Mention feng shui, and what comes to mind might be things like lucky colours, whether your new home or office location is huat, or where you position the furniture in your new house.
According to Grand Master David Goh of Imperial Harvest, however, these are merely the tip of the iceberg – a small vein in the broader practice of imperial feng shui, a form of destiny-engineering knowledge that he says was once reserved for Chinese emperors.
We caught up with Grand Master Goh to ask what exactly feng shui and bazi are, and why you should give imperial feng shui a chance.
To begin, we’ll have to start with what feng shui is. At its most basic level, it’s the study of qi, or energy, that moves through our surroundings, and how it affects the people in a space.
Practitioners of feng shui look at factors such as direction, timing, and the balance of the 5 elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Together with yin, yang, and celestial timing, these are used to determine whether the energy of a home, office or moment in time is working for or against a person.
In other words, it’s bigger than buying a lucky plant or moving your sofa. According to Grand Master Goh, it’s all about aligning you with your surroundings and timing it right, so that you’re floating along with the current of your life rather than struggling against it.
Simply put, bazi looks at the individual, while feng shui examines the energy of your surroundings.
Otherwise known as Eight Characters, when translated directly from the Chinese term, bazi is also known as the Four Pillars of Destiny (四柱命理, sì zhù mìng lǐ). Your birth year, month, day, and hour each form a pillar comprising a Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch, making 8 Chinese characters in total.
These characters are not analysed in insolation, but examined as an entire chart representing the balance of different elements at the time of your birth. They can then be interpreted to identify things like your elemental constitution, strengths, and weaknesses.
The chart is also read alongside your major and minor luck cycles, which reflect how these patterns are believed to change over time. According to Grand Master Goh, this is how practitioners identify the ups and downs a person may experience in areas such as their career, finances, relationships, and family life.
PSA: Bazi is not a crystal ball. If you were a building, bazi would be the blueprint showing the framework of your existence, allowing you to make better and more informed decisions.
There are many schools of analysis, but at Imperial Harvest, they follow the Zi Ping School, the most rigorous system of Four Pillars analysis that was established during the Song dynasty.
Rather than examining all 8 characters separately, the Zi Ping analysis looks at the relationships between the Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches, and other components of the chart; at Imperial Harvest, each analysis is tailored to the unique properties of each client’s chart – no automated or rote recitations here.
With all that in mind, we can then look at imperial feng shui, which Imperial Harvest traces back to the Qintianjian (钦天监, qīn tiān jiān), AKA the Imperial Astronomical Bureau. Similar state institutions existed across the Tang, Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties, and were responsible for reading the heavens.
The Bureau looked at astronomical activity to prepare the imperial calendar and advise on where palaces and tombs should be situated, as well as important dates and times for events such as coronations and military campaigns.
And no, imperial feng shui is leagues apart from folk feng shui for the layman. According to Grand Master Goh, the Bureau’s practices were only reserved for emperors and the imperial family. Practitioners were sworn to secrecy under threat of severe punishment, and the knowledge was strictly limited to members of the Bureau.
Although the Qing dynasty fell in 1912 and the Bureau was dissolved, the knowledge remained alive through individual lineage holders who dispersed to Taiwan and Southeast Asia, passing it down from master to disciple over the years.
Conventional feng shui services, according to Grand Master Goh, are diagnostic, in the sense that you’re given recommendations on how you might work with your bazi chart.
If destiny were a map, conventional feng shui would tell you how to pick the best route for the terrain.
Then there’s imperial feng shui, which steps in to offer precise intervention, allowing you to “engineer” the best version of the destiny you were born with.
So, who is Grand Master Goh, and how did he come by this sacred knowledge? To answer this, we have to go back in time to his grandfather, Grand Master Fu Tian Long, who inherited the practice from the OG lineage holders during the 1930s.
The name Fu Tian Long was his 法号 (fǎ hào), or the Taoist name he was given by his masters to mark his formal entry into the lineage. In 1980, he passed the practice to his son, Master Long De Ren – today, Grand Master Goh continues to perform the protocols of the imperial feng shui lineage.
One of the most distinctive, and possibly hardest to explain, parts of imperial feng shui is 移星换斗 (yí xīng huàn dòu), otherwise known as destiny engineering, which we mentioned earlier. Literally translated, 移星换斗 means “shifting the stars, swapping the Dipper”, with the Dipper referring to the Big Dipper – a powerful spiritual focal point in imperial Chinese cosmology.
Think of it as next-level feng shui, with protocols that Grand Master Goh says can only be performed by a lineage-recognised master. If your mind is boggled by terms such as “celestial timing”, “karmic structure”, and “astrological patterns”, we’d say leave the Doctor Strange-ing to the pros.
Imperial Harvest stands out from other feng shui practices because of its lineage – they’re said to be the only consultancy in town practising imperial feng shui that runs through a direct, 3-generation family tradition.
Grand Master Goh’s practice covers 5 main disciplines:
You’ll have to provide your full date, time, and place of birth before your private consultation. During the session, you’ll be guided through your elemental composition, major life cycles, and the periods that are more or less favourable for different decisions. If you have specific concerns about your career, business, relationships, property, or family, flag them ahead of time so that Grand Master Goh knows what to focus on.
Note that this isn’t a fortune-telling session – the objective is to identify the opportunities and risks that lie in your path. Where relevant, you might be advised on suitable environmental adjustments, dates, or the use of an Imperial Harvest treasure.
Rather than treating destiny engineering as a one-off exercise, Imperial Harvest takes an ongoing approach, with its team reaching out every 3 to 6 months to review your progress. These check-ins allow them to fine-tune their recommendations according to your current luck cycles and circumstances, particularly as you approach milestones such as a career move, business expansion or major personal development.
You should also know that the complimentary bazi blueprint is just the map, while the consultation provides the accompanying navigation. This includes a full analysis of your major and minor luck cycles, direct guidance on the decisions in front of you, and a recommendation for a consecrated treasure, should you require it.
According to Grand Master Goh, a full consultation can reveal the risks, as well as the opportunities, that may lie ahead. With knowledge of these risks, you can make preparations to face them. Imperial Harvest describes it as a preventative measure that has left some clients testifying, “The thing that should have gone wrong, didn’t.”
You definitely don’t have to commit to the full consultation from the get-go – the complimentary ba zi blueprint sets out your Four Pillars and elemental constitution, as well as an initial overview of some major patterns in your chart.
It’s an introduction, or a taster, of what the consultation can provide, so you can make a more informed decision before going for the in-depth analysis.
This post was brought to you by Imperial Harvest.
All images courtesy of Imperial Harvest via Facebook.
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