Just one thought about that: “Everybody fung che tonight …” (I’m thinking of a particular 1980’s hair band here)
:: shudder ::
Essvee, insurers must provide cover against the risks their customers want. If customers want insurance against the risk of the customer wanting to receive acupuncture, that’s what insurers will cover. Otherwise no one will buy their cover and they will go broke. An insurer’s opinion that the cover that their customers want is silly is not relevant to the commercial imperative they face.
Acupuncture seems to have some effects. Acupuncture’s effects all lie in the realm of the subjective (usually acupuncture assists with pain relief). Double blind testing is hard because it is hard to convince the control patients that needles are being stuck in them when they are not. However, recently a form of fake needle has been invented and used in double blind testing, and my recollection is that some barely significant results beyond placebo have been obtained.
So maybe, just maybe, acupuncture has an effect beyond the placebo effect, and in any event why should one undervalue the placebo effect anyway? If you believe you are suffering no pain, then you are suffering no pain.
But. Acupuncture is not just about measurable results. Acupuncture also posits “meridian lines” and “flows of qi”. There is no evidence at all that these concepts have any validity.
You can of course argue that without all the background bullshit, gullible people wouldn’t believe that acupuncture would work, which would destroy the placebo effect for those people, which might result in them being in pain when (if they did believe) acupuncture would work, which would be a bad thing, I suppose.
However, the idea you have to get used to when thinking about these issues is that the fact that people need to believe bullshit to experience a placebo effect, and the fact that a placebo effect might be a positive thing for them does not mean that the bullshit is not bullshit.
Similarly for Feng Shui.
C’mon, I can’t be the only one who thinks that a person browsing the tarot decks and scoffing at Feng Shui is really, really amusing?
Yes, yes, we all have our own belief systems but I just don’t get all the spiritual wackines…
Wow, I didn’t think anybody would actually manage it, but here I am, checking off the last box on the list. Congratulations, you’re officially stupid about everything.
Scoffing? No. I merely said I haven’t paid attention to it. Eastern traditions don’t really interest me, which puts Feng Shui out of my realm of experience. I scoff at the local Junior League Sunday School marms who hot-foot it though the occult section to pick up their book on home decor like what I am might be catching. It amuses me greatly to learn how deeply rooted in mysticism Feng Shui is, and now I have high hopes of enlightening them of their hypocrisy. 
So you “feel” that there is something to “Eastern” thought. And that somehow validates it? Can you show any concrete evidence?
How is it obvious? Feng shui people move furniture around. It’s what they do. What else do they do?
Yes, it can be applied to separate gullible people from their money. Do you also think that torture is a worthwhile activity? It’s been done for thousands of years.
Large corporations have a history of doing stupid things, and your experiences may well be placebo.
This is called “projection”. Since you believe what you wish to believe, you assume that everyone else does the same. We don’t. I believe what I’ve seen proved, and that’s it. I would love for acupuncture to work, but there’s no (or close to no) evidence that it does.
When did I ever say anything about Western medicine or poo-pooing? I said acupuncture hasn’t been shown to work.
Princhester: I’m no expert in acupuncture, but as far as I remember there are supposed to be “acupuncture points” in which the needles must be inserted. Couldn’t a double-blind study be done by inserting needles at the wrong points for half the subjects? Of course, the inserter would know… well, it’s a start anyway.
There are studies that show direct manipulation of certain never centers * does * cause the brain to express certain pain relieving chemicals. It has also been shown that to achieve the same results, it is not necessary to puncture the nerve bundle with a needle, an adhesive electrode placed above the nerve bundle and a slight electric current will also achieve the same result. So I do believe that the basis of acupuncture is indicated for certain kinds of pain and to help relieve the stress of over coming addiction, but I also believe the practice is unnecessarily barbaric, and is absolutely not a magic bullet.
Cite: From The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
(CSICOP), (to paraphrase Cecil Adams), a well respected anti-fruit cake organization.
Acupuncture, Magic, and Make-Believe
And…
And…
Now I’m generally a skeptic, but I have seen electronuro medicine in action and it seems to work,
It all stemmed from investigating claims that Acupuncture was not quackery. I am now of the opinion now that certain forms of it, used for certain medical problems is in fact a legitimate tharapy.
