c/terence-mckenna
The largest collection of talks by Terence McKenna — visionary ethnobotanist and advocate for the mindful use of natural psychedelics.
…words, with a mathematician's intent. And what I've done with the I ching is discovered a series of patterns in the king Wen sequence. And I'm assuming here most people have some knowledge of the I ching. And its purpose, which is its stated purpose,…
…early pre Zhou period, meaning around 1300 bc. And the straight story, as told in the I Ching, is that there was this guy, King Wen, who got into some political trouble. He was an emperor and he got kicked out in a coup and imprisoned. And in the…
…that depend on synchronicity for the way they work. But that's not really how I use it. I'm more interested in structure, in the King Wen sequence, and have construed out of that a kind of a time wave, a map of novelty. Much of what I said this…
…with a certain very narrow set of mathematical problems arising out of the I Ching. The problems were related to the King Wen sequence. As you know, hopefully, the I Ching is composed of 64 six line structures called hexagrams. They are the complete…
…called hexagrams. They are the complete set possible set of such structures and they occur in an ordered sequence called the King Wen sequence. Now, the King Wen sequence, portions of it have been found scratched on shoulder scapula three and four thousand…
…the complete set possible set of such structures and they occur in an ordered sequence called the King Wen sequence. Now, the King Wen sequence, portions of it have been found scratched on shoulder scapula three and four thousand years old. In a way, it's…
…been found scratched on shoulder scapula three and four thousand years old. In a way, it's fair to say then that the King Wen sequence is the oldest ordered abstraction on this planet so far discovered. We have not dug up anything older that had this…
…voice or whatever it was said. The problem for you to solve is a simple one: what are the ordering principles of the King Wen sequence? Now notice that there's nothing airy fairy about this the question has an answer and only one answer, and it's going…
…and they would say, well that sounds interesting, how did you come up on this? I say: well if you begin by analyzing the King Wen sequence of the Ching, most people would just roll their eyes and turn away and say oh no oh no, this guy thinks that…
…for the entire life of the I Ching. These hexagrams have been traditionally arranged in a special arrangement called the King Wen sequence. And the King Wen sequence is incredibly old. We find portions of this sequence on turtle tortoise shells and…
…of the I Ching. These hexagrams have been traditionally arranged in a special arrangement called the King Wen sequence. And the King Wen sequence is incredibly old. We find portions of this sequence on turtle tortoise shells and on scapula bones that go…
…and on scapula bones that go back to the middle of the third millennium, and we're told that this legendary person King Wen arranged the hexagrams in this sequence. It is possible, actually that this is the oldest human abstraction in existence. Yeah how…
…belief, it doesn't have yet metaphysical implications. It's just a problem. The problem is this: what are the rules which generate the King Wen sequence? That was the koan? Now first question: if it is not a sequence, in other words if it's just a jumble…
…ideograms called hexagrams that are composed of broken and unbroken lines. They are arranged in a traditional sequence called the King Wen sequence. The divination is carried out through a coin toss operation or a sortilage involving euro stocks. I assume…
…As I said, the I Ching is 64 hexagrams, numbered 1 through 64 and usually presented in a traditional sequence called the King Wen sequence, which is old. Nobody knows where it came from. King Wen is a legendary figure. He supposedly got into some…
…64 and usually presented in a traditional sequence called the King Wen sequence, which is old. Nobody knows where it came from. King Wen is a legendary figure. He supposedly got into some political trouble around 1350 b c and they put him in the can…
…while he was there he figured this out, he thought it up he built this operating system. And the interesting thing about the King Wen sequence is that it is not in a logical sequence on the Face of it when Leibniz, the European philosopher got his…
…that it was a binary number system and Leibniz's Sequence. Any hacker knows instantly how to do it from the first hexagram on King Wen sequence is not at all obviously under any set of rules and the logos in its promptings to me it was interesting. It…
…on. Well by conserving the intent of these statements about tao and by studying the internal mathematics that operate inside the King Wen sequence and inside that sentence is an hour of excruciating explanation which you will be spared by doing this I was…
…This is the angel to me and I said: yes, I'm familiar with the I Ching and it said: attend the rules which govern the King Wen sequence. Now do you all know what the I Ching is? God help you if you don't because we're going to start from there. The…
