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 | “Welcome to the world’s first full colour feng shui magazine” |
Welcome to the first issue of Feng Shui for Modern Living the world’s first full colour magazine on the fascinating subject of feng shui. This issue was launched and went on sale on the10th February 1998, or by Chinese reckoning the 14th day of the Year of the Tiger. Feng shui dates back over a thousand years, and was practiced as an Imperial prerogative up till the demise of Imperial China earlier this century. The event of the Communist Revolution saw the outlawing of feng shui, except at the highest levels of government.
When I first became aware of feng shui in the hot summer of 1976, I had little to rely upon, except a few Chinese friends and scattered books on the subject written by Western missionaries in the 19th century. In that year I completed my book The Living Earth Manual of Fens Shui, the first UK book on the subject written this century, which has been kept in print ever since by Penguin and Viking.
During the 1970s and 1980s, feng shui remained an obscure subject, practiced mostly by emigrant Chinese masters in places such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and California. During this period I spent some time in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong talking with and going out on site with various practitioners, learning that much of the real feng shui was not to be found in books but had to be experienced ‘in the field’. There is a lot more to discovering the flow of ch’i in the landscape, and the true position of the dragon veins than is portrayed in some of the current rather Simplified texts on feng shui. ‘Taking the pulse of the landscape’ was every bit as difficult as the diagnosis of Ch’i flows through the body by practitioners of acupuncture.
In the 1990s feng shui acceptance in the UK, Europe and especially in the USA moved ahead in leaps and bounds. In 1996 I decided to publish a magazine on feng shui. The idea was to publish something that would be immediately accessible to almost every reader, whilst providing a core of new or previously unpublished material to keep the ‘old hands’ happy.
Overall a sense of style and satisfying images was essential. When I showed the first proofs of this magazine to Lillian Too in June 1997 she was so enthusiastic that any of my remaining doubts about the wisdom of doing the magazine evaporated. So I embarked on a launch and within a matter of months the interest from other countries was so strong that we decide to simultaneously distribute in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, USA and Australia.
October 1997 saw the 2nd Annual International Feng Shui Conference at Palm Spring, California, USA with many of our contributors attending this very worthwhile event which brought together over 700 feng shui enthusiasts and experts from all over the world. In November last year my second and much more heavily illustrated book on the subject just called Fens Shui, was published. A sign of the level of interest in feng shui was its complete sell out in just two weeks. We did however keep some as subscription incentives. See page 93 for this special offer.
Our approach has been to give coverage to all the diverse schools and trends in feng shui, but to deal with the subject especially from traditional Form and Compass School points of view. We want to cover what is happening in feng shui all over the world, but always with a practical eye, and always to enhance the life, health and happiness of those who enjoy this fascinating subject. So there you have it. It remains for you, the reader, to enjoy the magazine as much as we enjoyed putting it together. I would like to thank the whole team, but especially the editor, Nimita Parmar for her dedication and enthusiasm throughout and also M2 design for their imaginative, creative design and input. Finally thanks to our feng shui advisory panel.
We welcome readers suggestions as to what else should be included, or even what should be excluded. I would be most grateful to you for filling in the reader survey questionnaire which will help us with the creation of future issues. As a thank you we have a couple of long distance airline tickets for the lucky reader first drawn out of the postbags on 22May 1998. We also look forward to readers letters, and I particularly welcome contributions about successful practical applications of feng shui, as well as some of the more out of the way facets of this fascinating subject.
DR STEPHEN SKINNER, PUBLISHER
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