How You Catch a Hare
The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is one of the oldest divination texts in the world and one of the strangest survival stories in the history of magic. This episode brings you the 3,000-year story of the I Ching, the world's most reinvented book of divination, from Bronze Age turtle-shell pyromancy to Carl Jung's couch and modern computing.
Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.
Music
Purple Planet - Chinese Dragon
Purple Planet - Oriental Skies
Purple Planet - Botanic
Purple Planet - A New World
Purple Planet - Sense of Loss
Purple Planet - Shadowlands
Sources
Primary
Rutt, Richard. The Book of Changes (Zhouyi): A Bronze Age Document. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Yi, Cheng. The Yi River Commentary on the Book of Changes. Translated and edited by L. Michael Harrington and Robin R. Wang. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019.
Secondary
Creel, Herrlee G. The Origins of Statecraft in China, Volume One: The Western Chou Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.
Harrington, L. Michael and Robin R. Wang. “Introduction.” In The Yi River Commentary on the Book of Changes. Translated and edited by L. Michael Harrington and Robin R. Wang, 1–22. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019.
Jones, Peggy. The I Ching: Points of Balance and Cycles of Change. Oxford: Taylor & Francis Group, 2008.
Redmond, Geoffrey and Tze-Ki Hon, Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes). Oxford Scholarship Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Shaughnessy, Edward L. Unearthing the Changes: Recently Discovered Manuscripts of the Yi Jing (I Ching) and Related Texts. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.
Smith, Kidder, Peter K. Bol, Joseph A. Adler, and Don J. Wyatt. Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
Smith, Richard J. The “I Ching”: A Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012.
Zhang, Yujie and Qing Yuan. “The Origin of the Integration of the Yijing and the Laozi: Yan Zun’s Laozi Zhigui and Its Philosophical Construction and Historical Impact.” Religions 17, no. 3 (2026): 1–24.
