Indeed, these origins of Feng Shui support our view of ancient astronomy as a hermetic science (as above, so below), i.e. as an attempt to conform the order of things on earth to the order visible in the heavens. This is the cardinal principle elaborated in depth in our book, Stars, Stones and Scholars: The Decipherment of the Megaliths as an Ancient Survey of the Earth by Astronomy .
The excerpted text below is taken from the website page The Great Wall of Knowledge and the Rise of Feng Shui by Feng Shui Master Val Biktashev, as he has taken it from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui (Alpha Books, 2002), by Elizabeth Moran, Master Joseph Yu, and Master Val Biktashev. We presume that this duplication does not violate any copyright provisions since that website page permits the entire text there to be e-mailed to other persons... which we are in effect doing. Here are our selected excerpts from that website page of Val Biktashev, Feng Shui Master Consultant :
"The Great Wall of Knowledge and the Rise of Feng ShuiThis book looks like a good addition to any serious library on the history of astronomy.
(From The Complete Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui (Alpha Books , 2002, Complete Idiot's Guides) , by Elizabeth Moran , Master Joseph Yu , and Master Val Biktashev )
... The practice of feng shui was born out of China's reverence for nature. The Chinese believed if they could reflect the balance of nature's forces in their daily lives, they could achieve a more harmonious living condition....
Made in China
... China's four most important inventions are the developments of papermaking, printing, gunpowder, and the compass. The compass is the tool of the feng shui practitioner.
China's Greater Nature
The ancient Chinese took what they called "Greater Nature" (Da Zi Ran) very seriously. Its forces inspired, awed, and humbled. It was a favorite subject of artisans. Greater Nature even gave rise to earth sciences like geology, cartography, and chemistry.
Skywatcher for Hire
When Marco Polo visited China in 1275 C.E., purportedly he described Beijing as a city of 5,000 skywatchers. He probably was right. Some of those skywatchers were astrologers, some were astronomers. Both ran flourishing businesses in interpreting and divulging nature's secrets....
Feng shui derives, in part, from astrological observations.... feng shui studies a building's fate....
The Science of Astronomy
Astronomy is based on factual information derived from studying the cosmos. Chinese astronomers dealt with the practical needs of society. They developed almanacs and calendars....
Aided by astronomical instruments, the Chinese also observed and recorded a number of celestial events:
* They began noting eclipses of the moon in 1361 B.C.E. and eclipses of the sun in 1217 B.C.E.
* They recorded a nova (an exploding star) in the area now known as Antares in 1300 B.C.E.
* They witnessed Haley's comet in 467 B.C.E.
* They documented a supernova (a really big exploding star) in 1054 C.E. Their accurate observation allowed modern astronomers to establish that the supernova was the origin of the Crab Nebula.
By 400 B.C.E., the Chinese skywatchers had recorded 1,464 stars, dividing many of them into the 28 constellations of the zodiac....
Change is in the Wind
A lot of misinformation has been written about the origin of the Yijing [The Book of Changes]....
Initially, the Yijing was called the Zhouyi, or The Changes of Zhou. Initiated by King Wen and completed by his son, the Duke of Zhou of the Zhou dynasty (1045-221 B.C.E.), the Zhouyi draws on information gained by some of China's legendary figures. Specifically, the 8 trigrams and 64 hexagrams (composed of 2 trigrams each) are thought to have been devised by Fuxi.
As the story goes, the mythical sage-king Fuxi invented the eight trigrams after observing celestial and terrestrial activity. The idea was to create heaven on earth, to emulate nature's perfection. Perhaps to reward his efforts, Fuxi received a gift from heaven, a diagram of the perfect world. A world that was motionless, void of change. Sometime later, heaven bestowed a gift on another sage-king, Yu the Great. He also received a diagram, but this one represented the world in motion. Called the Loushu, (its parts correlated to the eight trigrams) it provides the foundation for a classical method of feng shui called Flying Star.... [emphasis added by LexiLine]
How Does Feng Shui Fit in?
