Mirrors and Feng Shui

Hey guys welcome to the Learn Feng Shui podcast where you'll Learn Feng Shui from a classical point of view taking out the myth and Superstition so if you're interested in learning funu Chinese astrology all things Chinese metaphysics as well as the superstitions and myths that connect it all you'll enjoy learning fun with me hey guys welcome to today's episode let's talk all about me and funu hey guys so I know that one of the big questions is when you sering funu you see all the stuff about mirrors where can I put a mirror is it bad luck to put a mirror in certain places what sorts of mirrors can you use and what is actually superstitious and what is considered in funu when you're looking at mirrors so let's kind of touch on some of these topics today starting off let's look at some of the common beliefs about mirrors and you know generally you'll find like a common or generic funu like do and don't when it comes to mirrors so let's kind of start out with that so A Door facing um a mirror so when you walk into your house if you see a mirror right there is it bad fun um personally I I kind of say no um a lot of these beliefs and practices kind of go with a more western style funu or btb funu and so um honestly in my experience I do a little bit more classical funu um and so some of this stuff is not taken into consideration however I would say that different practitioners that practice btb style fun or a little bit western style fun they swear by this stuff and they seem to have a lot of luck with using mirrors for adjustments so with that being said um I do think if you look if you come straight into into a house and you startle yourself and it looks like there's like another door in front of you with somebody else coming in I don't think that's probably a great energy to come into and so I don't know if it actually has anything to do with um quote unquote like funct especially from a classical point of view but I would say if it's almost startling to look into a mirror when you enter a space then I would move the mirror to a different area this brings me to the point of mirrors in your bedroom now this is one area I don't like to see mirrors um and actually the mirror itself is okay so what happens at least in my understanding of mirrors is that the mirrors you know they reflect sunlight and so that sunlight is is energy it's that Yang energy and if you have a mirror that is in your bedroom and maybe it's facing a window and maybe you're getting the sunlight from that area perhaps you will have a bad night's sleep you will be unable to sleep your sleep will be a little bit restless so rather than like move the mirror from your bedroom you could cover it at night so having your bed also directly facing a mirror is it comes back to kind of that startling thing that I talked about um it's you wake up and you sit up and you see another person you're like holy crap you know you have you how many times have you done that maybe if you have a dresser with a mirror on it that reflects your bed so maybe if you just cover that at night especially if the mirror is reflecting the sunlight from a window and that is also reflecting onto your bed that could really give you a a really restless night's sleep so either cover that mirror or remove the dresser where it's not directly reflecting sunlight and it's not directly reflecting your bed one of the more popular cures in fun especially you find online and it's really popular with a lot of practitioners is they like to place a mirror behind their their burners on their stove like that backsplash of their stove so it can double the abundance or double the wealth a lot of schools of thought actually believe that the kitchen or the stove is a place that activates wealth and abundance um me personally I don't love the aesthetic of it and to me the mirror is actually the element of water and to me it's also metal because it has that metallic finish to it so I don't love the combination of fire with metal and water um but some people swear by this and they really you know like this quote unquote cure that is usually called one of the things you need to consider also is that your stove you know back in the day the stoves used to have real fire to them and so I don't know if today I still consider a stove a fire element if it doesn't have that real fire element going to it this is just my opinion so back in the day they used to have what was called a wet kitchen and some countries still do it but it was just like a little place off the side of their house um like a little brick building because they would cook with real fire and if something were to ever happen they want to make sure that they could put that fire out quick without it burning their house down so they would feed their stoves this real fire and so this it would be you know like a big fire to it um you know and so it was really considered very important back in the day nowadays with a lot of people cooking we have these convection stoves and some people don't cook at all or maybe they just use a crock pot a lot so this is one time you you kind of can take it or leave it or kind of interpret it how you how you would like now if you're one that cooks all the time you might want to just try it out I've seen a lot of things that say they are the element of water um however I would put them more as a Yin metal element um in the original YiJing in the original trigrams in the bwa the sector that represents what is called Marsh or like a shallow pool to me represents a mirror reflective surface and that's the the doyu so that would be the West and to me that represents a mirror so that's kind of just in my opinion and so since it can represent the element of water since it's reflective um it could also represent the element of Yin water like a puddle but again I kind of see that more as that trigram of marsh or that West area which is that Yin metal um so it could represent one of the two and you really want to take into account the shapes and colors that you're putting with your mirror so since it mirror could be the element of water it could be the element of um metal you want to put something that's kind of compatible with that so you can put like a triangle like a skinny triangle shape that is more towards the wood you know you could do colors like purples and greens