[VOL III] A DEVOTEE CONSULTING THE STICKS OF FATE

A DEVOTEE CONSULTING THE STICKS OF FATE

Cover Image: A Devotee consulting the Sticks of Fate / China / Drawn by T. Allom Engraved by Aug Fox – ALAMY Image ID:2WXT7T8

*Chinese divination, often referred to as “casting or consulting the I Ching” or “casting the hexagrams,” is an ancient method of fortune-telling and seeking guidance. This practice involves using the Book of Changes (I Ching or Yi Jing) and its hexagrams to answer questions or gain insights into various aspects of life. It can be a complex process involving the generation of hexagrams through the casting of coins or sticks and then interpreting their meanings.

The hexagrams consist of six lines, each of which can be solid (representing yang or the masculine principle) or broken (representing yin or the feminine principle). The specific hexagram generated is believed to provide guidance or answers to the question posed.

Chinese divination has deep philosophical and spiritual roots and is often used for decision-making, problem-solving, and self-reflection. It’s not just about predicting the future but gaining wisdom and insight.

What fates impose, that men must needs abide;
It boots not to resist both wind and tide.

SHAKSPEARE.

WITH less diversity of appliances, less delusive pretexts, than the Greeks and Romans, the Chinese practise upon the credulity of their countrymen, and, by artifices the most contemptible, feed their fondness for fatalism. In every species of situation, public or private, where the three ways meet in any city, town, village, on the summits of the highest mountains, in the recesses of the deepest vales, in the most unfrequented solitudes, in the lonely shelter of almost impenetrable forests, in situations as opposite as the passions of one human heart to those of another, temples of fortune or fate are erected, the doors of which stand open for ever, inviting the children of chance to enter, and seek their destiny. Here an altar is raised to this most capricious and purblind goddess, on which vases are arranged, containing flattened pieces of wood resembling the leaves of a Chinese MS. book, or the spatula of a chemist. On these, which are called the Sticks of Fate, certain words are inscribed, having a mysterious connection with each other, and with the contents of a sibylline library, kept in the temple for reference and consultation.

In those deep solitudes, where the paucity of visiters would render the subsistence of a priest upon their bounty precarious, the temple is untenanted; the Sticks stand in their urn, protected by superstition only; and the book of fate, like the ladies to our wayside fountains, is enchained to the pillars of the altar. In great thoroughfares there is always an attendant bonze, a large supply of books of reference, and hideous figures, allegorical of the darkness that interrupts our view into futurity. Occasions of applying to the Sticks of Fate, are sometimes of moment; such as undertaking a journey, building a house, purchasing a new wife, or burying a deceased relation. The devotee, having paid the bonze in advance, takes up the vase, and continues to shake it with becoming timidity until a pair of Sticks falls out. The priest then examines the inscriptions, and, comparing them with the pages, or paragraphs, or number, in the prophetic volume, declares whether the applicant is likely to succeed in his undertaking. Indefatigable in all the imposts of worldly industry, the Chinaman is reluctant to obey even that very deity whose aid he solicits; and, should a first or a second throw fail to afford that entire satisfaction which he anticipated, he perseveres until conquered fortune yields the victory. The purity of his gratitude is now displayed by the clear flame of a pile which he immediately kindles, throwing into it pieces of paper, covered with tinfoil; and it is in these ceremonies that the greatest portion of the tinfoil imported into China from Europe is consumed.

The German mode of ascertaining the will of fate was almost identical with that now practised by the Chinese, and their custom of divining by lots is conducted with a degree of superstition not exceeded by any other nation. The branch of a fruit-tree is cut into small pieces, which, being all distinctly marked, are thrown at random on a white garment. If a question of public interest be depending, the priest of the temple performs the ceremony; if it be nothing offered to the gods, he holds up three times each segment of the twig, and as he marks nine in succession, interprets the decrees of fate.( * Tacitus de Moribus Germanorum.) The peasantry of England sometimes consult lots also, but never with a serious confidence in their guidance. “I remember seeing a company of gleaners, who, being at a loss whither to bend their steps, took a walking-stick, and set it as near the perpendicular as their skill would allow them, and pursued the direction in which the oracle fell.”( † Tradescant Lay.) The Jews were upbraided for a practice not very unlike this – “My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them.”( ‡ Hosea iv. 12.)

Oracles were consulted by the Greeks and Romans, and soothsayers, augurs, and attendant priests were attached to Apollo’s temples, in several remarkable places of antiquity. To oracular consultation succeeded a belief in the sincerity of the magic art, and many of the most powerful monarchs upon earth disgraced the regal purple, and dishonoured the name of sovereignty, by indulging in a practice at once so wicked and unwise. Nero, Heliogabalus, Maxentius, and Julian the Apostate, were all patrons of witchcraft, and believers in the art of divination. Nor does this morbid taste appear to have subsided amongst the rulers of the people who flourished in the middle ages of European history. No leader could take the field, who by means of his magic could not raise and allay tempests, remove himself or others from place to place insensibly, and cause misfortune to his enemies or rivals. In Lapland there once lived a witch, Agaberta, who could transform herself publicly into various shapes, and foretell the fortunes of all who approached her. Simon Magus, Apollonius Tyaneas, Pastees, Jamblicus, were all famous in the history of witchcraft, and are said to have had power to build castles in the air, represent armies in marching order or in battle-array, command wealth, feed thousands, protect themselves from persecution, reveal secrets, tell what events were going forward in distant countries, and make the dead suddenly reappear on earth. The means by which they gave a character of reality to their performances were secret, consisting of spells, philters, amulets, charms, images, stamped coins, reference to constellations, knots, barbarous sentences, metoposcopy, and chiromancy. By such a variety of instruments, they were enabled to construct the most complicated engines for delusion, imposition, and crime. And so deceptive, so attractive, have some of these proved amongst the timid and superstitious, that the very existence of the race of gipsies is attributable to the practice of a single one amongst them – palmistry.