O Feng Shui e a Nova Era: um exemplo de destradicionalização e de inverção de tradições

Abstract

In this work, I try to understand the way in which the Feng Shui, a traditional Chinese art, based on the Taoist doctrine, receive new meanings when it is embedded in the Westem world, in particular in the context of the New Age. I investigate how the characteristics of the New Age Movement explain how the Feng Shui was received in the West, where it gains religious hues and is transformed in a magic-religious art. The reception of the Feng Shui by the New Age seems to be an example of a present-day historical-religious phenomenon, which is the displacement ofthe "religion" by the "spirituality". The concepts of detraditionalization and of invention of traditions are used to examine the reception ofthe Feng Shui by the New Age and by the contemporary West, and the favored scenario is that in which there is coexistence between detraditionalization and the maintenance or revival of traditions