An excerpt from the Introduction in the book:

What are I Ching Prescriptions?

The I Ching Prescriptions are a different way of working with the I Ching. Many people wonder how could anyone take seriously an answer to a question arrived at by tossing coins. For this reason they decide that the I Ching is not for them. You don’t have to believe in synchronicity. You don’t have to take the time to understand the poetic symbolic language of the I Ching. When people dismiss the I Ching because it relies on random chance they miss out on the philosophy embedded within it. A philosophy, based on nature that has survived for thousands of years has a message worth pondering.

I wrote this book for people who are not drawn to the more complex translations that often require one to read the responses like one would a dream. Not everyone responds to symbolic language. I wanted to make the Prescriptions direct and easy to use, just like taking a pill might be. I don’t know how an aspirin works. I just know that it does. This does not mean I do not appreciate all the other I Ching interpretations. I get benefit from them. I love symbols, poetry and symbolic language. If I didn’t I would not have been consulting the I Ching for so many years.

Choose Your Changes

When consulting the I Ching as a prescription, instead of asking a question in the traditional coin throwing approach, decide what issue in your life that you either want to deal with or are now involved in.

• Pick your prescription. Decide what prescription you need. Look up the prescription distillation in this book, read it and see how the advice applies to your life.
• Each I Ching prescription has seven parts to it; the general meaning at the top and the six phases written from the bottom up. These lines are written on top of the image of a tinted color of the trigrams that create the hexagram.
• There are seven paragraphs of counsel for each hexagram prescription that can be used — one for each day of the week. Focus on or meditate on the prescription you have chosen. Keep a record over the next seven days as you follow each step. Write down what happens for you in the process.

Related posts:

1. The Sketch Book Project and I Ching Prescriptions
2. Prescription for Hexagram 58, The Joyous
3. Prescription for Splitting Apart

I have a few review copies so if you are interested in reviewing the book on Amazon send me a message with your email.

I have also created a PDF interactive version of the Record book as a companion for this book so that you can print out your questions and responses. Sty tuned for that information.

I Ching Record Book

Related posts:

1. I Ching Record Book
2. Changes for I Ching Record Book
3. How to Use Your I Ching Record Book

Assuming that you are reading my review in this I Ching blog you will find it no secret that I have a long time interest in Syncronicity, the I Ching being a quintessential synchronicity tool. I also assume that any reader of this blog is an I Ching devotee and has does not have to be convinced of the existence of synchronicity. Since two of my own experiences are included in this book my challenge is how to be objective in this review and what to write to those seasoned in synchronicity to convince you to buy the book.

I discovered the MacGregor’s blogs in early 2009 when I found a site called Astro Yoga. I had just finished creating a series of designs for T-shirts on Cafe Press, called Astro Yoga Babes. I fell into a vortex of synchronicity when I discovered that while I had two blogs, one on Yoga and one on the I Ching, the MacGregors had their two with not only related subject matter but one with the same name of what I was working on.

While waiting for The 7 Secrets of Synchronicity to arrive, and before I knew that two of my experiences were in it, I dreamed about a man I had not seen in 20 years who had a major impact on my life and in my synchronicity experiences. So I was stunned to see the episode on page 35 – 36 in the MacGregor’s book. I had no idea that story was going to be included because Rob had not posted it on his blog. You can read his post HERE.

Bones

The bones of The Seven Secrets are in two sections:

The Secrets

Knowing, Heart, Theory, Creative, Clusters, Trickster, and Global

The Magic

Diving Synchronically, Animal Oracles, Journeys and Engaging the Divine.

Meat

The meat of the book introduces us to various ways we experience synchronicity. Each chapter gives examples and instructions for developing or enhancing synchronicity experience. There are many exercises for developing synchronicity. Here’s a list of some of them:

Developing Awareness
Breath work
Pay Attention to Your Feelings
a check list for, How Attuned are you?
Hints on Sensing the future
Telepathic Sending
Remote Viewing
Psychometry
How Open Are You?
Engaging Your Creativity

In the Chapter on Clusters there is a discussion about the appearance of numbers in groups. I was particularly interested in the discussion about the number 23.

I’m convinced that the I Ching is connected to the structure of our basic DNA. The MacGregors’ book discusses how the number 23 is often related to death. In the Wilhelm version of the I Ching Hexagram 23 is named Splitting Apart. This seems appropriate to point to the “split” that comes before joining with another set of 23 chromosomes to become a new embryo. I learned that it takes 23 seconds for blood to circulate through the human body and that the axis of the earth is 23.5 degrees or more amazing, that the DNA pattern shows irregular connections at every twenty-third section.

As for the question, How could the I Ching possibly work?” Carl Jung said in his forward to Wilhelm’s I Ching, “The less one thinks about the theory of the I Ching, the more soundly one sleeps.”

The Chapter on Global Synchronicites has a Healing Energy Exercise that is synchronistic for this time. It’s an exercise on healing for global disasters. I am sure that this exercise had to be written well before the recent oil spill catastrophe that has been going on for well over a month now.

The four chapters in the section on Magic, begins with, Divining Synchronicity, a discussion of the I Ching which includes another one of my experiences of synchronicity that was pretty amazing as it not only included an I Ching reading but a dream. This experience is an example of synchronicity that keeps me hooked into both the I Ching and dreams. The chapter also talks about Astrology, Tarot, Stichomancy and a way of using colors for divination synchronicities.

