I bumped into a friend recently and learnt that he is developing an 18 storey apartment. Knowing that I am a Feng Shui Consultant he asked me if it is good Feng Shui to paint the lift lobbies and common areas of every floor with a color that reflect the element of the floor.

You see, he is a Feng Shui enthusiast and read an article about how to map the floors in a multi-storey office complex or apartment to the stars in the He Tu (River Map) or Lo Shu (Lo Book).

To the uninitiated, please let me explain using the He Tu example. In the He Tu which follows the Early Heaven sequence, each of the star numbers from 1 to 9 has an element and the numbers are mapped directly to the floors. For example stars 1 and 6 which belong to the water element are mapped to level 1 and 6. Similarly stars 2 and 7 which belong to the fire element are mapped to level 2 and 7. Stars 3 and 8 which belong to the wood element are mapped to level 3 and 8 while stars 4 and 9 which belong to the metal element are mapped to level 4 and 9. Finally star 5 which belong to the earth element is mapped to level 5. Level 10 is also considered an earth floor. (Please note that the Chinese called the ground floor, level 1)

Practitioners of these schools believe that the Feng Shui qualities of the floors can be improved by painting them with colours that matches the Feng Shui element of the floor.

Using this methodology, the inner spaces of the 1st and 6th level should be painted blue (or black) to match with the water element of the floor. Levels 2nd and 7th should be painted red to match the fire element while levels 3rd and 8th should be painted green to match the wood elements of the floor. Levels 4th and 9th should be painted white (or gold or silver) to match the metal element while levels 5th and 10th should be painted yellow to match the earth element. The 11th floor is treated the same as the 1st floor and the assignment repeated.

The interesting thing about this methodology is that none of the masters and teachers that I have studied with, teach this method. In fact some of them state that they have not studied this method from their teachers.

Recently I came across a translation of the ancient classic, “Five Songs of the Heavenly Principles” by Legendary Feng Shui Master Jiang Da Hong. Master Jiang who lived about 400 years ago is the author of many books that are considered classics including the notable, “Di Li Bian Zheng” or “Earth Discerning Truth”. He wrote “Five Songs” because he felt that discrepancies and dubious methods have crept into the practice of Feng Shui (even then) and he hoped to remedy the situation by citing examples of methods that he believes to be incorrect and misleading.

In the “Five Songs” he specifically mentioned about the practice of assigning the nine stars to the floors based on the Early Heaven numbers. He mentioned that even though this method is taught in books, he believe that it does not produce the desired results and effort is only wasted!

What do you think? You decide.