Many people are aware there are different schools and approaches to a feng shui evaluation and the common question is: Can you blend the different schools together for a more comprehensive analysis?
The answer to that question is both yes and no. Some schools are more similar than different and you can definitely combine them or see where one approach works in a certain environment and another is best for a different situation.
For example, one aspect of feng shui is based on a nine year cycle called the Trigram system, where a person has good or bad directions based on their year of birth. A man born in 1953 has four best directions: Northeast, West, Northwest, and Southwest. Technically, dead-on East would NOT be one of his good directions. But in Chinese Astrology, a 12-year cycle (often combined with feng shui), a person born in 1953 is the Year of the Snake and the Snake is associated with the direction of South/Southeast. What opposes the Snake is the Pig, which is associated with NNW. This is a draining direction for the Snake person. In other words, a portion of Northwest can be draining for the Snake person, but the rest of Northwest is good for the 1953 person. There is an inherent contradiction with these two systems, but there are specific applications for each system that can be utilized.
Some schools of feng shui really aren’t in conflict, but just a branch of the same tree. To continue using the tree analogy for example, in Landscape (Form School) feng shui, a diseased tree should be removed from a property. It can drag the energy down for the whole immediate area. But when this principle is combined with the Flying Star School (factors in timing), then the BEST TIME to remove the tree can be taken advantage of.
The one school that does not blend well with traditional feng shui is the Black Hat School. This is the New Age version of feng shui which created the 8 Life Stations Map in the 1980’s. This school does not factor in what direction the house actually faces nor when it was built. It is a generic template where the back right hand corner of every house is deemed a “Love Corner” and the back left hand corner of every house is a supposed to be a “Wealth Corner.”
This is a real hit-and-miss method and I will use my own experience to illustrate the point. Before I first started studying feng shui I was living in a place where the bedroom was in the back right hand corner of the house. Black Hat School would have defined this area as the “Love and Marriage” area of my house. The more accurate classical feng shui interpretation identified this part of my house as an area that could generate potential arguments and burglary. We had two attempted break-ins (through the bedroom window) and my ex-husband and I used to disagree so much that friends jokingly called us “The Bickersons.”
The next house I lived in (armed with feng shui knowledge) also had a bedroom in what the Black Hat folks would call the Marriage Corner. Classical feng shui accurately described this area of my house as really having nothing to do with relationships but being very supportive for financial success. My income tripled in that house. Then I moved to another location where the bedroom was again in the back right hand corner of the house. Still, the Black Hat method would have called my bedroom the “Love and Marriage area” and suggest activating it further with the FIRE element. Actually, the fire element would have been terrible for that room.
It was an excellent room for financial success, but putting red colors in the room could have contributed to me having problems with the teeth, mouth, jaw, chest or attract violence or injury. No thank you!
Next I lived in a house where the room in the back right hand side was an exercise room, filled with lots of metal equipment. Classical feng shui revealed this room to be one where there is potential for upper body ailments (head and lung region) as well as potential loneliness. Metal happens to be the cure, but I chose not to use it as my bedroom.
Over 40 years ago I went to see one of the top holistic medical doctors in Los Angeles for a bout of eczema that I had on my hand. He said to me, “I can prescribe Cortisone for you and the eczema will go away immediately, but it will make your aura black.” We laughed and I decided to deal with it naturally. This incident occasionally comes to mind when people inquire about blending different schools of feng shui. Sometimes it can be done and sometimes it is totally contradictory or has serious side effects, like trying to blend western and eastern medicine.
Author: Kartar Diamond
Company: Feng Shui Solutions ®
From Frequent Client Questions Blog Series
