People are often confused about Eight Mansions and Eight Trigrams or The Ba Gua (八卦, also Pa Kua). It is true that Eight Mansions uses the Eight Trigrams to calculate the Chi for each of the eight sectors (9 being the Center). This indicates that eight distinct kinds of Chi flow through the Eight Mansions Feng Shui sectors.
1. Basic definition of Eight Mansions Feng Shui
Basically, the homes of Eight Mansions Feng Shui include 8 types of houses. Moreover, the 8 types of houses are also divided into two groups of four each: the East and the West.
- Same as the flying stars of Feng Shui, in 8 homes, the direction a house faces does not depend on the direction of its main door.
- The main door to a house could be on a side that is not the front.
- Once the way a house faces is known, the sitting direction would be the opposite direction.
2. Types of houses of Eight Mansions Feng Shui
8 houses Feng Shui is so closely related to the bagua which is also the placement of trigrams that the type of house is named by the sitting direction and how it connects to trigram places on the later heaven bagua.
- An illustration of this is that A Kun house is one that faces southwest since the Kun trigram faces southwest in the later celestial bagua configuration. Additionally, since the number 2 in the Luo Shu magic squares is associated with the southwest, a property like this is also known as a Gua 2 house.
- 8 different types of Eight Mansions Feng Shui houses classified based on their sitting direction are listed in the table below.
| Sitting | Facing | Gua | Group |
| N | S | 1 | East |
| SW | NE | 2 | West |
| E | W | 3 | East |
| SE | NW | 4 | East |
| NW | SE | 6 | West |
| W | E | 7 | West |
| NE | SW | 8 | West |
| S | N | 9 | East |
3. 8 sectors of Eight Mansions Feng Shui
After the type of house is identified, 8 various sectors of Eight Mansions Feng Shui can be segmented to describe 8 different types of chi including:
- Sheng Qi (生气)
- Fu Wei (伏位)
- Tian Yi (天医)
- Yan Nian (延年)
- Wu Gui (五鬼)
- Liu Sha (六煞)
- Huo Hai (祸害)
- Jue Ming (绝命)
Next, people group these 8 sectors into 4 favorable (吉方) and 4 unfavorable sectors (凶方).
| Gua | SC | TY | YN | FW | 5G | 6K | HH | JM |
| 1 | SE | E | S | N | NE | NW | W | SW |
| 2 | NE | W | NW | SW | SE | S | E | N |
| 3 | S | N | SE | E | NW | NE | SW | W |
| 4 | N | S | E | SE | SW | W | NW | NE |
| 6 | W | NE | SW | NW | E | N | SE | S |
| 7 | NW | SW | NE | W | S | SE | N | E |
| 8 | SW | NW | W | NE | N | E | S | SE |
| 9 | E | SE | N | S | W | SW | NE | NW |
- It can be seen from the table that the sitting direction of all types of Eight Mansions Feng Shui houses is always the fu wei sector.
The table below illustrates the strength of different sectors, which is depicted by the energy map.
| SQ | TY | YN | FW | 5G | 6K | HH | JM |
| S | S | A | W | S | A | W | S |
- However, Kan house is the outlier, with the FW sector being rated as Average as opposed to poor.
Each Eight Mansions Feng Shui sector has a different meaning:
- Sheng qi: success and thriving
- Fu wei: stability and go off without a hitch
- Tian yi: health and recovery
- Yan nian: relationships and sharing
- Wu gui: malice
- Liu sha: conflicts and deceit
- Huo hai: challenges and errors
- Jue ming: catastrophes and calamities