is feng shui a superstition?

Hey All,

I'm reading this paper Tsang(2004) Towards a scientific enquiry into superstitious business decision making. I cannot attach the paper as it exceeds the 100kb limit, but if any1 interested, I could email it to you.

The author explains:
'Feng Shui, calculating destinities, consulting the oracle, and physiognomy, all of which are commonly regarded as superstitions in present-day chinese societies'.

I never thought Feng Shui was a superstition, I thought it was to do with interior decorating. Can anyone help me out here? Is he correct in grouping it with other superstitions?

Your opinions will be much appreciated, and if you can back up your opinions with readings e.g. authors who think it is a superstition or authors who dont, it will be great.

I think of it more as a pseudoscience like phrenology

It's really popular in Hollywood, just like psychics. :devil:

I'd vote "yes" to it being a superstition. :p

I think Ovitz was a big fan of it so his agency CAA made decisions based on feng shui, million dollar decisions.

So wannabes jumped on the feng shui bandwagon hoping to get some of those millions of dollars.

Just my two cents ;)

Hi. No it's not a superstition. I've been studying it for years. There are many different schools with some being more traditional than others. For example "Form School" is thousands of years old, though it is hard to interpret in the age of sky scrapers. "Yin Feng Shui" has a long history which is sometimes clouded by superstition. My spin on things is that Feng Shui's main enemy is superstition itself. Some of the classic formulas and important information have been clouded by the thought that adding crystals everywhere will solve the problems. Problems are harder to change than that and it takes years and years of training to understand it.

Black Hat Sect to me is superstition, while Flying Stars uses a lot of calculating and formulas. Famous authors like Lillian Too use the interior decorating as a marketing tool, to market to western society. It's not real Feng Shui, which is more subtle than sticking a three-toed toad somewhere.

Since the definition of superstition is an "irrational belief" without any "causal relationship", I'd say that based on my experience he's not correct. The thing is, Feng Shui like many subtle arts are hard to test scientifically, but just because things aren't physical or seen doesn't make it not real. It's the same problem modern physics is facing currently.

I wouldn't say it is superstition. If you put an upside down table in the middle of your kitchen, does your life not become more stressful? If you put your TV in front of a bright window, does the picture not become hard to see? If you have no lights but lots of sheet glass and ankle-height ornamental dogs in your living room, does a visit to the emergency room not beckon? That's all Feng Shui at work.