Abyss and Oppression: I Ching Symbolisms in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle

1 Introduction

Thanks to the influential English translation by Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930) and Cary F. Baynes (1883–1977) published in 1950,^[1] the I Ching (or Yijing; Book of Changes), the ancient Chinese philosophical/religious classic and divinatory text, has travelled across the Pacific, transcended cultural borders, leaving a lasting impact on Western society. Against the backdrop of the counterculture hippy movement of the 1960s, the Wilhelm/Baynes translation, as Richard Rutt remarked, emerged as a “cult document for the hippy movement of the 1960s, leading to an explosion of popular interest in Yijing throughout the English-speaking world.”^[2] Edward Shaughnessy affirmed the immense popularity of the I Ching in the United States, furnished with a foreword by Carl Jung (1875–1961), claiming that it emerged as the “bible for the postwar countercultural generation.”^[3]

Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle (1962, hereafter High Castle), according to Lawrence Sutin, holds the distinction of being the “first American novel to refer to the I Ching and employ it as a plot device (and deviser). Many who, in the sixties, elevated the I Ching to cult status first learned of it in High Castle.”^[4] Paul Mountfort has critically analysed the twelve divination episodes in High Castle by positioning the I Ching as a book of oracle. Instead of considering these consultations as separate or unrelated instances, Mountfort rightly argued that although certain major characters have not met, several of their divinations are mirror images that demonstrate Jung’s notion of synchronicity, which underlies the narrative.^[5] James H. Thrall also discussed how the I Ching occupies a central role in High Castle and how Dick himself consulted it for plot advice.^[6] However, more scholarly work has to be done on Dick’s encounter and reception of the I Ching, as well as the intricate intertextual relations between the I Ching and High Castle.^[7] Through a critical textual analysis of High Castle, this paper attempts to unearth deeper levels of characterisation and motifs in the novel by discovering the underlying and nuanced symbolisms of the I Ching incorporated in it, with special references to two related Hexagrams Kan (䷜ Abyss) and Kun (䷮ Oppression).

2 Philip K. Dick: “Most Brilliant Sci-Fi Mind” “Got Hooked” on I Ching

Born in Chicago in 1928 and spent most of his life in California, Philip K. Dick (1928–82) published more than 40 novels and 120 short stories, chiefly science fiction, during his lifetime.^[8] Illustrating his lifelong passion for science fiction, Dick found in the genre “a numinous quality” and began to perceive an idea of a “mysterious quality in the universe” that could be dealt with in science fiction.^[9] The essence of science fiction lies in the “conceptual dislocation—the new idea, in other words—must be truly new […] and it must be intellectually stimulating to the reader” or, in Dick’s words, “the shock of dysrecognition.”^[10] Being one of the most influential science fiction writers of the 20th century, Dick was even acclaimed as the “most brilliant Sci-Fi mind on any planet.”^[11]

Among his voluminous literary productions, the novel The Man in the High Castle is widely considered Dick’s finest work, winning the prestigious Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1963. In self-reflection, Dick commented that “[his] best known novel is THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, for which I received the international Hugo Award in 1963.”^[12] He took pride in becoming a “well-known author of science fiction novels”^[13] and regarded High Castle as his “best book.”^[14] Dick was gratified to witness the prevalent popularity of High Castle more than a decade after its first publication: “The novel has sold well over 300,000 copies, and is a classic in the field.”^[15] Amazon Studios recently adapted the novel into a television series, also titled The Man in the High Castle (2015–2019), which became immensely popular among American audiences.

On his first encounter with the I Ching, Dick recalled the early sixties when he was seeking to “find an explanation for how the I CHING works.”^[16] He admitted having “got hooked right away”^[17] after reading Jung’s remarkable foreword to the I Ching in 1961, immediately using it to show him “a way of conduct in a certain situation. Now first of all it will analyze the situation for you more accurately than you have […] Then it will give you the advice.”^[18] Underscoring the life-changing experience of using the I Ching, Dick maintained that “the I Ching gives advice beyond the particular, advice that transcends the immediate situation. The answers have a universal quality. For instance: “The mighty are humbled and the humbled are raised.” If you use the I Ching long enough and continually enough, it will begin to change and shape you as a person. It will make you into a Taoist.”^[19] As a matter of fact, Dick acknowledged himself as a Taoist towards the end of his life, while making attempts to impart an interest in the I Ching to his neighbor by asserting that “I’m a Taoist, which certainly is true; I will turn her [Karen] onto the I CHING.”^[20]

