Between all this chaos, that the kabbalists caused by their attempts to create channels between the Sephiroth, it'much easier to handle the definitions of I-Ching.
The I-Ching has 3 Lines for the trigrams.
In Kabbala (later Kabbala, not the SY) these are expressed by the Sephiroth 1, 2 and 3.
The I-Ching has 6 Lines for the hexagrams.
In Kabbala (later Kabbala, not the SY) these are expressed by the Sephiroth 4-9.
The I-Ching has the idea of a total. This is the hexagram, the 10th element.
In Kabbala (later Kabbala, not the SY) these are expressed by the Sephira Malkuth.
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Kabbala used the Chaldean row of the planets.
The I-Ching didn't use the Chaldean row, but another dialectical scheme, which places the most important lines (Line 2 for the trigram, Lines 2 + 5 for the hexagram) in the middle position. The tree of Kabbala places the most important Sephiroth (1, 6 and 9 and also 10) also in the middle, but has a curious run of the numbers.
Getting a sort of translation between I-Ching and the Sephiroth system, one has to calculate this:
... one way to do it ...
... and another way.
In the I-Ching the hexagrams build relations to other hexagrams ... that's the common use as a divination tool. The trigrams build relations to other trigrams ... that's a common way (of interpretation), how the 64 hexagrams are formed. All relations are possible, so totally 8x8 = 64 hexagrams, agreeing with the condition, that each trigram meets each other twice and itself once.
The Kabbala tree and the distribution of channels between the sephiroth gives the idea, that these are the same relations as the above relations between the trigrams, but they're are not complete. In the usual manner they are reduced to 22 channels, but there are also other trees with other numbers, likely due to the condition, that there were many different opinions. If one would think about the 10 Sephiroth, one would get 45 possible connections between 10 numbers and following the Chinese way with two different positions and a relation to itself one would get 10x10 = 100.
In the Chinese situation there likely also was experimentation (and different opinion), but only few diverging opinions reached the Western market. I remember, that somewhere I've read of 2000 texts about the I-Ching in a collection in a Chinese library of 17th century. So we are in the trivial situation, that we don't know, what we don't know. There might have been also a lot of diverging discussions and ideas, comparable to the discussions in Kabbala or in the world of medieval astrology.
Dualism
Dualism (from the Latin word duo meaning "two")[1] denotes the state of two parts. The term 'dualism' was originally coined to denote co-eternal binary opposition, a meaning that is preserved in metaphysical and philosophical duality discourse but has been more generalized in other usages to indicate a system which contains two essential parts.
Moral dualism is the belief of the great complement or conflict between the benevolent and the malevolent. It simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be "moral" and independent of how these may be represented. The moral opposites might, for example, exist in a world view which has one god, more than one god, or none. By contrast, ditheism or bitheism implies (at least) two gods. Bitheism implies harmony, ditheism implies rivalry and opposition, such as between good and evil, or bright and dark, or summer and winter. For example, a ditheistic system would be one in which one god is creative, the other is destructive.
Alternatively, in ontological dualism, the world is divided into two overarching categories. The opposition and combination of the universe's two basic principles of yin and yang is a large part of Chinese philosophy, and is an important feature of Taoism, both as a philosophy and as a religion (it is also discussed in Confucianism).
Well, there are two interesting words, "Bitheism" and "Ditheism". Maybe one could call the I-Ching part of "Bitheism" and Zoroastrism more part of Ditheism with its fight between good and bad, and light and dark.
Zoroastrism was close enough to have influenced the genesis of the Sepher Yetzirah model.
Same source:
Zurvanism (Zurvanite Zoroastrianism), Manichaeism and Mandaeism, are representative of dualistic and monist philosophies since each has a supreme and transcendental First Principle from which the two equal-but-opposite entities then emanate. This is also true for the lesser-known Christian gnostic religions, such as Bogomils, Catharism, and so on. More complex forms of monist dualism also exist, for instance in Hermeticism, where Nous "thought" - that is described to have created man - brings forth both good and evil, dependent on interpretation, whether it receives prompting from the God or from the Demon.
Well, there were fights ...
The tolerance of dualism ranges widely among the different Christian traditions. As a monotheistic religion, the conflict between dualism and monism has existed in Christianity since its inception.[13] The 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia describes that, in the Catholic Church, "the dualistic hypothesis of an eternal world existing side by side with God was of course rejected" by the thirteenth century, but mind-body dualism was not.[14] The problem of evil is difficult to reconcile with absolute monism, and has prompted some Christian sects to veer towards dualism. Gnostic forms of Christianity were more dualistic, and some Gnostic traditions posited that the Devil was separate from God as an independent deity.[13] The Christian dualists of the Byzantine Empire, the Paulicians, were seen as Manichean heretics by Byzantine theologians. This tradition of Christian dualism, founded by Constantine-Silvanus, argued that the universe was created through evil and separate from a moral God.[15]
The Cathars, a Christian sect in southern France, believed that there was a dualism between two gods, one representing good and the other representing evil. The Roman Catholic Church denounced the Cathars as heretics, and sought to crush the movement in the 13th century. The Albigensian Crusade was initiated by Pope Innocent III in 1208 to remove the Cathars from Languedoc in France, where they were known as Albigesians. The Inquisition, which began in 1233 under Pope Gregory IX, also targeted the Cathars.
The time of the early Kabbalists (1170) and the Cathars runs parallel at the same locations, Southern France.
We observed, that the math of I-Ching and of SY is close to each other.
The suspected place, where and when the Sepher Yetzirah was written, was likely close to far spread tendencies of dualism.
The place, where modern Kabbala arrived, in second half of 12th century, wasn't far from the Cathars.
Narbonne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narbonne
In the 11th and 12th centuries, Narbonne was home to an important Jewish exegetical school, which played a pivotal role in the growth and development of the Zarphatic (Judæo-French) and Shuadit (Judæo-Provençal) languages. Jews had settled in Narbonne from about the 5th century, with a community that had risen to approximately 2000 in the 12th century. At this time, Narbonne was frequently mentioned in Talmudic works in connection with its scholars. One source, Abraham ibn Daud of Toledo, gives them an importance similar to the exilarchs of Babylon.[4] In the 12th and 13th centuries, the community went through a series of ups and downs before settling into extended decline.
Posquieres (modern name Vauvert)
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/artic ... posquieres
Town in the department of the Gard, France, where Jews are known to have lived since the twelfth century. When Benjamin of Tudela visited the city, about 1165, the community was composed of forty members, among whom he mentions Joseph ben Menahem, Benveniste, Benjamin, and Abraham and Isaac ben Moses ("Itinerary," i. 5). At its head was Abraham ben David (RABDaD III.); his school was attended by many students from distant countries, whom he welcomed with much hospitality. In 1172 Abraham suffered a short imprisonment, at the close of which his persecutor, Elzéar, the seignior of Posquières, was summoned to Carcassonné by his suzerain, Count Roger II., to explain his conduct toward the famous opponent of Maimonides. It was doubtless after this event that Abraham quit Posquières, to reside sometimes at Lunel and sometimes at Montpellier, but chiefly at Nimes, where he lived for many years, thus gaining the surname of "Nemsi" (scholar of Nimes), or "Master of the City of the Woods" ("Rabbi mi-Ḳiryat Ye'arim"). Some Jewish natives of Posquières are mentioned as living at Carpentras in 1400 and at Perpignan in 1413 and 1414. Among the scholars of the city were: Isaac the Blind or Isaac of Posquières, "Father of the Cabala"; his nephew Asher ben David ben Abraham ben David; and the Biblical commentator Menahem ben Simeon.
https://books.google.de/books?id=P5CdAw ... ir&f=false
Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_be ... f_Narbonne
Abraham ben David of Posquières (son-in-law of Abraham ben Isaac, father of Isaac the Blind)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_ben_David
Jacob ha-Nazir (colleague of Abraham ben David)
http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2 ... nazir.html
Isaak the Blind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_the_Blind
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This were at the beginning just one family and possibly some friends and close pupils.
Early Kabbalists feared the orthodox interpretations, so kept some silence about their ideas. Perhaps things, which looked too much like dualism, were (possibly) sorted to the background ... and possibly finally forgotten.