Feng shui or feng sham?
Tuesday 13 December, 2011 | Sharon Sebastian
PEOPLE describe feng shui as the Chinese art of placement to improve the flow of qi, or life’s energy. But do we really believe it, let alone understand what it is?
SuperLiving speaks to one of Australia’s feng shui experts, Elizabeth Wiggins, to find out more information about the practice and whether applying it to your surroundings really does improve every aspect of your life.
Wiggins has always been into feng shui but after her husband made the suggestion, she went down the track of studying it professionally and is the founder of Feng Shui Living.
Today, she is considered to be one of Australia’s leading experts. She has been consulting for the past eight years and has completed consultations for business, residential and commercial projects. The real estate agent’s interest in feng shui dates back at least 17 years and she says she also studied with some of the best masters in the world.
“Feng shui is the relationship between us, as people and the environment,” Wiggins said.
Qi, pronounced “chee”, is life's energy and is in every living and non-living thing. It connects people with their surroundings and is in a constant state of change. When we use feng shui, we work to enhance the sheng (good) qi and deflect or neutralise the sha (negative) qi, Wiggins says.
There are many different schools of feng shui, although flying star school, also known as “xuan kong” or “fei xing”, is the traditional method and the most complicated and comprehensive school.
When using flying star feng shui, it is imperative the consultant is also competent in form school feng fhui as they must analyse the external and internal forms of a building in order to correctly analyse the flying stars.
Wiggins says if you decide to choose one, ensure the consultant has studied flying star school and Form school feng shui.
Meanwhile, modern feng shui should incorporate building biology. It looks at the health hazards affecting our everyday lives – such as electromagnetic fields – and as no amount of good feng shui can fix these types of issues, it is important you choose a consultant who is aware of the issues and the impact they may have on people.
Wiggins says she then uses little remedies to harmonise the property as much as possible.
One of Wiggins’ consultations involved looking at floor plans for a female client.
“I basically said to her: ‘look, I’m not sure but are you having any problems with having children?’. And in actual fact the lady had had IVF a couple of times,” she said.
“The house was basically a house that was going to be difficult for her to fall pregnant in and if she did, she would have issues.
“In addition, she was also suffering from depression, which showed up in the energy in her bedroom. So basically I told her about a couple of remedies [and] got her to change the colour of her bedroom.”
Six months later, Wiggins got an email from the lady who said she was a lot better and had also sought counselling.
“That is sort of what feng shui does – it does not fix everything but it seems to get you in contact with helpful people [who] then support you in improving your life,” she said.
“It is not a quick fix – it allows you to see what effect your home [for example] has on you and what you can do to help alleviate it and the things that trigger it.”
There have been cases of feng shui scams both in Australia and overseas. Wiggins says you are always going to get negative or bad people in all lines of work.
“Basically there was a lot of dodgy stuff going on,” she said.
A lot of people she had spoken to were not happy with the feng shui consultations they had received from consultants who claimed they were an expert on the topic after reading a book.
“It is an unregulated industry ... that is one of the reasons I set up the Association of Feng Shui Consultants,” she said. “We ensure that our members provide us with their qualifications, which we confirm with the training institution before we take the person on as a member of the association.”
For example, there was a student who claimed to be an expert just a year after completing his studies in the area.
“We pulled the student up on that and said you are not an expert yet, you have just graduated,” she said. “That is something that happens and the association tries to keep an eye on it.”
“It can be hard when people are marking themselves in different ways.”
If a member of the public is looking for a consultant, Wiggins recommends finding someone who is registered with the AFSC to double-check the consultant’s credentials.