With great amazement, Dick expressed admiration for the I Ching as a living book of five thousand years, “I’ve been thoroughly amazed. I CHING is alleged to have an eighty percent positive factor […] It has yet to fail. It is almost as if it has been lying dormant for five thousand years—waiting for the feathery kiss of some dying princess to give it impetus […] This book is alive […] It is alive.”^[21] Dick’s comment resonates with that of Nobusuke Tagomi, a major character in High Castle: “We live by a five-thousand-year-old book. We set it questions as if it were alive. It is alive.”^[22] According to his biographer Lawrence Sutin, Dick was consulting the I Ching at least once a day by summer 1961 and had even dreamed of Chinese sages superimposed upon each other.^[23] On top of his belief in its mysterious power for making life decisions, Dick experimented creative use of the I Ching in the process of writing his best-selling novel High Castle, marking its debut in American fiction.^[24]

3 I Ching: “Governed the Direction” of High Castle

Within the fascinating fictional world of High Castle depicting a precarious “alternate world” in which Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan won the Second World War and jointly occupied the United States, various characters frequently consult the oracle and draw from the ancient wisdom of the I Ching to tackle their day-to-day problems, dangers and anxiety.

Mirroring Dick’s extraordinary enthusiasm for the I Ching, the female protagonist Juliana Frink professes, “The only book I carry around […] isn’t actually a book; it’s the oracle, the I Ching—Frank got me hooked on it and I use it all the time to decide. I never let it out of my sight. Ever.”^[25] Frank Frink himself demonstrates a high regard of the cosmological and scientific dimensions of the I Ching: “A book created by the sages of China over a period of five thousand years, winnowed, perfected, that superb cosmology—and science—codified before Europe had even learned to do long division.”^[26] Similarly, Nobusuke Tagomi, the Japanese trade minister in San Francisco, often consults the I Ching: “Mr. Nobusuke Tagomi sat consulting the divine Fifth Book of Confucian wisdom, the Taoist oracle called for centuries the I Ching or Book of Changes.”^[27] Furthermore, Tagomi, to begin his day, “took a moment to be alone. He sat in his office in the Nippon Times Building and contemplated.”^[28] Robert Childan has also been advised by Paul Kasoura, the young Japanese businessman in San Francisco, to “[w]ithdraw for a period into isolation. Meditate, possibly consult the Book of Changes.”^[29]

Dick recollected that High Castle was the sole novel he had ever written “with no notes of any kind—I just sat down at the typewriter and began to write. But I did have the help of the I CHING, so I was not alone in the work.”^[30] In the process of writing High Castle, he used the I Ching “only when one of the characters made use of it, which in effect meant I used it for plot development.”^[31] Dick reiterated in 1968 that “I did use the I CHING to write MITHC. Every hexagram in the novel is the actual one which I obtained by throwing the coins and asking the Oracle the character’s question.”^[32] More specifically, in each case when the characters asked a question, Dick “threw the coins and wrote the hexagram lines they got. That governed the direction of the book. Like in the end when Juliana Frink is deciding whether or not to tell Hawthorne Abensen [sic] that he is the target of assassins, the answer indicated that she should. Now if it had said not to tell him, I would have had her not go there.”^[33] In other words, the I Ching became Dick’s most prominent source of inspiration in guiding the creation, particularly developing the plot of High Castle.

The following sections will further scrutinize the influence of the I Ching upon Dick’s literary creation of High Castle, particularly how the major themes of abyss and oppression are uniquely depicted with the I Ching images, and metaphorically symbolised by the corresponding hexagrams. These symbolisms are carefully examined in light of the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the I Ching.

4 Abyss: Multiple Symbolisms of Hexagram Kan (䷜)

The 29th Hexagram Kan (䷜ Water/Abysmal/Abyss) (hereafter Hexagram Abyss), with its multifarious layers of symbolisms, has emerged as the fundamental thread running through the plot and characterization of High Castle, imbued with its direct and subtle references. In the section “Shuo Kua: Discussion of the Trigrams,” Richard Wilhelm translated the multifaceted dimensions of the Trigram Kan (☵) (hereafter Trigram Abyss) as follows: “The Abysmal is water […] Among men it means the melancholy, those with sick hearts, those with earache. It is the blood sign; it is red […] It is penetration […] It means thieves.”^[34] Wilhelm further elaborated the signification of these metaphors in his commentary: “Melancholy is expressed by the fact that one strong line is hemmed in between two weak lines; thus also sickness of the heart […] Blood is the fluid of the body, therefore the symbolic color of K’an is red […] Penetration is suggested by the penetrating line in the middle wedged in between the two weak lines […] Persons who secretly penetrate a place and sneak away are thieves.”^[35] The Hexagram Abyss, consisting of a doubling of the Trigram Abyss, refers to the repetition of danger, as its Commentary on the Decision states that “[t]he Abysmal repeated is twofold danger.”^[36]

