Well... I guess its good time to speculate then, also to give some more depth to Shen神 as we do use it all the time,lately.
Good time for looking at the characters...
神Shen is one of the 5 spirits(Shen, Hun, Po, Yi and Zhi) connected to the Heart with the idea of expansion coming from the phonetic part of Shen(the branch).
Suggest expanding and connecting to the environment around us. The radical suggest something connected to the divine(altars etc.) in this sense its expanding part of us that has a divine connotations.
Is the phonetic part actually part of the meaning - I agree with TCM practitioners that view it as such, as in here its very supported by decades of real life cases of many practitioners out there. Not to mention its really easy to see in the world around us if we get what Shen actually represents.
In its essence I agree with the view that it is connected to the understanding of ourselves(when we say I - Shen of the Heart resonates), in that sense it rules over the other 4 as each of them can be viewed as something relating to us and affecting the Shen(I). That is also very important part of the Nei Jing of course, one of the fundamental classic for Traditional Chinese Medicine. And in practice all 5 are presenting the elements and our organs, basically making vital connection from the elements to the way we view the mind/spirit in the west, also connecting that to the lines and the events that unfold around us all.
In short - the I and how we relate to it will create the relation of the lines. We change how we relate and the lines will change.
In that sense we can say that all of this are conditions of us, Useful God(Yong Shen), for example would be 用神, so something that is useful relating to the divine part of us creating the Hexagrams we live through.
Of course, in Inner Alchemy its part of the 3 treasures, where we transform the Jing to Qi and then to Shen, where it gets a lot more spiritual connotations, but its again revitalizing expanding and connecting of our Qi. So its the same Shen, in the higher form of Inner Alchemy the essence of Jing is converted to that same divine part of us that is connected to the I and that is a way to view all the lines.
All of the spiris that we looked at in the other topics always have Shen character, so they fit into that part of us.
Now, we are wondering about this 2, so without any other knowledge to understand what the other 2 are we again can look at their characters.
Both are Shen, meaning they fit into that idea of sense of self suggesting our view to the events suggests what the lines shows(something very clear in the Neijing as well), and it also very well fits into what we talked previously about the Vulnarable, the Hostile God etc. that suggests its likely a line in the reading.
We have xiong凶. around the text that comes with the lines that is often translated as inauspicious.
So what line of the reading would be Inauspicious part of us?
I would guess its either the "hostile" or the "unfriendly". So the line that attacks the Useful God(Yong Shen), or the line that supports it. Probably the first.
It may be another view to the Officer, as that is attacking the Palace of the Hexagram, however in many questions that would be very beneficial, so I would say one of the other 2.
Is it the hostile or the unfriendly then?
Should be visible from the context it is used in real example. If it attacks the Yong Shen then its the hostile. Since in this context it seems both of them come together and the other one could be the unfriendly, I would guess this is the Hostile.
So what is 忌神 or Ji Shen.
Again we have Shen, so again we can address it to a line in the Hexagram and to extending of the I.
忌 seems to be mentioned only once in the zhouyi and has the meaning of avoid/abstain.
So line that is connected to avoidance.
I would guess either its the "Unfriendly"(more info in the other topic) or its one of the lines in Void/Empty state.
However, in the zhouyi there is the idea in the line it is used that its something "the superior man would not do" and of course that doesn't seem related to void in any way, as void is just there, no matter what we do. Suggesting again that its probably the unfriendly, meaning "don't produce whatever is attacking the useful god".
As the 2 come together its probably "the hostile" and "the unfriendly".
All this is just a guess. In practice I'm more interested in how it works in real life examples then the meaning of the terminology, but of course, sometimes it can be helpful.
Topic: 吉神 and 凶神 (Read 4925 times)