Of Ba-Guas and Lou Pans: A Western Feng Shui Primer

Two feng shui methods are popular in the United States. Each has many nuances and employs a complicated and often conflicting array of options that adherents believe can be used to rejuvenate the energy, or chi, in an environment.

The compass method evolved in northern China hundreds of years ago and is routinely practiced in parts of Asia. Practitioners of this method use a Chinese compass known as a lou pan, along with birth dates of the home’s occupants, the age of the building and mathematical formulas, to calculate where furniture and objects should be placed to maximize a home’s chi.

The Black Hat Sect Tantric Buddhist method was founded by feng shui master Thomas Lin-Yun in Berkeley a few decades ago as a more modern version of feng shui. This version combines ancient feng shui tenets with metaphysics and spirituality. Black Hat consultants say they rely in part on intuition to reawaken chi.

Both methods employ a chart known as a ba-gua (“eight-sided”) that delineates the various aspects of life, such as health, prosperity and children, that feng shui can influence.

The compass method correlates magnetic directions with various aspects of life on the ba-gua. Accordingly, the northern area of a room governs an occupant’s career, the south fame and fortune, the east health and the west creativity and children.

The Black Hat method uses the front door of a building or the entrance to a room as a starting point to determine which part of a room governs career, which part focuses on health and so on. Consequently, these areas would shift from room to room as the placement of the entrance changes.

Colors, objects and elements such as metal, wood and fire correspond to different areas on the ba-gua. Both feng shui methods teach that homeowners can use these features to reawaken the energy in certain aspects of their lives.

For example, to promote childbearing, a feng shui practitioner might suggest a homeowner put pairs of red or yellow candles in the southwest corner of the bedroom.

According to “Feng Shui Dos and Taboos: A Guide to What to Place Where,” by Angi Ma Wong (who employs the compass method), a home with good feng shui would have bathrooms in the north; bedrooms in the southwest; light, airy rooms with good circulation; trees planted in a row curving around the building; and a lot on the inside of a curving street (to avoid headlights shining into the house).

The book suggests that a home with poor feng shui would have a bathroom above the front entrance; the master bedroom above the garage, stairs that directly face the front door, tree trunks facing the front door and a position at a T intersection.