Can a Christian Do Feng Shui?

Many people wonder if by practicing or studying Feng Shui they could be doing something that is against their religion. This is true for many Christians. I intend to clear any doubts about this with the article below.

First, I wish to tell you a story:

Many years ago, I remember sitting at an art gallery, reading my first book on Feng Shui, which I had won as a door prize during a lecture on natural healing.

I was volunteering at an exhibit for a local art association. It had been a while since any visitors had come in, so I was reading my book.

There was another volunteer there at the same time as me. The woman sat next to me and started making conversation. She asked what I was reading with such interest.

I told her it was a book on Feng Shui, and inquired if she knew what Feng Shui was. She said she didn’t, but was interested to learn.

I told her about how Feng Shui divides the home in 9 squares or rectangles and assigns a life area to each. I was excited about sharing this new passion of mine.

The Cold Shoulder

I hadn’t talked for even one minute when she cut me off with a stern look and said, “I have God and that is all I need.” Her body language, previously friendly, went completely rigid. She turned her back on me, and didn’t talk to me for the rest of the 2 hours we were meant to volunteer together. Whenever someone came into the gallery, she ran to wait on them, physically interposing her body between them and me, to prevent me from approaching them, as if I had some contagious disease, and she was trying to protect them from that.

I was baffled by this response. It had never occurred to me that studying or practicing Feng Shui could be against anyone’s religion!

Back then, my knowledge of Feng Shui was limited to that one book, and a few articles I had read in magazines.

Confusing Feng Shui with Religious Practices

Over the years I have seen that many people confuse Feng Shui with religions, because Feng Shui was incorporated into some religious practices in the Far East. For example, many Buddhist temples use Feng Shui in their layouts, especially of gardens. Feng Shui came into existence long before Buddhism. (The term “Feng Shui” was coined around the same time that Buddhism started, but the art had been developing for thousands of years.)

Feng Shui is an art, not a religion, and not a science.

Unfortunately, I have seen people attach all sorts of superstitions and disempowering beliefs to Feng Shui.

Feng Shui did not spring from a religion, but there are sound philosophical principles behind Feng Shui. These principles, based on the observation of nature and life in general, are the same principles at the core of other Asian practices, such as acupuncture, martial arts, Chinese herbalism, healing massage, and even flower arrangement.

“But – There’s no Feng Shui in the Bible”

Granted, there is no Feng Shui, by name, in the Bible. However, there are many recommendations regarding space and buildings, and there actually is an art of space arrangement in Jewish tradition. Interestingly, much of their advice overlaps advice given in Feng Shui.

There are Two Main Branches in Feng Shui

Feng Shui developed originally in China for thousands of years as the art of placement, which sought to create human environments that were in harmony with nature. This was Form School of Feng Shui, and it was the first branch of Feng Shui. Some masters of Form School used rudimentary tools that were precursors of what would become the magnetic compass, but they used them mainly to determine the relationship of a building with nature (sun exposure, winds, etc.)

About 2,200 years ago, some Feng Shui masters started incorporating the magnetic directions, astrology and numerology to their art. (The magnetic compass was developed for Feng Shui practices long before it was ever used for maritime purposes.) Their practice became known as Compass School of Feng Shui, and created a second branch of Feng Shui.

There is nothing in Form School of Feng Shui that would put Christian beliefs into question.
Just about everything in Compass School of Feng Shui would be incompatible with Christian beliefs.

Which Is Yours?

Which is mine, you ask?

My school, the Nine Steps to Feng Shui® System is a derivation of Form School of Feng Shui.

Early in my studies, I noticed how people applying Compass School Feng Shui created “fear traps” for themselves, and became obsessed with the magnetic directions, their “gua numbers,” their supposed “positive and negative directions,” and the orientation of their furniture according to astrological and numerological calculations.

I met people who were ruining their lives because they “discovered” that their front door was facing in the direction of “disaster” for them. The irony is that they had been perfectly happy and healthy in the same home before someone told them that it was facing a “bad direction” for them. After I did a consultation with them, and they were able to clear the belief that their home was “bad luck” for them, they started doing great again, some of them much better than before.

I also saw people placing their furniture in bizarre arrangements, incorporating strange items into their homes (such as horse troughs and old steel segments from railroads) and painting their walls in the strangest color combinations, all in the name of these astrological and numerological calculations that their compass school practitioner had made for them.

Messages from My Angels

When I was getting started with Feng Shui, I meditated and I prayed, and asked to be guided to my particular path within Feng Shui. The response came to me very clearly, that I was to use the bagua map based on the guidelines of the late Master Lin Yun, who at the time was head of the Black Hat School of Feng Shui (another derivation of Form School of Feng Shui) but to take the religious elements out of it, and combine it with my personal knowledge of architecture and design, to create my own school.

My angels were very specific that I needed to develop a school of Feng Shui that would be OK for Christians to practice.

Now, of course, I understand that some Christians, who belong to very fundamentalist churches, would never consider any practice that came from another culture. In the state where I live there are people who have been told by their pastors that things like Yoga and Reiki “come from the devil” and should be avoided, lest they end up in hell for practicing them.

I understand now that people in some denominations of Christianity will never be my students or my clients. In fact, no fundamentalist of any religion would be a good match for me as their consultant or teacher.

So Is it OK for a Christian to Learn Feng Shui?

A Christian should not get involved with Compass School of Feng Shui.

If you learn and practice the Nine Steps to Feng Shui® System, that I created and teach, you won’t find anything here that challenges your Christian beliefs.

However, your beliefs may be expanded. You will learn things that you did not previously know about life, the universe and yourself.

In Short:

If anything in this article offended you, you should probably not do Feng Shui, even with me.

But, if you learned something by reading this article, and felt relief while reading it, and are curious to learn more about Feng Shui, I hope to hear from you soon.

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