Scientific Feng Shui for the Built Environment: Theories and Applications (Enhanced New Edition)

Citation

Hong-key Yoon (2015), "Scientific Feng Shui for the Built Environment: Theories and Applications (Enhanced New Edition)", Property Management, Vol. 33 No. 5, pp. 519-520. https://doi.org/10.1108/PM-06-2015-0028

A number of books on feng shui or Chinese geomancy have recently been published in English but only a few of them are academic discourses. Most others are simple introductions to the art to meet the general public’s curiosity or to help practising western geomancers as a guidebook. However, this book is not one of such books; it is an academic discourse written with an entirely different intention: it is a serious endeavour to document and interpret some scientific aspects contained in feng shui tradition. The authors’ aims of writing this book are clearly manifested when they declare that “Scientific Feng Shui” implies: the verification of feng shui principles scientifically; or studying feng shui logically by using scientific methods. It shows their attempts to adopt a genuine academic (scientific) approach to the age old tradition of feng shui in China.

This is an enhanced new edition of the authors’ earlier book, “Scientific Feng Shui for the Built Environment: Fundamentals and Case Studies” (2011). It is a genuinely improved and enlarged edition with 328 pages while their earlier book had 255 pages. The authors’ serious attempt to study feng shui as an academic and scientific subject is plainly visible throughout the book.

As the authors point out in “Preface” (p. xxvii), feng shui (風水) is “a relatively recent” term, and a more original term was Kan Yu (堪輿). In my view, the term Dili (地理) is also used as traditional common Chinese term indicating feng shui and has often appeared as a part of traditional feng shui (manual) book titles. Feng shui does not need to be the only term to represent the rich Chinese heritage that is now commonly known as “feng shui”.

Earlier western studies on feng shui often adopted the English term “geomancy” for feng shui. Some exemplary scholars in this case are J.J.M. de Groot, Joseph Needham, Maurice Freedman, Andrew March and S.D.R. Feuchtwang. Although the English term “geomancy” used to indicate the performance of divination from the configuration formed by throwing a handful of earth in the Islamic world, the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has now added a new definition that clearly acknowledges the term “geomancy” as the equivalent word to the Chinese term “feng shui”. The new definition indicates geomancy (connoting feng shui) is “the art of sitting cities, buildings, tombs, etc., auspiciously” (Brown, 1993). In a scholarly discourse, it is important to acknowledge the connection between the two terms, geomancy and feng shui.

This book’s 21 chapters are organised into three main parts: Scientific Feng Shui, Form School Approach and Compass School Approach.

Part A – “Scientific Feng Shui” consists of four chapters that discuss topics ranging from the interactions between a new philosophy of science (e.g. Capra’s the Tao of physics) and feng shui, different types of scientific methods and feng shui, as well as the historical development of feng shui in China. Discussions on the origins of feng shui concepts and principles are well presented concisely in an easy-to-follow manner and in a logical sequence.

Part B – “Form School Approach” is probably the most important part of the book and exposes the ecological and environmental management principles contained in feng shui (Chinese geomancy). It has seven chapters discussing topics ranging from architectural cultures of the east and the west, basic theories of feng shui in the form school, some key concepts of feng shui that are relevant for architecture and the application of feng shui in modern built environment with some case studies.

Part C – “Compass School Approach” has eight chapters and is somewhat difficult to follow for a reader who is not familiar with Chinese numerology and I-Ching (Ye Jing). Chapters in this part discuss the Chinese numerology, the nature of the feng shui compass and the principles underlying different methods adopted in the compass school. Chapter 15 explores and compares some new concepts in modern physics and the Chinese concept of qi (氣) in feng shui. However, scientific proof of qi might be as difficult to demonstrate as scientific proof of the existence of God. Many readers of this section may find that compass school approaches in feng shui are rather superstitious and could find it difficult to notice the scientific principles behind them, at least until qi is scientifically proven to be a real existence.

The aim of this book is “to examine the scientific aspects of feng shui in relation to the built environment” (p. 284), and the authors found that the western sustainable design in architecture and traditional Chinese geomancy (feng shui) both attempted “to minimize the impact on natural environment” (p. 161). Such findings are noteworthy and well drawn. This book points out some ecological concepts contained in feng shui tradition, although the practice of feng shui itself is not yet proved to be scientific.

The two authors have presented in this book their genuine and worthy effort of studying feng shui in a scientific way by attempting to apply scientific methods and the book is certainly a remarkably “enhanced new edition” of their 2011 contribution.