I have to say from my reading since opening this thread on the subject of divination and magic from Wikipedia you can bring curses on yourself through silent reading as far as I can tell through incantations in books which is what I’m really worried about a example would be a few I have read thinking nothing of at the time but after realizing that magic is indeed real and has real effects on people I have become very worried even some books I have in liberal arts has incantations and I only realized it does not state the effects but thought nothing of it at the time only after reading about silent incantations did I realize it can effect you the same it appears with reading over magic books and divination books it would be at least called a near occasion of sin reading these books !
Great. Don’t read it. It is not what I’d call an easy read. It is certainly not required reading for a Christian. I suppose it could be argued that it is required reading for a Westerner trying to understand Chinese philosophy, but let’s not go there.
I’m trying to tell you that it is not a book of incantations, because it isn’t. The I Ching is not used by those attempting to
make things happen, which is what incantations do. The I Ching is used to understand what is going to happen by understanding what is happening at present and what direction change is going. That’s what divination is.
By my very amateur reading, I’d describe it as a book that purports to find an immutable underpinning to the inevitable changes of life. You could say it is a book that recognizes that in spite of the changes in life, we live in a world that is ordered and not chaotic. It wasn’t recognized by people who had the benefit of revelations concerning the nature of God, but obviously they correctly deduced from observation that human life does have order to it.
Where they go wrong is that they believe that activities of chance have the capacity to reveal the underlying meaning behind the changes going on in someone’s life. That’s not true, but the Chinese sages didn’t have the benefit of revelation to know that. They had to guess. In some ages, they considered the
I Ching to be primarily a divination tool. In other ages, however, they saw it primarily as a book to be studied to gain insight into the changes in life.
There is the chance that a Christian could fall into using the I Ching and the chance orientation of six coins for understanding the future. That’s divination, and it is forbidden. It is not highly likely that this is going to happen, though.
But–whatever. If you don’t feel it is in your best interest to pick it up, then don’t. Your intentions are very good, so I won’t argue with them. My only caution is that you avoid the trap that is set for you, which is sitting in judgment of Christians who read it. It is one thing to recognize that an activity has some risks associated with it; it is quite another to sit in judgment of people who take risks you aren’t willing to take.
The I Ching is not a forbidden book and reading the I Ching is not objectively sinful.
