Does your office have a collection of potted plants in the south-east corner? Is your desk carefully placed so that the computer is on your Phoenix side, and the filing cabinet in the Dragon position? Last year was a good year for feng shui consultants, offering individuals and businesses advice on the arrangement of their personal living and working space in ways which, they claim, will promote inner harmony as well as cruder forms of success.
The whole feng shui phenomenon seems to have found its moment in Western society, and it is interesting to speculate about the sources of its strength. Feng shui means "wind and water" and it represents the idea of balance and harmony in a changing world, connected to the traditional Chinese ideas about Yin and Yang, male and female energies. But the precepts that result from this ancient wisdom still sound very much like a belief system which could have been invented by a slightly paranoid nine-year-old. It seems incredible that hard-headed business managers can pay large sums to be solemnly assured that a badly-positioned toilet can flush away the company's wealth, or a mirror near the main entrance will reflect back wealth to the outside world. Sure, it has charm, the ideas are intriguing; but there must be more to it than that. So what needs in our society does feng shui address?
The environment in which people work in big cities is often so sterile and ugly that it would be instantly perceived as threatening by anyone not desensitized by long exposure. As Auden puts it,
No blade of grass, no sign of neighbourhood, Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down...
Instead we have aggressive traffic, pedestrians with closed suspicious faces, hard bare pavements, office buildings like fortresses of steel and glass which are designed to assert power and exclude the powerless. Inside these castles, all is hard, shiny, right-angled; natural light is often excluded, and the floors are covered in sound-deadening synthetic material. The humans who have to move through these hostile spaces must suppress their (healthy) instinct to run screaming from the overcrowded lift, through the grey offices filled with humming and flickering boxes, and hurl themselves ineffectually against the triple-glazed windows.
Workers struggle to personalise the space allocated to them with a few home comforts; family photographs on the desk, a back-supporting cushion or familiar coffee mug. Offices have to be designed for efficient working; they must be easy to clean and maintain. But allowing even a little of the messiness of life to creep in does remind us that we are also live creatures, not intelligent androids.
This is what feng shui successfully asserts. The implied acknowledgement by management that there are other considerations than the bottom line, that human concerns matter, seems just as important as the precise details of interior design or the position of the token fishbowl. Water features and plants do make a difference; but why stop there? Feng shui could be a starting point for rethinking the whole physical surroundings in which people spend their working lives. What about more use of natural materials - rush-bottomed chairs in the meeting rooms, curtains instead of plastic blinds? Why not have fruit as well as coffee available for visitors? What about some real pictures on the wall, instead of tasteful landscapes or bland abstracts? What about a roof garden where staff could eat lunch on sunny days? What about a little live music in the reception area?
The other aspect of feng shui that must have contributed to its popularity is that it addresses our fears. It's no accident that so many workplaces look scary. The people who work there are afraid; will the new manager be the guy who likes me, or the one who doesn't seem to know who I am? What's behind all these rumours about redundancies? What did the others really think of that presentation I did yesterday? Life is full of anxiety, and one way of coping with it is to try a spot of magical thinking; though usually we invent our own reassurances - if the lift doesn't stop on the way down, that's a good sign; if the boss is wearing that awful grey suit, she'll turn down my proposal.
A system like feng shui offers to do our worrying for us; do this, don't do that, and everything will be all right. This works at corporate level too. Every honest businessman will admit that there's an element of the random -"luck" if you prefer - in any success story. The people at the top also hold their breath, watching market trends, the stock exchange, the world economy; huge forces far beyond personal control, yet determining the future of my company, my staff, my family. How can we get them on our side? And if things do go wrong, there's always a perfect excuse; maybe the details weren't quite right; and how could the business succeed when it had such an unpropitious address, or name, or colour scheme?
So the feng shui consultants prosper, until the trend is replaced by the next big idea that will solve all our problems for us and control the uncontrollable.
How could we cope without such support? There are no easy answers. Perhaps we could try the application of common sense; interior design with the personal dimension; and the removal of fear in the workplace, as far as is humanly possible, by helping individuals with their personal development, meeting their needs and promoting open direct communication.