Feng Shui

Feng shui is an ancient Chinese science of orientation premised on the belief that human habitation can be situated physically to take advantage of invisible currents of energy within the earth. This energy is called qi (ch'i), and is that ineffable force affected by the pierce of the acupuncture needle. The human anatomy is a microcosm of the Earth, and the blood veins of one correspond to "dragon veins" of the other. When the ground is broken and the well is dug for a new house, or when the excavation for a tomb is conducted, such action taps into these dragon veins just like an acupuncture needle. Two different procedures for locating this geophysical qi began to develop as early as the Han dynasty (206 b.c.e.–220 c.e.). The xingshi or form school is based on the idea that water collects and stores qi while wind captures and scatters it. Feng shui means "wind and water," which is merely shorthand for the principle of "hindering the wind and hoarding the waters." The liqi or compass school, on the other hand, is based on the theory of the five phases of qi. This correlative system analyzes qi as a force that alternates between the poles of yin and yang as it progresses through five elemental phases. In the yang or productive phase, earth harbors metal, metal condenses water, water nourishes wood, wood feeds fire, and fire burns to earth. In the yin or conquest phase, earth dams water, water quenches fire, fire melts metal, metal cuts wood, and wood taps earth. These phases are correlated with the eight directional trigrams of the Book of Changes, and a person's year of birth is thought to correspond to a particular trigram. It is thus possible to avoid destructive qi by orienting dwellings or arranging rooms in productive directions.

Feng shui became accessible to the English-speaking world only a hundred years ago when British missionary Ernest Eitel and Belgian missionary J. J. M. de Groot published their respective studies. But only in the past quarter century has the public at large discovered this ancient system. Chinese communities in the United States have always utilized their local feng shui masters, but owing perhaps to the popularity of Asian systems of thought in the era of New Age religion, every major city in America now has its own community of feng shui consultants. One of the earliest proponents in the United States was Thomas Yun Lin, who founded a temple for American Black Sect Tantric Buddhism in Berkeley, California, in 1986. His brand of feng shui dispensed with many of the traditional practices and relied instead on "intuition and mystical knowledge." The American Feng Shui Institute, founded by Master Larry Sang in Los Angeles in 1991, purports to transmit the scientific principles of feng shui without recourse to superstition. Two of its students, Elizabeth Moran and Val Biktashev, have recently collaborated, in consultation with Sang and Canadian master Joseph Yu, to write The Complete Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui (1999), the most comprehensive introduction to compass school feng shui currently available in English.

See alsoChinese-American Religions; I Ching; New Age Spirituality.

Bibliography

de Groot, J. J. M. The Religious System of China, vol. 3, ch. 12. 1892; repr. in Derek Walters, Chinese Geomancy. 1989.

Eitel, Ernest John. Feng-shui: or, The Rudiments of Natural Science in China. 1873.

Feuchtwang, Stephan D. R. An Anthropological Analysisof Chinese Geomancy. 1974.

Field, Stephen L. "The Numerology of Nine Star Fengshui." Journal of Chinese Religions (Fall 1999).

Moran, Elizabeth, and Val Biktashev. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui. 1999.

Walters, Derek. The Feng Shui Handbook. 1991.

Wong, Eva. Feng-shui. 1996.

Stephen L. Field