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JULIAN PAS
vidualized advice, or to supplement the temple oracle with information gained through other divinatory practices, such as face and hand reading, or the casting of horoscopes. The Wong Tai Sin temple in Hong Kong is a famous shrine where everyday crowds of people go to consult the oracles. In the temple neighbourhood dozens of diviners have their small stalls, where they often receive visitors after they have consulted the temple deity.
Although the temple oracles do have a “life” of their own, i.e. are strictly speaking independent from any other practice, still they must be seen and interpreted within the wider context of overall religious beliefs and practices of the Chinese people. One example has already been given: the results of the oracles can be checked and compared with information from other sources. I also found from different types of field work experience, that many believers consult the temple oracles as a matter of routine, even in matters of no great urgency, or even, and especially in the case of young people, with a strong dose of scepticism. In situations that border on urgency or desperation, the believer would forego the temple oracle, but ask for more immediate or direct advice from gods or goddesses through consultation of a medium. In that case, the advice is also more personal, as opposed to the stereotyped answers received in the temple.
The issue of stereotyping human problem situations, however, cannot be easily dismissed as being meaningless or irrelevant. Many types of divination if not all — imply the belief in set patterns of answers for similar or identical situations. The I Ching is not an exception: it provides a map for human action, based on 64 variations of vital concerns in life. These 64 hexagrams somehow summarize all possible situations of doubt, anxiety, even perplexity. In a more popular way, the temple oracles have done the same thing in different ways: they have changed the number of situations and answers, but the exact number is not too relevant. What underlies any particular number of oracles, is the common presumption that human reactions to problem situations follow certain patterns, because in general, human lives follow the same processes of development. The creators or innovators of the temple oracles have sensed this phenomenon and have incorporated it in their oracles.