Sure, because as we all know Feng Shui has been scientifically tested and validated, right? Right? No? Really? Shocking. So who’s really being “very lazy” and “very easy to mislead?” Sounds like you fell for the scam already.
OK, one last time. First off, thanks Janx.
Prichester, you’re way off target. Kaiser doesn’t give two shits what its customers want. No HMO does. Plus, folks in detox are generally too weak and sick and shaky to state their wants. If, in Kaiser’s opinion, acupuncture had no practical application, believe me they wouldn’t pay someone to do it.
Priceguy, please go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. It has been discussed in this thread that feng shui is thousands of years old, and that so-called experts have jumped on a bastardized version to sucker gullible housewives and househusbands and such.
If you had taken the time to read my post, instead of immaturely jumping all over your high-school-ass, Ayn Rand, rebel-outlaw, black trenchcoat wearin’ juvenile buzzwords (like religion, for instance, you fucking moron), you might be able to get it through your prehensile li’l medulla that all I said was that anything as studied and codified as feng shui is probably has some wisdom (read: understanding of how to live) and some practical application to our lives.
No polemics.
No statements of fact.
No tirades or belief systems applied wholesale.
Just a fucking observation.
As to acupuncture, it’s allopathic medicine and its attendant researchers who do the science to decide whether they think acupuncture works or not, Beavis. Although electodes and electric current might do the same thing, need I remind you that these items were not available when the practice of acupuncture was being developed over thousands of years? Take a look at Janx’s (thanks again) link and cites. And then stick the Grand Theft Auto joystick glued to your widdle hand straight up your ass. Go argue with your teachers and leave the adults alone. And try not to eat too much Cap’n Crunch before the next time you post. All that sugar, you know.
Y’all are stepping on my master’s thesis here! (Okay, some of y’all)
I used Feng Shui as a proxy for Chinese cultural expression/identification in my thesis (Geographic Code Switching in Chinatown, Philadelphia, PA). I had to learn a buttload about it in order to be able to identify when it was in use, and that included learning a bit about how it is applied. Because it is aesthetic and architectural theory, it seemed appropriate as a proxy. And it worked pretty well, I may add…
Okay, a little background on Feng Shui.
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It has indeed been practiced for thousands of years.
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It was originally designed as a codified method of applying aesthetic principles to any space, from a room to a nation.
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People noticed that those who used this (and therefore had nice spaces, aesthetically speaking) tended to have ‘good luck’. This is partly good ‘psychology of place’. If your home is inviting, welcoming, functions properly, has good patterns of movement (no bumping on furniture or having to run miles to get to the bathroom), is uncluttered, has restful areas for resting, and energizing areas for thinking, you are going to have less stress and will function better, which will lead to less illness, more success, etc. It is also partly logical fallacy – connecting the unconnected dots. But only partly.
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People noticed that those who had nicely located spaces tended to have good luck, also. This is partly also due to the fact that good placement is geographic common sense, and Feng Shui placement is really pretty detailed common sense (even though they didn’t know why it was true at the time, they did get the details right). Ferinstance: Not in a flood plain. Not where the worst of the storms will blow in your front door. Not in a rain shadow from larger mountains to the west. Not under overhanging rocks. Not where drought or flooding are severe or common. Not where the bugs are thick in the summer. Etc. Not most of the stupid places people build their homes, frankly. And yes, some built them there anyway, but they knew they were risking ‘bad Feng Shui’ when they did so…
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There may have been some hooey book published way back when, but I don’t remember ever seeing anything about it being death to teach it to the masses. I do recall a discussion in the court records about the fact that the upper classes saw Feng Shui as an aesthetic thing, and the lower classes were all about making it about luck. That caused quite a debate about whether they should make it illegal, to reduce the rate at which people who couldn’t afford it were giving money to charlatans who promised weath, health, and longevity… It wasn’t supposed to be about luck, per se, but about creating ideal places to live and work, for their own sake. (you’ll notice that any efforts to kill off the ‘do this and be lucky’ tendency failed miserably.)
So, taking this forward a few thousand years…
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‘Luck’ is a big part of Chinese culture. Doing whatever you can to improve it is fairly common.
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Many ‘schools’ including those deeply involved with astrology got their hands on the initial concepts and ran with it.
