The Reiki Thread :-)

Ob1:

imo its better than massage but that may just bepersonal preference

I was just asking why he thought it was better.

Connor L. wrote: Ob1:

imo its better than massage but that may just bepersonal preference

I was just asking why he thought it was better.

Ah, see I knew I missed it somewhere :laugh:

OB1Shinobi wrote: im curious what peoples thoughts are on the general value of reiki, the publicizing of the symbols, the idea of self attunements, the reiki levels, reiki guides and the different interpretations of reiki eg japanese vs western vs reiki plus ect

I've been doing non-Reiki energy work for years, and finally got "attuned" last year, going all the way to "master" level in certifications. Here are a few of my personal observations about

energy work in general

• Energy healing is not a replacement for medical treatment or advice. Energy healing is to "heal" the spirit and energetic pathways of the body, not the body itself. While a healthy chi flow/"subtle being"/"whatever buzzword you want to use" very often manifests itself as a healthier body than one had before, this is not necessarily a guaranteed outcome. Anyone who seeks energetic healing in this fashion, reiki or otherwise, should do so as a complement to actual medical practices intended to work on the body, not in place of them.
• Not everyone can perceive the results of energetic healing as they happen. Many people who are unaccustomed to the feeling of this kind of energy flow, or who have blockages, or whatever, may not be able to feel the transfer or balancing themselves. This doesn't necessarily mean it didn't work. It also doesn't necessarily mean that it did. Rather than administering further treatment after that, one should wait and see if secondary benefits are noticed first. Do you feel more energetic when you wake up? Does it take less coffee to get you going? Are you more excited about something than you were before? Do you hurt less? etc.
• There are as many types of energetic healing as there are problems. Don't fre too much over a system, or a modality, or whatever. Just pick either something that resonates with you--something you "feel" good about--or something that's able to be examined in detail enough to suit you.
  
• There are also as many types of energetic healing as there are scam artists. Be careful who you go to. Ensure that you trust them fully, whether that's through personal knowledge/relationship or certification. These people are tinkering with your spiritual balance. Don't just let any charlatan mess with you. You wouldn't do that with a medical doctor.
• While energetic healing need not be in person, because of the nature of the human mind many people will have better benefits from in-person sessions. The reason for this has nothing at all to do with the energetic work (unless the practitioner is not very...well, practiced), but instead is because of the perception of physical reality humans share. We are much more likely to believe something if we can utilize all our senses in its execution, and the more likely we are to believe energetic healing, the less likely we are to get in its way as it does its work. It's kind of like the spiritual placebo effect, because in that realm belief actually manifests as action.

(usui) reiki specifically
• 90% of what a reiki teacher will teach you is an outright lie, fabricated from gross misunderstandings about how energetic healing actually ((pesudo?)"scientifically"?) works, and handed down for just long enough for people to believe them en masse

That last bit is something I intend to explore a little more after my apprenticeship, as I'm working on a class/book/pamphlet/course on the differences in Usui Reiki and general traditional energy work, and when it's done (and I'm a Knight, and ask permission) I'd like to share it with the Temple as well as outside it.

In the meantime, I'm open to questions about that statement. It's intentionally vague, since there's a lot of "that's not how that works at all" in reiki.

@Conner

better because of two things; the first is that as a practitioner i have seen that it has what could be called "altered states" potential

reiki can open doors to higher states of consciousness

maybe massage can too though - i havent had much massage experience outside of occasionally in romantic settings which do represent a form of therapy but one which, suffice it to say, is different

also and especially there are the principles mentioned earlier which i feel are extremely valuable despite their simplicity

really

anger and grief and worry and resentment and the self image and actualization issues which relate to doing ones work with honesty and dilligence are a huge deal for everyone when we look at it from the perspective of an entire lifetime

and so the benefits of reiki are greater than just the energy experience itself

@ Kit

thats the kind of thing im talking about
whoever was doing reiki should not have said anything to imply that reiki can realign anything in the body for instance

a compressed nerve is somethig reiki can help alleviate if the situation is caused by inflamation /swelling for instance which would eventually go down anyway but in th event of an injury like that or a serious illness it is irresponsible to say such things about the results of reiki

the more i hear about this stuff the more grateful i am for how really wonderful my teacher was

she made it very clear that what we did was not medical treatment per se but more like a therapeutic touch kind of experience

i think of reiki as in a way being comparable to neosporin/topical antibiotic

once the stitches are in you can apply the salve under the bandage and it will be a tremendous aid to the healing process
but neosporin without the stitches and bandage is stupid

that was my experience anyway but as ive said i have not been active in a long time and i am interested in what Hannigan and anyone else with more and more recent reiki experience have to say