…the earliest archaeological stratum on the I Ching is, we get these 64 hexagrams in a certain sequence which is called the King Wen sequence, because King Wen is the mythical figure who's given credit with inventing the I Ching well, the King Wen sequence…
…on the I Ching is, we get these 64 hexagrams in a certain sequence which is called the King Wen sequence, because King Wen is the mythical figure who's given credit with inventing the I Ching well, the King Wen sequence represents, if not the oldest,…
…the King Wen sequence, because King Wen is the mythical figure who's given credit with inventing the I Ching well, the King Wen sequence represents, if not the oldest, one of the oldest human abstractions in existence. It is the oldest ordered pattern in…
…oldest ordered pattern in existence, ordered by the human mind. But then the question immediately becomes: is it ordered? Is the King Wen sequence a sequence, or is it just a jumbled list that through time has become sanctioned as somehow this magnificent…
…It's not even thought to be Chinese. They don't claim it they say it came from somewhere else and the story of King Wen, this person who got put in jail for political rabble rousing and then formulated it, there's no historical basis for that. I…
…only thing you can deal with if you really want to deal with the I Ching itself, is the 64 hexagrams in the King Wen sequence. That's the traditional sequence, and that's what I dealt with and studied it for mathematical order to try and figure out…
…of you who are keen for the I Ching and can take a look at it, when you get home. If you look at the King Wen sequence, the very first thing you notice if you're paying attention, is it isn't 64 hexagrams, it's 32 pairs of hexagrams, because in each…
…in there and see the details, you will see that curve is not smooth at all it's tremendously interrupted and punctuated. Where would the King Wen thing be on its wave? Is there a King Wen? No well we're in the wave the wave is being formed by it's an…
…not smooth at all it's tremendously interrupted and punctuated. Where would the King Wen thing be on its wave? Is there a King Wen? No well we're in the wave the wave is being formed by it's an imprecise term but interference between King Wen sequences.…
It wasn't, as I say, my style immediately, meaning in 10 minutes, I grasped that the King Wen sequence is not 64 hexagrams, it's 32 pairs of hexagrams because the second member of each pair is the first. Turned upside down, claro good, nothing to it. So…
…first order of difference can be one, two, three, four, five or six. When you actually look at what it is in the King Wen sequence, the first thing you notice is that there are no fives. This is an artificiality this is the thumbprint of human intent,…
…values of five are very common. There is nothing in principle to exclude them but for some reason they were excluded from the King Wen sequence. The other thing I noticed was that the ratio of odd to even values of the first order of difference came…
…called hexagrams. We all know this am I right? Yes, okay, the hexagrams occur in a traditional order that is called the King Wen sequence, and King Wen is a quasi legendary person, pre han dynasty, a political figure who in the upheavals in ancient…
…know this am I right? Yes, okay, the hexagrams occur in a traditional order that is called the King Wen sequence, and King Wen is a quasi legendary person, pre han dynasty, a political figure who in the upheavals in ancient neolithic china was imprisoned,…
…me was a very academic one it seemed at first. It was simply this: the 64 hexagrams occur in a traditional order called the King Wen sequence. And the question was this: is the King Wen sequence a sequence or is it in fact a jumble that has become a…
…simply this: the 64 hexagrams occur in a traditional order called the King Wen sequence. And the question was this: is the King Wen sequence a sequence or is it in fact a jumble that has become a traditionally accepted order now the difference between a…
…generate a sequence. A jumble is just a jumble. So in other words I began to seek the rules for the King Wen sequence, and obscure right, I mean sineological obscurante. However there is something interesting about it because this King Wen sequence is…
…the King Wen sequence, and obscure right, I mean sineological obscurante. However there is something interesting about it because this King Wen sequence is the oldest known example of a human abstraction. We possess shoulder scapula of sheep that are 3 500…
…3 500 years old that have portions of this sequence scratched on them. So the question what are the rules which generate the King Wen sequence is at least a question of mild interest to students of the archaic mind. So I began looking at this and I…
…moving into a completely different kind of ontos of the relationship between man and nature. When one examines the I Ching, the King Wen sequence, what is immediately apparent after only a few minutes of inspection is that it is not simply 64 hexagrams in…
…organizational foundation of matter itself. What this is is essentially an energy structure drawn out of a mathematical analysis of the King Wen sequence. Here is the fractal pattern that is typical of the entire wave. It happens to show up at certain…
