How does the I Ching oracle work?

You ask a question, then toss three coins six times. Heads count 3 and tails 2; each toss totals 6, 7, 8 or 9, which names a yin or yang line and whether it is changing. The six lines build a hexagram from the bottom up, one of 64 in King Wen order. Changing lines flip to give a second hexagram, the direction the reading moves in.

Is this the traditional three-coin method?

Yes. The three-coin method gives old yin (6) and old yang (9) one chance in eight each and young yang (7) and young yin (8) three in eight each. AsterNym uses the browser's cryptographic random source for each toss; the coins are not pre-generated and the animation is drawn from the result.

Where does my question go?

Nowhere. It stays in your browser. It is never sent to AsterNym, never put in a link, never used in analytics. A share link carries only the six tosses and the topic.

What if no lines change?

Then the reading rests on the primary hexagram alone, and the page says so. A reading with changing lines also shows the resulting hexagram and what each changing line means.

Three bronze coins landing on ivory silk, a hexagram of six bars rising from the bottom

I Ching · 易經

Free I Ching Oracle: ask a question and cast your hexagram

You come here with a question, and the answer comes back as a shape: six lines, cast one at a time, some of them changing. You read the hexagram those lines make, and then the one it turns into. That second hexagram is where the reading says the situation is heading.

Three-coin method, cast from your browser’s cryptographic random source, read from AsterNym’s own interpretations of all 64 hexagrams and 384 changing lines. The cast is calculated; the meaning is tradition.

The 64 hexagrams

King Wen order. Each page carries the full meaning, the reading for love, career, money and decisions, and all six changing lines.

How the cast is read

Each hexagram is two trigrams of three lines, a lower and an upper, from a set of eight. The 64 pairings are numbered in the King Wen sequence, the order the received text uses; AsterNym keeps an explicit table from the six-line pattern to that number and never derives it from the binary value.

☰ The Creative乾 Qián · Heaven
☷ The Receptive坤 Kūn · Earth
☳ The Arousing震 Zhèn · Thunder
☵ The Abysmal坎 Kǎn · Water
☶ Keeping Still艮 Gèn · Mountain
☴ The Gentle巽 Xùn · Wind
☲ The Clinging離 Lí · Fire
☱ The Joyous兌 Duì · Lake

Lines are numbered from the bottom. A 6 or a 9 is a changing line: it flips, and the flipped set names a second hexagram, the direction the reading moves in. A reading with no changing lines rests on the primary hexagram alone.

Coins are a choice, and here is the other one. The older method divides and counts fifty yarrow stalks, takes about twenty minutes, and produces the same four line types with different odds. With coins, a changing line is one chance in eight either way, so a yin line and a yang line change equally often. With stalks, old yin is one chance in sixteen and old yang three in sixteen, so a reading moves through yang three times as often as through yin. Some practitioners consider that asymmetry the point and will only use stalks. The book itself says nothing about probability, so neither method is the correct one; this page casts coins, and now you know what that decides.

The English titles are the ones in wide use; the interpretations are AsterNym’s own and reproduce no modern translation. The cast, the hexagram, the changing lines and the transformation are calculated. Everything the page says they mean is a tradition read for reflection, and never a prediction.

Common questions

How does the I Ching oracle work?: You ask a question, then toss three coins six times. Heads count 3 and tails 2; each toss totals 6, 7, 8 or 9, which names a yin or yang line and whether it is changing. The six lines build a hexagram from the bottom up, one of 64 in King Wen order. Changing lines flip to give a second hexagram, the direction the reading moves in.
Is this the traditional three-coin method?: Yes. The three-coin method gives old yin (6) and old yang (9) one chance in eight each and young yang (7) and young yin (8) three in eight each. AsterNym uses the browser's cryptographic random source for each toss; the coins are not pre-generated and the animation is drawn from the result.
Where does my question go?: Nowhere. It stays in your browser. It is never sent to AsterNym, never put in a link, never used in analytics. A share link carries only the six tosses and the topic.
What if no lines change?: Then the reading rests on the primary hexagram alone, and the page says so. A reading with changing lines also shows the resulting hexagram and what each changing line means.