In 'The Man in the High Castle', characters use an ancient Chinese book, the I-Ching, to perform divination and seek answers to their questions. In fact, the author of The Man in the High Castle, Philip K Dick, used I-Ching divination himself when writing the novel! But how does this ancient form of I-Ching divination, using Yarrow Stalks, actually work?
Prof John Lai explains the practical how-to of I-Ching divination and the symbolic significance of the numbers it generates.
John Lai is based at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and is a Wadham alumnus (DPhil Oriental Studies, 2001). He was also a Wadham Visiting Fellow during the academic year 2022-23, when this video was recorded. Prof Lai's research includes the reception of the I-Ching in western and Christian traditions.
Dancing in time with others raises your pain threshold and increases social closeness, says research carried out by Wadham’s Emma Cohen and a team from Oxford University's Experimental Psychology and Anthropology Departments.
Read Chaucer’s poems, guided line by line by Wadham Emeritus Fellow, leading poet and medievalist Bernard O’Donoghue.
