The Western Guide to Feng Shui: Creating Balance, Harmony, and Prosperity in Your Environment Book

Please note the following review in part or in entirety is a copy of other reviews I have written on similar Feng Shui books.

Ok this is the longest Review I have written as I am very passionate about it due to my personal experience with it - so please bare with me. If you are interested in Feng Shui it may be worth the read.

I bought this book along with many others; (which I will lump together here and probably post this same review on each) when I knew nothing about Feng Shui except for the concept - put your things in the right place and create harmony and flow in your life.

In theory this like the other 'western style' Feng Shui books are great. By western I mean anything that does not hold up to the Classical/Authentic Feng Shui concepts. Easy to read, easy to apply for the most part and fairly easy to incorporate into most homes.

There are a few 'universal' concepts 'these' books shared that are logical, useful and truly helpful. Such as decluttering your life/home and using plants to bring in good energy. For the sake of being fair I am quite certain there are a few more that I am neglecting to mention here.

If anyone has read different books on Feng Shui they will notice how each one seems to contradict the next. So even if you think you are 'playing by the rules for one' the next one tells you, you are way off course.

First let me say I tried so many different techniques found in these books that I thought my head would spin. Not just for a day or two but for well over two years. Some of the things seemed to have an effect but as I have realized this has more to do with the power of positive intention which most of these books work from.

When we bought our first home I used a good majority of the techniques to sway my decision as to which home to buy & where. Not to mention the placement of my furniture etc. Western Feng Shui is sort of a set it and forget it concept but they often use Asian influence chatskies as well to keep bringing the mind back to the intension. With such limiting results I had pretty much chalked it up to 'not worth too much of my effort'.

So when a Classical Feng Shui speaker was presenting at a fair I had no intention of going but since the other speaker who was to present during that time did not show I thought I would go ahead and check it out. I was pleasingly surprised but skeptical as she explained why these techniques worked a little but nothing seemed to 'stick'. She shared her experience with it and how in learning Classical (Authentic) Feng Shui vs. what we find on our book shelves, it made all the difference in the world. Also explaining how every person has to find out what their best and worst directions and that it is NOT universal. Along with the importance of understanding your 'Destiny Chart' which plays just as big of a role in the 'outcome' of how effective Feng Shui can be.

I noticed everything she was working with was in Chinese characters and she talked about how her teachers were Masters that were from China.

Everything she shared made since so for the better part of the next day her, my friend & I spent time talking more about it.

I asked her if she had any books she could recommend on the subject - then came the bomb...
She said 'there are no English books on the subject in print right now'.

That pretty much discouraged me but after I got home I started researching and found one resource that seemed legitimate. I did as much research as possible and found him to be highly reputable. Joey Yap seems very sincere in his agenda to bring Classical/Authentic Feng Shui and other Chinese arts to the western culture.

After reading his website, hundreds of his articles, watching some of his videos I applied some of his techniques and was AMAZED and the results. Then I compared my 'favorable and unfavorable' directions with the places I have lived using Google Earth to pinpoint the direction of my bed placement and found the One time in my life I was the healthiest was the ONLY time my bed had ever been in one of my favorable positions. After moving our bed within ONE DAY both my husband & my energy had increased (thankfully we both share the same favorable directions). That along with many other things has made me a believer in something that I didn't hold much weigh to before.

Needless to say I have since been slowly learning more and more about Classical Feng Shui, Bazi (Destiny) Charts, and Mian Xiang (face reading) and continue to be impressed with it's accuracy.

The most disheartening thing about 'Western' Feng Shui concepts is that most of the authors feel they what they are doing is good and helpful and for the most part the power of positive intention allows them to have some results. But unknowingly some of these Consultants don't realize that what they are teaching/sharing can actually be doing more harm than good. Since many of them use a Universal Bagua for everyone and give everyone the same positions for everything.
In closing I would like to suggest that you skip all the hype and the books suggesting that they have an 'easier way'. If you Truly want to experience what Feng Shui can offer don't mess with techniques that can sometimes do more harm than good. Check out Yap's books and/or DVD trainings and learn what Feng Shui truly is about.