The Complete Idiot's Guide To Feng Shui - Softcover

Elizabeth Moran; Val Biktashev

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0028631056 ISBN 13: 9780028631059

Publisher: Alpha Books, 1999

Synopsis

A step-by-step guide to understanding and practicing the ancient art and science of feng shui.

About this title

About the Author

A native of Siberia, VAL BIKTASHEV is one of the world's foremost authorities on classical feng shui. He has made numerous television appearances and has had several articles written about his work in nationally distributed newspapers. In 1997, Val founded the Beverly Hills-based American Healing Arts Institute. He has performed readings for celebrities, government officials, corporations large and small, and homes. ELIZABETH MORAN is a best-selling author of several books. She has studied classical feng shui and Chinese astrology with the most venerated masters of North America. Elizabeth lectures worldwide to promote the classic tradition.

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From the Foreword
At the end of the 20th century, one of the most venerable of the traditional Chinese sciences has finally made its way to the West to take its place alongside the important, but not as ancient, science of acupuncture. I refer, of course, to feng shui, the art and science of geophysical orientation, a tradition as old as Chinese culture itself. Early Western commentators on classical Chinese civilization labeled this body of practices geomancy, literally "divination by geographic features," which certainly captures one aspect of feng shui. But, as the reader is about to discover, the aspects of feng shui that aren't part of geomancy are perhaps the most fascinating. For this ancient science is based on some of the world's earliest mathematical conceptions of nature.

People today know that calculus is the language of physics, and that every physical body and its motion can be defined according to particular mathematical equations. But the Chinese had come to that conclusion some 2,300 years earlier. I do not mean to say the Chinese discovered quantum mechanics, but they did understand that the operation of the natural world could be explained in terms of numbers.

The key that unlocked the secrets of the world was the Luoshu, a configuration of numbers first mentioned by Confucius, but that may have originated in pre-dynastic China if legends are true. Called the Magic Square in the West, this figure has been venerated by many ancient cultures since its discovery by the Chinese. From China, it traveled to India, Persia, and Arabia.

The Muslims considered the luoshu a model of the universe, and charms and amulets with magic squares can still be found. But what is so magical about the magic square that it can influence so many cultures around the world? Not only did the luoshu describe the workings of the universe, one who understood it could also foretell the future. Han dynasty scholars matched the numbers of the luoshu with certain sequences of the eight trigrams of the Yijing, or Book of Changes. By manipulating these figures, they were able to discern the existence of qi, or life breath, in the environment. With knowledge of the whereabouts and flow of this invisible qi, diviners believed they could change the course of human destiny. These diviners were called kanyu doctors and were the ancestors of the modern-day feng shui master.

The book in your hands is the key to unlocking the secrets of feng shui. Thanks to a pair of insightful authors you will be able to tap into a body of esoteric knowledge that has remained elusive for most of its long history. Elizabeth Moran and Val Biktashev have produced a work that will make most of the books on your shelf obsolete. Unlike other practical feng shui manuals on the market, this book is based on contemporary scholarship.

-- Stephen L. Field, Ph.D., associate professor, Trinity University, is currently the only American scholar conducting full-time research on feng shui.

Edition details

• Publisher: Alpha Books
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0028631056
• ISBN 13: 9780028631059
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 404