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Feng Shui Test

Richard

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Richard
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Aug 1, 2001
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Hi all

Here is a letter that came in to Australian Skeptics

==========================
I am intersted (sic) in a test to prove/disprove of the effectiveness of Feng Shui. I am a Feng Shui consultant and would like to take your challenge.

I do not know how to prove that Feng Shui work for you but I will be interested in any tests that you propose.
==========================

Does anyone have any suggestions for a test protocol?
 
The difficulty in testing Feng Shui is distinguishing the difference between laying out a room so as to maximise the "energy flow" and laying out a room well.

For example, Feng Shui masters may claim that applying Feng Shui to a retail space will increase sales. Their advice MAY include:

- Placing the register near the door
- Enabling people to "flow" (that's move in real money) around the store easily
- Putting lighting up in certain places to ease the energy flow
- Avoiding sharp corners and dead ends
- Avoiding dark places

None of that is particularly mysterious and just sounds like good retail practice to me. "Feeling good" in a space or achieving better productivity is a recognised result of good interior design. It just seems that the Feng Shui masters may have codified it in mystic terms.

The key, I suppose is to find some kind of objective measure of hte "energy flow" in the room
 
It seems to me to be very difficult to test. We need a number of rooms/houses/flats which can be built/rearranged/redecorated (aargh I sound like Kumar!) and the people living in those rooms must not be aware whether they have been arranged according to Feng Shui or not.

The effect of Feng Shui is a long-term effect, so the test needs to last for a longer period, and because it is all in the heads of people, it will be very very difficult to judge whether there is an effect or not.

I think we need some concrete claims from the Feng Shui adherents before a test can be arranged, if it is at all possible.
 
IIRC F.S. (rather than B.S. :D ) suggests that not only can things be arranged in a positive way, they can also be arranged in a negative way.

So could we not compare +ve to -ve to neutral over time and see if the neutral ones do endu up in the middle?
 
I think just any method to detect the energy might be best.

I'd suggest the following:

Gather a group of accepted (licensed or whatever) Feng Shuites. Have them properly arrange say, 2 rooms to maximize health, 2 to maximize wealth, etc, and arrange some to maximize something else or just to violate several principles.

Then, have your testee go into the rooms and detect:

Which rooms are already properly arranged, and for what aspect.
Which rooms are misaligned.

Just a thought, but if Feng Shui is a science and actually has some sort of detectable effect, this should be easy. However, it necessarily involves the inclusion of more than one feng shuite, which brings up the possibility of a "No True Scotsman" defense. Not sure how to get around that, as letting the testee choose the arrangers might allow for pre-arranged set-ups...not real sure.
 
Huntsman said:
I think just any method to detect the energy might be best.

I'd suggest the following:

Gather a group of accepted (licensed or whatever) Feng Shuites. Have them properly arrange say, 2 rooms to maximize health, 2 to maximize wealth, etc, and arrange some to maximize something else or just to violate several principles.

Then, have your testee go into the rooms and detect:

Which rooms are already properly arranged, and for what aspect.
Which rooms are misaligned.

Just a thought, but if Feng Shui is a science and actually has some sort of detectable effect, this should be easy. However, it necessarily involves the inclusion of more than one feng shuite, which brings up the possibility of a "No True Scotsman" defense. Not sure how to get around that, as letting the testee choose the arrangers might allow for pre-arranged set-ups...not real sure.
Click to expand...


Unless I am missing something here, the results from the test you suggest should be pretty impressive assuming all FS guys work to the same pricipals (whatever they may be), chair by the window for wealth for example. This is visually obvious. It doesn't follow however that the room's energy is better or worse as a result. Unless the second FS guy can "sense" then extra energy and is taken in to the room blindfold, then you may as well put a notice on the door telling them what the room is supposed to be doing.
 
Penn and Teller did a test with multiple Feng Shui artists that involved comparing how each arranged the same house... obviously they each did it differently. But that just lets each one declare the others to be false.

