Things look swell, things look great,
Gonna have the whole world on a plate.
Starting here, starting now, honey,
Everything’s coming up roses.

— from the musical Gypsy

Here comes the McFengshui version of Flower Power — feng shui seika!

An ill-informed Norma Lehmeier Hartie says:

Centuries ago, the Japanese created a special branch of Feng Shui called Feng Shui Seika. Feng Shui Seika is the practice of enhancing fortunes by using flowers in a particular fashion. The art was developed by a school of Ikebana called Enshinkai International Ikebana.

Practitioners of Feng Shui Seika utilize grass, wood and flowers, as well as minerals, crystals and mirrors, to balance yin and yang. Followers believe that the energy within plants and flowers can best be channeled into one’s environment when they are arranged in a particular way. Based on Ikebana, the theory is that certain arrangements make it easier to receive the energy of the plants and flowers and that these auspicious arrangements will transform the recipients’ fortunes.

Unfortunately, if you search for a school of ikebana called “enshinkai” you will not find one (in English, anyway), which tells you all you need to know. International Ikebana Organization doesn’t know anything about “feng shui seika.”

It may be one of the several thousand lesser schools — but likely not.

Only McFengshui practitioners would be so dumb as to marry a Japanese art to a Chinese practice. They couldn’t be bothered to use Chinese flower arranging for their scam.

The name was concocted for westerners, who know the term feng shui to the point where it’s a joke — so tacking on “seika” makes it exotic again. Who cares if it’s a chimera?

“Feng shui” in Japanese is fusui — but the term fusui seika has no provenance in Japanese (look it up in Japanese Architectural and Art Historical Terminology).

The history of “feng shui seika” is very short — two years, maybe

Seika or shoka refers to Japanese flower arranging. In the early 1700s the Japanese merchant class developed a three-branch, asymmetrical style of flower arrangement called shoka (seika). True shoka uses only three main branches known as ten (heaven), chi (earth), and jin (man). The goal is to appreciate the beauty of the plant.

Ikebana developed from the Buddhist practice of offering flowers to appease the spirits of the dead, a practice brought from China to Japan. However, ikebana is a wholly Japanese art. Chinese flower arranging has a different history and rules.

Real feng shui was never concerned with Japanese floral arrangement. Anyone who knows anything about the historical relationship of Japan and China knows “feng shui seika” is a fraud, marketed to the ignorant.

Historically, real feng shui had nothing to do with interior decorating — it applied to entire cities and neighborhoods, large estates and entire houses.

Interior decorating is the focus of McFengshui, which is why McFengshui people are promoting this chimera.