Arranging the coin results for I Ching

Factual Questions
1

When I was quite young, in my tweens and teens, I was very drawn to mysticism, the occult, and the just plain weird. Hey, this was in the 60s and 70s, everyone was doing it. I got my hands on an English translation of the I Ching, which is a method of fortunetelling that involves throwing three coins and then making broken or unbroken lines out of the results. However, I never really could figure out how I was supposed to arrange the lines, so I never got very far.

How IS one supposed to arrange the lines? If I throw three coins down, how am I supposed to know which one is the bottom line, the middle, the top? Or was I supposed to toss the coins one at a time? And what about moving and unmoving lines?

I’m a stubborn atheist these days, but this is something that I’ve wondered about, especially since I just read a book that had I Ching readings at the start of each chapter.

2

I’m not entirely sure what you mean. With the three coin method, you toss the three coins, and then add up the heads and tails to come up with one of four numbers (old ying, old yang, young ying, young yang.) Then you do it five more times and you have the hexagram. Then, once you have the hexagram, you go to the I Ching to find out what it means.

3

Hmmmm, either I’m misremembering or the book never explained that I was supposed to add the coins. I’m probably misremembering. Thanks. It’s been bugging me ever so slightly for decades. And that explains the changes, too.

4

Or, if you want to explore mysticism in the least mystical way possible, use a program to simulate the launch and calculate the results: PyChing

5

Actually, these days I prefer to get mystical with the Silicon Valley Tarot, if I’m gonna get mystical at all.