Lo Pan Compass

The Lo Pan Compass is one of Feng Shui's most complex tools. 
Around a center which houses a compass are many rings, each containing a unique orientation system.

The literal translation of Fengshui is "wind-water." 
Fengshui is the Taoist art and science of balancing the flow of energy within a natural or man-made environments, and in doing so supporting the health, happiness and good fortune of those who reside within that environment.
Fengshui can be used therapeutically, as a guide for arranging objects, colors or elements in a beneficial way.
It can also be used as a kind of divination system, to predict the future of those living within a particular space.


The Lo Pan Compass is used by Feng Shui practitioners to orient and evaluate a site - a house or business or landform - for which a Feng Shui consultation has been requested.
In the same way that there are many different schools of Feng Shui, so there are many different varieties of Lo Pan Compasses.

What Lo Pan Compasses have in common is that each has a center which contains a magnetic compass, around which are a number of rings.
Each ring contains a particular orientation system, for instance: Ring 1 usually contains the pre-heaven Ba Gua;
and Ring 2 the post-heaven Ba Gua.
Ring 3 typically contains the "24 Mountains" (aka the 24 Stars in the Sky or Directions or Shen) - which are a combination of trigrams, heavenly stems (from the Luo Shu system) and earthly branches. The outermost ring (Ring 20 in many systems) is likely to contain the I Ching portent readings of the 64 hexagrams.