Product Description
Lectures on the I Ching Book – Pre-Loved
By Richard Wilhelm
Lectures on the I Ching: Constancy and change – Hardback
Undoubtedly the most widely read edition of the I Ching is Richard Wilhelm’s German Translation, later translated into English by Cary F Baynes.
Wilhelm also supplied commentaries in the Book of Changes, and his insights into Chinese culture and thinking have done much to clarify this difficult and elusive text.
This collection of lectures delivered between 1926 and 1929, also provide interesting reflection upon the cultural and intellectual climate of the Weimar Republic.
Underlying Wilhelm’s appreciation of the relevance of the I China to the contemporary world was his interest in psychology, and in particular Jungian psychology.
His commentaries show that he saw its philosophy as going beyond the conscious life of the individual to reach the collective unconscious; in fact the emphasis of the Book of Changes upon the importance of chance in the perception of reality led Jung to claim that ‘synchronicity’ was the basic principle of the I Ching.
The four lectures are the expression and summary of Wilhelm’s view of the I Ching; not merely an ancient and venerable book, but a living tradition which is as important to the West as it is to China.
Some marks.