Leibniz and the i ching .

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daanopperman
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Leibniz and the i ching .

Post by daanopperman »

Was quiet shocking , just found out Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was playing around with the i ching

In 1703 Leibniz received from Johachim Bouvet papers about this Chinese practice .
Leibniz was corresponding with Jesuits in China .
Long way to correspond without the net , wonder how many letters you may have answered in your lifetime .
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daxwc
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re: Leibniz and the i ching .

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It doesn’t surprise me Leibniz was interested in I Ching as he was involved various studies as well as the Cabala. He also had published geometry papers. Interesting Bessler had also published an I Ching drawing also.
Leibniz was also if you look at the following chart one of the leaders in the Rose + Croix. Which is why Bessler probably called him his brother and friend. I was more surprised Wolff was on the list.

“Leibniz conceived God to be the supreme monad, controlling all monads within, these being hierarchical in terms of intelligence or reason. His alliance was much closer to Cartesian than Newtonianism, yet we also find him, like Newton, familiar with the Kabbalah."

Leibniz-"Sir Isaac Newton and his followers have also a very odd opinion concerning the work of God. According to their doctrine, God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion.�...Leibniz in a letter to his friend Caroline of Ansbach�

I also posted a geometry of the ying yang. I will look for Bessler's I Ching.
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re: Leibniz and the i ching .

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One point I wanted to drum in is that Rosicrucians attached themselves to Christ where Freemasons do not.
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daanopperman
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re: Leibniz and the i ching .

Post by daanopperman »

Hi daxwc ,

Good to hear from you , you're mighty quiet .

I think Leibnitz saw i Ching in the same light as calculus .

What amazed me is the distance of communication between Leibniz and Johachim Bouvet . How much could you communicate in one year , at most 3 letters per topic ? I am not sure if J Bouvet was the Jesuit priest he was corresponding with in China , but he did send a I Ching chart to Leibniz , which is also to be found online .

Daan .
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re: Leibniz and the i ching .

Post by daxwc »

Here is Bessler’s published I Ching in "Orffyreus-Schrift für das Jahr 1719" and conversation.
http://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/viewt ... 4539#24539

I also found this:
“In the West, the I Ching was discovered in the late 17th century by Jesuit missionaries in China, who decoded the text to reveal its Christian universal truth: hexagram number one was God; two was the second Adam, Jesus; three was the Trinity; eight was the members of Noah’s family; and so on. Leibniz enthusiastically found the universality of his binary system in the solid and broken lines. Hegel—who thought Confucius was not worth translating—considered the book “superficial�: “There is not to be found in one single instance a sensuous conception of universal natural or spiritual powers.��

I think Leibniz was always curious. Living in the information age we now fail to grasp how slow information was passed around and the lengths to acquire as well as hide it.
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