17 Following - The I Ching
Chris Gabriel February 28, 2026
Judgement
Following is the origin of pure bountiful harvests.
Lines
1
A changing of the guard. Going through the door and making a deal.
2
Cling to the little boy, lose the old man.
3
Cling to the old man, lose the little boy. Followers find what they seek.
4
A growing following. With faith in the Way that’s bright, what could go wrong?
5
Faith in the Great.
6
Grasp it, hold on to it. The King makes sacrifices at the Western Mountain.
Qabalah
Chesed to Gevurah: The Path of Teth. Lust or Strength. The Path between Mercy and Severity.
This hexagram shows the happiness found in submitting to strength, thunder moving the lake. The ideogram contains a flag, walking, and a soldier: an image of following. While the picture of thunder in a lake is difficult to conjure, you may know it by another name, Will o’ the Wisp - a strange moving light seen near swamps and bodies of water. Naturally, people follow them. What they are led to is a matter of debate, are they drawn to buried treasures, to baptism, or to their doom?
1 When powers change, one must discern where to go next and align oneself accordingly. Where is power moving, and how can one follow it?
2 When something new comes into power, it will destroy the old. This is the revolutionary destruction of the Ancien régime and Italian Futurism’s desire to destroy history.
3 When something old returns to power, the new is destroyed. This is the Reactionary restoration of Monarchies and the Fascist desire to return to a Golden Age. As for the followers finding what they seek, we can take this quite directly, Lacan says it best: You are hysterics who demand a new master. You will get one!
4 Whichever flavor power takes, it will amass a following. So long as followers have faith in it, it continues to grow.
5 Following is submitting, it is putting one’s faith in a human leader who represents a great ideal, and accordingly appears great themselves.
6 When the leader and their followers achieve their aim, they take hold of power and do not let go. They establish new rituals and all follow.
The key element to consider in this dynamic is that of pleasure and joy, the Lake in the hexagram. It’s easy to see the strength and power of Thunder and make it the primary image but the reality is that submission and obedience are pleasurable, especially in mass. This is the great insight of Wilhelm Reich, who recognized that frustrated, impotent individuals find libidinal release through mass movements. By joining a collective movement, one’s own inadequacies and problems are lost.
A good way to consider the Will o’ the Wisp is in relation to the word “Fascination”, which shares a root with Fascism: Fascinus, the magical phallus god of the Romans. His beautiful phallus would enchant and bewitch those who saw it, and would dispel the envious evil eye. In many ways, political movements come down to exactly this, the masses enchanted by a fascinating charismatic leader. They follow their fascination wherever it will move them. As Peggy March sang: I love him, and where he goes I’ll follow.
Following is not necessarily political: Mohammed, Christ, and Buddha did not isolate themselves, they went about amassing a following. The great victory they offered their followers, however, was in the next life, not in this one.
Let us then be careful of who we follow, and the followings we ourselves may attract.
