1. Shake three coins in your closed hands and drop them.

2. Count heads as three and tails as two, and add the value of all three coins. Three heads equals nine, two heads and one tail equals eight, and so on.

3. If the number is odd, draw an unbroken line. If it is even, draw a line that is broken in the center. Write the numerical value of the line next to it.

4. Throw the coins again to get the second line of your hexagram. Draw the line above, not below, the first line.

5. Repeat this procedure until you have six stacked lines. Remember to proceed upward from the first line, not downward. Your hexagram might look like this:

6. To find out which hexagram this is, consult the chart below for reference. The bottom three lines are the lower trigram, and the top three lines are the upper trigram. The number on the chart that lies at their intersection indicates which hexagram you have thrown. The example above is number 50.
 
7. Read the text for that hexagram (from The I Ching, the Book of Changes) up to the section that says “First line”. Beyond that, read only the sections for those lines which “changed” in your hexagram. Changing lines are those with a value of 6 or 9. In the example lines 1, 3, and 6 are all changing lines.

8. Having read the hexagram’s text and that for any changing lines, now convert the changing lines to their opposites. In the example above, the first line now becomes unbroken and the third and sixth lines become broken. Look up the new hexagram. In this example, it is number 54.

9. The text of the second hexagram is read to further illuminate the instruction of the first. Do not read the text for any lines, just read the opening paragraphs.

by Bryan Browne Walker