18 Sin (Decaying) - The I Ching
Chris Gabriel March 7, 2026
Judgement
Decaying is the origin of prosperity. Before the first three days and after the first three days.
Lines
1
Atone for the sins of the father. This is the son's task.
2
Atone for the sins of the mother. They can’t be purified.
3
Atone for the sins of the father, some regret, but not too much.
4
The father’s many sins bring shame.
5
Atone for the sins of the father and be praised.
6
Though he doesn’t work for the King, he is noble.
Qabalah
Netzach to Hod: The Path of Pe. The Tower.
Netzach spoils the thoughts of Hod
Here we see natural growth rotting under a heavy weight. The ideogram shows us three insects in a bowl, this is the name of a magical poison, Gu. It was prepared by putting snakes, scorpions and centipedes together in a container and letting them fightPoisons mixwith poisons, the “winner” would then be consumed by worms, who would contain the perfected poison. This would then be used in black magic.
In this strange ritual we see the nature of the generational sin depicted in the hexagram, poison progressing in danger from creature to creature.
Judgment: Exodus 20:5 clarifies this perfectly
“I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”
Sin is not localized, it spreads through the generations.
1 Here we see Christ, the Son, who being a man atones for the sins of all men. As Christianity would have all men be Christ-like, the task of any Christian is to atone for their inherited sin. We need not look at it through the lens of religion, Sin in this case is something like “generational trauma” or a family curse. The troubles of past generations are inherited by new ones, and they must be rooted out.
2 The Sins of the Mother are of a different nature, they are closer to nature itself. The sinful, devouring father is a near universally accepted archetype. We are all as familiar with Saturn eating his children, as with Darth Vader. The devouring mother is an altogether ignored archetype, projected onto “wicked step-mothers”. This contributes further to the severity of the mother’s sins, and the profound difficulty of dealing with them.
3 Atoning for sins can bring shame and regret. When undergoing psychoanalysis, one may have a temporary period in which uncovered traumas become acutely activated, but this will pass.
4 Sometimes, the sins of the father are too great to repress and they follow the children everywhere. Consider the children of infamous killers and criminals who may have to change their name to relieve themselves of inherited shame.
5 On the other hand, a terrible parent can produce a brilliant child who restores the pride of a family.
6 Atoning for sins, dealing with traumas, making good. These are profoundly noble pursuits which most are too frightened and weak to accomplish. Doing this elevates one, spiritually and materially.
When we consider the nature of Sin, the hexagram and ideogram give excellent context: the image of decaying, something held down by a heavy weight, under which it rots. Liber AL affirms this in chapter I:41 “The word of Sin is Restriction.” This is not the concept of Sin as a restriction, but rather restriction as the nature of Sin. William Blake expresses this intensely: “Sooner murder and infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.”
It is when we repress and restrict natural energies that Sin occurs. Wilhelm Reich spent his career describing this; repressed desires and complexes which form not only psychological diseases, but manifest physically as muscular rigidity and disease.
St. John Chrysostom described a similar understanding to the hexagram, the diseased and decaying character of Sin:
“This man is a slave to sin. For tell me not of this, that he is not eaten of worms, nor lies in a coffin, nor has closed his eyes, nor is bound in graveclothes. Nay, for these things he undergoes more grievously than the dead, no worms devouring him, but the passions of his soul tearing him to pieces more fiercely than wild beasts… this man is gathering unto himself diseases without number, while his eyes are open… before his body, his soul is corrupted and destroyed, and undergoes greater rottenness.”
We must cleanse our souls of Sin, whether the restriction of the mind and body through repression, or the restriction of the Soul through evil. When we cleanse ourselves of these, we do good to our fathers,m and even greater for our children, who can be born without needing to bear the shame we ourselves may have been born into.
