The "Baloney Detection Kit"
(with a tip of the hat to Carl Sagan, Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Latich)

Procrustes was the villain in Greek mythology who forced travelers to fit into his bed by stretching their bodies or cutting off their legs. The term "Procrustean" is now used to characterize someone who has ruthless disregard for individual differences.

In Feng Shui, "Procrustean" can refer to practitioners who impose their ideological agendas on clients and clients' houses, often without taking history, common sense, or authentic Feng Shui into consideration.

When you look for a Feng Shui practitioner, you need to be able to identify those who have been poorly trained, practice Feng Shui quackery, or who use untested methods -- including practitioners who are trying to fit your home into their Procrustean Feng Shui.

Have any of these experiences happened to you?

The practitioner tells you mythology about Feng Shui. You might hear something about how you have to make your payments using red envelopes, which isn't a Feng Shui "tradition" so much as a cool stylistic touch. Shamans were originally paid in cowrie shells (the original form of Chinese money) and you might want to consider that method of payment with some of these charlatans!

Some practitioners stress the importance of "intention" and other self-help psychobabble. Maybe you are told that this is a secret and esoteric art from Tibet -- a viewpoint that defies the Dalai Lama's decree that the contents of all Tibetan Buddhist rites are now an "open secret" for anyone to know and observe. Or perhaps you'll be told that Feng Shui is an "intuitive art" that has nothing to do with science.

If something cannot be verified because it is "secret" or "intuitive" or "spiritual," that indicates the speaker doesn't want their methods backed up by peer review. In other words, someone claiming Feng Shui methods are "secret," etc., has something to hide. It's a prime indicator that the practitioner is a fraud.

The practitioner has a standard formula: every house has eight physical "life stations," etc. Perhaps the practitioner employs a diagram that looks like a stop sign or octagonal cookie-cutter with writing on it to superimpose on the floor plan of your home. Or maybe it looks like a square sectioned into nine parts but is called a "map." You may be told that you are "missing a life station" or some portion of your house and need to write an "affirmation" and post it in a particular spot, or place a wind chime, crystal, mirror or other fetish as a "magnifying element." Consider this as the Feng Shui version of a Big Mac and fries -- and what Master Pun Yin calls "prefabricated Feng Shui," the most dangerous kind.

The practitioner suggests that you use his/her Feng Shui merchandise. You receive your structure's diagnosis and the practitioner whips out a trunkful of Feng Shui "cures," a catalog, or some other marketing tool that shows flutes and crystals and other New Age/neopagan fetishes that are "guaranteed" to immediately "cure" your home's supposed problems. The prices may or may not seem reasonable to you, but the fact is that the practitioner is making the bulk of his/her money off merchandising, not the reading.

You don't see any standardization of Feng Shui practices or any attempts to regulate practitioners. This fact isn't lost on adept practitioners like Mark Johnson. In a 1997 issue of Qi Magazine he characterized the current state of professional behavior and abilities among Feng Shui practitioners and so-called masters to be "ludicrous and confusing," with the faux Feng Shui most inclined to exaggerate their abilities. "Do we really believe that mirrors and flutes are going to change people's tendencies in any lasting and meaningful way?" he wonders.

Treat Feng Shui practitioners with the same healthy skepticism as used-car salesmen. The burden of proof rests on the shoulders of the Feng Shui practitioners making those too-good-to-be-true claims. Johnson advocates finding a practitioner with a solid load of case studies that you can peruse and judge for yourself if they can make qualitative environmental assessments.

Negativity? Shmegativity! People often get upset when their credentials as a "Feng Shui Master" are questioned. I have been accused of "being negative" and other New Age no-no's. One editor even suggested that I use a "flute cure" where the sun doesn't shine!

I always wonder why these people are so upset about being scrutinized and why they're angry about having their methods explored and critiqued. Aren't they interested in seeing how well their belief system holds up against my questioning and references? If I challenge their belief system or just ask embarrassing questions, they act like I have personally assaulted them.

Remember, folks, rational science treats its views as redeemable on demand (that is, I have to give you evidence when you ask for it), while non-rational authoritarianism regards any questioning of its beliefs or methods as a disloyal act of faith. Charles Tart said it all : "To unthinkingly embrace anything and everything labeled 'spiritual' or 'psychic' or 'New Age' is, of course, foolish, for many of these ideas are factually wrong, however noble or inspiring they are."

If you are expected to uncritically accept something, then you are being force-fed a line of mysticism and superstition whose sole aim is to defraud you, possibly humiliate you -- and, in rare occurrences, cause harm to you. You are being asked to believe, in the absence of all evidence, that what some stranger is telling you is the truth just because that person says so. 

Carl Sagan said that if we've been bamboozled long enough we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle because it has captured us: "It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken," he wrote in The Demon-Haunted World. So we'll believe even more outrageous bamboozles rather than admit we've been had!

Do you know the moral responsibility of the astrologer, the Tarot card reader? What was the moral responsibility of the Psychic Friends Network before it declared bankruptcy?

Feng Shui adepts work within the ethical guidelines of their profession. Eva Wong identifies these ethics as part of Daoist divinatory practices, but however you identify them they are still ethics. 

Moreover, a Feng Shui practitioner is expected to assume personal responsibility for every reading and treat each person's analysis as if it were his or her own. A sloppy or incompetent Feng Shui reading generates nothing but bad karma for the practitioner.