The Basics

Written feng shui rests on a small group of classical Chinese sources: the Yijing (I Ching) and its cosmology of trigrams, the Zangshu, or Book of Burial, attributed to the scholar Guo Pu, and a later cluster of Compass School manuals built around the luopan compass. A Han-era numerical diagram, the Luo Shu, feeds into … Read more

The Luo Shu is a 3×3 grid of the numbers 1 through 9, arranged so every row, column and diagonal adds up to 15. In feng shui it is not decoration. It is the number base for calculating a building’s flying-star chart and its facing direction — a different job from the bagua map most … Read more

A yin house (陰宅, yin zhai) is a grave or tomb site; a yang house (陽宅, yang zhai) is a dwelling for the living. Classical feng shui treats these as two separate branches of practice, with different aims, different methods, and largely different rules. Most advice written for homes, including almost everything in English, is … Read more

Ask which school of feng shui they practise, how they intend to assess the specific building, what a session or report actually includes, what it costs and covers, and whether any recommendation depends on buying something. A consultant who cannot answer these plainly is worth reconsidering. Feng shui consultancy is unregulated in most countries. There … Read more

Paying a feng shui consultant is worth it if the reader wants a trained reading of a specific building, using a named method, applied to their own furniture and doors — not a generic checklist. It is not worth it as a substitute for a surveyor, an architect, or a lawyer, and no consultant can … Read more

Feng shui traditions generally hold that a house left empty for a long stretch develops “stagnant chi” — the idea that without people moving through it, opening doors and windows, and using its rooms, the flow the tradition associates with a lived-in home slows or stalls. Most schools recommend a period of active use — … Read more

Classical feng shui — Form School and Compass School alike — has very little to say about the numeral on a house. What it studies is the shape of the land, the direction the door faces, and the flow of chi through the entrance. The idea that “4 is unlucky” and “8 is lucky” comes … Read more

Feng shui consultants disagree because they are not all practising the same discipline. Form School, Compass School, and the Western Black Sect (BTB) adaptation ask different questions, use different tools, and sometimes reach opposite conclusions about the same room. The disagreement is structural, not a sign that someone is wrong. Is feng shui really one … Read more

Clutter is treated as the first problem because every major branch of feng shui — Form School, Compass School and the modern Western Black Sect (BTB) adaptation — agrees that a home cannot be assessed, corrected or read until the physical space is clear enough to see and move through. Whatever else the schools disagree … Read more

Feng shui treats noise as a form of disruptive chi — energy that is agitated rather than settled. Persistent or sharp sound is generally read as something to buffer or soften, not a target for a specific cure. The reasoning given is mostly about calm and rest, and it overlaps with ordinary acoustic sense more … Read more