There are examples of similar business models where people charge for opinions and help in an unproven field. Feng shui masters command exorbitant consulting fees, just to tell you that your yin and yang are not in balance and your life would be more harmonious if your TV was against a different wall and your sofa a different color. I don't see a lot of difference.

Whoa, there, Nellie. Feng shui has been around for thousands of years and people in Hong Kong, Singapore and China pay big money for the services because they do work. A famous example is the Denver Airport, which was just a complete and total disaster when it opened. Everything that could go wrong did. They brought in a top feng shui expert and BAM! things got better. Big companies here in America do it all the time with factories and other buildings. They just don't talk about it much.

I personally have some experience with this because I hired a feng shui expert to cleanse my house when we were having some problems. The lady went right to the areas of the house that I felt "bad" or uneasy in without asking me anything about the house. She came all the way here on a train from NYC (about an hour) and she was here for almost a full day. She charged me a very reasonable price, too. I was completely satisfied with her service. People came to my house after she left and made comments like the house looked brighter and lighter – had I taken down some drapes? Repainted? These were people who had no idea that I'd had her come so they couldn't be prejudiced.

Feng shui is just about energy flow. If energy in your house isn't moving, it collects and gets stagnant. By moving things around you get the energy moving and the energy gets cleaner. It's really just like water. Still water gets stagnant and nasty. Moving water stays clean. That doesn't seem too esoteric to me.

A friend who is a real estate agent was having a really bad time financially, so she got an expert to come "feng shui" her office. She did everything the expert suggested, even draped her phone in purple, and now she's so busy she had to hire assistants in this market. Coincidence? Her husband who was a complete doubting Thomas just got his office done, too.

A real estate agent in NYC tried feng shui in the apartments she was trying to lease. The ones that were feng shui'd leased in about half the time the others did. It makes you think that there's something to it.

There are lots of things about feng shui that I don't understand but just because we don't understand how things work doesn't mean they aren't real.

That being said, the expert did not ask me to pay in advance nor did she charge me for her travel expenses, which I actually offered to pay. Personally I think anyone who charges in advance for a service can't be trusted, but that's just my opinion.