Why Flutes and Mirrors Can't Fix Your House

A Comparison of Feng Shui Remedies

...the inhabitants of Neolithic and Shang China consistently ordered themselves according to some kind of cosmo-religious grid. —David Keightley The Ancestral Landscape (2000:81, 82)

New Age Feng Shui

A very short history and spotty evidence

The "Nine Basic Cures" of Faux Feng Shui

Invented in the 1980s by Lin Yun.

Bright or light-refracting objects

Sounds

Living Objects

Moving objects

Heavy objects

Electrically-powered objects

Bamboo flutes

Colors

Miscellaneous

Traditional Feng Shui

A very long history with extraordinary evidence

Feng Shui began as astronomy manifested in the landscape and used alignments for more than 2,000 years before the five phases (elements)—Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, Firewere developed.

The diagrams of Preheaven (Hetu) and Postheaven (Luoshu) predate Chinese written documents on the subject. Early oracle bone characters related to yin and yang and to precursors of the five phases (wuxing) can be linked to early astronomical and geographical information. In turn, this information links to later written documents regarding the practice of Xuan Kong (one of the many "schools" or techniques of Feng Shui).

With Preheaven and Postheaven sequences and mathematics, the five phases form part of the theoretical basis of Xuan Kong.

Did you know?

In the Middle Ages, the Luoshu was an indispensable tool of Arab alchemists, but Christians thought it was a diagram of Satan.

The Claim
Reality Check

Bright or Light-Refracting Objects

Light is considered an important asset, symbolic of the sun, and an energy disseminator.

In BTB theory, light-refracting objects — mirrors, crystal balls, lights — cure a host of Feng Shui woes, create the illusion of light, and reflect intruders back onto themselves with threatening energy. Thought to increase business profits. Sources of positive power and "energy".

Mirrors

Crystals

Chinese bronze mirror
Ancient Chinese mirrors were made of brass.

Mirrors were originally part of Chinese science and evolved into elements of Chinese folklore.

Ancient Chinese protoscientists knew that light travels in a straight line and conducted considerable numbers of experiments using concave and convex mirrors. Their efforts were part of a compilation of work on optics which determined the truth about real and inverted images, focal points and centers of curvatures as well as refraction.

Westerners not seeing clearly

Euclid was the only Western contemporary of these Chinese studies (his Optics was written c. 300 BCE), but his ideas about light and optics were completely wrong. Yet the wrong information was used by Western civilization until someone stumbled upon the correct information in the work of a medieval Arab scientist who was repeating ancient Chinese experiments!

In the Huainanzi (c. 120 BCE) mirrors are considered at length, particularly the yang "burning-mirror" and the yin fangju that was used to collect nighttime dew via condensation:

When the burning-mirror sees the sun,
it ignites tinder and produces fire.
When the square receptacle sees the moon,
it moistens and produces water.
(3:3b:11)

However, Huainanzi also describes the mountain-mirrors (shanzi jing) of the late Warring States — Early Han era, which depict on a round (round=heaven) mirror a central square (square=earth). In the center of the mirror is a bump where a silken rope attaches (how the mirror is picked up, but it also represents an axis mundi). Outside this symbol is a larger square indicated by four figures — the character for mountain, shan, looking like it's written in italics — which represents the mountains at the edges of the earth.

On some mountain-mirrors the outer square depicting the edges of the earth (the celestial equator projected into space) is set at 90 degrees to the smaller square, which is meant to portray the known world. A mirror was generally divided into eight or twelve segments like the celestial circle. If divided into twelve segments it was for celestial/calendrical measurements. If divided into eight segments it depicted the cardinal and intercardinal directions.

Look at the bronze Tang Dynasty mirror in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History. It shows the astronomical and geographic data mentioned above plus the bagua, Five Elements, and concentric circles denoting the cosmological order.

Mirror magic

Chinese mirrors resemble the ancient bi atop a square liubo board (or even a cong) and echo the markings of the shi (one precursor of Feng Shui compasses).There must have been a lot of speculation about the use of mirrors among the uneducated; consider the old story that mirrors capture your soul. Perhaps that is why, during the Zhou era, many people thought that mirrors were magical devices.

Mirrors gained popularity as magico-religious versions of the universe in miniature, a way of calling upon the heavenly powers to bless the mirror's owner.

The old legend goes something like this:

Sometime in the past, the world of mirrors and the world of humans were not separated. Specular beings and humans differed in form and color but they lived in harmony. At that time it was also possible for a human to come and go through a mirror like the other beings. However, one night the Mirror People invaded the Earth and disrupted the universe.