Remarkably, Dick, in his 1964 letter to Carol Carr, discussed the multiple symbolisms of the Hexagram Abyss in great length:

hex 29: THE ABYSMAL. “In man’s world K’an represents the heart, the soul locked up within the body, the principle of light inclosed in the dark—light, i.e. reason. The hex has the additional meaning, ‘repetition of danger.’ Line 3: Forward and backward, abyss on abyss. In danger like this, pause at first and wait, otherwise you will fall into a pit in the abyss. Do not act in this way. Here every step, forward or backward, leads into danger. Escape is out of the question. Therefore we must not be misled into action, as a result of which we should only bog down deeper in the danger; disagreeable as it may be to remain in such a situation, we must wait until a way out shows itself. Line 6: Bound with cords and ropes, shut in between thorn-hedged prison walls: for three years one does not find the way. Misfortune. A man who in the extremity of danger has lost the right way and is irremediably entangled in his sins has no prospect of escape. He is like a criminal who sits shackled behind thorn-hedged prison walls. For minor offenses, where repentance was shown, pardon was granted after a year, for more serious ones after two years, and for very grave ones after three years, so that here it is a question of an extremely serious entanglement.”^[37]

In a nutshell, Dick underlined the major motifs and symbolisms of the Hexagram Abyss, including the repetition and extremity of dangers, imprisonment and entanglement, as well as the enclosure of the light principle of human heart within the body.

Regarding the sequence of the eight trigrams according to the “Sequence of Later Heaven, or Inner-World Arrangement,” the Trigram Abyss is in the north, while also signifying winter in the course of the year, or midnight in the course of the day, being the time of concentration, as Wilhelm remarked.^[38] In correspondence with his fellow American science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin (1929–2018), Dick went a step further to use the symbolic connotations of the Trigram Abyss to illustrate the landscape of “winter” to depict the darkness of human history over the past two millennia: “like Kan as the trigram in Taoism, its aspects are Slavery, pain, hopelessness, ignorance, limitation, etc., the true darkness by which we have come to sense our past two thousand years as heavy, a burden, a tribulation, a condition of sin and ignorance, of being cut off from God, etc.”^[39] The pejorative implications of the Trigram Abyss have been highlighted in the broader contexts of the manifold struggles and tribulations throughout the human history.

By absorbing the diverse symbolisms of the Hexagram Abyss, Dick has creatively transformed them into the narrative of the High Castle. Hexagram Abyss has vividly captured the political crises, military conflicts, personal distress, spiritual anxiety, and even the imminent threats of death, of the major characters, including Nobusuke Tagomi, Frank Frink, Juliana Frink, Robert Childan, and so forth.

5 Oppression: Connected Oracles of Hexagram Kun (䷮)

Regarding the Hexagram Kun (䷮ Oppression/Exhaustion) (hereafter Hexagram Oppression), the idea of oppression and exhaustion derives from the lower Trigram Abyss, as Wilhelm elaborated that “The lake is above, water below; the lake is empty, dried up [Literally, ‘exhausted.’]”^[101] and “a light line is hemmed in between two dark ones […] Thus everywhere superior men are oppressed and held in restraint by inferior men.”^[102] In this light, the Hexagram Oppression is closely related with the multiple connotations of the Hexagram Abyss, with a yang line locked within two yin lines, as discussed in the previous section.

The overarching theme of oppression is narrated through a pivotal oracle of Tagomi. In the wake of a phone conversation with Mr. Baynes, Tagomi feels guilty by offending Baynes with his foolish and reckless attitude. Hence, he proceeds to consult the oracle, “I should have consulted the oracle, discovered what Moment it is. I have drifted far from the Tao.”^[103] He inquires the I Ching, “Which of the sixty-four hexagrams […] am I labouring under?” The result of the divination turned out to be “The hexagram was Forty-Seven. Oppression—Exhaustion […] The Moment for us all. No moving lines. A static hexagram.”^[104] Apparently, Tagomi remains conscious of the fact that this kind of oppression is not confined to him alone, but a universal and synchronic experience for all humankind. In other words, everybody is shrouded by this cloud of oppression in such an age of anxiety.

