Do you think the subject started off more incidental then mystical. In modern day, now, it is portrayed rather mystical, more to confuse and mystified it to rip the benefit about its effectiveness if any for monetary gain. This is just a hedge on my part, as ancient people studies are mostly base on visual analyst and measurement like what said about PI the number. So i was thinking the emperor could have sent out men, thousands or hundred of thousands of men, just to find out what sort of living made happy man and what these happy men living environment like. Well having great resources at hand, maybe abled compilation of conclusion which the records the feng shui masters are reading today and trying to interpret in all sort of form. What do you think?
To put it another way, feng shui is nonsense to the extent that chi is nonsense, and in its practical aspects to the extent that its theory runs ahead of its data.
Yes, kktime, I agree (and I wrote the Staff Report, not Cecil. It was one I had a lot of fun doing.) I did mention a couple of examples:
I don’t think the emperor needed to (or would have) sent out men to take a survey of the population; I think it was just lots of things that people noticed over centuries, that was eventually codified.
Maybe a bathroom, but it’s an entirely natural place to put a powder room, with warnings about hitting your head.
Okay, feng shui is typically BS and its application by people with too much money (almost said “too much Monet,” but I’ve noted that state among my customers before) pay while I rearrange their video wallplates, but overall it’s mostly harmless.
While he may not be capable of dishing out the straight dope, Douglas Adams had an interesting take on Feng Shui:
(It’s too long to quote, but an excellent read.)
I’ve found this explanation to be remarkably useful in my day-to-day life. You see, my partner is quite a bit smaller than I am. What they find “cozy” I often find to be a source of head injury. After one quick reminder about the relative proportions of dragons and their incendiary tempers domestic bliss descends once again.
I haven’t invited any dragons into my house to see how they move around, but I do know that modern architects are very concerned with things they call “traffic patterns” which have to do with how people enter the house, hang up their coats, etc.
When people come into the house, do they get an open, comfortable, welcoming feeling, or a shut-in, cramped, over-crowded feeling? Such feelings are real, and can be affected by the floorplan, the wall coverings, the furniture, etc. When you walk into a new place (store, office, friend’s home, whatever), you get a first impression, whether consciously or (more often) subconsciously.
This is not to say that there’s not lots of feng shui that’s pretty silly. This is to say that there’s also lots of feng shui that is very reasonable, and in line with common sense. We may not express it in terms of mystical forces, but we do say that a light colored floor and light colored walls make a room feel more spacious. We may not worry about spiritual balances, but we do say that having sufficient light from windows makes a room more cheerful. And so on.