You really need to have the Feng Shui artist state specific claims prior to learning anything about a test space. But most of what they will decide will come from their experience in the space. (I.E. these red curtains inflame the pancreas, or that side of the bed will cause the person on this side to have more anxiety and stress.) So you would need to agree beforehand how you're going to approach those claims and structure tests for them. (in very general terms) Then you can test anything with real-world predictions that is given. The more spaces you can test with and the greater variety in test goals (measure positive, negative and neutral) with plenty of placebo and/or control spaces... well, the more revealing the tests will be.

I've always wondered if the FS_artist is able to say that sleeping on one side of the bed (in it's current position) will cause a specific medical problem; why we can't just ask the owners if the person who sleeps there has that medical problem and call the experiment complete. They'll surely get it wrong, so just go to a home where the people say they haven't changed habits in their movements throughout the house for years. If they assure you they've been doing things the same way for years and the FS_artist makes a claim about their lives that isn't true... that would appear to be the whole game right there. The key is to lay the seeds of cold reading... let the FA_artist know that the occupants may have a host of medical problems, but you can't tell them which... if any even exist. Then the poor slob is sure to start predicting a host of ailments.
 
Shui, Louie, and Dewey

This feng hooie artist has a lot of nerve asking somebody else to design a test. He's the one claiming an effect, let him demonstrate it.

I confess I'd enjoy watching say half a dozen of these con jobbers rearrange a room, one after the other, each correcting the previous one's mistakes.

It shouldn't be too hard to assemble a bunch of them for a test. Look in the yellow pages under Bunko.
 
Me: What are you trying to optimize?

Shuizer: The energy flow in this room.

Me: How do you measure the energy flow?

Shuizer: I have no idea.

Me: Then I stipulate that you have optimized it.

~~ Paul
 
Find out what she claims to be able to do, specifically. It has to be quantifiable and measurable, though.
 
My sister-in law is a Feng Shui, expert, when she lived with us a few years a go she Feng Shuied our house. I had to unFeng Shui it to make livable. She told me it was OK because she had hung crystals arround to house so the bad chi would flow out no matter how the house was arranged.

I have to admit I have not seen any bad chi, we did have to spray for termites, however I did not catch thier names.

I don't have a clue how to test this becuase anything good that happens is a result of Feng Shui, anyting bad is ghosts.
 
WildCat said:
All chi flows to Chi-cago!
Click to expand...

Absolutely right! That's what makes it a toddling town! :D

chicago0302b.jpg


Feng-Shui is inherently untestable in the absense of an objective manner of measuring chi directly, after having proved that it exists.

Otherwise it amounts to whether Chinese aesthetic principles are nicer. And aesthetics is the science of accounting for tastes. :p
 
Richard said:
Hi all

Here is a letter that came in to Australian Skeptics

==========================
I am intersted (sic) in a test to prove/disprove of the effectiveness of Feng Shui. I am a Feng Shui consultant and would like to take your challenge.

I do not know how to prove that Feng Shui work for you but I will be interested in any tests that you propose.
==========================

Does anyone have any suggestions for a test protocol?
Click to expand...
As others have pointed out, AS should start by requiring the FS guru to specify HIS/HER claim(s). After all, he claims to be a FS consultant so begin by asking what his/her services are? What benefits does his customer get? How does the customer know? You on your way to an hypothesis. THEN you can move on to test protocol. Any other approach is basackwards.
 
OK.. here is the claim...

------------

Feng Shui service in a nut shell is mainly to analyse the luck of the customer, the luck energy of his home and offering him/her suggestions such as to change the interior design of his home, the colour/types of cloths he should wear, the location and direction he should sit when working so that he can have better luck in earning more money, have better health, have better luck in his love life, etc. So it is up to the customer to tell us whether there are any improvements after feng shui remedies are implemented and we have to accept their words for it. Furthermore, most of the times, as most customers are not sure about the hour of their birth or the age of their properties, the feng shui consultants will have to tests different locations for the feng shui cures and different cures prior to obtain the required results. These can take up to 3 months.

