The symbols used in the I Ching or Yi Jing as it's pronounced in Mandarin have been found engraved in tortoise shells that were carbon dated as being around five thousand years old. It has been successfully used for advise on military affairs and even medical situations. You could skip to the section on getting a question answered if you're in a hurry, or you could take the time to study in detail all the intricate associations so you can better understand the answer you get from what has been called the most accurate oracle system in the world. The original method for consulting the I-Ching was to put turtle or tortoise shells into a bonfire and roast them until they cracked and interpret the cracks. When the turtle and tortoise populations started dwindling other methods were adopted. Some people memorize the associations of the trigrams to interpret the symbols perceived in their environment and predict their immediate future, but most people ask a question and using a stick sorting or coin flipping method build a hexagram representing their answer from the bottom up. There's even a card drawing method, though that's considered less accurate, and a compass needle dowsing method that have been used. Here we'll discuss the stick sorting and coin flipping methods.