When I began the self-inflicted project to review Feng Shui books in my personal library, I knew I would be critiquing many books published at the end of the 20th century and early 2000’s. There will be some books where I disagree moderately to significantly with the information dispensed by other authors.
I want to give any author the benefit of the doubt, that perhaps they have upgraded their knowledge in the decades since their book came out. I began to wonder what someone might think of my own books if they did not first read the Addendum that I wrote for all of them back in 2011.
What I have done since writing the Addendum (original one is 10 pages), is put a sticker in each of my trade paperbacks, notifying readers to email me for a copy of the Addendum, before they get sent off to Amazon or before I mail them directly to anyone who makes the purchase from my website.
As an author who published my first book in 2003, I had already been a consultant for more than ten years, but as time passed and I continued to seek out more and better teachers and sources of information, my own style and process changed in a few key areas. Were it economically pragmatic to reprint my books, there would be changes made, reflecting how I now teach and practice Feng Shui.
Instead what I have done, with relative ease, is create companion files for all my books, where I have updated and commented on anything in the books which I felt I should elaborate on. These companion files not only address the changes I made after publishing my third book, but the files also go into more detail on topics which only serious students and other practitioners would care to know. These companion files are only available to people who are formally enrolled in my school.
I also have a 40-page version of the original Addendum entitled “Feng Shui Controversies, Part 1”, available to the public, as one of my 37 Case Studies.
What follows here is an updated version of the 10-page Addendum. It has been edited and abbreviated just enough to get the points across. This will be linked to some of the book reviews, to inform and underscore my own commitment to “recall” some of the erroneous or misleading information in Feng Shui books, which has even included my own. Here it is…
You may be reading this Addendum because you have purchased one or more of my books or plan to. I felt it was necessary to update some of the applications and theories described in the books.
The vast majority of modern-day Feng Shui teachers do not go deep into Chinese cosmology with their students. Nor do they demand any rigorous research into the historical development of Feng Shui over several thousand years. And unlike our Feng Shui forefathers, most modern-day practitioners do not have a background in science or even architecture. Many do not even have a background in the rudiments of Chinese metaphysics. Learning and teaching through analogy instead of through definition has become the norm—and a persistent problem for our Feng Shui community as a whole.
The ancient Feng Shui masters had training in astronomy, also excelling in mathematics and other fields such as geology and engineering. As an example, we have to familiarize ourselves with Sun physics just to appreciate why the Feng Shui New Year begins on or about February 4th and not in sync with the Chinese Lunar calendar.
For a variety of reasons, some of the most precious information our Feng Shui forefathers left us was heavily coded, disguised in paradox, and not readily available to just anyone with an earnest desire to learn this mystical practice.
Those who have already read my books know that I write from experience and many true case studies, which highlight the accuracy and effectiveness of Feng Shui, when employed correctly. Having dedicated my life to practicing Feng Shui, I am now more than happy to share in my more recent discoveries.
Each of my books focuses on different aspects of traditional schools, but there are a few applications which need to be explained further and revised. It is actually ironic and fitting that the author of Feng Shui for Skeptics would herself need a “course correction” so that we can truly validate Feng Shui as a natural science and simultaneously clear out all the “Old Age” myths as much as the “New Age” myths.
Nine Palace Grid Versus Pie-Shape
You will notice in all three books that I give examples of how to divide up floor plans, using a method called the Nine Palace Grid, also known as the Lo Shu Square method. This style is based on the notion that the energy in a house is contained by the walls and the directional divisions of space mimic the shape of the house or building.
A square house would yield eight directional squares using this system. A rectangular house would produce eight directional rectangles. Some directional sectors will have extensions or missing sections. There would also be a center square, which is why this style is called the Nine Palace Grid as opposed to the Eight Palace Grid. (Author’s Updated Footnote: To presume that Qi will shape itself into any geometric shape, without consideration for the contents of the room, is also questionable.)
When we do calculations on a structure, we arrive at some numerical coding for its energy blueprint, called a Flying Star chart. These calculations are derived from the age of the structure in conjunction with its precise orientation. The numbers which are placed in the center of the written chart are not literally residing in the center of a floor plan. Placing a Nine Palace Grid chart directly over a floor plan became a conventional and convenient visual way to teach and refer to the Xuan Kong Fei Xing calculations. (“Fei Xing” refers to the Flying Star School.) But this style perpetuates two misguided notions. One is that the flying stars will dutifully distribute themselves into this boxy arrangement and the other is that there is a literal center square.
