The most important part of a Feng Shui consultation and without one you cannot practice authentic and traditional Feng Shui. You would be amazed at how many consultations we attend where the occupants have told us that their home faces a certain direction, only to find once we are there the measurement has been up to 50 degrees out.

Taking a compass reading is actually very easy as long as you follow the advice on this page. If you do not have one already you will need to pop along to your local camping store and pick one up. One similar to the one shown below is ideal. I would not recommend you purchase a Lo Pan Chinese compass unless you are prepared to pay several hundred pounds. There are many cheap versions for sale on the Internet, however, these are better served as decorative items as far as I am concerned. The better ones you will find available from Feng Shui Masters web-sites such as Raymond Lo, Larry Sang and Joseph Yu.

Silva 203 Model.

Which way is south?

You may have been confused with the many books available with reference to Chinese south being different to our western south. No matter where you are in the world south is south and north is north. If you have read a book on Feng Shui written by a master in China and she/he tells you place an earth cure in the south this is where you place it. The only thing different on a Lo Pan compass is the compass needle is coloured back to front, back to front from our western point of view. The needle still picks up magnetic north the same as your western compass.

Which north do I use? 

I can hear you saying I thought you said this was going to be easy, it does get better, promise. The only north direction we are interested in Feng Shui is magnetic north. 

You have probably noticed on architects drawing or drawings from the local council, an arrow with the north direction, normally on the bottom right side of drawings and OS maps. This is not magnetic north, it is geographical north, all you need to remember is never use these readings when it comes to Feng Shui.

Magnetic and Geographical north are entirely different.

How to ensure the perfect compass direction.

Never Eat Shredded Wheat

This was taught to me by my geography teacher many years ago, and has served me well. Although when we carry out our consultations we actually do work in reverse it all amounts to the same thing. Not sure who makes Shredded wheat, but I actually love them, just in case I have made some liable comment, you never know nowadays.   

Cardinal Directions: North, East, South, West.

Inter-Cardinal Directions: North-east, South-east, South-west, north-west.

In the old days, a Feng Shui Master used to wear robes with very long baggy sleeves and they used to fold their arms hidden inside the sleeves looking very humble, unbeknown to many that they do this to calculate complex figures on the plates of their fingers as shown below. They would use the nine plates for calculating Flying Stars and also directions. The numbers on the plates represent the Lo Shu and also the cardinal and inter-cardinal directions. Nowadays we have become lazy and whip out the lap-top.

Now the easy part

From the example below you will see the compass needle, the red part always points to north, twist the dial so that the red arrow needle is over the north. Once this is aligned you will see a marker arrow this will tell you the direction you are facing. So from the example below, you can see this property faces 310 degrees (north-west), to find the sitting direction just look on the opposite side of the dial, on most compasses there is a reverse arrow.

This property faces 310 degrees (NW) and sits 150 degrees (SE)

Where to take your readings from?

As shown in the picture below:

Now I know my directions, what now?

So your property faces 319 degrees and sits 139 degrees, use the chart below to find out the Trigram for your home. A property that faces 319 degrees is a Sun (Xun) house. Having this information will tell you that this year 2002, you will need to activate the north-east for wealth and more importantly you need to weaken the deadly 2 - 5 stars in the east otherwise your health, wealth and luck will be affected. This is going into a more detailed version of traditional Feng Shui if you would like further details on our comprehensive on-line consultations click here. These reports are very in-depth and do not just take into account your home they also analyse you and your family as individuals to make sure you face your best direction when working, sleeping, relaxing etc. 

Example Flying star for a Sun Trigram house.

Compass graduations and their corresponding house Trigrams.

Our comprehensive on-line reports contain the following:

For details on how to determine your sitting and facing direction click here.

If you would like us to come to your home or business for an authentic and traditional consultation click here for more details.