@steamboat
thank you

what you say is totally consistent with my experience and sentiments

i always felt that a lot of reiki people didnt seem to understand what they were doing or what they believed

thank you again it does make me feel better to "hear" that

@steamboat!

actually i have a bunch of questions! lol
i will do my best to limit myself

first, i would love for you to expand on the difference/s between reiki specifically and other energy systems

im really very curious about your thoughts on self attunements - theres a lot of self importance in the reiki world and frankly many reiki people would not admit to their validity even to themselves so id appreciate feedback either way if you could explain the rationale behind it

im aeking because i do think the last attunement i got was by someone not nearly as competent as my original.teacher and i dont have the money to get another attunement and wont for a while

i suspect that i should be able to correct this myself - but then again i also suspect that i may not be able to correct it myself lol

also, what do you think about chakras?

i didnt really put much stock in it for a long time but lately ive encountered some things that make me rethink that

OB1Shinobi wrote: @ Kit

thats the kind of thing im talking about
whoever was doing reiki should not have said anything to imply that reiki can realign anything in the body for instance

This was back when I was young and knew nothing about Reiki and proper energy practices, I was a fresh slate in opinions and very open minded. Back when I believed in 'taffy hands' and 'Energy Balls' So I was all ears when they said they could help to alleviate the pain I was suffering. They never promised full healing, just some relief as I was in some major pain for those two years. Came out of every session in more tears not less My mom had me trying every possible method of cure both professional and Alternate Healing. Nothing worked.....Oddly enough it was another horse that healed it Had had to carry buckets of water out to her several times a day including water aerobics classes....Healed up after two years, with the occasional arthritis pain during winter and bad weather. Another two years after that and Sword Practices completed the healing.

My point is....The traditional methods and ideals of 'Reiki' itself is not something I believe in. For good reasons. A combination of proper practices however can do some miracles when done right with a properly informed practitioner. But at that point I wouldn't call it Reiki

Well, firstly, I'd like to state that the only form of reiki I've studied is Usui Shiki Ryoho. I can't verify any other kind or type of school's teachings, and what I learned was passed on to me inexpensively (that matters to some people) and from a distance (that also matters to some people.) I am also not trying to teach any technique or system, this is simply an educated person's viewpoint in response to questions asked. This is not intended as medical or spiritual advice, do not use if operating heavy machinery, side effects may include egotism, false confidence, and attraction to crunchy types. Your mileage may vary. Do not fry bacon without clothing.

So. That out of the way...

Reiki teaches that it was "rediscovered" in the latter half of the 19th century by a Japanese man named Usui Mikao. This is important because, much like the idea that Wicca was "rediscovered" by Garnder or his immediate predecessors, it is bullsh*t. It is factually equivalent to saying that George Lucas "rediscovered" Jediism in the latter half of the 70's. He didn't. He made that sh*t up. So did Usui-sensei.

We know this because of a few cultural indications. For instance, reiki teaches the chakra system, which in Japan has historically been filtered through China from its Hindu origins. While the hara lines up with the swadhisthana (2nd/orange) chakra, and the xia dantien (the Lower Dan Tien), that's not really enough information to expand to the entire 7-chakra range. And yet, the reiki distance healing symbol is ostensibly (and touted) as Japanese, though I cannot find any etymological research to back up that the HSZSN phrase itself actually means a damn thing. So, already, we have (at best) a syncretic system using the chakra system from one culture and (possible?) kanji from another, being used together in odd ways. This alone doesn't make it suspect, but it is very hard to ignore.