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People tend to hang onto the trappings (method) instead of the philosophy, and that’s where you get people saying to put up Big Red Sayings and Chinese Flutes in non-Asian households, rearrange stuff in a certain explicit and exact way, never ever use items that conflict with your natal number/metal, etc. (Some of the Feng Shui advice reported by people in this thread is painful to read, and uses that very limited detail-specific method…)
A lot of the people who practice today in the US are (sometimes) masters of the ‘method’ but have no way of checking back against the philosophy. There are some who are brilliant at both method and philosophy, and some who are just good at the philosophy. Either of the latter two will get you some kind of benefit. Hiring a housekeeper, a household reorganizer, and an interior designer might get you the same results (but the philosophy of the designer might or might not work for you, either way).
There is an American Feng Shui school (The Pyramid School) that does a great job of pulling out the underpinnings and applying them SANS cultural overlays. This is where they get back to the philosophy, which is indeed ‘good for you’ - but in the same ways that the original form was ‘good for you’ - it produces physically, psychologically, and functionally satisfying spaces. In those spaces, people function closer to their optimal capacity, which is going to translate to being ‘luckier’ over the long haul. If you rest well, feel comforted when you need comfort, feel safe in your home, feel satisfied by your surroundings, can find all your bills easily, don’t lose things under the clutter, don’t bark your shins every time you get up to go take a pee, can see where you are going but are encouraged to take your time and be mindful on the way, you are just going to have a more restful and satisfying experience compared to someone whose space does not elicit those reactions. You still might lose your job, but chances are that you’ll cope a smidge better than someone whose space is also a wreck.
You can learn to do the whole thing, Forms School (all about what the shapes of things mean for you and your space), or Compass School (really complex astrology), or you can learn to apply the concepts to your own space in your own way. Both of the former take a lot of training and some serious internship/apprenticeship. The latter takes some thought, but less training.
I will do a (very) basic Compass School or Forms School analysis for friends who want it. I find the esoteric analysis is a useful tool in that it makes people think about their spaces in new ways, and if you happen to believe in that part of it, fine. (I did find that I respond to things that ‘generate my element’ better than things that destroy it, but a lot of people like rocks and dirt, and don’t like pointy objects or fire much… that my natal element happens to highlight something I knew but hadn’t paid attention to doesn’t make it factual or scientific, just a useful ‘tag’.)
Want to get something out of Feng Shui?
The greatest value is in doing the following things, which are the underpinnings of Feng Shui, as far back as you can take it.
A) Choose your site carefully. Make sure it is protected from bad weather, bad traffic, bad neighbors, and natural disasters. Pick a spot that feels restful and safe, and which you find attractive.
B) Once you choose your site, use appropriate architecture for the location and orientation. Green/sustainable architecture uses the same principles. Make your roof meet the need for snow and rain clearing, and your eves overhang the appropriate amount for shade. Use materials that suit the climate. Design to take advantage of what is there - Face the side that needs heat toward the south (N. hemisphere), and put some kind of barrier (hill, high wall, trees) between your yard and the polar easterlies.
C) Use design principles that encourage you to slow down and appreciate what you have. Curving garden paths (slower, more beneficial qi) teach you not to rush, make you slow down and look at (or smell) the flowers more often. Use colors that help you feel the way you want to feel in that space (color theory helps – red increases attention/tension, blue decreases appetite, purple induces nausea in some people, orange stimulates creativity, etc.). Use mirrors to enhance the view, expand a small space, decrease tunnel effects in hallways, etc. Use light, movement, or sound to enliven areas that are otherwise unused/wasted space.
D) Design the flow of your spaces to make it easier to get around. Arrange furniture to enhance how you use your space. Close or open doors to change the sense of a space that has inflows and outflows. Same for windows. Open windows to attract yourself to that area, close them to reduce your ‘energy’ (interest) in that direction (sounds, smells, and movement will draw your interest, and hence the open window has more ‘chi movement’).
E) Use your spaces with your health in mind. Sleeping under an open window might not be best for either your peace of mind or your asthma.
F) Care for your property well. Clutter is the number one ‘chi killer’ for most people. The more cluttered your space, the more restricted it is, the less happy people tend to be in it (either you or guests), etc. A well-cared for, clean, and organized space - even if old and worn - is far more satisfying than a beautifully designed and furnished junkyard.
