*

[Taomeow]

Oh, OK. Thank you for the sources.

I collect books on "superstitions" because I believe many of them are rooted in ancient sciences of subtle energies rather than in our ancestors' imagination, but not all of them. The way I try to determine which superstitions are just that and which ones are likely to be information is twofold:

1. For non-taoist sources, I look to cross-cultural repetitions. If they say exactly the same thing about the subtle effects exerted by certain plants (medicinal, poisonous, or "it depends"), or cats or birds, etc., in Western Africa and South America and Lithuania and England, I will most certainly take it as proof. If a superstition is merely local (e.g. concerning entities that hang out around abandoned Japanese shinto shrines) or I can trace it to the biases and indoctrinations of a society producing it (e.g. the belief of some Muslim peoples that a woman must not cook pilaf or even look at it when it's cooking or it will be ruined), I ignore it.

2. For taoist sources, I go with the ones that are (or appear to me to be) consistent with the basic taoist sciences, which I've been studying for years (some of them empirically, not just theoretically) and therefore have a bit of a handle on.

As for possessions and assorted energies that can enter certain objects in our environment, there's an assortment of classical FS methods to avoid that, e.g. the non-placement of any objects on the Killer Lines. This part is from Xuan Kong feng shui and will blanket-cover many adverse possibilities -- plants, pets, objects, anything. So instead of trying to figure out the "small FS" of any object, one may want to work with the larger FS of its access to energies. If it's not on a Killer Line and nothing else in the house is, it will be much harder for adverse energies to come from the depth of the earth, perhaps impossible. So, I use a luopan for this kind of blanket-protection. There can be many little things that can go wrong if the environment is overall inviting to things going wrong. The people in your example, as soon as they get rid of one possession might contract another if they don't address the source of the possibility itself.

So, thanks for reminding me -- I'll check with my lupoan where my rubber plant is standing and if perchance it is on a Killer Line, I'll just move it a few compass degrees, rather than outdoors.

I've been many times to an apartment in NYC where the bathroom is located straight opposite the entrance door (all the incoming qi going promptly into the toilet), and sure enough, they have many types of plants that have an adverse reputation and are supposed to feed off human energy. Which they might be doing because the plants are thriving while the people in the apartment are not. But if you removed these plants, there would be something else. The layout of the apartment is "qi gets wasted here" and that's the blueprint for the overall pattern of events. Plants, pets, decorations or furniture -- these are all effects, not the cause. Of course if one goes deeper into this, the very choice of an apartment with this layout is an effect of a larger cause. As well as the "I don't believe in this BS" stance...

Edited June 2, 2013 by Taomeow

[Friend]

Edited August 17, 2013 by Friend

[ChiDragon]

Before go any further, first of all, one should be determined where the bedroom should be located in the house based on the birth year.

[Maddie]

Before go any further, first of all, one should be determined where the bedroom should be located in the house based on the birth year.

how does one determine that?

[ChiDragon]

how does one determine that?

 

You give me your birth year or a year.

[Taomeow]

... nevermind

Edited June 2, 2013 by Taomeow