There is no replicable scientific evidence that feng shui's mystical claims are real, and it is considered by the scientific community to be pseudoscience.
Historically, feng shui was widely used to orient buildings—often spiritually significant structures such as tombs, but also dwellings and other structures—in an auspicious manner. Depending on the particular style of feng shui being used, an auspicious site could be determined by reference to local features such as bodies of water, stars, or a compass.
Qi rides the wind and scatters, but is retained when encountering water.
Feng shui was suppressed in mainland China during the state-imposed Cultural Revolution of the 1960s but has since then regained popularity.
The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience briefly summarizes the history and practice of feng shui. It states that the principles of feng shui related to living harmoniously with nature are "quite rational," but does not otherwise lend credibility to the nonscientific claims. After a comprehensive 2016 evaluation of the subject by scientific skeptic author Brian Dunning, he concluded that there is nothing demonstrably real at all about the practice and stated that:
There's no real science behind feng shui... It's also a simple matter to dismiss the mystical energies said to be at its core; they simply don't exist.
