Eight Mansions Formula - Discussion

The aim of the Eight Mansions formula is:

To get the main people of the property to benefit as much as possible from the appropriate energies from their auspicious directions and locations.

There are four auspicious directions and locations

1. Prosperity (Sheng chi)

2. Health (Tien Yi)

3. Relationships (Nien Yen)

4. Personal Growth (Fu Wei)

Each person has their own personalised set of directions, but they are within two groups East and West House.

The aims stated in Lillian Too’s Applied Pa Kua and Lo Shu Feng Shui book are:

1. The main door of your house or office should face at least one of your auspicious directions, preferably your Prosperity direction.
2. The door to your bedroom should face one of your auspicious directions, preferably your Relationships direction.
3. The fire mouth of your oven or cooker should face one of your auspicious directions, preferably your Prosperity or Health directions.
4. You should sit at your desk or office desk facing one of your four auspicious directions, preferably your Prosperity direction.

I had further discussion on this topic, the mechanism of the Eight Mansions Formula is that the longer the person stays in the auspicious direction, the greater the benefit for the person. Therefore, it is possible to add three more ways to tap into the beneficial energies.

• When sitting at the dining table, you should sit facing your Prosperity or Health directions.
• When sleeping, your head should point in the Relationships directions.
• When watching TV, meditating etc., ideally face your Personal Growth Direction.

Based on my experience of using the Eight Mansions Formula, this is a summary of the methods that I use.

In the table below, I describe the implementation of the Formula for a single person. Further on, it is for a Couple, initially for the same group (either East or West House) and for a different group (one is East and the other is West House)

Comment:

This is based on my experience in carrying out Feng Shui Consultations for more than 20 years. Rather than getting the person to tap into the specific auspicious direction, it is easier to get the person to tap into any one of the four beneficial directions.

Single Person. It is straightforward to get the person to sit in their working, dining and living positions. Also, it is easily possible to arrange the bed so that the person sleeps in a beneficial direction.

As regards the doors, it depends very much on the existing property. If the doors are in the appropriate directions, well and good. It is costly and also potentially unsightly to change the direction of the front door.

Couple:

Same Group - The treatment is the same as the “single person”. They could belong to the same group – be it – East House or West House.

Different Group – As above except for the sleeping arrangements and doors. It is not possible for two persons from different groups to share the same bed and both can benefit from the auspicious directions. Only one person can benefit from the auspicious direction.

Both are not able to share the benefits of the front door, office door and cooking directions equally. A compromise has to be reached.

City roads with a Grid system

The Front door faces the road. When the road runs from East to West, the front door either faces North or South. These are the primary cardinal directions. When the road runs from Southeast to Northwest, it either faces Northeast or Southwest. These are the secondary cardinal directions.

In the UK, there is no order to the direction of the roads; it is random. It is not structured like North America where roads are in a grid network. The vast majority of these cities have the grid in the primary cardinal directions (North, East, South, West). A minority like Manhattan and Philadelphia are on the secondary cardinal directions (Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest).

For properties in the cities with grid system in the primary cardinal directions, it is more favourable for people in the East House Group. Their auspicious directions are South, East, North and Southeast. The auspicious directions for the West House Group are seen in the Cities with the grid in the minor cardinal directions (Northeast, Northwest, Southwest and West).

Consequently, in most cases, the internal doors of the property will either be parallel or at right angles to the front door.

Therefore, if you belong to the West House Group and you live in a North American city with the street grid in the major cardinal directions, you will have difficulty in finding a property that has the front door in your favourable directions.

Eight Mansions and Locations

In the Eight Mansions Formula, it also states for even better results, the residents in that property are to be located in the appropriate auspicious locations.

For example: Let me give you an example of a person who has Kua 6.

Prosperity direction and location – West

Health direction and location – Northeast

Relationship direction and location – Southwest

Personal Growth direction and location – Northwest.

Therefore, it suggests that for the person to get maximum benefit for Prosperity, he has only to face the Prosperity direction, he has to be in the West sector of the house.

For example – the office in the Prosperity sector (West), the dining room in the Health sector (Northeast), the bedroom in the Relationship sector (Southwest) and the Living Room in the Personal Growth sector (Northwest).

