The I Ching is consulted by forming a hexagram of six solid or broken lines (yang or yin) — classically by casting yarrow stalks, commonly by flipping coins — and reading its associated judgment and commentary. Sixty-four hexagrams in all, each a pattern of change among the elemental forces.
Behind the divinatory apparatus is a philosophical vision: reality is made of oscillating, interpenetrating polarities, and any moment is a node in their flux. The text is not fortune-telling but a mirror that prompts reflection on where one stands in the pattern. It has been read by Confucians, Taoists, Jung, and countless seekers who found in it something both ancient and immediately addressed to now.