…you can cast them you can drum them and it turns out it's a focused meditation. So, for instance you have 64 hexagrams in the King Wen sequence and here we have a drum. Now what do I do? All right let's take, let's start. If I were going to teach…
…did it with an ocarina it was just Great I don't know whether musicians will do this so can you sit down and play the King Wen sequence in 384 beats? Yes one beat for each line yes I have the music, yes, see and also like if I take every position…
…are so many ways that these hexagrams could be arranged, ones that derive from mathematical forms of order random throws, the King Wen sequence you can sit down and drum. I'm writing music for each individual hexagram that rolls through the nuclear trigrams…
…that illuminates that Terence. You're the one who discovered that the traditional sequencing of the I Ching Hexagrams known as the King Wen sequence, maps out a fractal algorithm or pattern. What are the implications of that discovery? Well yes I guess if…
…of understanding the world. Would it be possible on a computer to map out a graphical representation of the fractal nature of the King Wen sequence? Oh yes this is the kind of thing I've worked on for years and done, and the conclusions that it leads…
…I'd like to go back to the fractal nature of time that you discovered based on the sequencing of I Ching Hexagrams in the King Wen sequence you came up with a theory which you called time wave zero. Can you tell us about that? Well the theory is…
…called novelty theory. The software behind it is called time wave zero. It's basically simply based on these mathematical studies of the King Wen sequence an effort to put all that into a computer and scale it against time so that we can generate what…
…there is a very ancient tradition even before the han dynasty of a particular sequence being the correct sequence. It's called the King Wen sequence and while it has been agreed upon by all scholars commenting on the matter that the King Wen sequence is…
…sequence. It's called the King Wen sequence and while it has been agreed upon by all scholars commenting on the matter that the King Wen sequence is somehow primary no one had ever explained how it was ordered. You mean the order of hexagrams from 1 to…
…with all broken lines? And so forth and so on I carried out an exhaustive mathematical analysis of the properties of the King Wen sequence and reached a number of conclusions such as: it is not a random sequence it was very, very carefully constructed to…
…of magnitude 5 now you're beginning to lose me a little bit yes well what this all means very simply is that the King Wen sequence was constructed by minds the equal of research mathematicians working in the world today. It sort of reminds me of the…
…this is going to be diagram. So I got graph paper and it said: draw the hexagrams in a descending line in the King Wen sequence and then make a graph of the first order of difference, the number of lines that change as you go from hexagram…
…noticed, discovered a number of things about the I Ching which led me to the conclusion that what we possess in the King Wen sequence is in fact a fragment, an archaeological chunk of a piece of broken cosmic machinery. I concentrated entirely on the I…
…the I Ching, all the exegesis is han or post han. So I didn't deal with that at all. I dealt with what's called the King Wen sequence. How many of you are well familiar with the I Ching? Good the REST of you good luck. The King Wen sequence is the…
…the King Wen sequence. How many of you are well familiar with the I Ching? Good the REST of you good luck. The King Wen sequence is the oldest if you give up atlantis, lemuria, etc the oldest ordered human abstraction it is. We find fragments of it…
…it an ordered sequence? And this was the first koan that the interior voice posed to me what is the order of the King Wen sequence? As you know, the King Wen sequence begins with the creative, which is all solid lines, then the receptive, which is all…
…the first koan that the interior voice posed to me what is the order of the King Wen sequence? As you know, the King Wen sequence begins with the creative, which is all solid lines, then the receptive, which is all broken lines, and then whatever it…
…familiar with but had never particularly been obsessed with, and I noticed something very interesting about it which is the King Wen sequence which is the oldest sequence of the hexagrams, a sequence which precedes any written commentary when mapped for its…
…very simple question, which is, as you know most of you, the I Ching Hexagrams occur in a sequence which is called the King Wen sequence, which is very old. In fact portions of the King Wen sequence are scratched on shoulder scapula that are 3 500…
…I Ching Hexagrams occur in a sequence which is called the King Wen sequence, which is very old. In fact portions of the King Wen sequence are scratched on shoulder scapula that are 3 500 years old. It's possible to argue that the King Wen sequence of…
…portions of the King Wen sequence are scratched on shoulder scapula that are 3 500 years old. It's possible to argue that the King Wen sequence of the I Ching is the oldest abstract sequence in the world. The question is, or what the koan was was is…