Speaking in analogy, I have as well referred to center stars as being “trapped” when a house endures a “locked phase.” Other translations call it “Imprisonment.” The concept of the Locked Phase is discussed in Feng Shui for Skeptics and The Feng Shui Continuum. The potential problem is real, but the terms are figurative since the “center” stars are not literally trapped in the geometric center of a house.
What makes them noteworthy is their absence. It is their absence which can indicate certain vulnerabilities for the people occupying that space. These center stars have no home, no defined direction. This is why many adherents to the pie shape method don’t even write the center stars on the floor plan. Yet the duties of the central stars can include instructing the other flying stars. I will still stand by what I wrote in The Feng Shui Matrix about the center stars being more “active” when certain floor plans would appear to tug at the geometric center of the house. This is a reaction to qi flow, triggering the influence of these center flying stars for being missing, as if tethered to the center like a string on a balloon.
Even more important than the “Center Versus No Center” controversy, I want to advocate use of the pie shape sector method. It is unequivocally a more accurate depiction of the distribution of the flying stars. Even though I have gotten good results using the Nine Palace Grid method, my goal and my goal for you, is to get better results. Here are two distinct examples to compare.
With a square shaped plan, we can see how the physical location of the different directional sectors is somewhat similar. But if the luo shu square image was always intended to be a kind of short-hand for the 45 degree range of directions, it ends up being misleading when used in an actual evaluation.
With a rectangular shaped floor plan, we can see a bigger difference and room for errors. Some sectors will be considerably larger than others.
Right along-side the misconceptions about how to divide up the floor plan, intertwined are different theories about how the flying stars are captured inside a building. All classical Feng Shui schools will agree that a defining moment for the creation of the flying stars is when the structure is enclosed by the roof, having taken energies from the Earth below and from the Sun above. It is a marriage of yin and yang energies. It is a blending of time and space.
The pie shape sector method acknowledges that the continuing supply of qi comes from the outside to the inside. This would necessitate a pie shape division of space for the correct identification of directions, all relative to a geometric center point. This corroborates nicely with many Form School theories about how the outside affects the inside, and not the other way around. For example, a tree outside your bedroom window can affect the energy inside, but not the other way around.
In Xuan Kong Fei Xing (Flying Star) Feng Shui we address twenty-four “mountains” or subsections of the whole 360 degree range. And in fact, some formulas demand that each degree be considered. In Chinese Feng Shui cosmology we learn that each degree of the compass can also represent 72 Earth years. Multiply 72 by 360 degrees and you arrive at a special astronomically significant number of 25,920.
Proponents of the Nine Palace Grid method will remark that pie shape is to be used for Yin House (divination of grave sites) only, or with few exceptions, and not for Yang House readings (homes and commercial structures). Why is it then that in Chinese Astrology we learn about 15-degree directional sectors applicable to the person, which can only be located using the 24-mountain pie shape sector method exclusively? And that is done for the living, not the deceased.
I had been overlapping the two styles for many years, noting their inherent contradictions. How is it that a house which sits North-1 at 340 degrees would show the same distribution of the eight basic directions as a house sitting North-3 at 20 degrees? We have a 40-degree difference in orientation here which is almost the span of a full direction! The point is to be as accurate as possible. This is also why I have always emphasized working with a to-scale floor plan.
To conclude on this topic, I feel that the arguments against using the pie shape method exclusively are both historically and mathematically weak.
If you decide that you would like to employ the Pie Shape sector method to your floor plan, this system has its own set of guidelines for determining the geometric center.
In most cases it is quite easy to find the geometric center by finding the mid-way point between the four opposing corners of the floor plan. The geometric center is found where the mid-way point connects from all opposing corners or outer-most edges of the shape.
Once you have located the center point, you can place a compass transparency over the floor plan, aligning the center of your compass transparency with that center of the floor plan. You will then align the compass transparency with the actual precise directions for how the structure is situated. You will know the real directions for sitting and facing, after you take a careful compass reading outside the structure. How to take a compass reading is covered in all the books.
With odd-shaped structures or those which are not squares or rectangles, there are some other guidelines for determining where the geometric center is. For example, with an L shaped structure, you may need to first divide the L shape into two separate rectangles, and then find the one unifying mid-way point between the two smaller mid-way points for each section of the L shape.
