Robert Dilts, in his book "Changing Belief Systems with NLP" has come up with a structure which I have mapped to that of a hexagram:-
Dilts I Ching
Spirituality(god) Heaven
Identity(soul) Heaven
Beliefs and Values(heart) Man
Capabilities(mind) Man
Behaviour(strength) Earth
Environment(stimulus) Earth
In the traditional I Ching there is often reference to the ruler of the hexagram. This is usually line 5 or line 2 (the centre line of each trigram.) Line 5 is supposed to be the line of the king/lord whereas line 2 is of lower social status. Comparing this with Dilts' structure, line 5 is the line for Will and Identity and line 2 for Behaviour and Strength. In the psychological sense, therefore, it is one's Identity and/or one's Behaviour that rules a situation. (Who you are (form) or what you do (Process)).
Dilts' structure is used to show how the different levels interact and block or enable creativity. The upward path is more of a feedback loop between the two adjacent levels in that it is rare, say, for one's Environment to strongly affect more than one's Behaviour. If it does it will be a progressively diminishing effect the further up the levels we go. The downward path, on the other hand, can have a dramatic effect on the levels below it. (Change in belief can strongly influence capabilities and behaviour and environment). Dilts investigates (using NLP) how you can detect 'blockages' by how people limit themselves. For example a person may state that "Creativity can be difficult and disruptive.". Analysis suggests that this has come from the beliefs and values level. If you can change the person's mind about this then you will automatically change/influence ALL levels below.(Imagine what happens when you change their 'god')
The way this structure is treated demonstrates the underlying 'need' we seem to have for structure AND procedure. You can make a model of an individual by slotting values for their soul,god,mind etc and also analyze the procedural based up/down paths.
Another point is that, when used as a diving tool, the majority of questions asked of the I Ching start with 'What', as in "What should I do about..". Dilts' system places 'What' questions at the level of behaviour:
Identity Who
Beliefs Why
Capabilities How
Behaviour What
Environment Where/When
The content of the question implicitly tells you where the person is 'coming from'. Most questions asked of the I Ching are about behaviour which suggests that the user's difficulty with things, and therefore the appeal to outside sources, rests with the level above behaviour, namely Capabilities. (In this system, for example, explicit questions of identity (e.g."Who am I") suggest an implicit difficulty with spirituality.)
Of interest is that when we assign the Dilts' system to the line positions of the hexagrams, what hexagrams have an active line in only one position and do these specific hexagrams relate in any way to the Active Dilts label? Here is the list together with the hexagram's opposites - active lines for all positions bar the one under review - as well as the raw mixing concepts with the trigram associations :
Spirituality (23) Splitting Apart(Self Development -
remove the unusable)
(43) Breakthrough(Resoluteness)
mixing concepts: Bond / Blend
(23 - Development(give way)/Balance(devotion)
(43 - Development(push forward)Balance(power))
Identity (08) Union (Receptive leader/central/Group)
(14) Possession in Great Measure(Active lead)
mixing concepts: Bound / Blend
(08 - Protection(secure)/Balance(devotion))
(14 - Protection(Guidance)/Balance(Power))
Beliefs (16) Enthusiasm (Perseverance/Foresight)
(09) Taming Power of the Small
mixing concepts: Bind / Blend
(16 - Change(Influence)/Balance(Devotion))
(09 - Change(Influence)/Balance(Power))
Capabilities (15) Modesty (Humbling)
(10) Treading (Conduct)
mixing concepts: Blend / Bond
(15 - Balance(Devotion)/Development(Give way))
(10 - Balance(Power)/Development(Push Forward))
Behaviour (07) The Army (Social requirements)
(13) Fellowship with Men
mixing concepts: Blend / Bound
(07 - Balance(Devotion)/Protection(Secure))
(13 - Balance(Power)/Protection(Guidance))
Environment (24) Return (Towards light/away from dark)
(44) Coming to Meet (towards dark/away light)
mixing concepts: Blend / Bind
(24 - Balance(Devotion)/Change(Influence))
(44 - Balance(Power)/Change(Influence))
A structural analysis using a hexagram mapped with Dilts' levels
and weak/strong lines:-
-- --
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-- --
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-- --
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From bottom to top:-
Strong environment (stimulating).
Weak behaviour (can get confused)
Strong capabilities (can handle it)
Weak beliefs (does not know/believe it)
Strong identity (Inner strength - Will to go on)
Weak spirituality (poor sense of mission)
This hexagram is associated with the MBTI(r)/Keirsey group called Organizers (in Row 3 of the MBTI diagram). In this case we are dealing specifically with Scientist/Theoretician (INTJ). This group are the map makers with a bias towards the map over the territory. In the traditional I Ching this hexagram is called After Completion (Hexagram 63 - Guidance influenced by Security). The image states:
"..Thus the superior man takes thought of misfortune and arms himself against it in advance"
What better way to avoid problems then to have a map? A point of interest here is that this hexagram is a copy of the positional template used for all hexagrams. The template, therefore, has the symbolic meaning of organization and map making.
