易經和塔羅有什麼不同？初學該選哪一個

What is the difference between the I Ching and tarot?

作者：Wei Chun Chuang・2026-10-24

The I Ching and tarot often get discussed together, because both use some random procedure to produce a result that a person then interprets. But where they come from, what you physically handle, and how meaning is arrived at differ a great deal. This article compares them; it does not decide for you which one works.

Where does each come from?

The I Ching (Yijing, or Zhou Yi) is an ancient Chinese text. The core hexagram figures and line texts are generally dated to the early Zhou period, and for more than two thousand years afterwards writers added commentaries and appended treatises, producing a layered body of material. What people read today as "the I Ching" is a classic text plus a long tradition of interpretation around it.

Tarot's origins are quite different. Tarot decks began as fifteenth-century European playing cards, used for card games. Only from the late eighteenth and the nineteenth century were the cards given symbolic readings and used for divination, and the deck designs that most influenced later practice appeared in the early twentieth century. As a divinatory system, tarot has a much shorter history.

What do you actually handle?

• 易經: traditionally yarrow stalks, nowadays usually three coins. You repeat the procedure six times, each producing one line, and stack the six lines from the bottom up into a hexagram. There are sixty-four possible hexagrams.
• 塔羅: a full deck is normally seventy-eight cards, twenty-two majors and fifty-six minors. After shuffling you lay cards out in a spread, where each position has a fixed theme.

Both involve a random step, but the output differs: the I Ching gives you one numbered hexagram, while tarot gives you several images together with the positions they landed in.

How is meaning derived?

This is the most substantive difference. I Ching meaning comes from a fixed canonical text: once you have a hexagram, you read that hexagram's statement, its six line texts, and whichever commentary edition you use. The words are settled; what varies is how you understand them.

塔羅的意義來自 images plus position: each card carries a set of commonly used associations, but there is no agreed canonical text, and different decks and authors can differ widely. The same card is also read differently in a "past" position than in an "obstacle" position.

Which involves more reading?

The I Ching's entry cost is mostly reading. The line texts are in classical Chinese, so most beginners work through a modern translation with notes, and sixty-four hexagrams each with a statement and six lines is a lot of text. Tarot's entry cost is mostly familiarity: you gradually get to know the usual associations of seventy-eight cards, while spread rules are easy to learn and the images are more immediate than classical prose.

The I Ching is also read without divination

One point deserves its own section: in the Chinese tradition the I Ching is one of the classics, studied as philosophy and literature, and it shaped later thought, prose and vocabulary. Ideas such as a situation reversing once it reaches its extreme come from this system. Many people read the I Ching without ever casting a hexagram. Tarot too has serious students of its art history and symbolism, but it has no corresponding canonical text to read.

How might a complete beginner choose?

1. If you like reading texts, do not mind classical language, and want to touch Chinese intellectual tradition along the way, start with the I Ching.
2. If you prefer images, like concrete pictures, and want a structure you can lay out quickly to think with, start with tarot.
3. If you are curious about both, read an introduction to each and pick the one you still want to keep reading afterwards.

Whichever you pick, the practical view is to treat it as a framework for organising your own thinking: it hands you a fixed set of prompts and angles that force you to state things clearly. Do not expect it to tell you what will happen, and for medical, legal or financial decisions consult a qualified professional.

常見問題

易經和塔羅哪一個比較準？

This article cannot answer that, and neither system has been shown to predict outcomes. The more practical question is which body of material you will actually read and which way of thinking is useful to you.

Do you have to practise divination to study the I Ching?

No. The I Ching is an ancient text that has long been read as philosophy and literature. Many readers work through the line texts and historical commentaries without ever casting a hexagram.

Can you learn both at the same time?

You can, but two sets of vocabulary at once are easy to confuse. A common approach is to get comfortable with the basic structure of one before looking at the other.

Practise with an app

If you want to start on the I Ching side, YiJian is an iPhone course app that teaches you to read it, lesson by lesson: where the six lines come from, how to look at the sixty-four hexagrams, and how to read the line texts. It is currently in App Store review and not yet released. To try it first, there is a free web version with no login.

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