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Feng Shui and the Magic Square

I dedicate this article to my uncle Dr. Mehdihassan who was a scholar not only of chemistry and agriculture but also of Chinese medicine, homeopathy, and ancient literature and wrote extensively about the origins of Arabic, Chinese and Sanskrit words...Hassan

An interesting example of his hypothesis was the Chinese origin of the Arabic word Sufi (spiritual person in Islam). Dr. Mehdihassan felt that in Chinese, the word Shu = Master, and Fu = Father (symbol of authority) so ShuFu would be the ultimate authority and spiritual master. ShuFu was thus transformed to “Sufi” in the Arabic language!

Although my uncle did not write specifically about Feng Shui, he was quite familiar with Chinese cosmology from a scientific perspective and its origins. He was the first to discover the real origins of the Magic Square which I will share with our Subscribers in this article.

Feng Shui is the ancient system of orienting your house in certain auspicious directions and finding remedies which affect your career, family, health, wealth and other aspects of your life. Early Feng Shui masters felt that everything in the world is connected dynamically, including trees, buildings, mountains, streets and property, and influences everything you experience.

Now every Feng Shui expert and book claims that the numbers used in the Ba Gua (Ba = 8 Gua = trigrams) appeared mysteriously on the back of a turtle in a Chinese river! They lay the foundation of their “environmental science” on this premise and use the Lo Shu Numbers in the Houtian Sequence (Ba Gua) without understanding the origin and the basis of it.

Nobody has ever written about it except my uncle who loved my interest in all mystical elements of nature. So while he wrote many important papers (he was a research chemist for 80 years!) on symbiosis and other medical discoveries, he also wrote about changing a base metal to colloidal gold (Chinese alchemy) and many other topics with no regard to the bias of the scientific community!

Here is the explanation of what the Magic Square actually means and how it originated. The Magic Square is also the basis of the “Ba Gua” in Mandarin or “Pa Kua” as it is called in Cantonese. Ba Gua means “eight trigrams” and refers to the Taoist (Daoist), religious traditions of using the Ba Gua mirror. Nowadays the Ba Gua is used as a tool to evaluate Chinese Feng Shui and its markings are found on the Ba Tzu Chinese Compass.

The Ba Gua or Eight Trigrams are an arrangement of cabalistic signs configured during the reign of the legendary Emperor Fu Xi, 2852 BC, and believed to be evolved from markings discovered on the shell of a tortoise. Apparently, Fu Xi used the original 8 markings and derived the 64 Hexagrams from them. The first use of the 64 Hexagrams was recorded during the Zhou Dynasty when Emperor Wen establishing the Yi Jing or Book of Changes. The Yi Jing (or “I-Ching”) was used to perform divination rites.

Getting back to the origins of the Magic Square, here is the essence of my uncle’s research about Jabir ibn Hayyan and his Magic Square, the basis of the Ba Gua in Chinese Feng Shui.

The ancients had a concise form of expressing their ideas. Existence, for example, was expressed as nine symbols, Water, Fire, Air and Earth as cosmic Elements, and Heat, Cold, Moisture and Dryness as Qualities. These eight entities constituted Creation. As the ninth item, came the source of creation Aether (in Greek) and Chi (in Chinese). Each was dual natured and was considered to be a subtle form of the matter charged with creative energy i.e. matter plus energy. The integration of these nine items as symbols resulted in the symbol of Existence or of Cosmogony, or the Ba Gua.

The modern history of the Magic Square begins with Jabir ibn Hayyan, who practiced alchemy. It was the Magic Square of three. In ancient times, words, numbers, and symbols were considered as potential powers. When they are placed as opposites, their union becomes dynamic and tangible energy is released. This is best known in the case of words which have given rise to Mantras. Numbers came next. Numerology arose in Babylon and Venus, the goddess of fertility was assigned number 15. But a mere series of numbers constitutes no tangible symbol.

Then a geometrical design as a square of three was conceived in which there would be nine numbers which add up to 15 horizontally, vertically or diagonally. This served as the symbol of Venus.

Basically, the Magic square of three as a symbol of Venus, the goddess of fertility could be used as a charm or talisman to facilitate childbirth. Interestingly, Pythagoras believed that Numbers are the basic factors not only of the Universe but of all that the universe contains.

So here was the number 15, to be arranged in such a way that it generated creative energy which then could be used to facilitate childbirth as well as to transform base metal into a noble metal or gold!

At first, there were other arrangements which utilized 5 numbers and added up to 9 all over, then they had 7 numbers which added to 12 and finally, an arrangement was conceived with 9 numbers which added up to 15, which became the Magic Square that we are discussing in this article and is used in Ba Gua of Feng Shui.

A Note About Chi: Ancient Chinese felt that Chi energy originated deep in the cosmos and was filtered through nine stars of Ursula Major (big dipper), Vega and Polaris (North Star).

 

 

First, we write the numbers 1 to 9 sequentially in three rows (Fig. A).

 

 

The whole numbers are connected with a solid line and the odd numbers are connected with broken lines. Opposite numbers add up to 10.

Now we rotate Fig. A once clockwise to give us Fig. B:

 

 

The diagonals of Design “A” now appear as vertical and horizontal series, but all rows still do not add up to 15.

Now we inverse only the odd numbers in Fig. B to give us Fig. C.

 

 

Here the numbers appear as finally found in the Magic Square. Now you can add up any row including sideways and it will always add up to 15. 5 is the central number and here is the significance of even and odd numbers. There are two squares carrying odd and even numbers.

Even numbers represented “Qualities”.

 

 

Odd numbers represented the cosmic “Elements”.

 

 

Now when man first studied his environment, the greatest power was conceived as Sky and Earth. Later on, these became Heaven and Earth. Earth was believed to be square shaped and Heaven, which was supposed to contain the cosmic soul, was symbolized by the cross.

You will notice that the Magic Square contains a Cross within a Square. The Cross representing the cosmic soul or Heaven (odd numbers) and the square symbolizing Earth (even numbers).

 

 

As you can see, the Magic Square is a symbol of Heaven and Earth, Elements and Qualities, and also Yin (Earth) and Yang (Heaven), as well as representing the talisman for Venus with all numbers adding up to its number 15. The diagram above shows the Magic Square along with the correspondence of all the numbers with Elements and Qualities. Number 5 is the Creative Energy which is used as Health in Feng Shui.

Chinese cosmology considered Air and Water as important as they were both celestial and Fire and Earth as being terrestrial. Feng Shui itself means wind and water. The wind which scatters the Chi and water which holds it.

In another article, we will deal more with the practical application of Feng Shui and how you can use it in your daily life. We will also clarify how the Chinese use the numbers in Feng Shui in the Bagua even though its origin clearly dates back to Magic Square.

 

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