I’m not saying that feng shui has any rational foundation beyond being a system of coherent social rules for construction of functional living, but I do say that it’s sort of ridiculous to pan a millenial tradition simply because certain ahistorical and greedy mentalities are currently capitalizing on a fascination with fixing broken environments. It’s just another asia-oriented trend, like japanning in the 19th century. Isn’t it a little unscientific to reduce the core knowledge to a western-slanted joke merely because a layer of marketing verbage has settled over the concept?

By the way, I believe there are more non-Asian feng shui “experts” in this part of the world than in China! Go figure!

Sure – your comment is about KNOWING for a FACT what you criticise and criticise CONSTRUCTIVELY. Therefore, put your money where your mouth is. The problem here is zero knowledge. I am not saying ANYTHING ancient is foolproof. Also, what on earth do you KNOW about the structure of a pyramid? Please share constructively.

Amanita, erm….hmm…. Angel/Buffy the Vampire are TV shows? You cant be real to assume real & intelligent people would take a fiction seriously or to assume scriptwriters know everything???

I have never been to Texas and therefore I should assume all people there are cowboys? Come on….

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Repeatedly whinning about hearsays and perception still will not make skepticism constructive or productive.

On the other hand, if all these name calling and insults on Feng Shui is about issues with false or misleading marketing of Feng Shui ‘masters’ – you have my vote on the issues but not on the logic or lack of it.

For centuries religions have preyed on the seemingly innate human tendency to say “I can’t understand it and therefore it must be true”. It’s rather ironic – I’m ignorant and therefore I willingly accept and promote ignorance. The most enduring examples I can think of relate to the wondrous remnants of ancient Egypt. How were the pyramids built? Well I really don’t know so I’ll believe that the ancients were in possession of great mystical powers and knowledge lost through the ages or else aliens came to earth and built such monuments as the pyramids at Giza. To believe that the ancients were in possession of long-forgotten knowledge and power is to revel in one’s ignorance. The temples may be amazing and no one in the modern world may know how they were built, but all that proves is that the art of pyramid construction has been lost through the ages. Take a pharaoh from around 2000BC and show him New York city – surely he’d be amazed at the gods that created the city. On the other hand believing in aliens denigrates the intellectual capacity and technological abilities of the humans who did create those ancient monuments.

I chose monuments of ancient Egypt as an example because there are tangible things that most people can relate to (pyramids, the sphinx, ruins of Luxor, etc). When you talk about feng-shui it’s all babble and absolutely nothing which people can relate to in common. However, the principle that some people are prone to revel in ignorance to the point of deifying it remains the same. My paternal grandfather was Chinese; he was a physician and he saw absolutely nothing good in feng-shui, acupuncture, and similar nonsense; if anything he raved against the ignorance represented by such practices.

Where is the critical discussion about the mechanism and the principles behind Feng Shui?
What is Yin & Yang? (I hope not just Day vs Night and Males vs. Female….) What is 5 elements? (I hope not just Wood = Plants, Water= H2O….) What are the orders and arrangements of the 64 Hexagrams which make up Yi Jing? (I hope your understanding is not just Richard Wilhelm’s beautiful literature but inaccurate understanding of Yi…. btw, do you understand the annotations of Zhou Yi dictated by Confucius and later written into texts by his students?)
TAOISM – the religon is NOT the basis of Feng Shui ( or other forms of Chinese Metaphysics. Nor Traditional Chinese Medicine.) In these anicent SCIENCE, the Chinese were talking about Universal FACTS – Dao, and, had an accurate understanding of the Universe, including Earth’s. From there, SCIENCE developed into medicine, culture, language, Feng Shui and accurate systems of divinations and astrology. Integrating Man with an understanding of the Universe and Mother Earth.

The Xia calandar developed more the 4600 years ago STILL has not missed one bit. And, is the basis of BaZi Astrolgy used today.

A sub-system of 64 Hexagram in yi Jing, developed in Han dynasty, more than 2000 years, is used predominately in a Feng Shui sub-system. It is able to accurately placed/categorised sonic waves of buildings inline with the Qi of its dwellers. It gives tangible results within days in the hands of proficient Feng Shui practitioners.

The whole development of Yi and Yin/Yang 5 Elements had 2 peaks in history – Han & Song dynastys. They took thousands of years to come to maturity as Science by some very intelligent men in history. It is not some ‘commonsense’ or mythical tales forced fed to idiots over thousands of years. That, would make the whole thing the biggest con job in Human history.

The negative stories of Feng Shui you wrote may be true. However, they do not warrant reckless ridicules like this post and the comments which followed.

Read up on your facts, people. Facts are not hearsay – I ‘feel’, I ‘think’, I ‘hear’ from friends and neighbours who are layperson. They do not know WHAT has been done and based on WHAT applcations. Surely, your doctors cant be telling you why & what he prescibes i details for you?

There are many empirical evidences in many universities in China esp. on TCM and Feng Shui, and, archaeologic discoveries on the subject. There are also life-long academia researching on various disciplines. But if this is your attitude towards Science then I doubt there will be willing learned academia or practitioner who would want to waste time on whining skeptics.

I chanced upon your blog and cant help but feel obliged to comment on your negativity/ignorance. Nevertheless, I wish you all a Merry Xmas and an enriching 2009.

I guess I’ll be going home early.