As a professional in the predictive arts, I had to tune in when a popular TV show aired an episode on whether or not psychics are frauds or for real. With relatively little in-depth investigation into the phenomenon of psychic ability, the show’s producers took the safe stance that most psychics are either frauds or just overly confident eccentrics with delusions about their abilities.
This particular show contained its subjects to psychic mediums (who talk to the dead), a palm reader, some space clearers, and a Tarot card reader. While I happen to personally feel that most psychics are not nearly specific enough for my needs, I also know and have had first hand experience that Feng Shui practitioners are usually treated pretty badly (and unfairly) by the media as well.
One major point that was not brought up by any of the psychics interviewed is the fact that we all have some measure of free will. We seem all too ready to dismiss a metaphysician who is not 100% accurate 100% of the time, and yet predictive arts practitioners generally agree that nothing is “set in stone” and that because of free will, no psychic or astrologer or Feng Shui master can predict the past, present or future without some errors or omissions.
We can’t guarantee results either. And neither can major pharmaceutical companies, who have no problem manufacturing drugs with major side effects for a certain percentage of the population. As a society, when it comes to the subject of integrity, we can also be critical of major corporations and their “track record” for accuracy as much as for a singular person. When our local weatherman gets the weather wrong, we don’t ride him out of town and call him or her a charlatan.
Using a Feng Shui analysis as an example, we can characterize house types that can attract certain problems or circumstances for their occupants. But even in the most basic Feng Shui studies, we can qualify who might do better in the exact same house compared to another person based on their distinct birth data. Personal compatibility is very relevant. We could have two siblings living in the same house, sharing the same room even, and they may still have a different experience from their unique interactions with the same environment. Then, when we add on to that some measure of free will, a humble and experienced consultant will acknowledge that he can’t know everything all the time.
Another ironic stance which many skeptics assume, is that if someone benefits from the advice of a psychic or predictive arts practitioner, that the person must have been highly suggestible (i.e. the placebo effect.) The notion that “it’s all in one’s mind” is actually a very standard metaphysical principle, that you can change your reality with just your mind. In other words, the skeptic may make fun of the idea that the energy of a room can be altered with mere furniture, and yet they are simultaneously validating an even more mystical premise— that we all possess the ability to change things with our minds.
This contradiction could be applied to holistic medicine as well. A skeptic may laugh at the use of homeopathy to cure the common cold, but they are acknowledging that the mind (and not the body succumbing to infection) is in charge of whether we get sick or how quickly we recover.
This is just an example of how a skeptic easily contradicts their own skepticism without realizing it. Do we believe in these intangible forces or not?
My own skepticism has been cured over time, in that I have had countless “blind case study” participants involved in my Feng Shui practice. Clients have installed remedies and have made adjustments to their homes or businesses without their spouses, children or co-workers knowing that the environment was changed at all, or why. And yet, the targeted subjects still get the benefits or predictable results. I have been documenting objective results for more than three decades and almost everyone agrees with the “diagnosis” of their space.
The only time this can’t be confirmed immediately is when the client hasn’t moved into the location yet or has only recently moved in. I can say heartily that Feng Shui is a real phenomenon. It works most of the time, whether or not someone believes in it, or even knows that something in the name of Feng Shui was done on their behalf.
Author: Kartar Diamond
Company: Feng Shui Solutions ®
From the Feng Shui Theory Blog Series