In this hexagram, the base trigram is associated with the concept of bounding (enclosure). This bounding is expansive and so we have a map starting from somewhere (where we are) and showing our surroundings (enclosure).The map is continually being expanded in all directions. It acts as a guide.
A point of interest is that the MBTI/Keirsey categorizations only go as far as level 4 (1st four lines). There are no explicit categorizations beyond this. However, if we include the Dilts structure we can explicitly extend the levels. The INTJ group has four hexagrams within it. Using the Dilts structure we get a finer level of personality structure:
Organizers
Scientist/Theoretician/Planner
Strong will, strong spirituality:
hex 37 The Family.
image:
"..Thus the superior man has
substance in his words and
duration in his way of life."
Strong will, weak spirituality:
hex 63 After Completion.
image:
"..Thus the superior man takes
thought of misfortune and arms
himself against it in advance"
Weak will, strong spirituality:
hex 22 Grace.
image:
"..Thus does the superior man
proceed with clearing up current
affairs. But he dare not decide
controversial issues in this way"
Weak will, weak spirituality:
hex 36 Darkening of the Light.
image:
"..Thus does the superior man
live with the great mass.
He veils his light, yet still
shines."
Another method of analysis combines the procedural and structural in that hexagram interpretation is the structural top trigram describing the situation(form) and the bottom procedural describing the behaviour(process) or visa versa. Since all systems seem to map the same template, 'gaps' in one system can be filled by data from another system as long as the positional relationship is kept constant. The current texts on the I Ching reflect a mindset, much of which was created when Richard Wilhelm's translation was published. This mindset deals with human issues, but the template on which the I Ching has been based can also be used for other, non-human, issues.
Although the I Ching and the MBTI are based on powers of two in form, there is scope for these systems to show threeness. If we accept that yin/yang is associated with process and the left hemisphere of the brain, then the trinity is introduced when we combine the concept of change (yin/yang) with no-change (T'ai Chi).
For example, the Enneagram of Riso is explicitly based around powers of three although analysis shows that there is a strong '2' part, in that each personality, when analyzed, is interpreted as a midpoint between a down side personality and an up side personality. Analysis of the Enneagram suggests that rather than there being nine basic personality types, there are infact eight psychological types and one sociological type; the latter being more of a template than a type since it symbolizes the heroes of the world as well as the villains and as such persons of this type are known to change easily suggesting that they have transformed from another type into the sociological 'archetype' and back again. This sociological type (type 3), being a template, never changes; psychological types transform in and out of it and it is they that change, just like the psychological types of the MBTI and Jung.
The Tao Te Ching is also tertiary based with 81 sections, and there is a form of diagram system similar to the I Ching which is tertiary based. These all seem to have been developed after the binary systems but with different logical levels which infact retain the binary structure. At the same time is should be noted that the I Ching and the MBTI deal with change, or variance. There are invariant roots that are not covered in the texts and 'suggest' a trichotomy rather than a dichotomy, and this suggests support for the yin/yang being associated with process only.
Both the I Ching and the MBTI have one person in common - Carl Jung. I emphasize this since most of the translations of the I Ching available in european languages today are usually reinterpretations of Richard Wilhelm's 1923 german translation and the later 1950 english translation. Jung wrote the forward to Wilhelm's book and has stated there and elsewhere that he was aware of and had used the divining side of the I Ching prior to 1923. The question is, could Jung's early exposure to the I Ching have subconsciously affected his development of his typology? Was the mixing terminology of the template, solely in the domain of the I Ching? The typology was completed by 1922, and Jung does not mention any of it in the introduction to Wilhelm's I Ching; he concentrates more on his synchronicity concept. However, if this did occur, then it is possible that the correlation of the MBTI to the I Ching may infact just be the result of a common source - Jung's mind. The template may be just a model of Jung's mind rather than 'the mind'. There is the suggestion that Jung and Wilhelm, being friends, were 'like-minded' and the I Ching translation would be agreeable to both. Furthermore, the other maps dealing with psychology may have the same structure purely because of Jung's influence on psychology and psychiatry. The people who devised the maps were affected unconsciously. I intend to show that this is NOT the case, for other categorization systems map to the template and they do not deal with psychology nor psychiatry, and those that do, have the pre-Jung sources of ancient greece and babylonia.
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