Feng shui has never been a single technique. Over its long history it grew into several distinct schools, and what separates them is not the goal but the evidence: each one reads a different layer of the same place. This section gathers the guides to those methods, explains what each measures and what it does not, and helps you decide which one your own home needs.

The Form School

The Form School (Luan Tou, 巒頭) works from what you can see with your own eyes — the shape of the land, the relationship of a building to mountains and water, the position of neighbouring structures, and the four celestial animals that describe them: the Black Tortoise behind, the Green Dragon to the left, the White Tiger to the right, and the Red Phoenix in front. The Form School guide sets out the ideal site and the forms that count as sha qi, then makes the same reading indoors, where the eye has no horizon to work from.

The compass schools

The compass schools answer the question the eye cannot. Xuan Kong Flying Stars (玄空飛星) combines the facing and sitting directions of a building with the period it was built in, and produces a chart of nine stars whose positions shift over time; it is the most dynamic of the classical methods, and the one this knowledge base treats in most detail. Xuan Kong Da Gua works from hexagrams formed by the door, the facing and the time, and is used where a degree-level reading is needed. The San He (三合) and San Yuan (三元) traditions differ in how they treat direction, water and time.

Which school to use

Which school should you use puts them side by side, sets out the order in which a reading is normally made — form first, then compass, then time — and shows when one method is enough and when it is not. Where a system is covered in full elsewhere in the base, the guide points to it rather than repeating it.