I was unaware that Rob had co-written a book called The Book of Color Divination which is mentioned in this chapter and something I must try. As an artist, I love color and at various times in my life have had obsessions about different colors. So now I have a new synchronicity game to look forward to.

Heart

At the heart of The 7 Secrets of synchronicity are the many amazind true stories that people have experienced and shared with us.

I know people who never experience synchronicity. Their minds are not only closed to the fact that these things happen to people, they are adamant about that with derision. Once I had a dream about a relative in which she had a specific operation. I was perplexed since the dream made no sense to me and the prevailing view in the culture of most therapists was that every thing you dream is a projection about yourself. Since I have been recording my dreams and checking up on people I dream about, I have found that about 80% of my dreams about other people are about the person in the dream. P.S. I found out later that the relative who had the operation in my dream, in fact had that operation. When I wrote and told her about it, hoping to open up the conversation about the subject of dreaming, she handled it by ignoring my letter.

I’m taking the time to elaborate on this subject of why non believers do not have synchronistic experiences because they shut themselves out from the possibility. You have to take the time to notice what is going on and then open your mind to what ever it is you find. Drop logic!

Just in this process of reading the MacGregor’s book on synchronicity I have had a rash of them, some relating to what was written in the book. I am here to testify, that the more one focuses on the fact of synchronicites as a part of life, the more you will experience them. Reading MacGregor’s book is a way of opening up to more experiences of synchronicity.

Skin

Since I’m using the human body as a metaphor for an overview of The 7 Secrets of Synchronicity, I can’t resist talking about the the physical look of the book. So I add to this review that the skin – what we see on the outside – the choice of type, the subtle printing on the paper to make the edges look patterned, the highlighting and setting apart of the exercises and general design all add to my enjoyment of reading The 7 Secrets of Synchronicity.

Sight / Insight

I have had many experiences of synchroncity, the most powerful of which have been through dreams where I have dreamed a future event. I would not have been aware of this at the time but keeping a record of dreams, along with a daily journal, helped me to discover that. I end here with a question. The MacGregors refer to dream knowing as sychronicity. The definition of synchronicty in Secret 1:

Synchronicty: the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that can’t be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer.

When I dream of an event ahead of time, even if I have no clue that this is what the dream is until later, this does not feel or look the same as an I Ching reading that hits the mark. It feels like my psyche has traveled out of time. That looks different to me than any other kind of synchronistic event. These dreams, while certainly not daily events, have been numerous enough so that I cannot dismiss them no matter how much disbelief I get from telling these dream experiences to people who do not have these experiences and do not believe that I do even though I have proof. The capacity for denial seems to be even larger than the capacity for belief.

While dreaming about an event before it happens that it not something I could possibly know or influence at the time feels to me like something more than, or other than the other synchronicity experiences. Does any one out there want to talk about that?

As I post this I note on the MacGregor’s Synchronicity blog that it is Trish’s birthday today.

A Happy HAPPY Birthday Trish!

The MacGregor writing duo has a list of many books and various literary awards including Rob’s well known Indiana Jones series of novels. Besides being prolific writers, Rob is a Yoga instructor and Trish an Astrologer.

From the book:

Trish MacGregor and Rob MacGregor have been professional writers for twenty-five years. One synchronicity after another led to their many nonfiction books on dreams, psychic development, astrology, yoga, the tarot, divination, and animal symbolism. In 2003, they took over the writing of the popular Sydney Omarr astrology series. This acclaimed, award-winning author team has appeared on the Learning Channel, the History Channel, and the Sci-Fi Channel; in April 2009, Rob was filmed for the History Channel’s UFO series.
Rob also wrote Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and six other original Indiana Jones novels, which have sold millions of copies. He won the coveted Edgar Award for Prophecy Rock, a YA mystery, and its sequel, Hawk Moon, was an Edgar finalist.

Trish, writing as T.J. MacGregor, won the Edgar in 2003 for best original paperback for Out of Sight. Her books have been translated into thirteen languages. They live in Wellington, Florida.

Related posts:

1. Carl Jung, Synchronicity and I Ching
2. I Ching Record Book
3. I Ching Prescriptions: Choosing Change

One of my favorite Leo’s is Carl Jung whose birthday is today. He was born on July 26, 1875, died June 6, 1961.

When I first attempted to understand the I Ching I had come across several versions and couldn’t really get into it until I read Jung’s forward in the now classic I Ching interpretation published in 1950 by Princeton University Press.

I can’t image anyone reading this page who does not know who Carl Jung is and his contribution to furthering the I Ching in the Western world. You can read more about Jung on the Wikipedia site.

It was Richard Wilhem whose translation of the I Ching from the chinese which many people feel is still the best interpretation. He was born on May 10, 1873, Tübingen, Germany and died on March 2, 1930. I didn’t realize that Wilhelm was so close in age to Jung and that must have been a most rewarding relationship – two pioneers of the mind and soul who could understand each other.

Jung coined the word Synchronicity as an “acausal connecting principle“, which is what one is engaged in by consulting the I Ching.

There are many videos on YouTube of Jung. I include a short one here on “Death is Not The End.”

Related posts:

1. Carl Jung’s Secret Red Book to be Published
2. More on Carl Jung’s “The Red Book”
3. The 7 Secrets of Synchronicity