With all this alternative information to consider, we can also acknowledge that the geometric center of a house may not be precisely the qi center. You really have to pay attention and also use your instincts to locate the qi center, if it is not obvious. Here you factor in where the floor plan is most open compared to more restricted areas, employing many other more advanced observations related to yin and yang, form and use. As a comparison, we can look at the functions and importance of the heart or brain in our bodies, neither of which is in the geometric center of our bodies. The real qi center can sometimes even be outside the structure.
This branch of Feng Shui is also referred to as the: Pa Chai School, Eight Mansion School, Eight House School, or the East-West School. This system defines eight house types based on their sitting direction. Each house is purported to have four auspicious locations and four inauspicious locations, where the use of those spaces is supposed to be limited or avoided.
Ba Zhai also designates that these eight house types are placed in two major categories: East type and West type. The houses which sit North, South, East and Southeast are called East Type Houses.
The houses which sit West, Southwest, Northwest, and Northeast are called West Type houses.
People are also described as East type or West type and a whole doctrine of personal compatibility or incompatibility with one’s house type follows. This can be maddening when an entire household or work force in a business is a mixture of East type and West type people. The result will always be that a direction which is good for the East type people is not good for the West type people and vice versa.
Anyone who is familiar with Xuan Kong Fei Xing can recognize right away that the Ba Zhai School is much more generic at the very least. The Ba Zhai School is only based on eight directions. In comparison, Xuan Kong Fei Xing (Flying Star) has to be more accurate by factoring in timing of year built as well as twenty-four directional distinctions. And yet, many current schools teach Ba Zhai right along with Flying Star, as if they were complementary, when they really present more contradictions than not.
I always placed more importance on the Flying Star School than Ba Zhai, but I carefully try to extract from Ba Zhai information I can use as long as it does not contradict the Flying Star Chart. For example, in The Feng Shui Matrix, I have sections on how one can use their personal best directions. I do not see this as a conflict to the Flying Star method because I am also still be attending to adjustments to the room based on Five Element Theory as prescribed by Xuan Kong Fei Xing. Then, if one chooses to sit or sleep in a room in a certain direction (based on their birth year) that should make the experience in the room even more positive.
Where we get into danger is when Ba Zhai describes an area as being a zone in the house that can attract wealth or support good health and relationships, when the Flying Star chart might reveal the exact opposite. Or Ba Zhai might describe an area of a house as being a very unfortunate location and capable of attracting all kinds of problems. The Flying Star chart might reveal this to be the best area of the house. It has been generally accepted that the Flying Stars trump Ba Zhai, and yet there are practitioners who only practice the Ba Zhai School. This is as limiting and potentially misguided as those who practice the Black Hat School.
By the way, the term “Ba Zhai” should not be confused with “Ba Zi.” Ba Zi is the Chinese term for one type of astrology, also called Four Pillars of Destiny.
In The Feng Shui Continuum, the bulk of the book refers only to Xuan Kong Fei Xing. However, if you were to read all my books, you might be trying to reconcile both the Ba Zhai information with the Flying Stars and find these contradictions right away. Contradictions happen even within just Flying Stars practices. For instance, you may determine that an area of your house needs a certain elemental adjustment based on the original Flying Star chart for the house, but then find a conflict when a certain annual influence comes in. This is the nature of the beast. Life is complicated and Feng Shui has many layers.
An elemental adjustment like fire or metal might be good for one set of circumstances and yet not for another in the exact same location. It has always been the responsibility of the Feng Shui practitioner to set priorities and reduce risk for the client.
One big inconsistency in Ba Zhai was the creation of the personal trigram or “ming gua” which is different for females than males born in the same year. As one example, in Ba Zhai , a man born in 1960 is the Xun trigram (Soft Wood and East type) and yet a woman born in 1960 is the Kun trigram (Soft Earth and West type). If you reflect on other astrology systems, there are no variations or alterations made based on gender. In Chinese astrology, if you were born in 1952, you are a Dragon, whether male or female. And further, your entire Ba Zi Chart or Zi Wei Dou Shu chart would be identical if you were born the same month and hour, regardless of your gender.
If you were born in a certain month in Western or Vedic Astrology, you are the same zodiac sign, regardless of gender. And in Nine Star Ki, which developed from the same Luo Shu, if you are born in any given year, you have the same star, regardless of gender. Nine Star Ki is the system you should gravitate towards if you want to understand your character traits more in-depth, strengths and weakness, compared to the more limited Ba Zhai designations.
