Search results
14 hours ago · Developing country. A developing country is a sovereign state with a less developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. [3] However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreement on which countries fit this category.
14 hours ago · The device consisted of two keypads, one for the customer and one for the teller. It allowed the customer to type in a secret code, which is transformed by the device, using a microprocessor, into another code for the teller. During a transaction, the customer's account number was read by the card reader. This process replaced manual entry and ...
- History
- Foundational Concepts
- Traditional Feng Shui
- Western Forms of Feng Shui
- Traditional Uses of Feng Shui
- Contemporary Uses of Feng Shui
- Criticisms
- Sources
Origins
The Yangshao and Hongshan cultures provide the earliest known evidence for the use of feng shui. Until the invention of the magnetic compass, feng shui relied on astronomy to find correlations between humans and the universe.In 4000 BC, the doors of dwellings in Banpo were aligned with the asterism Yingshi just after the winter solstice—this sited the homes for solar gain. During the Zhou era, Yingshi was known as Ding and it was used to indicate the appropriate time to build a capital city,...
Early instruments and techniques
Some of the foundations of feng shui go back more than 3,500 years before the invention of the magnetic compass. It originated in Chinese astronomy. Some current techniques can be traced to Neolithic China, while others were added later (most notably the Han dynasty, the Tang, the Song, and the Ming). The astronomical history of feng shui is evident in the development of instruments and techniques. According to the Zhouli, the original feng shui instrument may have been a gnomon. Chinese used...
Later history
After the Song dynasty, divination began to decline as a political institution and instead became an increasingly private affair. Many feng shui experts and diviners sold their services to the public market, allowing feng shui to quickly grow in popularity. During the Late Qing dynasty, feng shui became immensely popular. Widespread destitution and increasing government despotism led to feng shui becoming more widely practiced in rural areas. The Qing dynasty attempted to crack down on hetero...
Definition and classification
Feng shui views good and bad fortune as tangible elements that can be managed through predictable and consistent rules. This involves the management of qi, an imagined form of cosmic "energy." In situating the local environment to maximize good qi, one can optimize their own good fortune. Feng shui holds that one's external environment can affect one's internal state. A goal of the practice is to achieve a "perfect spot", a location and an axis in time that can help one achieve a state of shū...
Qi
Qi (气, pronounced "chee") is a movable positive or negative life force which plays an essential role in feng shui. The Book of Burial says that burial takes advantage of "vitalqi". The goal of feng shui is to take advantage of vitalqiby appropriate siting of graves and structures.
Polarity
Polarity is expressed in feng shui as yin and yang theory. That is, it is of two parts: one creating an exertion and one receiving the exertion. The development of this theory and its corollary, five phase theory (five element theory), have also been linked with astronomical observations of sunspot. The Five Elements or Forces (wu xing) – which, according to the Chinese, are metal, earth, fire, water, and wood – are first mentioned in Chinese literature in a chapter of the classic Book of His...
Traditional feng shui is an ancient system based upon the observation of heavenly time and earthly space. Literature, as well as archaeological evidence, provide some idea of the origins and nature of feng shui techniques. Aside from books, there is also a strong oral history. In many cases, masters have passed on their techniques only to selected ...
More recent forms of feng shui simplify principles that come from the traditional branches, and focus mainly on the use of the bagua.[citation needed]
Environmental management
Traditional feng shui was a system designed to aid rural villages from the effects of weather and natural disaster. As a set of consistent rules, feng shui can facilitate collective consensus on development without the need of centralized leadership. Understanding that one's actions could damage the feng shui and fortunes of the entire village, individuals were incentivized to know these rules and carefully manage the development of their land and resources. This served to prevent the Tragedy...
Conflict resolution
A core aspect of feng shui has been its understanding of polarity. As opposed to western dualism, in which concepts are completely oppositional and irreconcilable, Chinese polarity sees opposing concepts as constantly changing and inseparable. The result is an emphasis on continual compromise and balance in order to maintain harmony. Feng shui has been observed to play an important role in the mediation of rural conflict. Through its amoral explanation of differential fortunes, feng shui prov...
Community mobilization and political protest
As early as the Tang dynasty, the Chinese state recognized the disruptive power popular expressions of feng shui had over government authority. At the community level, feng shui could play an important role in community mobilization and political protest.By elevating a cosmological explanations of events, feng shui allowed for the expression of otherwise impermissible political opinions. During the Boxer Rebellion, feng shui was used to justify attacks on western missionaries and colonial inf...
After Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China in 1972, feng shui practices became popular in the United States. Critics warn that claims of scientific validity have proven to be false and that the practices are pseudoscientific. Others charge that it has been reinvented and commercialized by New Age entrepreneurs,or are concerned th...
Traditional feng shui
Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), one of the founding fathers of Jesuit China missions, may have been the first European to write about feng shui practices. His account in De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas tells about feng shui masters (geologi, in Latin) studying prospective construction sites or grave sites "with reference to the head and the tail and the feet of the particular dragons which are supposed to dwell beneath that spot." As a Catholic missionary, Ricci strongly criticized the "recond...
Contemporary feng shui
One critic called the situation of feng shui in today's world "ludicrous and confusing," asking "Do we really believe that mirrors and flutes are going to change people's tendencies in any lasting and meaningful way?" He called for much further study or "we will all go down the tubes because of our inability to match our exaggerated claims with lasting changes."Robert T. Carroll sums up the charges: Skeptics charge that evidence for its effectiveness is based primarily upon anecdote and users...
Books
1. Allan, Sarah (1991). Shape of the Turtle, The: Myth, Art, and Cosmos in Early China. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-9449-3. 2. Bruun, Ole (2011). Fengshui in China: Geomantic Divination Between State Orthodoxy and Popular Religion (2nd ed.). NIAS Press. ISBN 978-87-91114-79-3. 3. Bruun, Ole (2008). An Introduction to Feng Shui. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521863520. 4. Campbell, Wallace H. (7 February 2001). Earth Magnetism: A Guided Tour through Magnetic Fields. Elsevier....
Theses
1. Chen, Bixia (14 March 2008). A Comparative Study on the Feng Shui Village Landscape and Feng Shui Trees in East Asia (Thesis). hdl:10232/4817. 2. Xu, Jun (30 September 2003). A Framework for Site Analysis with Emphasis on Feng Shui and Contemporary Environmental Design Principles (Thesis). hdl:10919/29291.
Articles and chapters
1. Bourguignon, Erika (2005). "Geomancy". In Jones, Lindsay (ed.). Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA. pp. 3437–3438. 2. Bennett, Steven J. (1978). "Patterns of the Sky and Earth: A Chinese Science of Applied Cosmology". Chinese Science. 3: 1–26. JSTOR 43896378. 3. Chen, B. X.; Nakama, Y. (2004). "A summary of research history on Chinese Feng-shui and application of feng shui principles to environmental issues" (PDF). Kyusyu J. For. Res. 57: 297–301. 4. Chen, Qigao; Fe...
