The I Ching Insight - The news the universe wants you to see.
June 22, 2026 · Rich Costello

When I was living in the Providence, RI area during the late '80s/early '90s, I used to listen to WBRU, an alternative rock station out of Brown University. Their lunchtime news segment was called the Rex Report, with an animated DJ delivering the headlines. At the end of his segment, Rex would say, "If you don't like the news then go out and make your own." I'm sure the phrase didn't originate there, but it did resonate in my young mind back then and it still does today. I've been a news junkie from early on. I think I got it from my father. This was back in the 3-network news days of the '70s. Being in RI, we would get Providence and Boston TV stations. So every night Dad would watch ABC World News at 6:30 from the Providence affiliate and then switch to NBC Nightly News, which came on in Boston at 7pm. Even as a little kid watching both broadcasts, I could start to see a subtle bias in the reporting and the difference in tone, which was the catalyst of my distrust of all things mainstream media.
Fast forward to the media landscape of today, where web-based media rules the day. The demographics have become so bifurcated that it's easier to become siloed in your news and info bubble rather than venturing out in the wild to find the truth. We as a society have become inundated with so much information that the big picture has become lost in the haze. This is what gave me the inspiration to start the I Ching Insight, a nonstop 24/7 news aggregator powered by the ancient wisdom and truth of the I Ching. Instead of having your information served up via a left/right bias, elitist voices, dumbed-down rhetoric, idiot groupthink, or as of late AI slop, I decided to create a method for the individual to turn the tables and view the MSM through a different filter, from a detached viewpoint. A viewpoint where the individual can read between the lines and see both the subtleties and the big picture.
The I Ching Insight is a news aggregator that uses keyword search technology from the IchingPortal, querying the subtle meanings of each hexagram against real-time news and information. It's similar to the Drudge Report, but instead of a person or AI agent setting the tone, it's the 64 hexagrams of the oracle. The I Ching shapes the agenda and the aggregator populates the feeds along those lines. By matching keywords and phrases with the headlines and taglines from various news sources, articles are grouped based on the individual hexagram and its lines. It's this random sorting of information based on ancient wisdom that shapes a new perspective on real-time news and information. It's a daily overview on the collective conscious/unconscious using the wisdom of a 3,000-year-old divination tool.
Just like other news sources, I've set up the I Ching Insight with specific sections. There is the Headline News, Commentary and Opinion section, which brings in the top headlines from around the globe. There's a politics section, a business section, a sports section, and of course a Pop Culture and Entertainment section. There is also a Culture section tracking the arts, music, and theatre, and a Lifestyle section for food, wellness, spirituality, and travel. I've also created a custom section called the Substack 500, which scans that emerging media platform. Other sections are in the works, so keep an eye out for them in the coming months.
The I Ching Insight monitors thousands of news feeds 24/7 and shapes its storyline with the rhythms and flows of the mainstream media landscape. Personally, I like how it breaks me out of my predictable and siloed media diet. The randomness combined with the ancient wisdom serves up a unique array of articles and publications that I normally wouldn't seek out and gives me a better insight into the world. The I Ching Insight is unique in the fact that it presents not from a left/right bias but from the perspective of the 64 hexagrams. It's even more interesting if you view it from the random result of a coin toss based on the question you present to the oracle. So give it a try and let the I Ching offer you a new perspective on current events. It's your opinion and take on the news that counts, and I'm just offering up a method for you to shape your own viewpoint, not influence it.