The other symbols are nonsense scribbles, with no symbological history that I've been able to uncover. I say this as someone that has studied symbology (both occult and mundane) and writing systems for twenty years for fun. They don't match up with their supposed age (the modern representation of those symbols doesn't seem to be "drawn" in a way consistent with the same types and shapes of symbols from their supposed era), and they don't have any commonalities that would suggest they belong to the same system.

And the HSZSN can't be "ancient", necessarily, because of the nature of kanji themselves. The earliest record of Chinese writing (which developed into the Japanese ideograms we love today) in Japan was around AD 57, and widespread literacy in Chinese (even among the court) didn't really start until about the 6th century. Which, in terms of Eastern society, is far from "ancient."

Another problem I have with the symbols is that they are a source of inconsistency: people will tell you "reiki can't be used to harm, only to heal." We'll get to why that's a lie later, but if it's true, if there's no wrong way to use reiki, why are the symbols secret in the first place? Wouldn't it make more sense to make them public? What harm could it possibly do to give them to students willingly if reiki can't hurt anyone? But keeping them secret keeps the reiki symbols from hurting pocketbooks, because it's usually around level 2 you start learning these symbols.

Anyone who tells you reiki can't hurt or harm is lying. Flat out. No one is more well-versed in how to kill than a doctor, because it is their life's work to understand the causes enough to stop, prevent, or reverse them. Energy work is the same way, which is why I insist you only work with people you truly, deeply, sincerely trust.

Reiki teaches that the energy is around you and you are just the antenna. This is not true. While there are times when energy passing through your body won't be affected by your own, the very nature of the actions of reiki sort of demand that you either use your own energy to heal, or you "call" the patient's energy to do the healing. You're not being a divine lightning rod, you're just shifting things around until stuff gets fixed.

The Chakra system is a good system. I've spent a lot of time studying the Hindu image of the subtle body for the last year thanks to this Temple, and it lines up with the dantien of Taoist theory and the points like the hara in historical Japanese energywork (even if the wu xing and Miyamoto Musashi's "Five Rings" represent a vast gulf of cultural elemental difference). Take what you can from it, but it's not as essential to the practice as one might think. The way chakra work are somewhere between "batteries", distribution centers, and generators. Delving into them will help you, even if you don't agree with the theory itself, to understand how your body processes energy. I've also said before that they aren't just a culturally-specific thing (which seems counter to my earlier point, but isn't), because these same 7 points on the body (or some subset thereof) will be used by almost any faith healer from almost any faith, even if they have no training in the system or even know chakra exist. For example, the second, fourth, and sixth chakra are very commonly used as "lay-on-hands" points by Charismatic Christians when the power of the Spirit works through them for miracles (which is one of the exceptions to the above listed "using your own energy" point.)

Man. That was a lot of parentheticals.

Also, I will say this: do not look down on self-attunements. Reiki was founded by a guy who self-attuned. Your lineage will be crap compared to that. The best gifts come from the source. That said, attunements aren't necessarily necessary, lineage isn't prestige, and anybody can do this if they understand the mechanics.

Hope that helped.

do you have pics of the reiki symbols you're talking about?....i'd like to see if they're the same as the symbols i have...

My view is there is two distinct systems here, the body is the receiver and the mind is the domain of the energy, with it all boiling down to the conscious interaction with the subconscious. I tend to think the action is some modulation of some energy, with attunements being learning the ability to sense (feel) the physical properties of the nervous system's peripheral architecture and its this awareness and connection which is sympathetically detected and translated by the patient.

So then for as far as I've come to understand it as, the chakra's are tools for the conscious mind to connect to major subconscious systems of the autonomic nervous system IMO. Concepts of accessing power then become about the conscious mind gaining some access to the processing power of the subconscious faculties, and 'health' becomes a result of exercising awareness of ones body to redress imbalances which might be afflicting it. The trick then becomes about managing the power in a useful way, but it also infers to me that the extent of health benefits from Reiki are limited by its mechanism of action (as described). Just my opinion at the moment, through ongoing trial and error over the years!