by Warwick Poon

Feng Shui like all of the Traditional Chinese sciences is based on an understanding of how Qi moves, flows and changes. Some people can see Qi, and can see its nature and how it effects nature. Most people cannot. The ancients have handed down to us a system that gives us a good starting point for the study of Qi.  Therefore, by collecting and analysing the symptoms of stagnation, deficiency and excess of Qi, we will be able to guess at how the Qi is flowing, without actually seeing it. This is a lot like the wind, which cannot be seen, unless it carries dust with it. You can only see the results of the wind as it acts on the environment.

Because most of us cannot see Qi, we use artificial constructs to assist us to guess at what the Qi is doing. You can call these "schools' of Feng Shui. Each school tries to represent the way in which Qi ebbs and flows around the world, or around buildings, inside buildings, or even through time. In all cases they have to be checked against reality, as they are only theoretical models, used to give an indication of reality. To say it another way, Qi is real, and it has manifestations, but Feng Shui is not real, it is a group of suggestions as to how to understand Qi.

Personally, I find the Traditional Chinese Sciences far more scientific than some of the modem Western rubbish, which is passed off as science. Note, Western Medicine, Archaeology, Sociology, Anthropology etc.  The scientific method is to form an hypothesis and to try to disprove it, as dispassionately as possible.  If the hypothesis can be disproved easily, it may not hold water. if it can't be disproved readily it may be valid. It will usually remain valid until someone disproves it. Then it becomes less valid. Nothing is ever proved.

The different schools of Feng Shui are simply hypotheses or hypothetical theories that try to assist in tracking or altering the Qi flow. Some are better than others. Let's take a practical example. In form school, two walls meet, at 90 degrees, and the Qi that flows along the walls meets and forms a sha arrow. This arrow shoots out at 135 degrees from both walls. This arrow is also harmful and dangerous. As a good little form school expert, we will attend the customer's bedroom and note that their bed is directly in line with this sha arrow. You will advise the customer that as the arrow, coming at 135 degrees from the walls hits the middle of the bed, that one or both of the occupants will suffer stomach trouble. Rather than telling them to place a cure or move the bed, you have to ask the question, "are either of you suffering any stomach trouble?" Often you find that they do. There are times though when they suffer headaches or bad feet instead. This means that the sha arrow is probably coming off the corner at a different angle. Perhaps it is not there at all. Does this mean that the form school is wrong? Certainly not, it simply illustrates that Qi cannot be predicted accurately all of the time. If you are one of the lucky ones who can see the Qi flow, you may see that a pot plant some 5 feet away is setting up a wave action along the wall, and causing the sha arrow to be forced to one side. Or you my see the electrical wire behind the wall is setting up resonance in the Qi flow, that minimises or stops the sha arrow at the source. This doesn't mean that you have made an error in your calculations, or that form school is wrong. It means that in this case, it does not plot reality as well as usual.

In discussing the North and South hemispheres, the arguments seem to me to be grossly unscientific, and even border on the ridiculous. As far as I can see, the Western mind cannot encompass the Traditional Chinese concept that two or more opposing views can be true at the same time. If the direction North marks cold and bad luck in the Northern Hemisphere, and the trigrams correspond to cold and dark, then in the Southern Hemisphere where the direction north marks hotter temperatures, the trigrams don't reflect reality. In our western minds, we therefore use false logic to conclude that either the whole thing is wrong, or the whole thing should be turned upside down. The concept of logic is to take axiom A and put it together with fact B, and logically deduce fact C, which can not be shown practically. Try this for instance.

Axiom 1 Five element theory states that wood, East or Spring is the first element. Axiom 2 In the Northern Hemisphere the year begins in Winter Fact   In the Southern Hemisphere the Chinese year begins in summer.

Logical deduction. In the Southern Hemisphere, we have to move the New Year six months so that it begins in winter too.

Now if that's logic I'll go Hee.

On the other hand, the same warped logic can be used for the argument for maintaining the Northern Hemisphere calculations.

Axiom  Northern calculations have been shown to be correct more often than not for generations.

Fact  Many Feng Shui consultations work, if you apply the Northern calculations in the Southern Hemisphere. Logical deduction.  Nothing should change at all when working in the Southern Hemisphere. This is equally absurd.

Have you ever lived in a South facing house in Melbourne? You do not have to study Feng Shui to know that you are best advised to face the house towards the rear (north facing) garden.  Every thinker from Jesus to Buddha to the current Dalai Lama has pleaded with people to take the "middle way".  Somewhere between the above two absurdities is a system that can accurately predict reality for the Southern Hemisphere, most of the time. Why can't we realise that two, three or more, sometimes opposing theories can all be correct at the same time. Perhaps it is our drive for specialisation.

In the West, and even in modern China, a Feng Shui expert will spend years studying and practicing only one school. Say for instance the Flying Star. They will find that this will work for them (and more importantly for their clients) most of the time. The more they go into it and the more they learn the better will be their results. Nevertheless, there will be times, when it won't reflect the actual Qi flow. When this happens the expert will need to fall back on another school of thought, and knowing only one school will be at a decided disadvantage, to them and their client.

I heard that Question. “How”, you ask, “can a person tell if their calculations are representing reality”?  Most Feng Shui consultants will of course find this question silly, but for those who don't know, it's a reasonable question.  How can you tell? Ask.

For instance.  If the Flying Star calculations say that the North East corner of the building has been bad luck in May and October last year, ask if it was.  If finance was good last January, ask if it was.  If the answer is yes, or maybe then keep going.  If the answer is definitely not, then check your calculations.  If they are right, then your calculations have not represented the past correctly, and they are unlikely to represent the future very well either. All the foot stamping and swearing in the world won't make it right. Reality will not correspond to your calculations just because you say it should.  If your theory is not accurate in this case, it is not for reality to change just to fit into your theory.  In conclusion, it seems that your original proposition is correct.  More information and more testing needs to be done to determine how much the original Feng Shui calculations need to be modified, in order for them to better relate to the Southern Hemisphere.

What I have a problem with, is the common assumption Westerners have that they can know something by studying it, and then in their wisdom, throw out “the baby with the bath water”. I have seen it done in martial arts, Chinese medicine, and it is beginning with Feng Shui. In Asian philosophy, about ten percent is knowing the facts, and the other ninety percent is practicing the art.  If you have studied Feng Shui for two years, do not start buggerising around with it until you have 18 years experience. You may know something about it by then.

Warwick Poon

Melbourne September 1998