Is there a special recipe for a prosperous and well-organized life? According to Feng Shui it’s all about achieving a balance.

Feng Shui is an amazing tool that can help you improve your quality of your life in countless ways. With this in mind many people these days hire an expert to help them create this balance and introduce Qi energy into all the aspects of their life.

The following interview with a real Feng Shui expert will help provide greater insight into this mysterious but precise ancient science. If you you’re looking to improve the positive flow of energy in your life… read on for Althea S.T’s inspirational advice.

1. You have written two very inspirational books. One of them is titled A Course in Real Feng Shui: Make Your Property Work for You at All Times. What can you tell our readers about this book? How can it help us live better lives?

What I wanted to achieve was to create a single book to serve as a source of trusted information – both for beginners and practitioners. Whoever has had a go at studying this ancient science will be familiar with the fact that real Feng Shui is a multi-layered and complex form of knowledge which is by no means easy to navigate through. As a result many people have already lost their way by the time it comes to applying and combining the various methods; struggling to establish a Feng Shui setting which will actually work for them – or their clients – long term. My book A Course in Real Feng Shui, gradually introduces the reader to Feng Shui theory and practice and the most efficient ways to assess and improve what already exists or to even design a new property from scratch. So I’ve put a huge amount of effort into making this sometimes complex subject so simple that anyone can follow it. I have provided not only all the reliable methods for assessment, design and the improvement of Feng Shui but also lots of illustrations and tables – over 200 – and even a real practice chapter.

2. What is it like to be a Feng Shui master in the modern world? How can one reach that level of knowledge?

The thing with every successful business is that you have to first gain the appropriate knowledge and then you need to find, by yourself, what works best in each specific situation. No two properties are ever the same so the trick for the successful implementation of Feng Shui is to find the uniqueness of a property, and then you can figure out how best to make it work for the owners or occupants. So to answer your question, I don’t feel that “mastery” is the point here. My skills and awareness have been achieved through commitment and hard work. It has taken me over 20 years of study and practice to master this craft and to reach the level of accomplishment I have achieved. In fact attaining the status of a Feng Shui Master doesn’t really differ from any other kind of mastery – you just have to work hard at it!

3. You often mention REAL Feng Shui as opposed to other methods that share the same name. What exactly are you referring to here? For novices it can often be confusing with rather contradictory information…

Without wanting to diminish anyone’s efforts, I just want to stress that I am into classical Feng Shui. So something I can’t or won’t do is assess a property at first sight, or guess about how to make improvements. There is a set procedure in this line of work, and just as with any other serious type of assessment, it starts with gathering the relevant data. When practicing real Feng Shui we need to see the actual layout of the property in order to establish where the facing is, to evaluate the surroundings, to learn more about the actual occupants of the house or office and so on. Only then can we ascertain the true potentials of the property and everything else that entails. Real Feng Shui is definitely not a simplistic method based on intuition or placing small objects in certain positions – and this is the common misconception that those who practice real Feng Shui must face. There is no doubt that intuition is an excellent support tool which often serves us well, when it comes to holistic solutions and making a property work for you in the long run, much deeper levels of knowledge are paramount.

4. What does one of your Feng Shui consultations look like? Who are your clients? And what is the main difference between residential and commercial properties?

There’s no universal formula for a consultation. It depends on where the property is located, what kind of property we are talking about, whether someone is already living in it or not and so on. In order to truly understand a property’s potentials, I request to-scale plans of the layout and typically bring my Luo Pan compass with me which helps to determine the facing (the side which receives most energy) as well as assessing other important influences.

My clients are a very diverse bunch – from individuals and families to small business owners and corporate clients. However, they all have the same goal for their consultations and that is making sure their property will work for them. Most of the people who come to me already have a property, be it their home or office, but I also get a lot of people who request a consultation prior to reconstruction or moving-in. It is also not uncommon for me to see people who want advice and support with selecting a new home or even designing a house, office or some other type of commercial property.

