Feng-shui is the ancient Chinese art of harnessing the heavens and earth to bring health, wealth and good fortune, by tuning in to the environment, seasonal changes, tides and vibrations of nature.The principles of feng-shui are designed to alter your environment, your home and your heart, so that you feel at peace with yourself and the universe, and therefore able to use those changes in the tides of fortune that ceaselessly churn through your life to your best advantage.Famous believersThe practice of feng-shui dates back thousands of years but it is still used today by many of the rich and famous who would not give it a second glance if they thought it was simply an ancient superstition. Even one of the most successful banks in the world today, the HSBC Group which owns the Midland bank and has gone from strength to strength, has its head offices designed with advice from a feng-shui practitioner.
Lilian Too, the ex-managing director of the Grindlays Dao Heng bank in Hong Kong and the former deputy chairman of the billion dollar company that owns Harvey Nichols, not only believes implicitly in feng-shui but is the best known writer on the subject.
Donald Trump and Richard Branson have both used the services of feng-shui practitioner and look how successful they are! Another convert is Anita Roddlick whose Body Shop chain uses feng-shui principles in its store design. Boy George, too, has been a long time believer in feng-shui and attributes much of his success to its beneficial practices.Feng-shui in the business worldIn the early 1990s the Credit Lyonnais bank produced a light-hearted Feng-shui Stock Market Index designed to predict the moves of the Hang Seng Index (The Hong Kong Stock Market). In December 1992 the Asian Wall Street Journal ran an article on the Feng-shui Index confirming that it had predicted the major turning points of the Hang Seng over the previous 12 months. The bank has commissioned similar indexes every year since. Although fehg-shui does not claim to predict stock market moves, the uncanny accuracy of these predictions certainly made people more aware of feng-shui.