Despite the fact that Tagomi has never encountered Frank Frink face to face in the novel, their fate and practice of divination seem to be intricately interconnected. After his own consultation of the oracle in the first chapter, Frink wonders “who else in the vast complicated city of San Franscico was at this same moment consulting the oracle. And were they all getting as gloomy advice as he? Was the tenor of the Moment as adverse for them as it was for him?”^[105] At this particular juncture, the narrative of the novel immediately turns to Tagomi: “Mr. Nobusuke Tagomi sat consulting the divine Fifth Book of Confucian wisdom, the Taoist oracle called for centuries the I Ching or Book of Changes.”^[106] In similar fashion, almost at the same moment when Tagomi obtains the Hexagram Oppression, Frink decides to consult the oracle while anxiously waiting for his former employer Wyndham-Matson’s decision on funding his fledgling jewelry business. Strikingly, Frink obtains the same result:

The hexagram was Forty-seven [Oppression – Exhaustion]. He obtained one moving line, Nine in the fifth place.

His nose and feet are cut off.

Oppression at the hands of the man with the purple knee bands.

Joy comes softly.

It furthers one to make offerings and libations.^[107]

Scrupulously Frink studies the implication of the line and concludes that the money would not be forthcoming. However, when the two-thousand-dollar cheque arrives from Wyndham-Matson, Frink realizes that the Hexagram Oppression—Exhaustion refers to some crisis of a deeper level with more far-reaching impacts on not only his own fate but also the geopolitical predicaments of the entire world. That has become the source of his profound anxiety: “I am looking ahead, Frink thought. He thought of the hexagram. What offerings and libations can I make? And—to whom?”^[108]

The third related episode of divination comes from Robert Childan who ponders about the appropriateness of his gift, the ornamented art object called scrimshaw, to the Japanese couple, Paul and Betty Kasoura. When they appear pleased with Childan’s offering, “[t]here was peace, then, for a moment, in his heart. This offering, this—as the I Ching put it—libation. It had done what needed to be done. Some of the anxiety and oppression which he had felt lately began to lift from him.”^[109] Without an actual operation of divination in the narrative, this could be considered, as Paul Mountfort argued, a “ghost” consultation by Childan obtaining the fifth line of the Hexagram Oppression.^[110]

As examined above, the very first line of the entire novel epitomizes the anxiety of Childan: “For a week Mr. R. Childan had been anxiously watching the mail,”^[111] while his “bitterness and anxiety almost overwhelmed him.”^[112] When Childan experiences the lifting and easing of some of his anxiety and oppression, this demonstrates the Hexagram Oppression could offer some ways of relieving the oppression. The key to that relief lies in “making offerings and libations” mentioned in the fifth line. As Wilhelm commented, “The line is hemmed in by dark lines,”^[113] while “[an] individual who has the good of mankind at heart is oppressed from above and below (this is the meaning of the cutting off of nose and feet) […] he should turn to God, firm in his inner composure, and pray and offer sacrifice for the general well-being.”^[114] In Childan’s case, he has been oppressed simultaneously from above (Tagomi) and below (Kasouras), while being deeply troubled and devastated by the astounding discovery of the forgery of the Colt .44 revolvers by Frink’s visit to his antique store. In the meantime, “making offerings and libations” emerges as the advice from the I Ching for relieving his oppression. Coupled with profound religious connotation, libation refers to an act of ritual pouring a liquid as an offering or sacrifice to a deity.^[115]

More specifically, Childan’s libation pertains to his offering to the Kasouras of the ornamented art object called scrimshaw which is a kind whalebone carving done a century ago by whalers from New England and “[n]o single thing could have summed up old U.S. culture more.”^[116] In other words, the presentation of this gift (which carries profound American history and culture) conveys some religious and ritualistic symbolism on the part of Childan, the offering and sacrifice of the “old U.S. culture” to the new generation of Japanese. The immediate consequence of his libation is auspicious: “There was peace, then, for a moment, in his heart.”^[117] With the sacrifice of the old, Childan has a glimpse of the new, the Tao: “The proportion. Balance. They are so close to the Tao, these two young Japanese. That is why I reacted to them before. I sensed the Tao through them.”^[118] In this light, the libation of this artistic object has the powerful symbolic significance of lifting people out of personal anxiety and collective oppression.

The oracle Hexagram Oppression has offered Frink a glimmer of hope in relieving his oppression. His business partner McCarthy admonishes him: “Don’t look back […] Look ahead. To the business.”^[119] Put in another way, Frink is advised not to dwell on his current anxiety and oppression, but to keep moving like water (flowing out of the oppression), anticipating the future prosperity of their jewelry business. At this juncture of divination, Frink obtains one moving line, nine in the fifth place, which results in a new hexagram, the 40th Hexagram Jie (䷧ Deliverance). Deliverance refers to a time in which tensions and complications begin to be eased and lifted. According to Wilhelm, “[j]ust as rain relieves atmospheric tension, making all the buds burst open, so a time of deliverance from burdensome pressure has a liberating and stimulating effect in life.”^[120] Simply put, Frink’s future deliverance is hidden in his current oppression and exhaustion.