um if you wanted to add more of that metal element to it you could do like grays is shiny things gold you know gold frames to it or you could do like a round mirror if you want it to add the element of Earth with that again the squar shape and colors like oranges and your yellows kind of those earthy terracotta type colors and now if you want some more fire you could do the element you could do the red uh for the fire element and you could do triangle shaped mirrors I've never seen that but perhaps um it may be a bunch of little triang Le mirrors that could represent the element of fire um and if you wanted to add maybe the element add some more water to it you could definitely add like a blue black or purple frame to it and it could be some kind of a wavy shape now I would be careful about mirrors that are like distorted um some of them have like that cracked finish to them and it adds kind of like a distorted like retro type of finish to it um so I would caution against that if you already own one like you don't have have to like throw it away or nothing like if you already own like a mirror that's like you know has that crackle effect on it or you know something like that that maybe you just want to consider um you know what it's reflecting also so that brings us to our next segment what is your mirror reflecting again a mirror is supposed to double the energy it reflects this is some perspectives um believe that whatever a mirror is reflecting it's going to double in your life and so for that sake please make sure your mirror is not reflecting a lot of clutter um there there's one there's some theories and I think this kind of a funnier one and I to me I think it's a Superstition but they say if your bed is reflected in a mirror that it'll actually invite a third party into your home um so I mean unless you want that you know but again I don't like the mirror's facing the bed anyway not for that reason but because it's just too energetic I don't believe that it'll lead you to have an affair you know there's all these things with INF funu like oh it means you're having an affair it means your spouse is having an affair or whatever but um if you have a healthy relationship we I mean to me you don't have to worry about that because even if the opportunity was to present itself to either you or your partner I mean you just know that that's not going to happen right like that's just not something that happens in a in a stable marriage and so um I wouldn't worry about that so again looking at the distorted images looking at if a mirror is broken you know out of repair um if it's collecting like dirt clutter um and again some schools of thought actually say it can expand the area or they use it to fix Mi missing sectors speaking of missing sectors again there's some schools of thought and they actually call it um I can't remember what it's called but it's basically energy adjustment using mirrors and so in um some schools of thought the theory is that say you're missing um a corner of your home and that corner is in the west and so for btb that would be what is called your children your creativity area and say you're having a problem with you know either your children you're having trouble conceiving so you might want to take a large mirror and you might want to place it on the west sector of your wall or it could be the um the children and creativity area if your btb so you can actually place a mirror there and you can expand the area out to quote unquote correct the area or to um expand that area you know to fix a missing Corner a missing sector to the home um with classical funu we don't take this into consideration as much and we kind of just talk about the fact that you're missing the sector and um I I suppose energetically you know that's the thought it could correct both classical fun we just go more off towards what is actually physically there so I'll leave that up to you to decide but there again there's some schools of thought that actually say it it really works and they swear by it so I mean what do you have to lose by buying a mirror and seeing if it helps improve some things within your life right one other thought on using mirrors um is that you can actually use mirrors when you are not in a command position so say your desk has to be set up against a wall and your back is to a door some schools of thought say you can actually put a mirror in front of you so you can see behind you and they kind of say that this can correct or quote unquote cure the area if you're not in a commanding position now looking at mirrors to get rid of poison arrows this is actually a common thing that some practitioners would use you know if there is a poison arrow pointing towards the front door sometimes I'll put out that convex mirror which is it looks like a bubble you know it kind of it goes out you know it looks like a bubble right so they'll put a convex mirror there and they'll say that it can quote unquote cure that area this also has to do with um really the the mirrors are kind of used outside the home with different schools of funct way um the concave mirror can actually is supposed to reflect and um expand the energy so if you have the concave mirror and you have something really nice outside um you have a good feature or you want to again fix those missing corners or the missing sectors to your home it's said that you can put a convex mirror there to expand that area energetically and to um also expand that good energy so that's one way people kind of use the B MIRS um I don't recommend using them within the house so you're not supposed to use them inside your house if you're going to do this within your house I would actually just use a regular mirror so one other thing I would avoid when putting mirrors up is mirrors reflecting into mirrors and creating that crazy Infinity effect that is not good energy the energy is so chaotic and I've actually heard although I've never experienced that when two mirrors reflect each other it can actually create a an opening for Spirit to come through so to me I'm not comfortable looking into those Infinity effect mirrors when they reflect each other um it feels like a fun house right I don't know um it makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable to to sit in a space like that for too long and so for that reason I don't have