Today’s hexagram is Lü, “Treading (Conduct)”, with no changing lines.

The judgment refers to “Treading upon the tail of the tiger. It does not bite the man. Success”, and Wilhelm comments that:

The weak follows behind the strong and worries it. The strong, however, acquiesces and does not hurt the weak, because the contact is in good humor and harmless. In terms of a human situation, one is handling wild, intractable people. In such a case one’s purpose will be achieved if one behaves with decorum. Pleasant manners succeed even with irritable people.

The image states that “thus the superior man discriminates between high and low, and thereby fortifies the thinking of the people”, to which Wilhelm adds:

Among mankind also there are necessarily differences in elevation; it is impossible to bring about universal equality. But it is important that differences in social rank should not be arbitrary and unjust, for if this occurs, envy and class struggle are the inevitable consequences. If, on the other hand, external differences in rank correspond with differences in inner worth, and if inner worth forms the criterion of external rank, people acquiesce and order reigns in society.

It is tempting to read AL II, 58 into this: “Therefore the kings of the earth shall be Kings for ever: the slaves shall serve. There is none that shall be cast down or lifted up.” However, the King of Liber AL maintains his position essentially through force and natural aristocracy, whereas the superior man referred to in the Ching faces the ever-present threat of social unrest toppling him; Wilhelm’s commentary clear attributes the tiger, the “strong”, to the “people”.

A key difference is that despite the fact it is the “Book of Changes”, one of the key points of focus in the Ching is the search for stability in the face of change. AL appears not to give two hoots for stability, it exhorts the “law of the strong”, and that’s that; the Book of the Law is not concerned with social cohesion.

Yet, the strengths of the King are not restricted to the physical ones. “A King may choose his garment as he will”, and he can also achieve his aims through his wiles, when faced with a populace who is undoubtedly physically stronger than him en masse, for instance. Gravity is stronger than man, and so is fire, yet this doesn’t prevent us from living. Strength does not have to be met with strength; something that is stronger can still be influenced. A principle of judo is not to meet force with force, but to use the force of your opponent to your advantage; his higher degree of force will not necessarily help him.

Of course, the implication of Wilhelm’s commentary to this hexagram is that the people should acquiesce voluntarily with full knowledge of the facts, and this concept is absent from Thelema; the King may use any means at his disposal, including deception. He must, of course, actually possess superiority in one form or another, or his plans will presumably fail, but this does not necessarily need to be a superiority that anyone else will respect. Yet, by “discriminat[ing] between high and low”, he can “fortif[y] the thinking of the people” to induce them to think in a way conducive to his own aims.

“Good manners” in the commentary to the judgment could be translated as “discretion”, exhorting the King not to become complacent or overconfident in his regency, but to continue to observe dispassionately and to deploy his resources in the most optimal manner. Back in the day, kings were constantly at risk of being deposed if they failed to keep happy those they relied on for support; as long as they were able to keep their key supporters happy and their needs fulfilled, then we can presume they would remain in agreement that the king was the right man for the job. It’s only when things start going wrong that they begin to think that someone else might be more suitable, that the king’s abilities — or allegiances — might be slipping. In short, in order to secure his position, the king has to continue to deliver in order to demonstrate his fitness to reign.

It is similar with the Kings of Thelema. It is not enough to acquire the kingship and simply rest on one’s laurels; one must continue to exert the superiority that gained one the regency, keeping one’s eye on the environment to maintain an optimal position, because the moment one ceases to actually be superior, then one ceases to be a King. For “the kings of the earth [to] be Kings for ever“, we must apparently assume that a “true” King would never do this.