Classical feng shui combines elements of astrology and astronomy, geology, physics, mathematics, philosophy, and intuition....
Neolithic Feng Shui
Feng shui is a lot older that you might think....
In 1988, a Neolithic gravesite was excavated in Henan province in central China. It revealed that the ancient Chinese were practicing some form of primitive feng shui some 6,000 years ago.
The head of the gravesite is rounded and points toward the south. The grave is squared at the body's feet, facing north. This arrangement conforms to the Chinese view of the cosmos. Symbolically, the sky is represented as round or domed, and the earth as square or flat. On each side of the remains, and outlined with shells, is a representation of two Chinese constellations—the azure dragon and the white tiger. A representation of the Big Dipper (Beidou) lies in the center. These artifacts testify to the fact that the Neolithic Chinese were already orienting their graves with the revolution of the Big Dipper around the North Star, the polestar (in Ursa Minor) in the northern hemisphere toward which the axis of the earth points.
The Form School of Feng Shui
... [A]ncestor worship was an intrinsic and important part of the Chinese belief system.... Fortunes could be made or lost depending, in some measure, on the favorable location and orientation of their ancestors' tombs.
The orientation of homes is also a part of Form School feng shui. Landforms and waterways were intensely scrutinized to determine the location of the dragon's lair (long xue), the place on the terrain where qi converges....
The Compass School of Feng Shui
... In Chinese, the school that uses a compass and analyzes heavenly (time) and earthly (space) forces is called Liqi Pai....
The Compass School is based on the concept that each of the eight cardinal directions holds a different type of qi. Around this central premise, other factors are added, including astrology and numerology. The Compass School method is very computational, relying on intellect, observation, and experimentation rather than intuitive insights.
The tool of the trade is, you guessed it, the compass. An early version dating to about 83 C.E. was a two-part, south-pointing instrument—a metal spoon made of magnetic lodestone and a square baseplate called a sinan. This developed into what is now called a luopan compass used by practitioners today. The luopan has anywhere from 4 to 40 concentric rings of information featuring things like the 8 fundamental trigrams, the 28 constellations, the 5 phases of qi, and the 9 "stars" or numbers of the Luoshu.
Feng Shui Today
Today, both Form School and Compass School methods are used to perform an accurate feng shui reading. For the most part, today's practitioners have combined both schools into one system commonly referred to as "classical" or "traditional" feng shui.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Feng shui master Val Biktashev travels worldwide providing feng shui for individuals and businesses. Several articles have been written about his work in local, national, and internationally distributed newspapers and magazines. Also, Val is regularly featured on television, including being the feature subject on the CBS news magazine program, Sunday Morning. He is the co-author of the highly acclaimed book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui . Reviewed as "an American masterpiece that tops the lot" by Feng Shui For Modern Living Magazine, the book consistently ranks among the top ten feng shui books (out of 709 entries) on amazon. At the First Annual World Classical Feng Shui conference in Germany, Val was a feature speaker. He can be contacted at GlobalFengShui@aol.com or at 323-810-8180. He lives in Los Angeles.
Elizabeth Moran has studied feng shui and Chinese astrology with a number of classical masters. She is a highly sought lecturer and teacher of feng shui. In 2002, Elizabeth was a feature speaker at the First Annual World Classical Feng Shui Conference in Cologne, Germany. She is co-author of the best-selling books, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui (Alpha Books, 2002) and The Complete Idiot's Guide to the I Ching (2001). You may contact her at GlobalFengShui@aol.com. Elizabeth lives in Los Angeles with her husband, feng shui master Val Biktashev."
And let us ask a serious quesion. Does anyone out there - except for the misguided mainstream scholars - really think that ancient astronomy in the Western world was that much different from what the Chinese evidence tells us?
And were in fact the megaliths (as also ancient cave paintings and rock art) oriented to the stars, as the Chinese (and Pawnee Indian) evidence would lead us to believe, and as we have alleged all along?
You bet.
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