ching: The Book of Changes and the Unchanging Truth. Los Angeles: Seven Star Communications.
• Karcher, Stephen (2002). I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change: The First Complete Translation with Concordance. London: Vega Books. ISBN 1-84333-003-2. Multiple alternative translations.
• Legge, James (1964). I Ching: Book of Changes, With introduction and study guide by Ch'u Chai and Winberg Chai. New York: Citadel Press. 19th century translation.
• Lynn, Richard J. (1994). The Classic of Changes, A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-08294-0.
• McClatchie, Thomas (1876). A Translation of the Confucian Yi-king. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press.
• Pearson, Margaret (2011). The Original I Ching: An Authentic Translation of the Book of Changes. Rutland, VT: Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8048-4181-8. Removes gender-based yin/yang abstractions added by later Chinese commentators that do not exist in the original.
• Ritsema, Rudolf and Karcher, Stephen (1994). I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change: The First Complete Translation with Concordance. Shaftesbury, Dorset, Element.
• Shaughnessy, Edward L. (1996). I Ching, The Classic of Changes. Ballantine. New York: ISBN 0-345-36243-8. First English translation of the Mawangdui texts (c. 200 BC).
• Wilhelm, Richard and Baynes, Cary (1967). The I Ching or Book of Changes, With foreword by Carl Jung. 3rd. ed., Bollingen Series XIX. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press (1st ed. 1950). Very well respected.
• Wu Wei (revised 2005). I Ching, The Book Of Answers. Malibu, CA: Power Press. ISBN 0-943015-41-3.
• Cheng Yi (1988, 2003). I Ching: The Book of Change, Trans. by Thomas Cleary. Boston, London: Shambhala Publications. ISBN 1-59030-015-7.
• Bashar Abdulah's first Arabic translation [4] of the Chinese most important philosophical book "Book of Changes" or ICHING, by Dar Fadaat Publishing House, Amman Jordan, 2008. ISBN 978-9957-30-043-2

See also[link]

• Ba gua
• Da Liu Ren
• Feng Shui
• Qi Men Dun Jia
• T'ai chi ch'uan
• Yin and yang

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

• Marshall, S. J. (2001). The Mandate of Heaven: Hidden History in the I Ching. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12299-3
• Rutt, R. (1996). Zhouyi: The Book of Changes. Curzon Press.
• Reifler, Samuel. (1974). "I Ching: A New Interpretation for Modern Times". Bantam New Age Books. ISBN 0-553-27873-8
• Shaughnessy, Edward L. (1993). "I ching 易經 (Chou I 周易) ", pp. 216–228 in Loewe, Michael (ed.). Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, (Early China Special Monograph Series No. 2), Society for the Study of Early China, and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, ISBN 1-55729-043-1.
• Smith, Richard J. (2008). Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I Ching or Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in China. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-2705-3

External links[link]

Chinese Wikisource has original text related to this article: 周易

Wikiversity has learning materials about I Ching oracle

• (English)/(French) Wilhelm, Baynes “The I Ching or Book of Changes” (Association Française des Professeurs de Chinois)
• Yi Jing at the Chinese Text Project
• I Ching: An Annotated Bibliography by Hacker et al.
• I Ching at the Open Directory Project
• I Ching: deoxy.org
• Chujian Zhouyi

Terence Kemp McKenna

Born	(1946-11-16)November 16, 1946 Paonia, Colorado, United States
Died	April 3, 2000(2000-04-03) (aged 53) San Rafael, California, United States
Era	20th century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Metaphysics, phenomenology
Main interests	shamanism, ethnobotany, metaphysics, psychedelic drugs, futurism, primitivism, environmentalism, consciousness, phenomenology, historical revisionism, evolution, ontology, Mind at Large, virtual reality, dominator culture, criticizing science, the Logos
Notable ideas	Novelty Theory, The "Stoned Ape" Theory of Human Evolution, Machine elves
Influenced by psychedelic drugs, Marshall McLuhan, Alfred North Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, Aldous Huxley, I Ching, William Blake, Riane Eisler, James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, Heraclitus
Influenced Rupert Sheldrake, Robert Anton Wilson, Ralph Abraham, RU Sirius, Cliff Pickover, Timothy Leary

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American philosopher, psychonaut, researcher, teacher, lecturer and writer on many subjects, such as human consciousness, language, psychedelic drugs, the evolution of civilizations, the origin and end of the universe, alchemy, and extraterrestrial beings.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Terence McKenna grew up in Paonia, Colorado.^[1] He was introduced to geology through his uncle and developed a hobby of solitary fossil hunting in the arroyos near his home.^[2] From this he developed a deep artistic and scientific appreciation of nature.

At age 16, McKenna moved to Los Altos, California to live with family friends for a year. He finished high school in Lancaster, CA.^[1] In 1963, McKenna was introduced to the literary world of psychedelics through The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley and certain issues of The Village Voice that talked about psychedelics.^[1][3]

McKenna claimed that one of his early psychedelic experiences with morning glory seeds showed him "that there was something there worth pursuing."^[1] In an audio interview Terence Mckenna claims to have started smoking cannabis regularly during the summer following his 17th birthday.