…of the I Ching is the oldest abstract sequence in the world. The question is, or what the koan was was is the King Wen sequence a sequence or is it simply a jumble of hexagrams that over time has become traditionally sanctioned as the sequence? In…
…arrange hexagrams and check for fives and we discovered fives are as common as any other number. The exclusion of fives in the King Wen sequence was a human decision. Someone didn't want fives to show up in the first order of difference. Okay. So then I…
…that. What my attention was drawn to, is the only way I can put it, by this teaching entity was the sequence of the King Wen sequence. little detail king when is the person who may or may not have been a real person who supposedly lived around 1150…
…it does come genuinely from the I Ching. So we have this peculiar three pronged situation. We have a pattern in the King Wen sequence taken by an irishman and contorted into a mathematical wave which gives a prediction for the apotheosis of the world…
…I couldn't figure out what I was doing. I mean it said: go buy graph paper, go get your I Ching, look at the King Wen sequence graph the first order of difference. And I would try and guess what are we doing? Are we discovering an ancient Chinese…
…was a conundrum a koan of a peculiar and confined problem which was: what is the nature of the order of the King Wen sequence now background: the King Wen sequence is a certain arrangement of the 64 hexagrams of the Ching and this particular arrangement…
…a peculiar and confined problem which was: what is the nature of the order of the King Wen sequence now background: the King Wen sequence is a certain arrangement of the 64 hexagrams of the Ching and this particular arrangement is very old found on…
…shoulder bones 3500 years old and so forth so it was simply asking a formal question: what are the rules which produce the King Wen sequence? It's always called a it's always revered as one of the oldest of human abstractions but what in fact is the…
…it tonight unless in a question and answer period some maniac insists but what it boils down to is that in the King Wen sequence of the Yi Ching there is embedded a fractal algorithm, a fractal algorithm very much like the fractal algorithms that have…
…context of umm you know electromagnetic forces or whatever so it's umm. What starts out looking like a miracle that the King Wen sequence could have a magical wave inside it that would describe human history ends up looking like a kind of unavoidable…
…question has an answer and only one answer, and it's going to be couched in logical terms. What are the rules which govern the King Wen sequence and create it and no other. Well I went into it and at every stage I had insight that I recognized as…
…other words something was leading me deeper and deeper into this revelatory labyrinth and what I finally discovered was that the King Wen sequence is totally artificial. It has been very carefully constructed to serve as the basis for a fractal wave, and…
…jumble that has been handed down for 5 000 years but it's just a jumble, then there are no rules for the King Wen sequence it's just a unique mess once created and ever afterward revered rather like an abstract expressionist painting or something like…
…and ever afterward revered rather like an abstract expressionist painting or something like that you see. So I began to look at the King Wen sequence. How many of you are familiar enough with the I Ching that you're still caught on this? A few a few.…
…go home tonight you will see this without difficulty. The first ordering principle is trivial. It is that the I Ching, the King Wen sequence is pairs of hexagrams. The second member of each pair is the first member turned upside down. Simple, simple. Now,…
…they could be odd or even. And fives occurred very frequently in the computer generated sequences but never occur in the actual King Wen sequence. If you have a structure with six levels and you turn it upside down language fails. You require a visual…
…saying can get to here with nothing more than the I Ching. This is derivative of the mathematical relationships resident in the King Wen sequence. Your other question: what's the practical good of it? Well I don't know it's paying my bills sort of no.…
…then I, by a different method, not using computers but using exhaustion I determined that there is one other sequence besides the King Wen sequence that will do this but the King Wen sequence can be transformed into that sequence and vice versa by just a…
…but using exhaustion I determined that there is one other sequence besides the King Wen sequence that will do this but the King Wen sequence can be transformed into that sequence and vice versa by just a little equation. So really it's the same sequence…
…those of you who are I Ching Freaks and read the literature: lama Anagarika Govinda has suggested that there is an error in the King Wen sequence. One more reason to keep your eye on these lamas, because he I don't even know why he thinks this but I…
…and flow of time, being mapped by the ancient Chinese into an abstraction, being able to extract that abstraction from the King Wen sequence, being able to put it through these transforms, being able to write it into a computer program and communicate it…
