Tonight’s reading gives Ch’ien, “modesty”, moving to Shêng, “pushing upward”.

Wilhelm comments on Ch’ien:

It is the law of heaven to make fullness empty and to make full what is modest; when the sun is at its zenith, it must, according to the law of heaven, turn toward its setting, and at its nadir it must rise toward a new dawn … It is the law of earth to alter the full and to contribute to the modest. High mountains are worn down by the waters, and the valleys are filled up.

This is mirrored in the image:

Thus the superior man reduces that which is too much, and augments that which is too little. He weighs things and makes them equal.

It is this “making things equal” that is important, here. “Modesty” appears to be an odd word to use; “moderation” sounds like it might be better, or even “temperance” without its connotations of teetotality. The purpose of “making things equal” is to avoid imbalance. Wilhelm uses the example of social balance, removing the inequalities which may lead to social unrest, but we need not restrict ourselves to this. The “middle path” has been emphasised in most religions and spiritual systems; Liber Libræ (slightly “adapted” from the Golden Dawn’s “On The General Guidance and Purification of The Soul”) states:

Remember that unbalanced force is evil; that unbalanced severity is but cruelty and oppression; but that also unbalance mercy is but weakness which would allow and abet Evil. Act passionately; think rationally; be Thyself.

From a Thelemic perspective, it is this last injunction which is important. An imbalance of force suggests one has strayed from the will, since we suppose that the will is in harmony with the “order of things”. Everyone should be familiar with the experience of getting extremely excited about one thing or another, only to end up rather disappointed with it. This is a result of the conscious mind whipping up all manner of fantasies about the thing in question which are out of all proportion to the thing itself, i.e. they are unbalanced. Similarly, the disappointment results from the promises of the fantasy not being delivered, rather than from some defect inherent in the thing itself. Either way, both the excitement and the disappointment serve to distract the individual from his primary concern which is reality, by causing him instead to focus on reverie.

The image in the first hexagram almost reads as a method of attainment; by “reduc[ing] that which is too much, and augment[ing] that which is too little”, the “superior man” alleviates the pulls of these extremes, enabling him to remain on the middle path, his attention focused on reality, i.e. he has “weigh[ed] things and [made] them equal”. In reality, this method is not achieved through suppression, or ignorance, but with light. The adept, or “superior man”, knows himself sufficiently well to be able to catch on pretty quickly what’s going on when he feels himself falling into the kind of excitement we have described above, and that knowledge is enough in itself to make himself far less susceptible to its wiles; a magician’s card trick ceases to amaze once we know how it is done, and the same goes for any other illusion. The phenomenon doesn’t go away, and the adept is aware of its presence, but it fails to bother him, it fails to distract his focus; he is sufficiently familiar with it to avoid getting fooled by it.

A significant part of the process of attainment consists of observing the mind in operation in various circumstances, and becoming aware of how it acts and reacts in these circumstances, developing an ability to detect the patterns through which it habitually manifests itself. Naturally, these patterns will vary widely from individual to individual, at least in the detail. By becoming increasingly able to detect these mental patterns, the aspirant becomes more adept at distinguishing which of his perceptions arise purely from his mind, and which arise from reality. This, in turn, enables him to shift the seat of his consciousness further away from the phantasms of his mind and closer to his true self, simply through a process of observing the tricks his mind plays, and then quietly refusing to give them any more credence. With every trick he learns to “defeat”, the greater is the proportion of his remaining perceptions that arise from reality, and which illustrate the workings of his true self.

Thus, by observing and becoming aware of that which “disturbs” him (i.e. tends to cause him to stray from his will) he becomes increasingly able to avoid being disturbed.

The six in the second place of our first hexagram talks of “modesty that comes to expression”, and Wilhelm comments:

When a man’s attitude of mind is so modest that this expresses itself in his outward behavior, it is a source of good fortune to him. For the possibility of exerting a lasting influence arises of itself, and no one can interfere.

This could have arisen straight out of the Book of the Law. “When a man’s attitude of mind is so modest”, i.e. completely “modest”, then he has conquered his mind and attends only to his true nature. When this “expresses itself in his outward behavior”, then he is carrying out his will. And we know that when someone does this, then “no one can interfere”, i.e. “no other shall say nay” (AL I, 43).

This entire hexagram and its single moving line therefore appears to suggest the quieting of the mind, the “solution of complexes” (see the essay The Khabs is in the Khu), leading to the discovery of the true will, and the carrying out of it.

The hexagram changes to Shêng, “pushing upward”. Wilhelm appears to have been a closet Thelemite, for again he writes of this hexagram:

That is why this hexagram, although it is connected with success, is associated with effort of the will. In PROGRESS the emphasis is on expansion; PUSHING UPWARD indicates rather a vertical ascent — direct rise from obscurity and lowliness to power and influence.

If we had “progress” (i.e. the hexagram Chin) we would have ended up with an image as close to “love under will” as we’re probably ever going to get, as described in the essay The Method of Love. As it is, we have a vertical rise rather than outward expansion. “The pushing upward”, Wilhelm writes, “is made possible not by violence but by modesty and adaptability. Since the individual is borne along by the propitiousness of the time, he advances.” This “pushing upward” is the natural growth that occurs once the obstacles to it have been removed. Once the adept has removed the restrictions of his conscious mind, his will becomes free to flower and flourish.

This, of course, has always been the real key to “magical power”. The adept does not have some special reservoir of power, but he knows better how to apply it, and what to apply it to, so he appears to be more powerful to the untrained eye. A regular man in his randomly chosen occupation will struggle; with time, he will become competent enough, but he will be lucky to ever become truly effective. As Crowley says in his introduction to Magick in Theory and Practice: “In practical life, a man who is doing what his conscience tells him to be wrong will do it very clumsily. At first!” The adept, however, who is able to perceive himself with crystal clarity, and who has been able to position himself in an occupation that is perfectly suited both to his individual strengths and his individual preferences, will be like a powerhouse in comparison; his application of energy is far more efficient, far less is wasted. The (seemingly) simple act of discovering just what it is that one is suited to doing is enough by itself to increase one’s ability to succeed enormously.

The image of Shêng reads “thus the superior man of devoted character heaps up small things in order to achieve something high and great”. This is similar to the concept of “positional play” in chess, whereby one accumulates small advantages which may not appear useful or significant at the moment, but which over time come together to allow for a winning combination. Similarly, the aspirant who works steadily, revealing one mental trick at a time, will eventually find himself working naturally that way (Wilhelm writes: “the superior man is devoted in character and never pauses in his progress”), the increased clarity that he possesses making his task easier and compounding his successes, until he suddenly attains, and “pushes upward”. And this first success is necessary before any serious “expansion” can begin, or he will not be able to differentiate equal from skewed expansion.

Thus, the pair of hexagrams shows the results of the persistent application of “modesty”, of the process of resolving conflicts and bringing things into balance, one thing at a time. The progressively increasing clarity that this brings leads to success, and a great increase in power and ability. It is a model of the “great work”.