FENG SHUI The Fate Of The Titanic

The Chinese has a profound system of fortune-telling called the Four Pillars of Destiny. It is built on the believe that all matters in the world is made up of five fundamental elements - metal, water, earth, fire and wood. by Raymond Lo

22nd May 1999

The Chinese has a profound system of fortune-telling called the Four Pillars of Destiny. It is built on the believe that all matters in the world is made up of five fundamental elements - metal, water, earth, fire and wood. These can be understood as the five basic natural forces behind all matter and all events in the Universe. Even abstract objects such as human destiny - are composed of these five elements and everyone living on earth are subject to the influence of these elements.

To understand the elemental composition of our destiny, all one needs to do is to convert the birhdata into the Chinese calendar which not only is an instrument to record time, but also reflects the elemental influences prevailing at any moment of time. So as soon as we convert a person’s birthdata into the Chinese calendar, immediately we can see a bundle of elements which are the component of our destiny. As there are four vital information involved in our birthdata, namely the Year, the Month, the Day and the Hour of birth, we call each of these information a “Pillar”. Hence the subject is called the “Four Pillars of Destiny”.

This is a very handy and effective tool to peep into the fortune of individuals. All one requires to understand is the implication of the five basic elements and their inter-relationships. There are two basic types of relationships amongst the five elements. The Cycle of Birth is a harmonious kind of relationship with Metal gives birth to Water, Water gives birth to Wood, Wood gives birth to Fire, Fire gives birth to Earth and Earth gives birth to Metal. On the other hand, there is a conflicting kind of relationship called the Cycle of Destruction - where Metal destroys Wood, Wood conquers Earth, Earth controls Water, Water puts off the Fire, and Fire melts the Metal. If one thoroughly understand these two kind relationships, the fortune of a person will be unfolded to your eyes like reading a book.

The movie Titanic is so popular as the public are attracted and deeply moved by the romantic stories of human fate. The sinking of the Titanic is a fateful event. It also provides good materials for metaphysical study as no tragedy and accident in history has been so well documented. There are plenty of materials recording in minor detail the course of the event, minute by minute and even the birth data of some of the prominent passengers are available. I have done a little bit of research into the metaphysical aspect of the tragedy and come up with some interesting results.

The Fateful night is 14/4/1912 and the collision against the iceberg occurred at around 11.40 p.m. Converting this time into the Chinese calendar, we get the following bundle of elements:

Hour

Day

Month

Year
Earth

Metal

Wood

Water
Water

Metal

Earth

Water


14/4/1912

11.40 p.m.


It is a year of strong water, an hour of strong water, with a day of strong metal. The metal can be taken to mean the Titanic, which is a massive lump of metal floating in water. In the Earthly branches of the configuration, we see two waters, one metal and one earth. However, advance theory of the Four Pillars of destiny tells us that water is born in the metal Monkey, water is the strongest in the water Rat, and water enters the Grave or Storage in the Earth Dragon. So if the Monkey, the Rat and The Dragon are present at the same time, it means a complete life cycle of water and they will all turn into strong water.

Now let us examine the fateful night again, it happens in the year of the Rat, the month of the Dragon, and on the Day of the Monkey, in the hour of the Rat. So all the necessary elements to make the fierce water - the Rat, the Monkey and the Dragon are present, turning the earth and metal into cold and merciless water of the Atlantic Ocean. The Titanic, symbolised by the Metal element on top, seems to be floating in merciless water, with nothing to anchor on. On the Hour Pillar, there is an earth element on top of water, it symbolises a floating mountain - the gigantic iceberg floating in water next to the metal ship. So the configuration of the elements really paints a picture of the accident - the metal ship and an iceberg floating on water and collided against each other. The vessel hit the iceberg a glancing blow along its starboard bow, the impact and the scratch inflicted serious damage to her hull on the starboardside - the right hand side of the vessel.

This is also reflected in the set of Four Pillars. Looking at the Four Pillars, you can imagine you are right in front of the vessel facing her bow. Then the Earth element appearing in the Hour Pillar is on the right hand-side of the metal element - on the starboard side.

After the impact at about 11.40 p.m. on 14/4, water is entering the vessel’s compartments and she is slowly sinking, and at 12.05 a.m. the Captain ordered to evacuate the vessel and uncover the lifeboats. The vessel was last seen at 2.20 a.m. on 15/4 morning. Its lights blinked once and gone out at 2.15 a.m. The stern was lifted out of water, the bow broke off with a sound like thunder and it plunged into the ocean floor.

Converting this time of sinking into Chinese calendar, we have a different configuration. The Year and the Month Pillars remained the same, but the Day Pillar changed into a Day of Yin metal Rooster, and the Hour Pillar becomes an hour of earth on earth element. Unlike the metal Monkey, which is the birth source of water, the metal Rooster is not able to form a complete water configuration with the Earth Dragon and the Water Rat. So the dominating elements in the morning of 15/4 was no longer water. It becomes a configuration of strong earth, with the metal element surrounded and buried in heavy earth formed by the Month pillar and the Hour pillar. It is later concluded that the Titanic broke into two sections and the bow fell to the sea bottom first and hit the ground with such heavy momentum that the bow was found buried in 65 feet of mud. This is also clearly reflected in the elements of 2.20 a.m. 15/4 when the metal is surrounded by heavy earth.

Hour

Day

Month

Year
Earth

Metal

Wood

Water
Earth

Metal

Earth

Water


15/4/1912 02.20 a.m.