The Mirror People were quite powerful, but the superior magic of the Yellow Emperor managed to defeat them and drive them back to Mirror Land. To keep them there, the Emperor cast a spell that compelled them to repeat the actions and appearances of humans who appeared in front of the doors to their realm.

According to the story the spell may have been a good one, but it was not meant to last forever. As the magic weakens the Mirror People begin to stir. At first the differences between their world and ours won't be discernible. But eventually the changes will be profound and the Mirror People will attack again.

Until we can unravel the truth behind this old story, we have to conclude that ignorance of Chinese discoveries in optics, and ignorance of Chinese culture and folklore would account for ideas like using a mirror to create profit or scare bad people away.

A disturbing thought

In the practice of Feng Shui, some practitioners consider mirrors as "perpetual disturbances," in the words of Master Lam Kam Chuen, and constantly at work. They are responsible for disrupting sleep patterns and creating emotional disturbances. A long-term study of a mental hospital quoted in E.O. Wilson's Biophilia Hypothesis showed that mirrors were the first objects attacked by the mentally agitated and unstable; no one attacked pictures of natural settings.

Competent Feng Shui practitioners remove mirrors from bedrooms and entrances and advise clients to confine them to bathrooms and the insides of closets.

Crazy About Crystals?

Faux feng shui applies crystals to manipulate so-called "energy" in a building. As Barbara Walker says in her wonderful book on crystals, proponents of crystal energies "might inspire more confidence if they did not seem so abysmally ignorant of basic anatomy and physiology, not to mention other sciences, even at the grade-school level." (Walker: 63)

No Chinese connection

Crystals and feng shui have a very short and peculiar association. There are no Chinese treatises on precious stones before the third century CE, although scientific works show interest in crystalline forms of certain materials. (Needham 2:321)

Victorian whimsy

Three books written in the 1980s by Katrina Raphaell started it all. She based many of her ideas on absurd notions concocted by Victorian occultists regarding the mythological land of Atlantis, and on odd ideas fabricated from a poor understanding of a lot of things.

People who believe crystals are some form of power source are usually confused about the technology around them, and they are too lazy to acquire an education that would increase their understanding. Increased knowledge would also interfere with this very lucrative scam typically employed by practitioners of faux Feng Shui.

Not a new product

Crystals are common objects in our everyday lives — as the faces on LCD (liquid crystal display) watches, computer screens, TVs, toys, and calculators; as timing mechanisms in clocks (quartz crystal movement); as electrical parts in loudspeakers, microphones, radios, computers and telephones.

If small crystals could affect so-called "energy" in our homes, product manufacturers would have already capitalized on these properties.

Piezoelectricity is a fairly old science based on the knowledge that crystals only vibrate and generate voltage when pressure or an electrical charge is applied to them. In the case of LCDs, liquid crystals are sandwiched between transparent electrodes that change the crystals from clear to dark, from transparent to opaque depending on the amount of electricity pumped through them.

Hanging a crystal or a mirrored ball somewhere in your house is not going to change "energy" flow, no matter what the latest Feng Shui books say.

Crystals and stones do not create energy fields! On Earth, the minerals that give off energy are radioactive.

Crystals are inert substances. They work in primitive radio receivers, but operate only within low megahertz range (in the bandwidth of ship radios and police scanners). A crystal transmitter can disrupt low-band transmissions of anything within its range, but like a crystal receiver it won't have any other effect on the house it's in. Mirrored balls offer wonderful nostalgic effects for disco revival parties, but no other measurable environmental enhancements should be expected from them.

Traditional Feng Shui doesn't use crystals as a cure-all for "energy problems." — for one thing, practitioners generally understand the electromagnetic properties of certain kinds of rock. The application of rocks in Feng Shui is measured in pounds and kilos, not ounces: a mass of rock quartz weighing 350 pounds and installed in the yard is much more likely to have an effect on a 2,000-square-foot house than a four-ounce crystal hanging in the hall.

The Claim
Reality Check

Faux Feng Shui Cure 2: Sounds

Bells and wind chimes dispense malignant energies and summon positive ones. They also act as alarms.

William Spear, in Feng Shui Made Easy, claims that wind chimes used inside a house moderate or change the flow of qi and mark a spot where different "energies" converge.

Traditional Feng Shui uses sound very sparingly.

In some cultures, bells are thought to drive away evil beings like dwarves. In China and other cultures, people ring bells and make noises at death to frighten away evil spirits. During the Middle Ages, Scottish clergy believed that they could remove the devil from their churches by ringing bells. Ringing bells thwarted demons trying to abduct St. Anthony. In Punchinello, Toby the dog wears a frill with bells to frighten the devil away from his master.

