How to consult the Book of Changes

Three-coin cast

For each of six lines, from bottom to top, toss three coins. Heads counts as 3 (yang), tails as 2 (yin). Sum the three coins:

• 6 — old yin (a changing line, broken with a dot).
• 7 — young yang (a stable solid line).
• 8 — young yin (a stable broken line).
• 9 — old yang (a changing line, solid with a dot).

Changing lines

If any lines are changing, flip them — yin becomes yang and yang becomes yin — to obtain the derived hexagram. The primary hexagram describes the present situation; the derived hexagram describes where it is moving. The texts of the changing lines themselves are the bridge between the two.

Yarrow stalks

The traditional yarrow-stalk method produces a slightly different distribution — old yin 1/16, young yang 5/16, young yin 7/16, old yang 3/16 — favouring stable lines over changing ones. You can pick this method on the cast page.

Randomness

Yiking uses your browser's cryptographic random source (crypto.getRandomValues), not Math.random. No reading is ever sent to any server.