Feng Shui has been around for thousands of years, enjoying
its first golden century CE (Christian Era). Various trends
of feng shui have since developed. Although the basic principles
remain the same, each one has a slightly different approach
to the subject.
Form School
The form school focuses predominately on the contours of
physical landscapes, their shape, size and watercourse, and
the relationship between physical formations and dwelling.
The four directions of the compass are symbolised by four
animals. The East refers to the Green Dragon, the Wests to
the White Tiger, the South to the Red Phoenix and the North
is the Black Turtle or Tortoise. Between these, you may find
the most auspicious location for a house or a village. The
Form School is also concerned with straight alignments which
produce undesirable so called 'poison arroes'.
Traditional Chinese Compass School Feng Shui
The Compass school uses the Eight Trigram of the I Ching,
the eight sided Pa Kua symbol,
and the lo shu magic square (used to divide up the
house or office into nine sectors). These tools are used to
diagnose the feng shui quality of locations and the ch'i flow
coming from different directions.
- Originated from China over 4,000 years ago, with the first
definite text mention in 220 BC.
- Based on a scientific, formulaic approach to feng shui
which is thousands of years old.
- Refers to the Eight Trigrams as Pa Kua.
- Career sector of the Eight Trigrams is always oriented
to magnetic North.
Black Hat Sect (BHS) Feng Shui
A more recent school of thought which is widely practised
in the USA is Black Hat Sect (BHS) feng shui or 'Black Hat
Sect Tantric Buddhist' feng shui. Developed in the USA 15
years ago by Thomas Lin Yun, it is a hybid of Tibetan Buddhism,
taoism and feng shui simplified for Western tastes. It has
a huge cult following.
With this school of feng shui, rather than using the traditional
magnetic compass or lo p'an to determine directions,
each house or room is judged from the position of its door.
BHS feng shui states that the main door to each room faces
the Career sector. This may result in adjacent rooms or houses
having apparently contradictory directions.
- Popularised in America since 1986.
- Based on a more spiritual approach to feng shui.
- Refers to the Eight Trigrams as ba gua.
- Career sector of the Eight Trigrams is always oriented
to the main door.
Intuitive Feng Shui
There is much talk about 'intuitive feng shui'. However,
feng shui, which has its own set of rules, cannot be considered
more intuitive than either geography or physics. Individual
practitioners may be more perceptive than others, but feng
shui changes must be based on the rules and not just a 'feeling'.
Feng Shui 