any in my home like that um but if this is the case and you can't change that maybe you can just like cover one up part-time you know some people use different mirrors like that to check like the back of their head when they're doing their hair and whatever but cover that thing when you're done with it one last thing you want to avoid with mirrors is placing them so high that you can't see in them like what use as a mirror if you have it so high up to the ceiling that it's just reflect in like open space you know the mirrors can be used to make a space feel bigger but you want to put a mirror in where you can actually use it so um I will say I don't think this probably applies to like mirrors over fireplaces and stuff like that I have a mirror that I occasionally rotate over my fireplace and I think it's fine and it does reflect back part of my dining room you know so although I can't see through it maybe I'm calling myself out because I do actually use that mirrors for decoration purposes sometimes but you don't want to place a mirror within your home that is like real high up to the ceiling or just for some weird decorative purpose like that you want to make sure you can see in it now I would say this doesn't count if you're using mirrors to correct a space like some people use those small little mirrors um maybe they'll use like a small almost like pocket sized mirror and they'll hang it over a door or something to you know reflect back energy so I would say not the small little mirrors but if you're using a large decorative mirror don't hang it so high that you can't use it all right guys let's take a little bit of a sponsor break and after that I want to do a segment about different superstitions and mirrors all right guys let's talk all about mirors myths and superstitions mir's actually have a very big history and they're actually thought of as very like rare back in the day when they were first started being used they were actually made out of glass and so they were very like rare um beautiful items you know and with this Rarity also came different beliefs because it was actually reflecting the person back to themselves mirrors were often used for different things like scrying or contacting deceased relatives which I want to get into in just a second but first I'm going to read um from two-way mirrors.com an article entitled mirror myths and superstitions I'll link to that in the sh notes have you ever wondered if mirrors cause bad luck in this guide we expose the top mirr myths and superstitions ranging from Bloody Mary to broken mirrors does breaking a mirror really cause seven years of bad luck and does chanting Bloody Mary into the Mir summoned ghosts these aren't the only Mir Ms floating around in time and space in the sky we provide helpful tips on how to avoid and reverse any bad luck you may have encountered first we have Bloody Mary a dangerous game of Truth or Dare this game Truth or Dare has been around for some time but have you ever dared to summon a ghost this folklore ritual claims that if if you light a candle in a dimly lit room and chant Bloody Mary three times into a mirror you will see a woman dripping in blood in the reflection Legend says she may scream at you or even reach through the mirror and wrap her cold hands around your throat some may even say that she can escape from the mirror and come after you so I remember as a child my sister turning the light off in our downstairs bathroom and telling me say Bloody Mary in the mirror and I was so scared that I did not do it and to this day I I won't do that like I just I don't know to me mirrors do reflect and they they can hold energy so yeah I don't want to mess with that a broken mirror is seven years bad luck so as Legend has it when you break a mirror you're going to be cursed with bad luck for the next seven years how true is this myth and how is this curse undone well it's hard to say how accurate this belief is it's always better safe than sorry and since accidents happen and things break we are human so potential curse reversal options if you actually break a mirror so it says here to wait a couple hours before picking up the broken fragments and take every last bit of mirror and bury it outside in the Moonlight throw salt over your left shoulder onto the Devil Himself and take a single piece of the mirror and touch it to a tombstone so it says that has an immediate effect to it if you or someone you know is getting married then it's this is the one for you a happy couple should stand in front of a mirror together not only to see how they're going to look of course but it's a wedding tradition so it is said that if a married couple looks into a mirror shortly after they say I do they're uniting their souls when you look into a mirror with somebody it is said to create an alternate universe where the two Souls can live on together forever another common wedding tradition is a little more risky but just as fun it says breaking glass on your wedding day is a good omen the shatter pieces of glass represent how many years the couple will stay together and uh so it says make sure you put a lot of muscle behind the brake and you see this kind of in different ceremonies where they'll put a like a wine glass into a cup I mean into a cup they put a wine cup into like a like a a bag and then the couples will step on it so we we've seen that um it does say here that gifting a mirror um while looking into the mirror after being married brings Good Fortune gifting a mirror to Newly Weds is not the same so in Asian cultures they believe that gifting a new mirror to the couple on their wedding day will bring bring bad luck it's partially due to symbolism because marriages are supposed to last forever and mirrors are actually very fragile and prone to Breaking so it does say you can um get like if you don't give a glass mirror or like a you know one of those type of mirrors um do an acrylic mirror instead it says another reason is that mirrors can potentially hold bad spirits so um looking at so I'm wondering about like uniting your soul in alternate Dimension like if you get divorced in this Dimension do you have to get divorced in your mere Dimension mirrors were used to hang up to scare Spirits away so brass mirrors were used to hang above Idols of China this way if evil spirits were to enter the place