And of course there are super simple projects, just as there are challenging ones. Personally I am a big fan of the more complex projects. Once I was hired to design the office layout for large multinational’s headquarters. Maybe I am a complicated person as the more challenging the project – the more I enjoy it.

5. You have also written a Chinese Astrology book. In our previous chat you mentioned that Feng Shui and Chinese Astrology are often applied in tandem. Can you elaborate on this a little further?

At the beginning of my studies I was not really sure whether I would ever actually ever use Chinese Astrology in my consultations. I am well grounded person who has a natural affinity for physics and so I look at Feng Shui as a kind-of “physics of the ground, surroundings and buildings” so to speak. So initially I couldn’t see how Chinese Astrology would fit into this concept.

But I was so wrong… and it took me a while to correct this initial bad judgment of mine. Four Pillars astrology is an amazing support to my Feng Shui practice. I find it a trustworthy way to reveal the real capacities of particular people which is also important when it comes to making decisions about someone’s Feng Shui and finding solutions that will really make a difference for them. Your Four Pillars astrology chart tells us who you are and where you are now. And your Feng Shui should be tailored to fit your chart as this is how the most effective solutions are created. Chinese Astrology is also a standalone method of assessing one’s innate potentials and tuning into life and its rhythms. It’s also really helpful for business people, especially when it comes to anticipating changes, reaching the right decisions and defining future plans and strategies.

6. What are your plans for the future?

I always have a lot of plans. I’m currently working on several projects, all of which include writing. I am in the completion phase of my magazine, which admittedly doesn’t have an official name yet but it will be fabulous and will be about how to achieve the lifestyle you want by using Feng Shui, Chinese astrology and other ancient (and contemporary) wisdoms. I’m also nearly done with the series Sixty Personalities of Chinese Astrology which involves sixty books. These books are intended to serve as your own personal coach for destiny and luck. Basically they provide everything that one typically gets in a personal consultation, including finding out their important years for Love, Wealth and so on. In addition to giving consultations, I also have my school for Feng Shui and Chinese Astrology, I travel a lot and my life is always on the go. After completing all of these current projects I would love to spend more time in Thailand, as really want to get more actively into Buddhism.

7. How can your books help people who are already wealthy and have achieved everything they want in life?

Wealth is important not only because it enables us to achieve and maintain a certain lifestyle but because it can also provide us with some kind of freedom… assuming of course that one wants this freedom. However, wealth by itself is no guarantee of happiness or fulfillment, and I believe this is actually all we really want from life.

Let’s just say that everyone’s life can be shown as some sort of unique equation which is based on certain constants. If you are wealthy, but you still feel that something is missing from your life, you need to change some of the elements of your own equation! The way I see it you can intervene through your home, so for instance you can change the way you sleep. Or you can change what you do and how you do it! This is exactly where my books, or consultations, can help those who are already wealthy to find those missing elements which will correct their personal equation creating happiness or whatever else they need.

We also need to keep in mind that an individual’s luck oscillates throughout their lifetime and no level of wealth or power can stop the changes that life drops on our lap. Nature shows us in a very clear manner that everything goes through phases: the start of life, growth, bloom and then fruiting, surviving storms and famine and at some point in time it starts to dry out and lose its life force. So it is a simple fact of life that nothing stays the same forever, not people or buildings or surroundings. I have covered this very important aspect in my books because these changes affect both your property and in fact every aspect of your life.

I strongly believe in the importance of knowledge and there is no such thing as unimportant information when it comes to your life or your property. However, there’s a delineation of responsibilities in life; I take mine very seriously. I always do my best to deliver the correct information. But then there’s your part because in order for change to occur some level of activity is required from your side. That’s how it works in life.

Althea S.T. is a world renowned Feng Shui and Chinese Astrology master.

She’s the author of two fabulous new books and numerous articles.