The Curriculum of the Yi Fa Society, Level 3

Each level of the Yi Fa Society has its own curriculum, with new material presented for the student's growth, practice and study.  Previous entries already detailed the Curriculum of Level 1, and Level 2.

The Curriculum of Level 3, in brief, consists of the following points:

1. The "Great Book of Yi Fa": a 95-page "secret text", this book elaborates on some of the mysteries already revealed about the philosophy of Yi Fa, the practices of Yi Fa Qi Gong, and the great work of Enlightenment (personal and universal).

2. The Guide to the Taijitu:  this short text consists of an explanation of the Taijitu, the I Ching cosmology's equivalent of the Qabalistic Tree of Life (though it is in fact older than the Tree of Life), and how the different dimensions of manifested reality unfold.

3.  The Level 3 Yi Fa Qi Gong exercise. This is a secret exercise taught only to members of level 3 of the Yi Fa Society program.

4.  The Zhong Yong: a 9-page text on cosmology, philosophy and virtue, revealing the nature of the Middle Pillar.

5. An exercise for understanding the Image of the Hexagrams.

6. The basic instruction on the techniques of Qi Extension.


These advanced teachings are only available to those students who are members of the Yi Fa Society and complete the Level 1 & 2 curriculum.

If you are interested in membership in the Yi Fa Society, please contact me!

The Magician's I Ching Facebook Group now has Over 1500 Members!

The Facebook group created in honor of The Magician's I Ching, but which is a general discussion group for all I Ching related subjects, has now reached just over 1500 members!

So if you haven't already joined the Magician's I Ching Facebook Group, please consider joining!  It's free, and filled with interesting conversation and material related to the I Ching and I Ching studies.  It's open to people coming from western or eastern traditions.  It's very welcoming to newcomers to the I Ching, and you can get questions answered or useful advice. But it also has many very learned and highly experienced advanced students of the I Ching, and if you are one of those people you'll find some excellent higher level discussion about some of the finer points of I Ching study.

While you're at it, please consider joining the Yi Fa Society.  Members of the Yi Fa Society also have a (secret) discussion group, and benefit from a complete and detailed training program for studying Yi Fa Qi Gong and the I Ching.   Members of the Yi Fa Society are taught additional Qi Gong and I Ching secrets that are not available anywhere public.

At higher levels of membership, the advanced exercises of Yi Fa Qi Gong are taught, and students are provided large numbers of instructional materials (whole books, like "Secret Techniques of the I Ching", "Universal Yi Fa", "The Yi Dao", and "the Great Book of Yi Fa", among others) on how to deepen their work with Qi Gong and I Ching for self-transformation and the work of enlightenment.

Members of the Yi Fa Society can work personally with me to keep up their practice, to resolve problems in their practice, and to develop discipline and structure in their spiritual path.   Members also have the opportunity to have monthly Skype meetings with me for the same purpose.

Yi Fa Society membership is not free, but basic membership is on a monthly donation basis set by each student.


If you are interested in joining the Magician's I Ching Facebook group, just click on the link and join, and start reading and sharing with us!

If you are interested in joining the Yi Fa Society, please contact me, here or on Facebook.

Qi Gong and Health

The following is an excerpt from the Level 3 Yi Fa Society book, "The Great Book of Yi Fa".

Qi Gong and Health

Practicing Qi Gong can provide various health effects. First, and centrally, it improves the connection to one's own body. This strengthens one's general physical well-being, and can improve the immune system, physical awareness, attentiveness, and strength. The movements and breathing improves circulation, the stance improves posture which is helpful for a variety of problems (including digestion, back pain, etc.). The exercises stimulate the lymphatic system which helps with one's overall energy level and vitality. The practice overall contributes to relaxation and reduces stress, which helps prevent all kinds of ailments.

But it should also be noted that Qi Gong is not exercise. It has elements of physical activity, but it is not the same as the western approach to exercise. It is also not in any way a substitute for proper physical care, or western medical care.

Keeping this in mind, when you are teaching Qi Gong to others, it is important not to overplay the elements of Qi Gong as being for 'health' or 'exercise'. Most ordinary people who have heard of Qi Gong already think this is the main purpose of Qi Gong practice; it can be an easier 'sell' for people than talking about Cultivation. But Cultivation is the central goal of serious Qi Gong practice. While it is perfectly fine for an ordinary person to want to make use of the health and stress-relief benefits of Qi Gong, you should strive to make it clear that the more important part of Qi Gong is its use as part of a whole spiritual practice of Cultivation for the purpose of self-transformation. Even in the context of talking about health, you should make it clear to any students that Qi Gong cannot do much for your health if you are not approaching it from the perspective of transforming yourself, of changing your habits, your virtue, and your perspective of your 'self'. 

If you are interested in joining the Yi Fa Society, please get in touch with me here, on Facebook, or Google!

On Practicing Virtue Outside of Cultivation

Note: the following is an excerpt from the chapter entitled "Spontaneous Gong Manifestation" in The Great Book of Yi Fa, a secret document for Level 3 Yi Fa Society students:

There are two key parts to the practicing of Virtue outside of cultivation. And as these also still apply to practitioner, it is useful to talk about them to Yi Fa students too. The first of these is what Confucius called “Ren”. This is a very difficult word to translate from Chinese to English; one way might be to just call it 'truth' but this definition is vague and incomplete. A better way might be to say it is “the true experiencing of reality”, but this is difficult to comprehend. So another way to define it, if a bit tautological, is that “Ren” means “the quality of experiencing Virtue”. That is, when you are engaging in practicing Virtue in your everyday life, it becomes an experience; you can feel the difference between when you are embodying Virtue and when you are not. That experience, that feeling, is “Ren”. Some of the same qualities Confucius defined as Ren were also present in the lay precepts laid down by the Buddha; in other words, this is the most basic and accessible type of Cultivation practice available even to people who for one reason or another cannot engage in a full cultivation practice.

Confucius said of Ren that “it is not very far-off; whoever seeks it can find it”. This is because Virtue is not just a human concept, it is a part of the nature of the Universe. Unity, Discipline, Harmony, and Truth are universal qualities; thus it is that human teachers discovered and taught these qualities in different times and places without ever having necessarily been connected to each other. This means that “Ren” is a natural state; and in fact it is the true natural state of human beings. Ren is “human-ness”, so anyone who seeks sincerely to be more naturally human will be able to find it.

What is the easiest way to find Ren? Confucius said “Ren is established when, seeking to establish yourself, you also seek to establish everyone else. When seeking to grow, you seek for everyone else to grow as well”. So the easiest way to find Ren, and to practice Virtue, is when you can break away from the self-referencing perspective, and make sure that Virtue is not 'about you'. It is about following the law of the universe.

The chief obstacle to this is the other key part of practicing Virtue outside of cultivation. And that is to be able to discern the difference between what Confucius called “Norm” and what he called “Justness”. “Norm” is what society deems appropriate. It is societal conditioning, a product of culture, and part of what makes up the Inferior Person. “Justness”, on the other hand, is not what society deems appropriate but what IS appropriate. It is that quality of what is correct regardless of what culture thinks. Confucius and all great teachers were very clear that while sometimes a norm may be identical to justness, there are also many times when norm and justness are not the same thing; where what society considers right is not what actually is right. Those rare individuals who are capable of generating Gong without cultivation all have in common that they come to learn how to tell the difference between norm and justness; and can thus engage in Ren without consideration of what society has told them is the way to behave.

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If you are interested in joining the Yi Fa Society please feel free to contact me.