I Ching book of changes

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are you allowed to read the book of changes as a catholic?

The classic: I Ching. In 136 BC, Emperor Wu of Han named the Zhou yi “the first among the classics”, dubbing it the Classic of Changes or I Ching.

please help I’m interesting in understanding this text.
 
Have read it a few times along with several commentaries. It still seems inscrutable to me…but also beautiful. I also like the Tao Te Ching and Secret of the Golden Flower.
 
but are you allowed study it as its listed as a divination book which is against the Catholic Church!
 
Brother Thomas Merton would tell you to see the beauty in the Eastern Philosophy writings.
It will not harm your Faith or your love for Jesus
 
Reading a divination book seems to be a occasion of sin do ?
 
Off topic binary the fundamental fabric of software was created by someone who was influenced by the book
 
If divination is your intent. What if you enjoy literature for its own sake and cultural enrichment?
 
My intent is to explore the topic of change as discussed in the book but as I found out the hard way this can lead to studying occult knowledge which is forbidden !
 
“Occult knowledge”?

I don’ think you will find that in I Ching.

There are little rituals for determining which Gua to ponder if you are trying to “divine” but just reading then sequentially and getting a sense of thier symbolism and flow is not divination or occult knowledge.

Now if you think you are weak and vulnerable to trying to make decisions and do the selection ritual and all that, dont bother with it.
 
I can’t see the book as banned but due to the nature of it being a banned subject in the Catholic Church would be like being banned to fish and holding a fishing rod
 
You can read the book without divination.
 
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seeking after knowledge of future or hidden things by inadequate means. The means being inadequate they must, therefore, the supplemented by some power which is represented all through history as coming from gods or evil spirits. Hence the word divination has a sinister signification. As prophecy is the lawful knowledge of the future divination, its superstitious counterpart, is the unlawful. As magic aims to do, divination aims to know. Divination is practically as old as the human race. It is found in every age and country, among the Egytians, Chaldeans, Hindus, Romans, and Greeks; that tribes of Northern Asia had their shamans, the inhabitants of Africa their mgangas, the Celtic nation their druids, the aborigines of America their medicine-men — all recognized diviners and wizards. Everywhere divination flourished and nowhere, even today, is it completely neglected. Cicero’s words were, and apparently always will be, true, that there is no nation, civilized or barbarian, which does not believe that there are signs of the future and persons who interpret them. Cicero divided divination into natural and artificial. Natural (untaught, unskilled) included dreams and oracles in which the diviner was a passive subject of inspiration, and the prediction that from a power supposed to be then and there within him. Artificial (taught, studied) comprised all foretelling from signs found in nature or produced by man.
 
IF one wanted to divinize with the I Ching one would need to follow a superstitious process of selecting a gua after asking a particular question. You can’t divinize by accident.
 
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