of worship they would see their reflection and run away it does not necessarily have to be a mirror in any highly reflective object will do in Cambridge in the 1800s men's shoe buckles were found hanging on the walls and it was believed that it was used to ward off evil energy much like the mirrors in China today people still hang mirrors across their front door to reflect away negative energy and protect their home and of course it's called the bwa mirror right covering up mirror to trap lost souls once someone has passed away their soul soul is released from their body and it starts to roam and Legend says that if a soul encounters a mirror before the body is buried typically within 3 days their soul will be trapped in the mirror and it is said to cause mirrors to tarnish or um to even turn into the image of the deceased people have claimed to see their faces of the Dead appear in old antique mirrors so is this a trap Soul or Minds Playing Tricks on us some of us believe that demons could Escape through the mirror to The Living World and to prevent a trapped Soul you have to cover your mirror when someone passes and of course we know through different cultures it is customs to cover a mirror after somebody passes away and according to this article here covering a mirror after the death of a loved one originated from a calistic tradition and I believe is still practiced in Judaism they believe that the soul leaves this world it leaves a void and so the void allows the spirit spirits to come into the world of the living bad spirits includ it and whenever there's that energy vacuum there's potential for negative energy to creep in so following that up I want to focus on the fact that people can see their relatives in the mirrors in fact there's some very famous cases of this and this is one of my favorite cases one of my favorite paranormal Paras psychology um type of researchers that has done a lot of work with people um and the loved ones that have passed and communicating with the loved ones that have passed is the Dr Raymond Moody so Dr Raymond Moody um was a philosopher psychologist um an author and he wrote books called um you know uh Life After Life in which he talked about people communicating with their loved ones and he also talked about near-death experiences he famously had a mirror he did experiments on and it was an object sort of called a psycho mantium and so a psycho mantium is a small enclosed area set up with a comfortable chair dim lighting and a mirror angled so it does not reflect anything but darkness and it is intended to communicate with spirits of the Dead and I am referencing from uh Wikipedia and I'm kind of paraphrasing some stuff here so if you want to read that I will include that link in the show notes here it says the psycho mantium was popularized by Raymond Moody the originator of the term near-death experience in his 1993 book reunions Visionary encounters with departed loved ones Raymond Moody believed that the psycho mantium was useful as a tool to resolve grief the chamber was kept darken and illuminated only by a candle or a dim light bulb subjects would gaze into the reflected Darkness hoping to make contact with spirits of the Dead Moody compared a psychom mantium to the Greek necrom mantium and it is said to be a form of scrying and also seeing the other side so one thing I kind of want to describe to you um because I've done a little bit of research on how he would do this and so what would happen was m Mr Moody he would um have these different patients in therapy with him so he would talk about the person that maybe they needed to have closure with you know he would sit them down and have like a nice counseling session with them once he had these sessions um he said that he would kind of wait for a little bit of a lull in the conversation and to him that would signal that it was time for the person to enter what he call the psycho mantium and so again it would just be a room set up with one mirror in it the it would be a really low light and the mirror would be reflecting only like the ceiling or like you know you wouldn't be able to see a reflection in it so maybe the mirror would be a little bit of an angle there would be low lighting and so you wouldn't see your face in the mirror and once that would occur the person would kind of let their eyes like have a soft gaze to them you know when you're looking AAR you know out into the whatever and you kind of let your eyes relax and kind of focused on nothing that was the point where you're were supposed to be able to see maybe a deceased relative and remember that relatives aren't the only things that would come through in some of these cases I think it's depending on where your mindset and focus is I actually read a experiment they did in a book called Magic mysticism and the molecule in which they actually induced a um the the baa state of relaxation using pingpong balls it's like sensory deprivation um cut in half over their eyes and flashing lights and so once they did that they put this poor man in a room with the mirror and he had a really bad um experience in which he just had it was just a strange experience so remember that um almost like a bad drug trip you know things can come through and I do think that mirrors especially when you're focusing um and you're trying to communicate with something you've definitely probably opened a portal and so so now other things can then come through so I wonder if he would cover his mirror up when he would be done with each session cuz I definitely think that something can come through um in the mirror especially if it's not just a decorative mirror and you use it specifically for like a tool like scrying or um communicating with a deceased loved one one last thought to go with that is I had heard from I can't remember which paranormal researcher um but they had possession of Raymond Moody's original mirror that he used for his psycho mantium and when they were transporting it they had it in their trunk of their car and they actually heard banging and thumping in the back of their car and so to me that's a big old nope um I'm not doing that for free energy mapping of your floor plan please check the link in the show notes to support today's podcast going to Learn Feng Shui sign up for emails leave a review and share with your family and friends