Feng Shui Grows in China as Officials Seek Success Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times In Hunan Province, a boulder was placed outside a government building to create better feng shui for superstitious civil servants. ZOUMAJIE, China - Outraged peasants protesting land grabs. Jilted mistresses plotting revenge. Provincial investigators seeking out graft. For top officials at the local land resources bureau beleaguered by these and other headaches, there could only be one explanation for the miasma of misfortune they believed was threatening their careers last year: the pair of ferocious stone lions that guarded the state-owned China Tobacco building across the street from their offices. An official confided that the secret weapon the land bureau used was feng shui, the ancient practice of arranging objects and designing architecture to improve one's health, prosperity and luck. For proof, he nodded toward a stone wall in the parking lot that was built to block the feline statues" harmful qi, or energy. "Our bureau wasn't doing so well until we erected the barrier last year," said the official, who gave only his last name, Chen. Now things are a lot better. As Marxist ideology has faded in China, ancient mystical beliefs once banned by the Communist Party are gaining ground. Guides to geomancy now fill bookshelves, fortunetellers are busily offering costly sessions in astrology and numerology, and tycoons consult feng shui masters for financial guidance. This mystical revival is attracting devoted followers in that most forbidden of realms: the marbled, atheistic halls of Chinese officialdom. Besieged by a meddlesome public at the gates and political rivals amid their ranks, the country's ambitious civil servants are increasingly - if discreetly - seeking supernatural shortcuts to wealth and power, much to the dismay of party ideologues and campaigners against corruption. From rural township party chiefs to the nation's disgraced former rail minister, Chinese government officials are increasingly making budgetary decisions to fulfill their own personal prophecies, according to experts, state news media reports and seasoned soothsayers. In all this mysticism ordinary Chinese see little but corruption in drag. "Officials aren't interested in helping the people when they practice feng shui," said Duan Xiaowen, an anticorruption activist here in Hunan Province. All they can think of is getting a higher position. Such was the case with Liu Zhijun, the former railway minister. While building the world's largest high-speed rail network, Mr. Liu reportedly consulted a feng shui master who chose auspicious dates for breaking ground on major construction projects. But fate is a fickle comrade. Fired in 2011, Mr. Liu was charged last month with corruption and abuse of power. In addition to the charges of taking $157 million in bribes and maintaining a harem of 18 mistresses, he is accused of an especially profane crime: "belief in feudal superstitions." Last November, the state-run Xinhua news service reported on the fall of Yang Hong, a county chief in Shanxi Province. According to feng shui beliefs, changing the name of a person or place can ameliorate one's destiny, so Mr. Yang, eager for a promotion, rechristened the scenic local Plaster Mountain as High Official Mountain. He was ousted a month later for corruption. In 2009, county officials in the western province of Gansu spent $732,000 transporting a 369-ton boulder six miles to the county seat, a move feng shui masters said would ward off bad luck. As part of the consecration ceremony, the county magistrate walked 325 feet toward the "spirit rock," kowtowing every three steps, according to the Guangzhou Daily newspaper. Citizens furious over officials dabbling in publicly financed mysticism have found an unlikely ally in the Communist Party, which commands its 82 million members to worship only the hammer and sickle. Though the government has taken a more laissez-faire approach to spirituality since the bloody persecutions of the Cultural Revolution 40 years ago, the authorities remain suspicious of competing dogma. Shi Da and Sue-Lin Wong contributed research.