The I Ching: 'evoking synchronicity'
with Shantena Augusto Sabbadini
and Cruz Mañas Sabbadini
The I Ching is a formidable psychological system that endeavours to organize the play of archetypes... into a certain pattern, so that a reading becomes possible. (C.G. Jung)
The I Ching is an ancient Chinese oracle, rooted in a shamanic tradition almost four thousand years old. Its images are a map of the dynamics of archetypal energies in and around us.
The most effective way to come to understand this map and to become familiar with it is by using it as a mirror, opening a dialogue with it about a concrete situation we are presently involved in. We shall read the images the oracle reflects back to us as 'evoked synchronicity', as if if they were a dream offered in connection with the specific question we have asked. This will allow hidden symbolic dimensions of our situation to emerge into consciousness - and this enlarged perspective will help us align our choices with the flow of the "great river", with the movement of Tao, and to act in a more aware and responsible way.
The work consists of:
- An introduction to the concept of synchronicity
- A brief review of the Pauli-Jung dialogue on matter and psyche
- An introduction to the I Ching
- Formulating individual questions to the oracle
- Learning the yarrow stalk consultation procedure
- Interrogating the oracle
- Reading the answers
The text we shall use is The Original I Ching Oracle or the Book of Changes, translated by Rudolf Ritsema and myself (a new edition published by Watkins, London, will come out in May 2018), the result of half a century of I Ching scholarship by Rudolf Ritsema and of a decade of oracular studies at Eranos, an East-West Center founded in 1933 at Ascona, Switzerland, under the auspices of C.G. Jung. This translation is conceived as a tool for psychological enquiry, focusing primarily on the images offered by the shamanic texts and allowing their interpretation to emerge from the direct interaction of the consultant with the oracular images.
Shantena Augusto Sabbadini worked as a theoretical physicist at the University of Milan, Italy, and at the University of California. He was involved in research on the foundations of quantum physics and in the first identification of a black hole. In the 1990's and early 2000's he was scientific consultant for the Eranos Foundation and lectured at Eranos about the I Ching, physics and philosophy. He is director of the Pari Center, an alternative educational institution situated in a small Tuscan village, and his most recent book, Pilgrimages to Emptiness, has been published by Pari Publishing.
Cruz Mañas Sabbadini is a clinical psychologist and researcher. She trained in Mindfulness with Alan Wallace and Paul Ekman, gave clinical and psycho-educational treatment in prisons and investigated mental illness. Presently she works as psychotherapist with a Jungian orientation and gives I Ching seminars with Shantena Augusto Sabbadini. She has authored various poetry books in Spanish, including Todo lo Sabe la Tierra, Mar de Fondo, El Mar y la Cruz and Noveno Planeta.