Studying and traveling[link]

In 1965, McKenna enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley^[4] to study art history.^[1] In 1967, while in college, he discovered and begun studying shamanism through the study of Tibetan folk religion.^[5] That year, which he called his "opium and kabbala phase"^[6] he also traveled to Jerusalem, where he met Kathleen Harrison, who would later become his wife.^[6]

In 1969, McKenna traveled to Nepal led by his "interest in Tibetan painting and hallucinogenic shamanism."^[6] During his time there, he studied the Tibetan language and worked as a hashish smuggler, until "one of his Bombay-to-Aspen shipments fell into the hands of U. S. Customs." He was forced to move to avoid capture by Interpol.^[6] He wandered through Southeast Asia viewing ruins, collected butterflies in Indonesia, and worked as an English teacher in Tokyo. He then went back to Berkeley to continue studying biology, which he called "his first love".^[6]

After the partial completion of his studies, and his mother's death from cancer in 1971,^[7] McKenna, his brother Dennis, and three friends traveled to the Colombian Amazon in search of oo-koo-hé, a plant preparation containing dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Instead of oo-koo-hé they found various forms of ayahuasca, or yagé, and gigantic Psilocybe cubensis which became the new focus of the expedition.^[6] In La Chorrera, at the urging of his brother, he was the subject of a psychedelic experiment which he claimed put him in contact with "Logos": an informative, divine voice he believed was universal to visionary religious experience.^[6] The voice's reputed revelations and his brother's simultaneous peculiar experience prompted him to explore the structure of an early form of the I Ching, which led to his "Novelty Theory".^[6] During their stay in the Amazon, McKenna also became romantically involved with his translator, Ev.^[6]

In 1972, McKenna returned to Berkeley to finish his studies.^[4] There he decided to switch majors to a Bachelor of Science in ecology and conservation, in a then new experimental section of the same university called the Tussman Experimental College.^[1] During his studies, he would also develop techniques for cultivating psilocybin mushrooms with Dennis.^[6]

In 1975, he parted with his girlfriend, Ev, when she left him for one of his friends from Berkeley. Their parting left him "tormented with migraines and living alone".^[6] He graduated in 1975.^[8] That same year, he began a relationship with Kathleen Harrison, whom he had met in Jerusalem.

Soon after graduating, McKenna and Dennis published a book inspired by their Amazon experiences, The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens and the I Ching. He also began lecturing.^[4] The brothers' experiences in the Amazon would later play a major role in McKenna's book True Hallucinations, published in 1993.^[6] In 1976, the brothers published what they had learned about the cultivation of mushrooms in a book entitled Psilocybin - Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide under the pseudonyms "OT Oss" and "ON Oeric".^[9]

Later life[link]

In the early 1980s, McKenna began to speak publicly on the topic of psychedelic drugs, lecturing extensively and conducting weekend workshops. Though associated with the New Age and human potential movements, McKenna himself had little patience for New Age sensibilities. He repeatedly stressed the importance and primacy of felt experience, as opposed to dogma.^[10] Timothy Leary once introduced him as "one of the five or six most important people on the planet."^[11]

He soon became a fixture of popular counterculture. His growing popularity culminated in the early-to-mid-1990s with the publication of several books: True Hallucinations, relating the tale of his 1971 La Chorrera experience; Food of the Gods; and The Archaic Revival. He became a popular personality in the psychedelic rave/dance scene of the early 1990s, with frequent spoken word performances at raves and contributions to psychedelic and goa trance albums by The Shamen, Spacetime Continuum, Alien Project, Capsula, Entheogenic, Zuvuya, Shpongle, and Shakti Twins. His speeches were, and are, sampled by many. In 1994 he appeared as a speaker at the Starwood Festival, documented in the book Tripping by Charles Hayes. His lectures were produced on both cassette tape and CD.^[13]

McKenna was a colleague of chaos mathematician Ralph Abraham, and biologist Rupert Sheldrake, creator of the theory of "morphogenetic fields", not to be confused with the mainstream usage of the same term. He conducted several public debates known as trialogues with them from the late 1980s until his death. Books containing transcriptions of some of these events were published. He was also a friend and associate of Ralph Metzner, Nicole Maxwell, and Riane Eisler, participating in joint workshops and symposia with them. He was a personal friend of Tom Robbins, and influenced the thought of many scientists, writers, artists, and entertainers. His influences include comedian Bill Hicks, whose routines about psychedelic drugs drew heavily from McKenna's works. He is also the inspiration for the Twin Peaks character Dr. Jacoby.^[14]

In addition to psychedelic drugs, McKenna spoke on the subjects of virtual reality, which he saw as a way to artistically communicate the experience of psychedelics; techno-paganism; artificial intelligence; evolution; extraterrestrials; and aesthetic theory, specifically about art/visual experience as information representing the significance of hallucinatory visions experienced under the influence of psychedelics.

In 1985,^[8] McKenna co-founded Botanical Dimensions with his then-wife Kathleen, a nonprofit ethnobotanical preserve in Hawaii, where he lived for many years before he died. In 1997 he and Kathleen divorced.^[15] Before moving to Hawaii permanently, McKenna split his time between Hawaii and Occidental, located in the redwood-studded hills of Sonoma County, California.

Death[link]

A longtime sufferer of migraines, in mid-1999 McKenna returned to his home on the big island of Hawaii after a long lecturing tour. He began to suffer from increasingly painful headaches. This culminated in three brain seizures in one night, which he claimed were the most powerful psychedelic experiences he had ever known. Upon his emergency trip to the hospital on Oahu, Terence was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a highly aggressive form of brain cancer. For the next several months he underwent various treatments, including experimental gamma knife radiation treatment. According to Wired magazine, McKenna was worried that his tumour was caused by his 35-years of smoking cannabis; though his doctors assured him there was no causal relation.^[15]

In late 1999, Erik Davis conducted what would be the last interview of McKenna.^[16] During the interview McKenna also talked about the announcement of his death:

McKenna died on April 3, 2000, at the age of 53, with his loved ones at his bedside. He is survived by his brother Dennis, his son Finn, and his daughter Klea.

Library fire[link]