The Chinese word for "bell" (zhung) is a homonym of the word meaning "to pass a test," and images of bells in ancient texts are often a punning reference to bureaucratic promotion. Chinese bells were not assumed to be able to summon anything, but some of them were known to fly like Catholic church bells imbued with the power of flight on Good Friday.

Weighty tone

Harmonies constituted a mathematical science in ancient China and the scale was derived by means of mathematical ratios (see the sixth chapter of Lushi chunqiu, and Huainanzi 3:22a:2 and 3:22b:11). Weights and measures were derived from numbers associated with the musical tones.

As stated in Guo Yu, rulers regulated the tuning of bells to ensure the security of the state. The preservation of peace and the integrity of the state corresponded with the concept of standardized measurements. Without consistent measurements there would be widespread corruption, leading to social unrest and civil war.

In Manchu tradition the shamans and shamankas wore percussion bells suspended from their waists while performing clan ancestral worship at the Qing imperial court (1644–1911) or while worshiping nature spirits. In earlier dynasties, because of its strongly yin connotations, a musical wind chime made of black stones was played in the appropriate room of the Mingtang during winter.

The over-reliance on wind chimes in faux Feng Shui is based on ignorance.

In Chinese science, qi is the very activity of life; it is dispersed by wind, and it cannot be "summoned" like a dog or invoked like a Western demon or spirit. Nor do chimes "attract" so-called energy, or delineate "energy" change. These ideas generate from medieval and Victorian occultism.

The Claim
Reality Check

Faux Feng Shui Cure 3: Living Objects:
Real or artificial plants, aquariums, fishbowls

Plants symbolize life and growth and conduct energies around a room. Thought to lure customers into stores. Fishbowls and aquariums are considered microcosms of the earth's ocean, and are considered most effective when artificial aerators are installed in them. Fish absorb accidents and bad luck, and must be replaced when they die. Water symbolizes money. Interestingly, modern Feng Shui classifies water fountains as moving objects, though they artificially aerate the water and can contain fish.

Authentic Feng Shui reveals a great deal of American urban folklore in this "cure."

Here is a "cure" that consists of modern commercial products siphoned from traditional Western folklore, marketed and sold back to Westerners as ancient Asian wisdom.

How can plants "symbolize" life and growth when they are alive and do grow? In Five Element Theory the plant kingdom is represented by the Wood Phase/Element which symbolizes expanding energy (and isn't necessarily represented by a plant in Feng Shui).

Isn't it interesting that a remedy titled "living objects" includes human-made objects like artificial plants! These would not have been available before the use of plastics and other artificial materials used to construct them. Plastics were not in widespread use before World War II.

What about silk plants? Although silk is ancient — Julius Caesar caused a stir by appearing in public in a silk garment — it was not widely available to even the richest people in Europe until the fall of Constantinople (1453) because the Byzantines controlled the market.

Silk also had limited employment in China, where sumptuary laws prevailed.

Stephen Kellert, a professor at the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, looked at a great deal of research before concluding that

plastic trees, stuffed animals, and their fabricated kin seem but a meager substitute more likely to result in a stunted capacity for symbolic expression, metaphor, and communication.

There's no solid evidence to indicate that plants can woo customers into stores except in the case of nurseries or floral shops, but plants do have an important feature that most of us can recall learning in grade-school science: they absorb air pollutants through their leaves and roots and convert them into breathable air. EarthSave mentions a two-year NASA study that concluded some plants can remove up to 87% of toxic indoor air within 24 hours.

Depending on the plant species, one plant can clean every 100 square feet of space. Between 15 and 20 golden Pothos and spider plants can refresh the air in an 1800-square-foot home. Perhaps this is what is meant by the idea of conducting energy around a room.

Water has an ambivalent image for the Chinese as well as other cultures. Kan, the image of water, is "Abysmal, Destructive," according to the Yi Jing. Dui, "Joyous," is metal like the image of the glint of sun on a body of fresh water. Dui also has connotations of capital punishment, for the Metal Element served as a sort of shorthand for the Ministry of Justice in premodern China — just as Kan suggested the Ministry of Works.

Something's Fishy

Daoist beliefs in the sanctity of life prompted one Chinese emperor to abolish capital punishment and institute humane treatment for animals — yet faux Feng Shui considers fish to be scapegoats for humans!

In Chinese folklore fish symbolized happiness, serenity, wealth and abundance. It was also believed that fish, like rats, could change into birds at certain seasons and that their brains shrank with phases of the moon.