I propose that I will provide free feng shui consultancy services for 100 customers of your choice. They or/ your group will have to pay for their own feng shui cures as suggested by me. As Feng shui is a metaphysic, the customers will have to agree to sign a type of agreements to waive their right to sue me for any consequent of their feng shui cures. They are welcome to purchase feng shui ornaments from anywhere they like as long as the qualities of these ornaments are accepted by me. Some of the houses/ business properties will not be suitable for feng shui cures as the cure will be too expensive and we will have to select other customers whose houses have better luck. I would like to know out of 100 customers, how many customers will have to advise you that they experience better luck as a result of my feng shui cures before your organisation believes that Feng shui work.

Regards,

----------------------

So there you go. We are working on a reply.
 
Richard said:
I propose that I will provide free feng shui consultancy services for 100 customers of your choice. They or/ your group will have to pay for their own feng shui cures as suggested by me.
Click to expand...

I am a psychic attorney. I use my powers to increase the luck of my clients.

Please arrange 100 clients for me as part of a test protocol. They or your group will have to pay me for the psychic work that I will be performing. . . .

Honestly, even if the test is a dismal failure and he admits it, he gets 100 new jobs fully paid for??

Puh-lease.


N/A
 
NoZed Avenger said:



Honestly, even if the test is a dismal failure and he admits it, he gets 100 new jobs fully paid for??

Puh-lease.


N/A
Click to expand...

This sounds oddly like purchasing software from Microsoft.
 
I don't know how to calculate success rate... obviously more than 50%... but people "see" the effects they are looking for... so I'd assume it has to be a good deal above 50%.

For the contestants you need to look for specific markers that the FS consul agrees to in wealth, health and love. People generally improve wealth with age naturally, so you need to account for regularly occuring raises and such. Health is naturally deteriating... a good history is needed, including any new exercise programs or diets.

You should try to place controls over the FS's ability to learn financial, medical or personal histories on clients. And you should get the FS to agree ahead of time to state specific health risks/conditions that he feels should already exist because of the current physical properties (i.e. if having the bed face South will affect the pancreas... then he must make the claim that he expects the current resident to have these conditions... and chart how often these claims are correct by having the residents checked by a doctor.)

The clients should also track the number of times they stub their toe or become irritated (emotionally stressed) because of the inconvenient fashion in which the FS has arranged their home. (Invariably these people make ridiculous decisions about where to put the furniture... and it can be hazardous, or blatant fire-code violations)



But the big issue I read in this... 100 clients!!!!

This guy wants you to do his marketing for him and create a whole new client base. He has a full 100 clients for the next few months and if only 10% are happy... they can still refer dozens more to him and get him into new markets. Taking a challenge in this fashion might just be brilliant marketing for a start-up business.
 
NoZed Avenger said:


I am a psychic attorney. I use my powers to increase the luck of my clients.

Please arrange 100 clients for me as part of a test protocol. They or your group will have to pay me for the psychic work that I will be performing. . . .

Honestly, even if the test is a dismal failure and he admits it, he gets 100 new jobs fully paid for??

Puh-lease.
Click to expand...
As I understood it, the FS practitioner (is that the right word?) is only asking that the customers pay for their own ornaments/"cures" (e.g. wind chimes, aquariums, whatever) as recommended by the practitioner but not the actual FS consulting fee.
 
The applicant's claims emphasise an increase in luck and wealth for the customer. The first thing that springs to my mind is 'lottery'. Is the applicant stating that a customer's luck in lotteries would be greater after application of feng shui techniques than before (with the obvious improvement in regards to wealth)? Could this direction be used somehow as a basis for a much simpler test than the one proposed above?
 
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