Guide
How to cast the I Ching with three coins
A genuine cast takes about three minutes. The only thing that matters is that you record the numbers honestly — including the ones you do not like.
What you need
Three identical coins. That is genuinely all. Traditional practice uses Chinese cash coins with a hole in the middle, and a set is a nice thing to own, but the method works with any three coins that have two distinguishable sides.
Assign the values
Agree with yourself before you start: tails = 2 and heads = 3. Write it down if you are prone to changing your mind halfway through.
The six throws
Hold the question in mind. Throw all three coins together. Add the three values:
| 6 — three tails | A changing broken line (old yin ✕). Probability 1 in 8. |
|---|---|
| 7 — two tails, one head | A stable solid line (young yang). Probability 3 in 8. |
| 8 — one tail, two heads | A stable broken line (young yin). Probability 3 in 8. |
| 9 — three heads | A changing solid line (old yang ○). Probability 1 in 8. |
Record the first throw as line 1, the bottom line, and draw upwards. Six throws, bottom to top. Beginners almost always write the first throw at the top — then the whole hexagram is upside down.
Why the odds matter
Three coins produce 6 and 9 one time in eight each, so about one line in four is moving. Yarrow stalks produce 6 only one time in sixteen and 9 three times in sixteen, so moving lines are rarer and tend to be yang when they come. That is a real difference in how the oracle behaves, not a technicality — which is why faking the distribution with a simple coin flip is worth avoiding. Our online cast uses the real numbers for both methods.
Reading the result
Find your hexagram in the library. Then read in this order: the situation, the moving lines, the resulting hexagram. If nothing moved, the reading is simply the hexagram you got.
The one rule
Ask once. If you dislike the answer, the traditional instruction is unanimous: sit with it, write it down, and do not recast the same question today. Asking repeatedly until you get a pleasing hexagram does not make the reading more accurate; it makes it a mirror of what you already decided to do.