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The View over Atlantic – John Michell

In China until recently, as long ago in Britain, every building, every stone and wood, was placed in the landscape in accordance with a magic system by which the laws of mathematics and music were expressed in the geometry of the earth's surface. The striking beauty and harmony of every part of China, which all travellers have remarked, was not produced by chance. Every feature was contrived. The main paths of planetary influence, determined by thousands of years of astronomy, were discovered in the landscape, the smaller lines that ran between them reproduced in the crags and fissures of the earth. These were the lines of dragon current or lung-mei. The various parts of the earth each fell under a particular planetary influence passed down through the lines which ran above them. Besides their lunar or solar, yin or yang, characteristics, certain lines were related to one of the five planets, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury or Saturn. These planets correspond to the five materials, wood, fire, metal, water and earth…………………………

The lines of the currents streaming over the surface of the earth were traced out in the Chinese landscape. The direction and strength of their flow was measured and even modified for human convenience. A line was extended by removing some block in its course. Another, whose current was too powerful and violent, was weakened by breaks in the alignment. The eaves of a Chinese house were always set at a different height to those of its neighbours; if they were level, the long straight line might form a dangerously powerful conductor. Straight lines drain the beneficial influences from a quiet, secluded site; they introduce tempestuous forces into areas of peace. The lines of the dragon current run straight across country, but locally their course should be modified by a series of gentle curves. By this means the violence of their flow can be abated and their currents diverted into smaller channels to irrigate the surrounding countryside. The scenes in which geomancers delight are those where the full range of nature can be seen in microcosm, where great hills, mountains, rivers and oceans are reflected in small rock clusters, green hillocks, streams and pools, a vast landscape reduced to the scale of a garden. At such a place the nature and meaning of the surrounding country can be divined at a glance; the terrestrial harmony becomes apparent.