The combination of water and fish was an old Chinese metaphor for sexual pleasure. ("Faithful as a fish" is an old expression.) A pair of fish were often presented as a betrothal gift to the fiancee's family.

On the Footprint of Buddha, a religious object, fish symbolize a charm to avert evil. However, Feng Shui developed several thousand years before Buddhism came to China.

Faux Feng Shui Cure 4: Moving Objects
(water fountains, mobiles, windmills)

Thought to stimulate energy indoors. Water fountains and geysers are considered energizing and money-producing, are used by businesses to stimulate profits.

There is no historical precedent in traditional Feng Shui for a "moving objects" remedy. Each object could be made of a different substance and therefore not have a consistent numerical value in the formulas, which would lead to arbitrary results.

Moving water (or anything else, for that matter) can have productive capabilities or a destructive effect on people's lives. Everything depends on the situation.

Windmills have a lot to do with aesthetics but aren't typically related to Feng Shui. (The amazing sculptures of Kiyoyuki Kikutake may be the only exception to this rule.)

Faux Feng Shui Cure 5: Heavy objects
(stones or statues)

Considered a stabilizing influence in unstable situations.

"Heavy objects" is a nod to authentic Feng Shui's regard for mountains or other substantive objects bearing the numerical value of the Earth Element. However, there's more to this "cure" than is suggested by the term, whose use is generally haphazard at best and reflects an unfamiliarity with authentic Feng Shui.

Ancient Daoists used rocks in their gardens to symbolize the physical world and the human skeletal structure. In authentic Feng Shui, boulders and rock gardens are used to denote a buffer or neutral state between other elements or activities and as an aid to structures determined to have been built backwards. They adjust the microclimate, which is one scientific way to explain Feng Shui.

This acknowledgment of "earth activity" can be seen in the archeological remains of the most ancient human campsites in Africa. Richard Leakey and his associates note that protective natural features such as mountains or rock outcroppings were located as a buffer between hominid encampments and the savannah, and offered protection from animal and human predators. A practical safety measure may have evolved into the concept of boulder as earth buffer.

Master Lam Kam Chuen believes rocks are a metal element (numerical value 6 or 7), extremely powerful, disruptive and completely undependable — but other schools interpret rocks as Earth Element (numerical value 2, 5, or 8).

Faux Feng Shui Cure 6: Electrically-powered Objects
(air conditioners, stereos, TVs, computers)

New Age practitioners believe that electric-powered machines stimulate their surroundings and that computers, considered enlivening and stimulating, uplift wisdom and knowledge.

What bovine excrementalizing. Authentic Feng Shui does not recognize electronic or electric devices as a remedy. There are serious environmental issues raised by this "cure."

Despite the marketing that Feng Shui is some kind of Asian environmental cure-all, the fake variety caters to American consumer obsessions and encourages their environmental excesses.

It's obvious that a "cure" based on electrical devices was designed to take people's minds off their environmental accountability.

After all, Americans own the most electric and electronic devices on the planet, while more than two billion people in the rest of the world still do not have access to electricity. Electrical consumption for someone in Africa is the equivalent of one light bulb burning just a few hours a day.

This "cure" is New Age greenwash of our voracious demand for the wealth of the planet.

It defies America's Rio Summit goals, Principles 8 and 9 of the Rio Declarations (1992), conveniently sidesteps the fact of global warming and the sober pronouncements of the Kyoto conference (December 1997). It dismisses all responsible environmental policies. It aids and abets our environmental wastefulness and irresponsibility. The fact that it also disagrees with traditional Feng Shui barely registers next to its overall environmental insanity.

A study published by the Sierra Club in 1996 says that a personal computer that is on but ignored for three hours a day (left on, we assume, for those "enlivening and stimulating" wisdom benefits only an unattended computer can give) is responsible for some 200 pounds of CO2 pollution each year. That's about 2 percent of the annual CO2 emitted by a car that's actually doing something!

What do you know about global warming?

Air conditioners, which consume more energy than any other household appliance, are responsible for 2 or more pounds of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere every operating hour. They also have a litany of health-related complaints associated with them. A dirty filtration system in an air conditioning unit harbors biological agents that can cause anything from allergic reactions, asthma, and flu to deaths from Legionnaire's Disease.

Air conditioners also account for one-sixth of the insatiable American appetite for electricity. Yet by simply following the principles of traditional Feng Shui (which echo sound environmental policy), planting more trees, and using lighter colors for roofs and pavement, American cities would suffer less air pollution and would be cooler than the surrounding countryside. Americans could reduce the need for air conditioning and create less energy "brownouts."

By following sound, traditional Feng Shui principles we could effectively reduce our pollution problems, our energy consumption, and drastically cut global warming.

