After flourishing with her Fengshui books and ornaments, Lillian Too turns to market her ‘knowledge’ on the Plum Blossom numerology. Harmen Mesker has given a critical review of her book, The New I Ching: discover the secrets of the plum blossom oracle. His review can be found at the Biroco or the Yijing Dao links.
In his review, Harmen has provided an introduction and reliable sources on the mechanics of the Meihua Yishu (Plum Blossom numerology) and made a comparison with what Lillian Too had written in her new book. Not surprisingly, he found both her knowledge and research of the numerology wanting.
Although some of her readers have recently raved about it, the title of the book is clearly a misnomer. Shao Yong, the founder of this method of divination without the need to cast the yarrow or coins, had in-depth knowledge of the Yi yet he had merely named his method, ‘Meihua Yishu'. It is a far cry from the book title,‘the New I Ching’. A derivation method no matter how good can never replace the Book of Changes.
As a fellow Malaysian, I am really glad Lillian Too is popular with her worldwide readers and TV audience in Malaysia as well as making much money; however one had never given her Fengshui knowledge much thought.
You see when someone claims they are good in Fengshui; I always ask a simple question. How deep were they in the Yi studies? For without a working knowledge of the 64 hexagrams how much can they know in the field of Fengshui and in this case, Plum Blossom numerology? That is why it was not surprising that her lack of knowledge and minimal research of the Meihua Yishu shows up through discerning eyes of Yi scholars such as Harmen.
Just in case readers wonder, I do not read any of her books nor follow her Fengshui series on TV.
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