G) Also, where location is concerned, avoid surroundings that are distressing. A hugely tall building looming over you? Not all that pleasant. How about a cemetery across the street? If you like them, fine, if you don’t, depressing. How about a fire station across the street? (nothing like having fire trucks racing down your road all the time!)… or what about a street or even a creek pointed straight at your house before the road (or bed) turns? (if someone doesn’t hit the brakes in time, they end up in your yard, and in wet weather, does your basement flood? Do these ideas ever occur to you? If they do, your location isn’t restful.)
All sound sensible and logical and utterly :smack: DUH? Yep. That’s Feng Shui. If you think of it as “Chinese Architectural Theory” (as one of the dissertations I have sitting at home refers to it as), you’ll be better off. You’ll also not be stupid about it. Taking it to extremes isn’t part of the philosophy, either. A perfectly situated location in ancient China is often completely at odds with one or more of the principles involved… but they just ignore the mismatch in one area, if the rest is good enough. There are a lot of temples and graveyards that are situated facing the wrong way, and they just adjust the approach, or the architecture, etc., to make it ‘work’. If the scenery is lovely, the area lush, the site stable, and the surroundings safe, who cares if it isn’t pointing directly south?
As for the experts/debunkers doing the analysis on whether it makes a difference, I’m typically disappointed in their approach. They almost always look at the layered schools, and almost never look under the method to the philosophy. Plus, any two practitioners, even good ones, will come up with different solutions, just as two interior designers or architects will come up with different solutions. But both solutions might be perfectly fine solutions. It is an art, not a science. Unfortunately, many people treat it as if it is a science, cookie-cuttering the solutions into their lives and then claiming they know for sure that it doesn’t work. Completely miss their own logical fallacy there.
As for people spending millions on Feng Shui analysis in China/HongKong/etc., they are playing by very different rules than here. Because it is part of the ethos, culture, popular awareness, you risk bad results if you ignore the rules. For example, a building built with round windows housed a bank, but the bank had trouble - not because there was something wrong with their finances to start with, but because they had huge employee turnover - nobody wanted to work in a place that had holes all over for money to flow out. Because of the cultural understanding of the building, people attached meaning to their experiences that tied into the meaning they attached to the building. People who didn’t lose money were lucky for some other reason, but the unlucky with money ones had a handy building to blame. Logically, it makes sense to invest in an analysis if it is going to affect your business profits, employee happiness, etc. Is it a self-fulfilling prophesy as a result? Yep. But that doesn’t mean they can just jump in and change it all at once. Many people don’t care, anymore. But those who do are still of sufficient numbers that it makes a difference.
Check any Chinese restaurant you know. Ask the owner if they used Feng Shui in the design (I’ve done this countless times, BTW) - chances are good that even if they think it is total hooey, if it makes their older or more traditional customers happy, and that makes them come back more often, that’s good for business. More than one restaurant has closed over bad design, not just Chinese. The customer is always right.
Oh, and keep the toilet lid closed, so everybody is equally inconvenienced and the guys get an equal chance to scold their wives for leaving the lid up… (hey, call it Feng Shui if you want to, or not, it works!)
Whoa nelly!
I feel like I have wandered into a room where a bunch of biologists, botanists and organic chemists are arguing about whether flower arranging is a real science.
Lighten up folks!
Sure there are people out there exploiting Feng Shui in various scams. But then I tend to think that anyone bored and rich enough to hire a Feng Shui “expert” to help them redecorate deserves to get fleeced.
Feng Shui is, at its heart an aesthetic. It has a cultural basis, not a scientific one. Any art form old enough has its superstitions folded into the actual functionality of it processes.
You can’t cause harm by pronouncing a Scottish name either, but I dare you to run through the back stage of any theatrical production shouting Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!
Just because some of the aesthetic qualities of Feng Shui are couched in metaphysical terms does not mean that the social and psychological benefits that can be derived from application of the principles are not real.
I don’t know if a space organized by a true expert is any more rewarding than one randomly slapped together. But I can certainly see how some people could appreciate the type of ambiance created by the correct application of its principles. What more do you demand of an art form?
Brilliant observation.
