Black Hat Feng Shui Tips to Empower You

Updated May 25, 2019
White table shelf with bagua and pebble stone

Black Hat Feng Shui offers several tips to empower you with beneficial chi energy. You will feel the energy shift as soon as you implement feng shui cures and remedies.

Black Hat Feng Shui Tips and Cures to Empower You

The Black Hat School (BTB) is a Western modern version of feng shui. Black Hat feng shui practitioner and author Ellen Whitehurst, who passed away in 2016, explained, "Black Hat uses a bagua map that defines the nine energies (nine grid square) in a home or office." Using this map, you can determine which areas in life you wish to activate or remedy.

The Empowered Lifestyle

An empowered feng shui lifestyle uses the tenants of whichever school of feng shui you follow to enhance all aspects of your life and achieve your desires. According to Ellen, her particular brand of feng shui was encapsulated in the phrase, empowered lifestyle. "It's my particular brand of bringing health, happiness and prosperity into anyone's life by offering up all the advice and self-empowering info I have learned over the years," she said. There are several things you can do right away to set yourself on the path of an empowered lifestyle.

Empty modern living room from above

Get Rid of All Clutter

Clutter is your biggest enemy by creating an obstacle to achieving an empowered life. "Everyone who is looking to empower their lives should be sure to get rid of everything that no longer represents who they are or their hopes, wishes and dreams," Ellen advised. The rule of getting rid of everything you don't love is an appropriate directive for feng shui decluttering.

Fresh Air Equals Fresh Energy

Chi is the life force of all living matter. This means you want to have as much fresh air and natural light as possible come into your home. When you pull back the draperies and open the windows, you instantly feel the revitalizing energy entering the room. "This single act enhances your own personal chi making you stronger and much more likely to believe in your own power then if you feel dark or stuffy or depressed," Ellen said.

Activate Bagua Power Centers

Black Hat feng shui ignores Classical Feng Shui rules of compass directions. The Black Hat Feng Shui bagua is always placed over the floorplan with the south direction at the top of the floorplan and subsequently north at the bottom, irrespective of the actual compass direction. Based on this use of the bagua map, Classical Feng Shui rules are then applied to the bagua.

Black Hat Feng Shui Career Tips

The career square will be in the center of the front of your home. If your front door is centered on the front of your home, then the career square will fall in the front door area. "Some of the principles I share with everyone in order to start becoming more empowered is first to remember the front door represents a critical space," Ellen said.

Beautiful two story colonial home

Front Door Career Square

When your front door falls in the career bagua square, you can do several things to encourage career luck. This offers you the opportunity for inside and outside career enhancers.

Outside Front of House

The front door is called" The Mouth of Chi." This is the entry point of all the fresh and healthy energy into your living space. One of the first empowering actions you can take is to assess that area. Make sure that everything there is:

  • Uncluttered: Keep sidewalks and steps cleared of debris.
  • Clean: Pressure wash stained, faded concrete sidewalks and steps. Wash outside of windows.
  • Good working order: Replace burned out light bulbs, door hardware that is loose or doesn't work, and oil squeaky door hinges.

Exterior Front Door Tips

The entrance into your home is the most vital part of your home interior feng shui. If the chi energy cannot easily enter through the front door, no amount of feng shui cures or remedies will circumvent a blocked entrance area.

  • Install wall light sconces on either side of the door. Leave lights on a minimum of six hours a day to attract auspicious chi energy.
  • Pathways and sidewalks leading to your front door should be well lit.
  • Replace low wattage door lighting with high wattage
  • Place live plants on either side of the front door. Be sure the leaves aren't pointed. Round or oval leaves are desirable.
  • Paint the front door an appropriate color. BTB feng shui recommends the colors red or green.
  • Place a red flowering plant to the left of the door (your left as you stand outside facing the door). This placement invites opportunities, grand fortune and good luck into your house.
  • The front door should swing open without any obstacles blocking or limiting it. Feng shui theory states if the door sticks when opened, then the chi energy will also be stuck.

Interior of Front Door Square Tips

Once you have attended to the feng shui tips for outside of your front door, it's time to focus on the interior. There are a few feng shui tips to help your career when the front door falls in this bagua square.

Water Activates Career Luck

"The real deal is of course the hope that the energies swimmingly can enter simply by affixing a picture of a waterfall anywhere in this same area," Ellen said. The addition of the water energy equates to plenty of job opportunities.

  • Add a tabletop water fountain (the feng shui gold standard) just inside the front door. The water should flow into the house, not out the door.
  • You may prefer to use an aquarium with eight red or gold fish and one black one.
  • If a water feature isn't possible, you can hand a picture of slow-moving water, such as a meandering stream, lake or waterfall. Avoid pictures of violent ocean scenes.

Black Hat Feng Shui Bagua Relationship Square

In Black Hat Feng Shui, the relationship area is located on the upper right-hand square of the bagua map. Traditional feng shui symbols that attract auspicious chi energy of love and commitment should be paired. The number two represents or symbolizes partners.

  • Two cranes, two mandarin ducks or two pictures of peonies.
  • Place the feng shui symbol of double happiness in this area.
  • A pair of red candles placed here will fire up the romance in your life.

Wealth and Abundance Area

In Black Hat feng shui bagua, the upper left-hand corner in the grid oversees abundance and wealth. This is often referred to in BTB as the feng shui money corner. "Some standard feng shui cures for activating the energies of this space call for you to place some symbol or image there that speaks to those same energies," said Ellen. She suggests placing a lamp or light in this square. "The idea here is to provide an illumined path so wealth can come and find you wherever you are," she explained.

Color Symbols for Wealth

Black Hat feng shui has its own set of rules often contradictory or drastically different from Classical Feng Shui. For example, Black Hat uses the color purple and the number four for the wealth area. BTB views this combination as an intention of abundance. Ellen advised, "Place four purple flowering plants here since the symbolism of growing your money is obvious"

Plants Attract Abundance and Wealth

Like Classical Feng Shui, BTB uses plants to energize the chi energies in a home or office. "There is also a strong belief in the power of the jade plant to bring prosperity into the household in a quick and easy manner," Ellen said. "Jade is considered the most precious of gems in the East since it's also believed to bestow good health and happiness," she explained. You can place a jade plant in the wealth area to encourage your prosperity and abundance to bloom and grow.

Empower Your Life with Black Hat Feng Shui Tips

Feng shui can empower you to build the best life you can imagine. The late Ellen Whitehurst (1958-2016) helped others find this empowerment by incorporating feng shui principles in their home and office designs.

Black Hat Feng Shui Tips to Empower You