…the evidence first and then gone back. But the strength of the theory is not on the weird numerological stuff uncovered in the King Wen sequence that might be interesting to a few sinologists and other people. The power of it is in its ability to model…
…which must be solved before we can move on to deeper water. And the koan was: you know what are the ordering principles of the King Wen sequence? Can you prove in fact that it is the product of intent or is it in fact simply a jumble that has become…
…simply a jumble that has become traditional over thousands of years and there is no set of rules for generating the King Wen sequence it's pretty close focused stuff you notice we're not talking here about planetary transformation or human fusion with the…
…about planetary transformation or human fusion with the biosphere it's very academic, close focused, analytical stuff. So I looked at the King Wen sequence and I was intuitively led is probably the way to put it to look at what's called the first order…
…of lines that can change as you go from one hexagram to another. In fact there are no fives. If you look at the King Wen sequence, one of the first things you notice is that it is not simply 64 hexagrams, it is really 32 pairs of hexagrams, because…
…Joe, and it's a kind of a poem which attempts to make a logical transition from each hexagram to the next in the King Wen sequence. There are curious statements in the I Ching which definitely support the idea that there must be big chunks missing. For…
…Ching, still less interested in all this Chinese Archaeology and certainly not interested in mathematics. But I looked at the King Wen sequence and I immediately discovered order on different levels and I'm going to skip over this part because it's…
…be ample time in questioning to go over the details. But the point is, after carrying out a thorough analysis of the King Wen sequence a wave, a repeating fractal wave mechanical form was discovered to be embedded in this thing. Now recall that I said…
…it was all over. But then the voice came back and said no this wasn't what it was about at all. Go back to the King Wen sequence and look at the first order of difference. Okay the first order of difference is a very simple concept it's: as you go…
…very synthetic and we did computer simulations with random arrangements of hexagrams to see how often the properties of the King Wen sequence would arise in randomly constructed sequences once in 35 000. So clearly we were discovering a construct of the…
…there a King Wen? No well we're in the wave the wave is being formed by it's an imprecise term but interference between King Wen sequences. But what time was the King Wen sequence formed? 1185 b c, that's roughly right up here where homer sang his…
…wave the wave is being formed by it's an imprecise term but interference between King Wen sequences. But what time was the King Wen sequence formed? 1185 b c, that's roughly right up here where homer sang his song. Same, you know close enough huh, yeah…
…shit indeed because if he was right I had made a mistake and the thing that the logos had wanted me to do with the King Wen sequence I had made a blunder. I knew what the logos wanted but I had made an error with Watkins position. And it was a…
…concentrated on was a very specific and intellectually defined question at first. At first, and the question was this: is the King Wen sequence a sequence? In other words is it simply a jumble, a jumbled arrangement of hexagrams that has become traditional…
…a joke, folks. After quadratic equations I bailed. So close thinking is not my forte. So here was this question, you know is the King Wen sequence a sequence or is it a chaotic jumble? What are the rules which generate it? So I sat down with my I…
…we find that is most interesting is that if you look at this 64 point graph of the first order of difference in the King Wen sequence, at first it looks random. But then you notice a very, very interesting anomaly, which is that if you copy this wave…
…just wondering where this data came from. Ah the data is the reduction of this three level structure that comes out of the King Wen sequence of the I Ching. Since you raised the point let me address that a lot of people allow themselves a pitying smile…
…four I believe and so on so that you can make a linear graph of the first order of difference as you move through the King Wen sequence. And I rushed out and bought graph paper and did this and looked at it and it's a sawtooth. All of these figures,…
…proportions. However you notice immediately there are no values of five, there are no first order of difference changes in the King Wen sequence of five. Now what is the prohibition against five about? I don't know but it's worldwide and neolithic astragali…
…points in this figure rather evenly spaced. And I realized then that what I had done is I had taken the entire King Wen sequence, run it forward, run it backward against itself and created a kind of macro hexagram, a super hexagram which contained the…
…time have internalized within themselves as images of the larger process in which they are embedded. Yes there are sequences other than King Wen and there are systems other than this and I think it's a growth thing. You know we're trying to see pattern…