Questions, answered.
The Metaphysics Agency builds instruments for inner life. Start with the common questions, then read on for the thinking behind the practice.
FAQ
01What is The Metaphysics Agency?
A spiritual technology practice devoted to better manage and express our inner worlds. Essentially the agency wishes to protect our sense of inner truth, encourage agency and provide structural support for self-reflection so that our dreams don’t get lost inside our mind. You can read more about it in the essays.
02Do I have to believe in divination, metaphysics, god or magic?
No. But believing in something bigger than yourself tends to work wonders.
03Where does my data go?
We do not collect your data. Inner world technology is private, local and intimate, not extractive.
04How do readings and sessions work?
For I Ching, readings are cast by hand. No exceptions. After having tested over 13,000 by hand and comparing them to computer-generated casts, hand casts are somehow more accurate. Hand-cast readings are opening soon; subscribe on Substack to hear first.
05Is this therapy?
No. Readings and sessions are reflective practices and do not replace therapy, coaching, medical or psychiatric care. If you are in danger or thinking of harming yourself, please contact your local emergency number or a crisis line.
06Can I use the instruments for free?
Yes. The hexagram lookup and the I Ching course are free to use. New instruments and projects are shared on Substack.
07How do I get in touch?
Write to hello@metaphysics.agency. For speaking engagements, email xli@metaphysics.agency.
The practice
Welcome. This is a practice for building identities, interfaces and instruments made for inner life.
Metaphysics is the study of the hidden layers of reality: existence, identity, time and causation. Those hidden layers aren’t only cosmic, they’re personal. Your identity, your patterns of thought, your relationship to time and cause: that’s where metaphysics actually lives. Spirituality, philosophy and psychology all approach this territory, each from their own angle. The practice works across all three, using systems theory as the connective tissue.
Its focus is entangled symbolic systems: what happens when you’re trapped in information recursion, that persistent loop of thought most people call rumination, and how divination artifacts can help bridge the gap between your inner truth and external reality. It connects the ancient, like the I Ching and cosmograms, with the emergent, including AGI, by treating them as the same kind of problem: how do you make sense of a system you’re inside of?
Systems, self and spirit are one.
Why a design principle?
In cybernetics, a system becomes operational when it can do three things: receive input, process it, and feed output back into itself. Two produces a reaction. Three produces a loop, and a loop is what makes something run rather than just respond.
This is the basis of Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model and Heinz von Foerster’s second-order cybernetics: operational viability requires recursive self-reference, which needs at least three levels to close. Recursive closure is hard for humans.
The mission of this agency is to make these invisible identity architecturesKM operable, using the principle of Recursive Closure between Systems, Self and Spirit (SSS)KM. The work began from decades of personal practice. Metaphysics is treated as an art first, then offered as a practice, with field notes reported along the way.
Metaphysics, two ways
In academia
- The formal study of existence and the structures underlying reality
- The analysis of identity, causation, time and possibility through logic and language
- A discipline focused on precision and internal consistency
- Largely abstracted from lived experience
A controlled environment for thinking about reality, rigorous and intentionally removed from direct use.
Across civilisations
Metaphysics appears across all human cultures as systems for interpreting reality, through myth, religion, symbolic logic or proto-scientific models. Indian and Chinese traditions are among the most continuous and systematised, alongside Greek philosophy, Abrahamic theology, African cosmologies and indigenous knowledge systems.
An unavoidable activity of consciousness: building symbolic systems to navigate reality under uncertainty.
Who made this
I’m X.Li, creator of everything you see here at The Metaphysics Agency.
I’m a Beijing-born South African travelling wizard, currently on a mission to reimagine how we can connect systems, self and spirit. You can read my founding story. For speaking engagements, please email me at xli@metaphysics.agency.
The Keeper’s Mark (KM) is not a trademark. It exists to keep the original authorship visible, a sign of stewardship rather than ownership.