So, with this discrepancy in gender identification, we can see a crack in the Ba Zhai system and delve further. This is where some knowledge of Chinese history becomes necessary to understand how and why the Ba Zhai School was created in the first place, at the beginning in the 8th century.
The Ba Zhai School was established by a monk known as Yi Xing. He is very famous in Chinese history for other inventions and contributions he made to Chinese Cosmology. He was an astronomer, a mathematician, a Yi Jing (I-Ching) scholar, a calendar maker, and an engineer. Buddhists monks were highly educated and often held jobs in addition to their monastic service.
Yi Xing (683-727 A.D.) was drafted to serve under the Chinese Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty. Yi Xing was basically ordered to create a false Feng Shui School, to deliver to the unsuspecting, rival Mongol Empire. Serious students of Feng Shui need to familiarize themselves with the reputations and activities of the Chinese Emperors who took Feng Shui very seriously and who utilized it to their own advantage, often at the expense of their own people.
We should not sit in judgment of monk Yi Xing for having created a partially false Feng Shui School. We will never know what the consequences would have been if he did not come up with this clever alternative system. We could assume that not just his, but other lives may have been sacrificed, if he had not devised a variation of the Ba Zhai principles that appeared so authentic that it could fool the Mongol rulers and people.
Instead of marching in armies to overthrow the enemy, how about gifting them a corrupted Feng Shui doctrine, so that they can simmer in their own demise slowly over time? Similarly, in modern times we might choose to harm a political enemy economically instead of with military force.
Yi Jing’s false doctrine became known as “Feng Shui Classics for the Barbarians,” which should have been a dead giveaway for future generations, and yet the Ba Zhai School has endured. In fact, more people around the world practice Ba Zhai School than the Xuan Kong Fei Xing. This might be partially because the popular applications of Ba Zhai are simple and easier to learn.
People who practice the Ba Zhai School with conviction will often respond in defense by saying, “But it works!” Well, it works some of the time and it was devised to be that way. Yi Xing would not have been foolish to create a false School that could be easily detected.
The goal was to undermine a political rival slowly and not in obvious ways. In fact, the Chinese Emperors even relished dispensing this misinformation to their own countrymen. Their own insatiable desire for control and power would have made it irresistible to not manipulate what the masses could have access to. Some Chinese Emperors didn’t care, except in self-serving ways, about the welfare of the people they lorded over. This is not a stretch given we have modern-day dictators who have abused and killed their own citizens. If the Chinese Emperor oriented his palace in a direction that was good for wealth, a mere citizen could be put to death for trying to orient his own home in the same direction.
We have an old American saying “Behind every successful man, is a woman.” If you want to ruin a nation, you can start by undermining the mother or wife. Change her personal trigram so that errors will be made, her qi will be weakened, and then the marriage will be compromised and the whole family will have more conflicts and chaos.
This is an error which needs to be corrected, not just in my books, but throughout the whole classical Feng Shui community. And yet this is a highly controversial subject. Some of the biggest names in the Feng Shui world do not want to be challenged or engage in a debate about these matters. Meanwhile, there are Chinese Feng Shui authorities who actually know the history of Ba Zhai and Yi Xing, but continue to teach this false school anyway. We can only speculate as to why.
Master Ceng Gong An, who was a disciple of Yang Yun Song wrote a Chinese Feng Shui Classic “Qing Nang Xu,” which is translated as The Green Satchel Order. He wrote about this very topic. As well, Jiang Da Hong also wrote centuries ago about the devastation to families which would result in using the Ba Zhai system. This might be like the way classical practitioners in current times denounce the Black Hat School for its limitations as well as for the actual harm it can cause.
In The Feng Shui Continuum there are no instructions regarding personal trigrams or the Ba Zhai system. That book is dedicated to building a Flying Star chart and how to interpret it. The only revision that would be forth-coming if I ever do another printing, would be to introduce the Pie Shape sector method for samples on floor plan division.
In Feng Shui for Skeptics, I list the personal trigrams (Ming Gua) and some of their attributes. You can still utilize this information. But on page 105 you should refer to the Trigram chart by ignoring the column for females. If you are female, just look on the male trigram column to locate your own personal trigram as well.
In The Feng Shui Matrix, personal best directions for certain activities are culled from Ba Zhai as well as from two forms of authentic Chinese astrology (Ba Zi and Zi Wei Dou Shu). You can also refer to any of the trigram charts contained in the book, but ignore the female columns and just use the male trigram for both genders.