Another aspect we need to explore is the fate of the passengers. Over 1500 passengers, crew, servants and workers on board perished in the tragedy. Why this tragedy had caused the precious lives of so many people? The main reason is insufficient lifeboats. However, the rescue ship Carpathia arrived at the scene at about 4.00 a.m. Two hours after the sinking of the Titanic. Most of the passengers were given lifejackets so they should be able to tolerate the two hours floating at sea. However, the Carpathia was only able to rescue those in lifeboats. Almost all passengers fallen into the sea were not able to survive the two hours gap mainly because the water is icy cold.

The factor of cold temperature is of vital importance in analysing the fate of the victims in this accident. Amongst the five elements, Fire is the one generating warmth. So if a person died of freezing cold temperature - it means he lost his life because the fire element is lacking. This is exactly the key to examine the destiny of the victims of the Titanic tragedy. If we look at the Four Pillars of the “Night to remember” again, there is absolutely no fire element in the night of 14/4 and the early morning of 15/4/1912. All the elements present are cold metal, water and earth. The lacking of fire element is exactly the cause of death of those who fell into the sea. To prove this point, it is worthwhile picking a few examples to see how such misfortune is reflected in their destiny on the fateful day of 14/4/1912.

The man in the centre of this disaster is Capt. Edward J. Smith who perished with the Titanic on the fateful date of 15/4. The following is his Pillars of Destiny:


Hour

Day

Month

Year
?

Water

Wood

Earth
?

Metal

Earth

Metal


62

52

42

32

22

12

2
Water

Metal

Metal

Earth

Earth

Fire

Fire
Metal

Earth

Fire

Fire

Earth

Wood

Wood


He was born on a day of water. Therefore by definition he is a water gentleman. His water element is very strong as it was in the winter season - a season of water, and also there are strong support from two metal elements. The strong presence of water in Capt. Smith’s destiny explained why he choose a career in shipping which is a career of water. The philosophy of Four Pillars of Destiny is a principle of balance. If the water is too strong, it is necessary to provide some elements to weaken the water. As such, we can consider wood and fire as favourable elements to Capt. Smith. The reason is that water has to give birth to wood and to conquer the fire element, thereby spent its energy. On the other hand, we can consider water and metal are unfavourable elements, they will make the strong water stronger and intensify the imbalance in his destiny.

The system Four Pillars of Destiny not only provide insight to human destiny, but also shows the luck which a person will encounter in different stage of his life. This is listed out as a series of elements in pairs, each pair governs ten year of a person’s life. This pairs of elements are called “Luck Pillars” and the number on top of each luck pillar shows the age when a person comes under its influence. Take for example, Capt.Smith’s first luck pillar is Fire and Wood, this luck pillar affected his life from the age of 2 until the age of 12. As fire and wood are his favourable elements, it reflected he was in good luck since childhood.

Thereafter, he had gone through good luck pillars of earth and fire until the age of 62, when he entered a luck pillar of water and metal, indicating bad luck began at that age. Capt. Smith was born in 1850, so 1912 is exactly the year he got into bad luck. Not only the luck pillar is a bad one, the year 1912 was also a year of water on water, reinforcing his unfavourable elements - water. When a person is in bad luck, and there comes a bad year, a bad month and a bad day, disaster will occur.

It is exactly under such bad elemental influences when Capt. Smith brought the Titanic and her over 2000 passengers to disaster. At the age of 62, and on the date of 14/4 and 15/4/1912, there is absolutely no fire element turning up in Capt. Smith’s destiny. Therefore he died with the ship in the icy cold water of the north Atlantic Ocean.

I have also examined the available birthdata of a few victims in this tragedy and all points to the fact that they died owing to lacking in the fire element.

Let us view the situation from a different angle and examine an example of a survivor. This is a gentleman called Mr. Joseph Bruce Ismay. He is the Chairman of the White Star Line - the Company that owned the Titanic. Some people held him responsible for the tragedy as he had told the Captain to go on full speed regardless of the hazard of icebergs, in order to arrive New York earlier to gain more publicity. He was born on 12/12/1862. The following is his pillars of destiny:


Hour

Day

Month

Year
?

Metal

Water

Water
?

Water

Water

Earth


68

58

48

38

28

18

8
Earth

Earth

Fire

Fire

Wood

Wood

Water
Earth

Fire

Fire

Earth

Wood

Wood

Earth


Mr. Joseph Bruce Ismay

He is a metal person born in winter with very strong water elements exhausting the strength of his metal. So he needs the support of more metal and earth, which in turn needs support from fire. As such, metal, earth, and fire are his favourable elements. His destiny is dominated by strong water, this obviously placed him in a water business in shipping industry.


Also metal gives birth to water, so water symbolises his creativity and skill. It also means his aggressiveness. This explains why he is adventurous and taking risks at the expense of safety. The heavy concentration of water elements on 14/4 also brought trouble to him, but when 15/4 arrived, the presence of strong earth and metal elements had saved his life. One important factor is that he was 49 year old at the time and he was in a good luck pillar of strong fire. So he would not die like others lacking in fire. He escaped in one of the last lifeboats, leaving behind his passengers, his butler, his secretary, and his reputation. He was blamed for cowardice. But another way of looking at it is that his destiny will not let him died that night.

It is interesting to see that almost all the birthdata of survivors I collected more or less possessed stronger fire in their destiny, which prevented them from the fate of being frozen in the icy cold water.