The front door with the entrance hall is in the best direction and sector (Prosperity) – in this case West.

The bathroom and kitchen are considered to be feng shui “negative” areas. Therefore, it is appropriate that they be located in inauspicious locations.

From the above points, you can see that it is difficult to implement the above in your own home unless it is an open plan design where you can create different configurations of rooms. However, it is not easy to re-locate your bathroom and your kitchen because of the services they require.

In my opinion, the Eight Mansions formula can only be used with the location variable when it is incorporated in the design from the very beginning.

Cooking Directions past and present

In the past, there was only one cooking facility.

In the old arrangement, the person walks towards the cooking apparatus with and the air (energy) going in from the same direction. You can easily see the importance of direction of the “fire mouth” of the cooker.

However, today, cooking appliances are supplied by electricity through the copper cord or the gas through the pipe. It is not tangible as the old arrangement.

In modern times, there is a plethora of cooking facilities – hob, various types of ovens – convection, steaming, microwave, slow cooker, air fryer, kettle, coffee maker etc.

How do you get all the electrical cords or gas lines to go in the same direction?

Could the answer be to prioritise which equipment that you use most?

Personally, I do not give this rule a high priority.

Houses with Missing Areas.

In this modern age, not all properties have a regular shape. Architects and property developers love designing styles that are different or outstanding. Secondly, in the UK, there is national obsession with home improvement, which includes extending the property. This can include extensions budging in various parts of the property.

The discussion of Life Kua and House Kua

I have seen articles on the internet and in books describing Life Kua and House Kua and highlighting the contradictions.

Life Kua is what we have been discussing. These Kua numbers belong to the person. House Kua belongs to the house.

According to the text, if you belong to the East House Group, you should live in a property that belongs to the East House.

Therefore, if you belong to the East House Group, you should not live in a property that belongs to the West House and vice versa for people of the West House Group.

The chart below is a summary of the Sitting Location, East or West House and facing direction.

Let me explain.

If you have a house whose back is facing South, this is termed sitting in the South.

The front door therefore faces North.

Both South and North are in the East House. Therefore, this house is suitable for a person who belongs to the East House Group.

To sum up

Therefore, if the property sits in the South or North, these properties belong to the East House Group and therefore, suitable for people who belong to the East House.

If the property sits in the Southwest or Northeast, these properties belong to the West House Group. Therefore, they are suitable for people who belong to the West House.

However, there are a group of properties that have a contradiction.

For example, the house sits in the West but faces East. The property belongs to the West House Group but it faces East which belongs to the East House Group.

So are the properties marked in yellow – properties sitting in the Southwest, East and Southeast.

The author, Lillian Too, has stated that there is a contradiction and has not gone further in showing any applications or made discussion.

The book states that information from Master Yap’s handwritten treatise. This has been hand-copied from a volume written initially during the Chien Lin period (1711-1799) of the Qing Dynasty by a Feng Shui practitioner in Southern China.

I postulate this contradiction.

Fact or opinion: Master Yap, as a feng shui consultant, had achieved results using this Eight Mansions Formula. Therefore, the core of the formula is valid. The contradiction comes from a periphery of the written text.

The cause could be:

1. A error from the copying. The error could have happened when copying from the 1^st original or during the chain of people copying that part.
2. Additional writings or fake formula. Perhaps, there was a true formula with the core of Eight Mansions Formula. Some additional writings were added to it to bulk it up?

Why do I make that suggestion in point 2?

The true practitioners of Feng Shui of the past kept their knowledge very much to themselves. This knowledge was highly sought after. Whatever was said to be the true knowledge could have been invented and then embellished. That is why learning from text is fraught with danger.

Lillian Too made a good choice in getting the original information from a practising Feng Shui Master who has proven the methodology in his own practice. Master Yap had shown Lillian what had worked for him and was honest in saying what he did not understand and, therefore, did not use.

Lillian, in my opinion, had got the information from the “horse’s mouth”, as they say. The best possible source of information. There is an awful lot of Chinese text claiming to be secret Feng Shui but are unproven in practice but taught. It is literally a minefield. Of course, they are labelled as secrets. No one knows about it hence; it is a secret.

I will touch on this topic in another blog post.

The Introduction to the Eight Mansions Formula: