This third volume of Researches on The Toltec I Ching is atavistic in that it reverts to the more primitive form of the original divinatory text, which consisted of mantic, or oracular, formulas with little or no commentary attached. In that vein, the oldest layers of the Book of Changes furthered the oral tradition, making use of mnemonic aphorisms whose poetic-symbolic nature invoked the Oracle’s message within the mind of the diviner. The title of this volume, The Forest of Fire Pearls Oracle, comes from the ancient Chinese name for the traditional coin oracle method of consulting the I Ching.

The present volume can be consulted as a standalone divinatory text. It is, however, designed to be used in conjunction with The Toltec I Ching. As an adjunct to the material in that book, the mantic formulas present here expand the range of interpretations open to the diviner. There are, beyond that, other features of this volume that recommend its study alongside The Toltec I Ching.

First, it places The Toltec I Ching hexagrams within the context of the older King Wen version. It does this by comparing both the individual hexagrams from each version and the overall sequence of hexagrams from each version.  Second, it provides mantic formulas for the unchanging lines in each hexagram.  This is especially useful in analyzing a divination closely, since it is seldom the case that all six lines change in a reading.

The Line Changes for a reading can, of course, be found in The Toltec I Ching hexagram texts, while the present volume provides a glimpse into the inertial, or unchanging, issues of the situation represented by the hexagram.

Volume I of this series is I Ching Mathematics: The Science of Change. Volume II is The Image and Number Treatise: The Oracle and the War on Fate.

William Douglas Horden is the author of more than a dozen books relating to divination and spirituality. He continues the tradition of passing along the teachings he received from an I Ching master and a Tarahumara shaman. The Toltec I Ching, co-authored by the muralist Martha Ramirez-Oropeza, combines the the two wisdom traditions of ancient China and pre-Columbian Mexico in an exciting new rendition of the Taoist oracle. A series of "Researches on the Toltec I Ching" flesh out its symbolic and philosophical system and include the breakthrough study of I Ching Mathematics. The author's spiritual biography, In the Oneness of Time: The Education of a Diviner, recounts the teachers and teachings that shaped his experience of the World Soul as the living intelligence informing and guiding all things from within. Its companion volume, Way of the Diviner, was released a year later, in the Fall of 2016. The Five Emanations and The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune are two small volumes that detail practices the author received from his experience with dying. Taken together, the two books offer a course in mental and soulic training as part of the path of sudden enlightenment.