Increasing Money Luck in 2024

Ancient Wisdom or Fascinating Bullshit? Let's find out.

You may have heard of Feng Shui (produced fung shway) in passing like “She has some bad feng shui going on right now” or “These feng shui candles are going to change your love life.”  The candle-thing is not feng shui…just clever marketing. Kind of like The Pet Rock (if you are old enough to remember that gimmick). Generally speaking, feng shui explores the influences an environment can have on humans who occupy living and work spaces. My long-time fascination with the subject will be a explored further as part of the Rabbit Hole Journey, and organized separately in a section called Good Vibrations. To kick it off, it’s time to test the theories behind creating money luck.

It’s hard to jump into the topic without some explanation of the subject, so here is the abbreviated version to help readers follow along. The term Feng Shui translates to “wind and water” which is considered the means of how energy is carried from one place to another. Energy, also called “chi” is heat, light, gravity, life force, magnetism and it follows the flow of air, at least in the concept of feng shui. The quality of chi in a living or working space is believed to influence the health, financial well-being, and relationships of those spending extended time in it.

But is there any truth to it? Well, I have had some legitimate interesting results with some of the techniques. To be fair, I have also learned some things that do not work at all. And then, there are those things I didn’t bother trying. But, that’s about to change.

My first introduction to feng shui occurred when I was on a road trip setting up a tradeshow with a colleague over two decades ago. Out of boredom, I began reading a book on Eastern philosophy, which contained a few pages on feng shui. From the moment I read about it, I became instantly intrigued. Something about it struck a chord as possibly being true.

Back when I was just a teenager, and finally had a bedroom of my own, I realized the space I lived in had an impact on my energy. When it was dirty and full of clutter, I felt lethargic. Changing colors, adding light, moving furniture, etc. seem to always revitalize the space and me. I did this throughout my adulthood, whether I lived in a dorm, apartment, or house. Before I learned about feng shui, I may have been using its concepts without even knowing it. Well, maybe.

After reading a book titled, Move Your Furniture, Change Your Life back in 2000, I jumped at the chance to attend a local, 6-week evening class to learn feng shui. My family had recently moved into a new, two-story house and it seemed like a perfect time to learn feng shui and apply the concepts. Once a week for about two hours a night, I would learn “remedies” to apply to my home to improve my space. However, I had no idea there were different schools of feng shui and I was about to get a lesson in blind belief.

The classes I took were part of the Western school (a.k.a. Black Hat or  BTB schools). It combined color psychology, interior design, and aspirational concepts into a simplified feng shui practice. It also focused on decluttering long before Marie Kondo turned decluttering into a defined regiment called the KonMari Method™.

I learned some very practical techniques from the Western school that I still use like decluttering. But there were some concepts that were just too weird. One suggested method was to use “mirrors” to prevent chi from draining down the toilets. To test the concept I placed very small circular mirrors on the bathroom ceiling, above the toilets, to prevent “the money energy” from draining out of the house. Did it work? Let’s just say it gathered more questions than it banked money.  

Hindsight being 20/20, an easier concept would have been to just close the toilet lid and use stoppers on the sinks if my money chi was really draining through the bathroom. If we didn’t have plumbing, we would all die of cholera, so I’m pretty sure proper drainage overrules chi loss.

Eventually, research led me to a key understanding about feng shui. Western methods (that I learned first) and traditional methods (that I learned later) had very few things in common. In fact, they are strong contradictions between the two schools. I had not learned feng shui, at least not the Eastern (traditional) version I initially read about. I needed the whole story, not just the abbreviated new age version sold in bookstores.

To learn the history of feng shui, I dove into traditional practice in 2002. This was the earliest rabbit hole journey I remember experiencing and it was a big one. I exited the abyss with three certifications from the American Feng Shui Institute (AFSI), and a number of extra courses in advanced applications. Traditional teachings are complex, layered and require a lot of practice.

The AFSI’s curriculum focused on core feng shui concepts as an ancient science. It eliminated practices based in superstition, cultural beliefs, religious symbology, and other things often cited as feng shui. But, not all traditional schools strip the teachings down to the bare bones. After collecting books influenced by different traditional masters, it became obvious everyone within this space was not on the same page. (Eastern and Western feng shui schools were not even in the same ballpark.)

This brings me back to my “ Western feng shui” mirror test and why it felt wrong as a correction to a space. I learned that traditional use of mirrors is to reflect light to brighten a dim space, not symbolically prevent chi from going down the toilet. A mirror doesn’t even move chi. Wind carries chi, water gathers chi, but not mirrors. And, if a room has bad energy, mirrors will not correct it according to traditional schools. So how did mirrors get into the mix?

In ancient times, feng shui was passed down through poems. A person without complete knowledge of feng shui would often misinterpret the meaning behind the use of mirrors.  Mirrors usually had thick metal frames, and the metal served as the correction to the space, not the mirror. In feng shui, five elements—metal, water, wood, fire, and earth—are used to balance the energy of a space in traditional feng shui. I can accept that logic because placing mirrors above my toilet and other odd spaces just seems like uninformed advice. Maybe there is a placebo effect for some users, but not for me.

For the last twenty-two years, I have performed annual feng shui maintenance on my house. Instead of just doing the bare minimum in 2024, I am going to apply a traditional technique that is supposed to attract money. It does not involve mirrors. But, I am a little skeptical about it since it feels like across over into Chinese astrology. Nevertheless, I will once again keep an open mind.

In this technique I will place a change bowl, made of a specific color and material, into a 15-degree location calculated specific to my “personal” feng shui analysis. Since I regularly put change in a jar, I might as well spruce it up and place it in an auspicious location. I am also doing this for my spouse, so we have two test trials happening at the same time. I’ll give it all of 2024 just to see what happens. The outcome has to be more than just the financial accumulation in our change bowls. But if you don’t hear from me at all, then clearly,  we have won the lottery and provided the ultimate proof of success.