The result of the divination by Tagomi, Frink and Childan exhibits not only their particular situation but also their interrelated destiny. The aforementioned three related oracles of the Hexagram Oppression may exemplify Carl Jung’s synchronicity theory, whereas “synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance.”^[121] In fact, Jung is directly mentioned in High Castle. Mr. Baynes has once remarked, “Perhaps they are driven by some desperate subconscious archetype. In the Jungian sense. Mr. Tagomi nodded. ‘I have read Jung. I understand.’”^[122] Additionally, Jung’s synchronicity theory is also alluded to explicitly in the novel: “[S]ynchronicity theory, every particle being connected with every other; you can’t fart without changing the balance in the universe.”^[123] Frink’s consultation of the I Ching oracle has also implied Jung’s synchronicity theory: “Random, and yet rooted in the moment in which he lived, in which his life was bound up with all other lives and particles in the universe. The necessary hexagram picturing in its pattern of broken and unbroken lines the situation.”^[124] As Paul Mountfort argued, “That Moment […] thus becomes a synchronistic one, with characters living apparently unconnected lives, but whose paths will, once again, fatefully cross, unified in the simultaneities of time and space via the same I Ching hexagram [Oppression].”^[125] Put it another way, oppression has become the universal and synchronistic plight of the characters in High Castle, or in Tagomi’s words, “The Moment for us all.”

6 Concluding Remarks

In the midst of all the dreadful bloodbath, gruesome murder, pressing political crises, and precarious military conflicts between Japan and different factions of Nazi Germany, fear and anxiety turn out to be a ubiquitous phenomenon in the High Castle, experienced by major and minor characters alike. The major source of anxiety comes from the fragility and uncertainty of life, and the existential threat to human beings, while religion could not provide the necessary help and redemption. Tagomi contemplates the finitude of the world, “The finite, finite world […] All our religion is wrong.”^[126] Similarly, Baynes ponders about the human’s futility and helplessness in the vast universe, “What they do not comprehend is man’s helplessness. I am weak, small, of no consequence to the universe.”^[127] Cinnadella gloomily describes the human nature along the lines of “[s]uspicion, fear, greed.”^[128]

While fear and anxiety are virtually experienced by almost every character in High Castle where individuals face existential crises of the external world, consulting the I Ching oracle becomes a favored way for many characters to tackle their own dangers and distress, offering them a glimmer of hope and return of light.^[129] The interconnectedness of seemingly unrelated people is vividly portrayed in several instances of consultation of the I Ching oracle in High Castle. The dramatically identical result of divination—oppression and exhaustion—by Tagomi, Frink and Childan symbolizes the shared destiny of humanity and Jung’s synchronicity where apparently unrelated events coincide meaningfully in space and time. All in all, these explicit and implicit references to the Hexagram Abyss, together with the related Hexagram Oppression, demonstrate that Dick was not only well-acquainted with but also took full advantage of the multifaceted dimensions of their symbolisms to develop characterisation and narrative in High Castle, particularly foregrounding the core themes of universal anxiety and oppression.

Personally, Dick experienced some intense sense of fear and anxiety, a vivid representation of the psychological dimension of the Hexagram Abyss, prior to and in the midst of writing the High Castle. Before the composition of High Castle, Dick admitted that “[his] sense of self-worth began to flag, so [he] hitched [himself] to the priest of our times, the psychologist-psychiatrist” who advised him to write a good book that he really believed in.^[130] The book turns out to be High Castle. Furthermore, Dick revealed in a 1962 letter his own psychological turmoil and abyss: “I recall my original warped view […] Fear. Anxiety on my part. My worldview was shaped by my own inner fears—and my repressed aggressions […] I saw that in me the fear (of other people) was based on a deep hostility in me.”^[131] Worse still, Dick even developed a phobia towards the cabin where he composed the High Castle, and towards his third wife Anne R. Dick (1927–2017), with whom Dick had some severe conflicts and fighting: “We owned a little cabin in Inverness where I had written MAN; I had a phobia against using the car to get there, and against the cabin itself. Finally, I had begun to develop a terrible fear of Anne.”^[132] Dick’s own psychological and spiritual experiences may offer some explanations and insights into why the Hexagrams Abyss and Oppression feature so prominently in the narrative of High Castle. The interconnectedness and synchronicity are not confined to the characters within the fictional world of High Castle, but also intertwined with its author, as Dick would earnestly proceed with his own consultation whenever those characters anxiously ask the I Ching a critical question.