And a heck of a lot shorter than my endless post… (brevity, brevity… not my forte’)
Oh, and I meant element, not metal, not that anyone is going to reread the damn thing just to find out where I messed up…
Fair enuf.
And I am soooo glad you didn’t take my off-handed remark as a personal attack. 20 seconds after posting, I realized it could maybe be construed as such and wasn’t intended to cause offense.
BTW, you’ll probably be surprised at how different people are from their appearences. My father looks like the sterotypical NASA nerd (and is an electrial engineer to boot) but is avidly interested in channelling and Eckankar. Not my cup o’tea but it’s not my mission to enlighten people. (I leave that to Cecil and the Amazing Randi:) )
That it not make fraudulent claims about itself. There are (at least two) types of fraudulent claims associated with Feng Shui, as far as I can tell. I will attempt t analogize them to flower arranging
#1 (less important) “This particular arrangement of roses looks particularly pretty because of the invisible blooblabs and cosmic whizzdingies.” I suppose it doesn’t actively harm anyone in an immediate way for total BS to be cited as motivation for a particular flower arrangement, but it sure doesn’t do anyone any good, particularly when it comes to the intellectual health of the populace.
#2 (more important) “This flower arrangement helps fight allergies”. A claim of this sort is very dangerous. Any time you’re claiming that your flower arrangement, or your north/south vs. east/west furniture alignment, actually does something, then you risk convincing the owner/inhabitor to use fewer other precautions. Someone who truly believes that the Feng Shui of their house will protect against hurricanes, for instance, will be less likely to purchase good storm windows.
That it, and its adherents not attempt to pass it off any anything other than an art form. There are all sorts of individuals making all sorts of claims for Feng Shui. Claims that are testable. If the “art” can pass these tests, only then is it permitted to join the ranks of science and scientific phenomena. To date, science is the only thing that has proven to have reliable predictive powers.
And thanks to hedra for the very informative background on the history of Feng Shui.
Agreed. Thanks for the great post, hedra.
How about not claiming to do things that can’t be proven? And maybe not using BS arguments for the reasons to do those things.
I am sure that there is some practical benefit in applying Feng Shui, and probably some psychological benefits if you also happen to believe in it. The same thing can probably be said about almost every religion.
Let’s see how this can be explained sans the BS.
1- Change the entrance to the house because it had a straight path. Energy can’t travel in a straight line, so it would not reach the house.
1- Change the entrance to the house because it had a straight path. A curved path is pleasing to the eye, takes you around the well-groomed garden which is relaxing.
2.- Get rid of the security bars on doors and windows because the “element metal” should not be present at the entrance according to her “chart”. Whatever that is.
2.- Get rid of the security bars on doors and windows because they tend to make the space look a little too close, which may cause a bit of a claustrophobic sensation. You can also enjoy your garden better without the blocked view behind the bars. A good alarm system would do the job.
3.- She should not buy used furniture anymore as she can’t know what kind of energy they could bring from past owners.
3.- She should not buy used furniture anymore as she can’t know what defects they may have, having no warranty if the piece of furniture breaks will cause you stress. But if you really like it, go ahead.
4.- Change the kitchen because it is white. Being the kitchen a “point of fire” and white represents metal. Metal melts with fire.
*4.- Change the kitchen because it is white. White kitchens are harder to clean (I know, mine is white). Having a dirty kitchen is stressing. *
5.- Get rid of the mirror because it faces the bathroom mirror and the energy bounces and could cause accidents.
5.- Having two mirrors facing each other may some times give you the sensation that there is somebody else in the room as you catch your reflection sideways. That can be pretty scary.
6.- Get rid of the bed because it was inherited from her grandma and she had died of a painful disease.
6.- Sleeping in grandma’s bed will remind you of her last moments, and how she was in great pain and how much you miss her.
I picked up a book on Feng Sui at the library…as others have pointed out, some of the stuff makes sense…until you come to the nonsense! The book was relating the experiences of a “professional” Feng Sui consultant in China…and the guy related how a landowner wanted to level a hill and redirect a streamon his property. This (apparently) was a “no-no”, as “the invisible dragon who came to drink from the stream would be disturbed by the alterations”!!
So, is Feng Sui mostly crap…I’d say so.