When it comes to applications based on your Chinese zodiac sign, you can still use the female column where noted. The distinctions of easterly directions and westerly directions are still relevant and this refers back directly to the Luo Shu and Wuxing (Five Element Theory). In other words, having supportive or un-supportive personal directions is not a fabrication with the Ba Zhai School. We just need you to know your correct personal “gua.”
However, the dire language (i.e. “severed fate”) you will see assigned to the inauspicious directions by other authors should be taken with a grain of salt. It should be understood that the heavy and negative implications of the inauspicious directions were emphasized on purpose to produce anxiety and undermine the autonomy of the individual. Just notate your correct personal trigram on the charts, without gender distinction, for more benign uses.
One other final note on the personal trigrams is that we actually have people who are the 5 earth star. In Yi Xing’s Ba Zhai system, some of the men whose birth year would otherwise be a 5 star (no direction, but symbolic of center and the Emperor) get relegated to the Kun trigram (2), which you will see on all Ba Zhai charts. However, we actually have “5” earth star people as their signature energy based on birth year.
The 5 star is not symbolic of any direction nor any family member since there is no 5 trigram. I will just continue to refer to it as the 5 earth star. The 5 earth star people are fully autonomous, but they may borrow some westerly traits of the Kun trigram. This has been explained through an interesting association overlaying the Pre-Heaven and Post Heaven Sequence of the Luo Shu.
If you discover that you are a 5 earth person, (such as those born in 1950, 1959, 1968, 1977), you may be hard pressed to find information about your personal 5 earth star in Feng Shui. You could then look to the ancient system of Nine Star Ki to find out such things as the 5 earth star people having a certain command over all the directions.
The personal trigrams repeat perpetually every nine years; the numbers associated with the trigrams descend as the years scroll forward. As you check the male trigram column on any charts in my books, you will see a perpetual pattern in descending sequential order, except for the 5 star people being shown as Kun (i.e. 9-Li, 8-Gen, 7-Dui, 6-Qian, 5-, 4-Xun, 3-Zhen, 2-Kun, 1-Kan, etc).
Hardly anyone questions why Ba Zhai made a female trigram and why the Zhen trigram is the same for both genders in that system. With some number juggling, we can see how the formula was invented:
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 (Original trigram order for males and females being the same)
6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 (Ba Zhai converted the order for females to be ascending)
You can see right away that a female who thought she was Qian(6) is really Li (9).
A female who thought she was Kun (2) is Xun (4), etc.
Only the 3 gua female would be exempt from this mistake, as 3 Zhen was left the same for males or females in the Ba Zhai system.
I provide in this Addendum a new Personal Trigram Chart at the very end. You can compare it with any of the Personal Trigram Charts in any of the books. I have highlighted in red font where the Kun trigram is really a 5 star.
Incidentally, the personal trigram assigned to any individual is the same as the center annual flying star for all structures in that same year. In other words, in a year when the 2 star is the center annual star, people born that same year are the Kun trigram.
I hope this Addendum clarifies for you the two main updates I want to bring to all who are taking to heart the information in my books.
- The Pie Shape sector method is more precise than the Nine Palace Grid method in locating the boundaries of the directional sectors.
- There is no female trigram, distinct from the male trigram. ***
***For twenty years, I did get a lot of affirmative feedback from women that their female trigram seemed accurate. But there are some reasons which I understand better now, why I was getting some false positive responses. One simple explanation has to do with the fact that our complex personalities and constitutional health cannot be boiled down to just one trigram or element anyway. This would be too generic, much like labeling someone by a mere zodiac sign. We can actually experience all the trigrams as our own at different junctures in our life. We can also mirror some of the health issues related to the trigram that is the polar opposite of our own.
For example, a Zhen-East (3) gua person could reflect some Dui-West (7) gua attributes. A Qian-Northwest(6) person could reflect back some Xun-Southeast (4) attributes. In Nine Star Ki, you have one star (element) based on Year of Birth, but also another star (element) based on Month of Birth. Personal physiology, covered thoroughly in the whole of Chinese metaphysics is much more sophisticated and beyond the scope of this Addendum.
Should you have any more questions regarding the information in my books, you are more than welcome to contact me. If you refer to the trigram chart in this article, remember that those born between January 1st through February 3rd are one year older on the chart.
Author: Kartar Diamond
Company: Feng Shui Solutions ®
From the Book Review Blog Series
