Before AI, There Was Divination
The I Ching and the Search Engines as Parallel Languages of Knowing
Long before the I Ching (the Book of Changes) was read as a cornerstone of Confucian ethics, it was used as a practical, inspirited / ensouled / necromantic method for decision making. People cast yarrow stalks or coins, recorded six lines, each either solid (Yang) or broken (Yin), and read the resulting hexagram as a snapshot of how conditions were moving. According to archaeological evidence, early hexagram divination served to consult the dead and other spirits. Over time, it became a way to study how the universe’s force also called the Way (Dao) behaves in order to determine one’s proper place within that larger order, and thereby avert catastrophe, make strategic decisions, or garner good fortune. (And if you’re looking to learn i ching online, this is the approach we’ll study: practical, animist, and strategic).
Each of those six lines, called yao, could be either signifying Yang and Yin. These two states - firm or yielding, active or receptive, generative or dissolving -formed the most elemental code. Three lines built together created a trigram, gua, of which there are eight (bagua), translated into English as Heaven, Earth, Water, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Mountain, and Lake. A trigram stacked on another formed a hexagram, producing sixty-four possible configurations. The lower trigram reflects what is internal or earlier/passing; the upper shows what is external or developing. When one or more lines change, a Yin shifting to Yang or the other way around, a new I Ching hexagram is generated, revealing change from one state to another. The text, in this sense, never points to a singular outcome. Rather, the I Ching describes a process: where tension gathers, where it loosens, and how a situation(s) may unfold (sometimes with the querent's involvement, sometimes not).
Over the centuries, the records of these casts accumulated. What began as a diviner’s manual became a layered text of multiple attributed and unattributed authors. Later commentaries, what tradition calls the Ten Wings of the I Ching, framed the material in ethical and philosophical terms. “Good fortune” and “misfortune” started to read like judgments. The practice that once helped sages, seers, and diviners read conditions became, in places, a political guide to societal conduct.
Still, the core of the I Ching remains about practical guidance: Yin and Yang as a binary that builds into sixty-four patterns; lines that show where things are firming up and where they are giving way. The question is always the same: What is happening now, and how should I proceed?
In the third century, Wang Bi read the I Ching as a study of Change as an animated force itself. He downplayed ritual / spiritual sources and treated the hexagrams as scientific models for how form arises and dissolves. At the base is a two-symbol code: Yin and Yang, like 0 and 1. Six positions give a six-bit string, sixty-four possible states. Read this way, the hexagrams are the Dao expressed as an algorithm of Change. Study the configurations and you see a situation clearly enough to act without excess (of worry, of thought, of energy, of activity).
I think about this when I look at how we search online today. We ask questions of machines and get patterns back: rankings, summaries, clusters of relevance. The tools may be Google, ChatGPT, or another platform, but the instinct is the same: make sense of noise or thin information, take a proportionate next step, avoid needless friction. In many ways, SEO and AI search are another version of reading lines, such as signal, context, timing. And the sites that thrive are built with intention: they present clear patterns for the machines to read and, in doing so, call in the right querents.
I’ve begun to wonder if I’ve lived most of my life with undiagnosed ADHD. My naturopath asked, gently, if I had ever considered it. Given that my son has a diagnosis, the question landed with weight and clarity. Suddenly, so much made sense: the constant scanning, the instinct to spot patterns before others did, the quick leaps between ideas that could feel disorienting to those around me. What once felt like restlessness now appears as a lifelong pattern-recognition system, tuned to Change itself. I used to think this was simply part of being a medium. Now I wonder if many mediums are, in fact, neurodivergent.
But I digress (a digression to linear thinkers, a thread to the a-linear haha). I’m sharing these connections to explain why I’m offering two programs in 2026:
Words That Work, a course in SEO & AI Search. Designed for small businesses / solopreneurs, Words That Work is a practical framework for writing and structuring content that both people and machines understand. We’ll map search intent to page types, design language patterns around entities, and build internal linking that supports a hub-and-spoke architecture. After covering search strategies, we’ll strengthen E-E-A-T cues, set up tags and meta tags correctly, and clean up crawl and index signals. We’ll also tune for AI surfaces (AI Overviews/Deep Search, summaries, answer pulling) using clear headings, tight passage structure, and entity clarity. All of that search optimization, plus layering it with spellcraft to shift the energy for heightened success. From Jan 26 to Mar 9, 2026, we meet Mondays for 7 Creative SEO Writing classes (strategy + technical), followed by 3 monthly Search Optimisation Clinics for review, critique, and upgrades.
Finding I Ching Clarity, an extended series in the form and spirit of the oracle. A return to first principles: casting, reading the six lines, understanding trigrams, and working with the spirit of change in predictive and proactive ways. The first arc of 12 classes explores the structure of the lines. We’ll study the patterns of hexagrams, their lines, pairings, and placements, in depth, and practise reading real situations in our lives. The second arc of 12 classes explores the spirit of the hexagrams, including the Great Treatise (the most expansive of the Ten Wings commentaries), the Dao and Qi, Yin Yang cosmologies, hexagrams as seasonal markers, and relating with it as an animate being. We start Sunday, February 8, 2026 and meet monthly.
As in all my courses, I’ll hold the group at a measured pace, with focused attention and plenty of opportunities to exchange, dialogue, ask questions, and practise on- and offline. If you join only one arc, you’ll leave with something you can practise with proficiency. If you study both, you’ll notice they inform each other: one trains the eye for outer systems, the other for inner weather, and you’ll sense a sharpening of discernment. You’ll have confidence not only in the who, where, why, and what, but also the how and timing.
It’s interesting because none of SEO, AI search, or the I Ching requires belief. What both SEO/AI search and the I Ching ask for are observation and patience in learning their language. The I Ching gives a grammar for change. Search gives a map of attention. Both reward calm, repeatable practice.
If that kind of work appeals to you, next year is set up for it, which, fittingly, is the Year of the Fire Horse starting in February. The SEO/AI Search course is for the outward webbing that carries you. The I Ching series is for the webbing you navigate by. Both provide clarity, with the same preference for connection and tangibles you can feel in your day-to-day choices.
I’ll wrap up by sharing a few things I watch for when I read for myself or with a client who is studying the I Ching with me:
Bottom line first. The first line shows where the ground is. If that’s unstable, I don’t focus as much on the top. (Like fixing a foundation before picking paint.)
Changing lines tell the story. One or two line changes speaks volumes. If you confront more changing lines than that, then it’s about mood/energy more than exact details.
Pairs and mirrors. Hexagrams are about the relationship of trigrams, and sometimes the pairs of lines within the six.
Plain language. If I can’t explain a reading in ordinary words, I haven’t understood it yet. And that’s fine. Insight is not always granted if one is feeling rushed or urgent. As we approach two astrological years of Fire (Fire Horse, then Fire Ram), this reminder cannot come at a more preparatory moment.
Following the spirits (and patterns),
Mimi
Spirit medium and occultist
PS. Join me for the Lunar New Year predictions via live-stream!