Feng Shui
The Science of Sacred Landscape in Old China

by Ernest J. Eitel,
Commentary by John Michell

Call out “Feng-shui” at any lively cocktail party and you will immediately rustle up the attention of all the professional (and wannabe) decorators in the room. They will tell you about beautiful coffee table books featuring color prints of pricey organic furnishings and explain how a mirror placed here and a bamboo plant there can reroute the bad vibes in even a hovel and pave the way for the good ones to flow in. But if you really want to understand the fascinating subject of Feng-shui, you may want to read FENG-SHUI: THE SCIENCE OF SACRED LANDSCAPE IN OLD CHINA, a small gem which, though written well over one-hundred years ago (by a rather unlikely observer) remains the  best classical treatise on the subject available.

In fact, most of what we know about the history of feng-shui comes from Ernest J. Eitel, a nineteenth-century German Protestant missionary to China who studied and wrote about “Buddhism in China” as well. FENG-SHUI: THE SCIENCE OF SACRED LANDSCAPE IN OLD CHINA was first published in 1873. Because it offers a unique perspective on a subject that has since been seriously commercialized (and bastardized) in the west, we at Synergetic Press kicked off our publishing program with a reissue of this much-cherished title in 1984.

FENG-SHUI: THE SCIENCE OF SACRED LANDSCAPE IN OLD CHINA provides readers with a look at an ancient natural science/art that seeks to create harmony between the earth and the people who live, work and build on it through an understanding of energy meridians. In China, Eitel observes, decisions about everything from the erection of telegraph poles to the location of city centers were made according to the rules of feng-shui. Eitel describes his first-hand observations regarding the philosophy and practice of feng-shui both lovingly and grudgingly, as we might expect from a man in his position, and that tension is part of the book’s charm. So are the front and back-of-the-book commentaries in which terra firma guru John Michell eloquently makes the case that FENG-SHUI: THE SCIENCE OF SACRED LANDSCAPE IN OLD CHINA remains timeless in its implications, offering a universal perspective for considering the increasingly more urgent problems of creating synergy on our planet today. And the book is further graced with beautiful illustrations of classic engravings of Chinese landscapes by Thomas Allom. What this slim volume lacks in size it makes up in its power to illuminate a most fascinating subject. 

Ernest J. Eitel (1838 – 1908) was a German Protestant missionary who worked in China and learned firsthand about the oral tradition of feng-shui and its philosophical roots, which span a range of thought from Taoism and Buddhism to ancient rural magic.

John Michell is an English investigator of landscape, both ancient and modern. He is the author of several visionary books on subjects from Shakespeare to ley lines to astro-archeology.

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ISBN 0 907791 18 2 * PAPERBACK * 80 pgs *
Price $9.95