We could live more equitably and sustainably on the planet these faux Feng Shui "cures" are working so hard to irrevocably damage.

Faux Feng Shui Cure 7: Bamboo Flutes

In BTB theology, bamboo flutes have historical use as reporters of peace and good news. Today the flutes introduce peace, stability and safety to an indoor environment. They are believed to increase a structure's energy room by room, and to symbolize swords in the protective sense of driving away evil.

Bamboo constitutes one of the eight traditional Chinese musical instrument types and is not a Feng Shui remedy.

A series of 9,000-year-old Chinese bone flutes recently came to the notice of the world press. These instruments, say the experts, were played on ceremonial occasions. There is no evidence in all of Chinese history that flutes were used as messenger devices. (They were used that way in premodern Africa, but that is entirely another matter.)

Joscelyn Godwin in Harmonies of Heaven and Earth (1995: 9) reminds us of the sacred history of musical instruments like the bone flutes:

In most musical instruments the resonator is made of wood while the actual sound generator is of animal origin. In cultures where music is still used as a magical force, the making of an instrument always involves the sacrifice of a living being. That being's soul then becomes part of the instrument and in the tones that come forth, the "singing dead," who are ever present with us, make themselves heard.

Bamboo instruments were traditionally invented by Nu Gua (of the Wind clan) and correspond to the eastern compass point and the season of spring. They form one of the legendary eight types of musical instrument invented during the Fuxishi period of Mesolithic and Neolithic culture in ancient China. The original written radical for flute portrayed panpipes, just as pai xiao represents panpipes. Panpipes are regularly depicted in ancient Chinese sculpture and painting.

Hollow tubes, branches, and bones share a long history as shamanic devices used (it is hoped) to alter natural processes via sympathetic magic using the shaman or shamanka's own qi.

This technique forms a connection with early Chinese acoustic theories, which is why the celebrated Zou Yan (ca. 400 BCE) played his pitchpipes to his crops. Because the Chinese thought of qi this way, they made every effort to turn qi-funneling into a refined science. Military diviners employed pai xiao and humming tubes to gather intelligence about enemy morale.

Ancient Chinese scientists saw a clear relationship between notes, winds, and compass points. Around 1100 CE they invented a bizarre idea called "The Blowing of the Ashes." It will seem eerily familiar to proponents of New Age ("Western") Feng Shui.

Eight pitchpipes (each attuned to a compass designation) were stuck into the ground at a 45-degree angle and stuffed with ashes. They were sealed in a room against any possible drafts. As the qi of the month appropriate to each pitch/ compass point/ resonance arrived, supposedly the qi would blow out the ash. Of course this wasn't exactly helpful in determining pitch, but it did lead to the concept of the hermetically sealed laboratory.

Another bizarre claim of faux Feng Shui is that a bamboo flute symbolizes a weapon. Weapons were made of metal in China, except for the fire lance or huo zhang which was made of bamboo. It's the original ancestor of all barrel guns and cannons. Perhaps we should suspend cannons, rifles, and handguns from the ceiling to drive away evil and introduce peace and safety!

The fact remains that there's little logic in having a musical instrument "symbolize" a weapon. This is not the sort of sophistry a traditional culture would expect people to endure. But if that's your whim, why not hang up a bagpipe instead?

Faux Feng Shui Cure 8: Colors

View the color correlations available on the Color Comparisons page. There are apparent correlations with the traditional colors (and aspects) of each house in Western astrology as well as Western color traditions.

Authentic Feng Shui employs the ancient color system found in the Huainanzi and other texts.

Each of the Five Elements has colors that are traditionally associated with it but also correlate with modern color theory.

View the color correlations available on the Color Comparisons page.

Faux Feng Shui Cure 9: Miscellaneous

This catchall cure is where practitioners are their most "creative." Lin Yun says these are the most "mystical" of his cures — perhaps in the sense of it being a mystery why people would believe any of their ideas will work!

Aaga Stanley Bartlett strings teddy bears from exposed ceiling beams to "cure" sha. Tony Cuneo sticks red Avery Label dots everywhere to defy the laws of physics and common sense in his attempt "hold" energy in place or "attract" it. William Spear uses wind chimes inside a house to mark demarcation points between two types of energy (another classic piece of western folklore that denies physics and Chinese science). And the list of oddities goes on and on.

Authentic Feng Shui does not have a "miscellaneous" category for its remedies.

Authentic Feng Shui remedies fall within the scope of (most anciently) precise orientations and (more recently) five phases or elements.

Continue reading here: The Confession of Lin Yun

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