Gimme
that old-time bigotry
 Consider
Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology
will be perceived as 'magic' by a less-advanced civilization."
"Magic"
means "superstition" to some people -- which means being
one step away from unbridled barbarism. Historians who
render Fang Shi as "diviner" or "magician" express much
the same opinions as the imperial Chinese historians
even though the two had essentially the same skills
but different philosophies. It doesn't entirely explain
how "geomancy" (in its technical meaning a form of spontaneous divination
like dowsing) came to be used by Victorians to explain
Feng Shui. The truth is that there simply was no direct
Western equivalent, especially with Feng Shui's use
of mathematics, so "geomancy" was substituted.
Geomancy
literally means "earth prophecy" and refers to "an art
of divination by means of signs derived from the earth,
as by the figure assumed by a handful of earth thrown
down upon some surface." This is not the methodology
or the science of Kan Yu, but Westerners filtered what
little they understood of Chinese scientific theory
through their chauvinistic culture -- turning an ancient
earth science into fortunetelling from clods of dirt.
So
many Victorian scientists and scientific amateurs wrote
about Roman augurs, Druidic priests, and Fang Shi as
dark, irrational, prurient and decidedly "primitive."
It made a lovely contrast to that pinnacle of human
civilization -- the rational, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant
modern man of the British Empire. Calling Feng Shui
geomancy has often perpetuated this warped vision
of other cultures and their formidable scientific achievements.
With the demise of Cartesian thought and
the advent of modern science the ethnocentric mindset
of Victorians has become increasingly obvious.
Weighty
matters
Courtly
Fang Shi in premodern China were expected to excel in
three fields:
- Maintaining
the emperor's youth and vitality (macrobiotics)
- Maintaining
correct measurement standards for time, weight, and
pitch
- Performing
divination and guiding governmental policies toward
spiritual principles
The
medical practitioners of ancient China were rightly famous
for their efforts, which include the earliest known treatments
for thyroid disorders and diabetes. But the practitioners
of what came to be known as Feng Shui only now are receiving
their due, thanks to the efforts of a variety of scholars.
Ancient
China based all its measurements on the musical pitches
of its bells. One of the duties of the imperial or courtly
Fang Shi was to ascertain the standardization of measurements,
including the pitches of the empire's bells. One Feng
Shui man mentioned in the biographies became famous
solely because of his bells.
As
stated in Kyo Yu, written several hundred years
before the common era, kings regulated the tuning of
bells to ensure the security of the state. The preservation
of peace and the integrity of the state corresponded
with the concept of standardized measurements. Without
consistent measurements there would be widespread corruption,
leading to social unrest and civil war.
Huang-chung
and ta-lu pitch pipes were invented as a cheaper
solution for achieving standardization. The bamboo pipes
were far less expensive than cast bells, yet still capable
of sustaining the requisite note. As one ancient imperial
document explains:
The
basis of the linear measure is the length of . . .
the pitch pipe. Using grains of medium-sized black
millet the length of Huang-chung is 90 fen, one
fen being equal to the width of a grain of
millet . . . Using grains of medium-sized millet,
1200 grains fill its tube . . . The contents of one
. . . tube, i.e., 1200 grains of millet, weigh 12
chu [half an ounce].
All
this may seem like so much dry measure to us, but it had
broad implications for society. People received monthly
rations of rice which had to be carefully measured lest
corruption and riots follow. (Rations are still part of
modern life in some areas of the world -- for instance,
Iraqi citizens receive 15.4 pounds of wheat flour and
3.3 pounds of rice each month.) The standard was important
enough to be accorded religious value. Worship of the
rice-measure involved the compass points, candles, and
incense; it could also include items like a foot measure,
scales, a mirror, and scissors. This rice-measure corresponds
to a unit of measure used in the West for a monthly wheat
ration.
Metrologists
refer to a unit of measure -- the artaba, a Persian
term -- used extensively throughout the ancient world.
This unit is found in Old Persian texts along with Syriac,
Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, and Greek documents. Ancient
Egyptians spoke of the qedet, their version of
an artaba.
The
most common unit of volume measure in ancient times
was 1/60 of an artaba. In medieval Europe the monetary
standard was 1/1000 of an artaba, which was used to
determine the weight of coins. One unit based upon the
artaba, the "Cologne ounce," was named after the city
housing the mint employed by Carolingian emperors. In
medieval England, the primary monetary measurement based
on 1/1000 of an artaba was the "Tower ounce," named
after the mint in the Tower of London.
Though
this ancient measure is no longer in use, many of our
modern measurements were derived from the artaba. Professor
Livio Catullo Stecchini, a primary researcher in ancient
metrology, is certain that the artaba points to a universal
metrological standard in the ancient world. Still others
have concluded that traditional Feng Shui is the tantalyzing
historical record of a lost planetary science. Either
way, it is obvious that Feng Shui offers a long and
illustrious history that is slowly unfolding for Western
society in new and exciting ways.
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What?!
We gotta do that enlightenment thing again?
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