Should silk or fabric flowers be used to decorate altars and prayer rooms? Misunderstood by many.

In feng shui, only natural plants have positive energy, while artificial and dried flowers, fake flowers, and stagnant water do not possess positive energy. Therefore, feng shui does not favor fake and dried items.

Many families use silk flowers and dried flowers for worship or decorative purposes because they last longer. Nowadays, silk flowers and dried flowers are made with modern technology, so they are visually appealing when used for decoration. However, buying silk flowers, dried flowers, or fake silk flowers can be quite expensive.

Many families also place fake flowers and dried flowers on their altars and surrounding areas to maintain a vibrant atmosphere on days when fresh flowers are not available.

Is it considered bad luck to display fake flowers and dried flowers?

Many people believe that displaying fake and dried flowers on altars and surrounding areas brings bad luck and waste of wealth according to feng shui. However, if they are simply used for decoration and not as offerings, they are just decorative objects. And if they are not being used as offerings, it cannot be considered disrespectful towards ancestors and deities. It is only a matter of whether it is advisable or not to use fake items for decoration.

In fact, altars are where family ancestors and deities reside, and according to customs, offerings are used during worship on lunar worship days. Therefore, during lunar worship days, there will be fruits, food, betel leaves, and fresh flowers on the altars. After that, if you don’t have fresh flowers on the altar, it is fine as long as the altar is clean and free from neglect and dirtiness. Using dried flowers and fake flowers for decoration only serves the visual aesthetic of the living, but it does not serve the purpose of worship. Moreover, if you leave fake items on the altar for a long time, they will accumulate fine dust and become dirty, keeping the dust on the fabric, making the worship area unclean. Therefore, this is unnecessary.

According to feng shui, decorative objects such as dried flowers and fake flowers do not possess positive yang energy, so they should not be placed in the house or used in the worship area. Especially if dried or fake flowers are used as offering flowers to replace fresh flowers in ritual items, it is not wholehearted in the worship rituals, so it is not good in terms of feng shui.

Things that should not be placed on altars or worship areas:

Altars and worship areas are solemn and sacred places in the family. The most important thing is that the family must ensure caution and sincerity in worship. The ancients taught that sincerity is more important than offerings. Therefore, when arranging anything for worship, you must be sincere. That is more important.

According to feng shui, fake items and gold horses should not be placed on the altar.

Fruits with negative meanings and bad names such as lily, jasmine, periwinkle, daisy, Queen of the Daisies, poisonous queen, and datura should not be used for incense offering.

Fake offerings such as fake five-fruit trays should not be displayed on altars.

Do not use too much metal objects in the worship area because the altar is the Yin part of the family, and metal will create negative energy that affects the ancestors and deities.

Do not insert the loop incense into the alms bowl. The loop incense should only be placed outside and used on temple and shrine altars because the ethics there are different from the ancestors’ and deities’.

Avoid using offerings with strong, unpleasant smells that are not fragrant and attract flies and mosquitoes, as this will create a negative atmosphere in the worship area.

Avoid placing colorful electric lights and flashy decorations with bright colors in the worship area, as it will diminish the solemnity.

This information is for reference only.