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Reiki Psychology
Randolph Shipon, Ph.D.
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Randolph Shipon
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Dedicated to the future animal kingdom, free of fear.
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Reiki [pron. RAY’ • key] (noun)
The spiritual practice of tuning the human central nervous system into a constant, ever present universal life energy in order to use it to connect oneself and others to relaxation, healing, and peace.
Reiki Psychology (noun)
1. A way of incorporating a spiritual perspective on channeling universal life energy (Reiki) into the understanding of the human mind and experience.
2. The psychotherapeutic treatment of life problems informed by the practices of the Reiki tradition.
3. A way for individuals to achieve a non-denominational sense of personal meaning and spiritual connectedness through the practice of Reiki techniques.
Author's note on Reiki history:
There is so much disagreement about the history of Reiki that it does not seem prudent to cover it in this book. The disagreements, among people who seem to value Reiki, appear pointless to me because the gift of Reiki is the energy itself. The modern origins are about a century old, but many people believe its true origins to be traced to a practice that was used for thousands of years. Use your own discernment in exploring Reiki history. In the final analysis, the most important thing is to use Reiki, instead of questioning from whence we learned it. It is a part of our heritage, as a planetary family, and I believe it is the key to our continued evolution.
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Chapter 1: Reiki Psychology, an unheralded tale
"You may think you are a Reiki person who is going to become a psychologist, Wolf," she said. "I would like you to consider the possibility that you are a Reiki person who is going to add psychology to his Reiki practice."
The speaker was a great Reiki master and one of my life mentors, a woman from Yardley, Pennsylvania, named Nancy Russell. It was many years ago. I was a newly trained Reiki master trying to find my way in my healing life. I was new to the practice of channeling the universal life force energy to help myself and others connect with what is good and healthy for us in this world, and I was already teaching others how to do so.
Yet I was so fearful of what others thought, and what might become a problem for me legally and ethically, that I did not feel qualified.
I did not feel comfortable with my Reiki clients telling me about their emotional problems without me being a licensed mental health professional. I feared many such phantoms in those times. That is why I pursued a formal, well-accredited education in counseling psychology to become a licensed counselor and then a licensed psychologist. I wanted to reach people on the deepest emotional level, while being qualified to do so.
Twelve years, two graduate degrees, and four professional licenses later, here is this book about what I always wanted to teach in the first place.
The first book on Reiki psychology
To date, at the time of this writing, there is no other book available on "Reiki psychology" — but there are books on energy psychology, which is a popular presentation topic and one that is frequently discussed in holistic conferences.
To clarify, energy psychology is defined as a broad range of treatments that include tapping various parts of the body's "energy points" to reset the body's emotional and physical well-being, and actively incorporating the body's meridian, aura or chakra systems into psychological treatment.
That is not what Reiki psychology is about, as defined here. In fact, Reiki psychology is not about a holistic "treatment system" for professionals or paraprofessionals to use on others at all. Reiki psychology is about a more comprehensive way of connecting with ourselves and with those we serve.
There is plenty of available research illustrating what works, from a scientific point of view, in psychotherapy. For instance, at the time of this writing we know that cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the best treatments for mild to moderate depression, and that for severe depression it should usually be combined with antidepressant pharmacotherapy. We know that exposure to feared situations while learning to tolerate them is best treatment for panic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. And we also know that most forms of psychotherapy (gestalt, cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, humanistic) are approximately equally effective in terms of treatment outcomes. Our research indicates that most therapists tend to be equally effective (no matter how extensively they were trained) as long as there is a really good therapeutic relationship between client and therapist.
This book is not meant to question the science behind psychotherapy, which clearly has a valuable place in our healing culture. But it does have something important to offer both the mental health practitioner and the client/patient, as well as the person who is simply interested in a more comprehensive view of human nature as informed by Eastern holistic thought in combination with Western psychology.
The missing piece: life force energy (spirit)
Religion and/or spirituality appears from all indications, formal and informal, to be an essential part of the human experience no matter how it is defined by the people claiming to value it.
The American Psychological Association (APA) dedicated its January 2003 issue of its research journal, American Psychologist, to the topic. One article noted that as of 1995, 96% of Americans believed in God and 67% counted religion to be very important in their lives. That same article illuminated linkages between spirituality and physical health, such as that the mortality rate among those who regularly attend religious services is about 25% lower than the rest of the population as sampled in the studies reviewed. An early article summarizing some "early ideas" for the western discipline of psychotherapy was published in the APA Monitor in 2003, and was titled "Religion and spirituality in the treatment room."
More recent data from the Gallup organization indicates that in 2007, approximately 9 out of 10 Americans "believe in God or a universal spirit." This begs the question: What appears to be missing from the work of psychologists, counselors, and social workers who are mostly secularly trained in the scientific tradition, when spiritual concerns appear to be a big part of the lives of so many people?
How can we address what is most important to people without covering, at the very least, some major spiritual concerns in our sessions? How can we teach and proselytize psychological understanding when we are so out of touch with what most people find essential?
And finally, is there not a way to tie together what mostly everyone understands about what is good and true on the spiritual level of humanity? Can we utilize what appears to have universal spiritual meaning, no matter what tradition is followed? And can that be used to alleviate pain (symptom relief) and enhance people's lives (self-actualization)?
My contention is that we are all in touch with something we cannot name.
Common factors in human spiritual understanding
Since the dawn of recorded history, new religions have emerged to explain answers to more difficult questions, such as the purpose of suffering, the reasons we exist, and what happens after we die. This author does not intend to repeat those efforts in this book. Reiki Psychology is not written to offer a "new religion" or to call into question the viability of other, time-honored belief systems.
Instead, it represents an effort to gather together the common elements of the world’s religious and spiritual views in a way that is broadly appealing to the way people usually speak about the divine/spiritual experience during their efforts at self-healing. It is also an effort to tap into the underlying potential of spiritually informed living. This potential is usually not fully explored in standard psychotherapy or psychiatric treatment.
The ways those in helping professions endorse speaking of the divine or spiritual experience should also resonate with the trends in modern psychotherapy. That way, these elements can be reasonably used in the treatment room as a way for all parties to connect with something greater than this or that thought, feeling, relationship difficulty, personal aspiration, physical symptom, career question, trauma, or grief. Reiki psychology can essentially connect us with an incredible internal resource, obtained through reflection upon our most cherished beliefs.
We need to move into the spiritual realm because philosophy, religion, and spirituality have thousands of years of rich qualitative inquiry and data to add to our science about what makes us human. We should make optimal use of this resource, as we live our lives and as people come to us with their most personal and important issues. These are the "big picture" tools.
The most meaningful commonalities
Here are some fairly universal assumptions about connecting with spirituality. It is not meant to be an exhaustive list but it remains a valuable one.
1) We already have everything we need to connect with spirituality, even if we do not realize it.
2) The universe as we know it contains a reality hidden to our ordinary human senses.
3) Things are inherently more subtle and sophisticated than they seem to the non-contemplative mind.
4) There are higher states of mind that we can achieve in this lifetime, but it takes constant work and self-reflection. There is always more to learn, so self-improvement via one’s spiritual capacities can occur.
5) We can find teachers who can help show us the spiritual ways in our lifetimes.
6) The problems of today's world can be in part assuaged by spiritual connectedness.
7) There is a spiritual source for health, harmony, wisdom and peace.
8) For those who choose it, part of life's journey is to connect with that source.
9) In many ways, the optimal existence is achieved by regulating our appetites.
10) Compassion and loving-kindness are universal values.
11) Spirituality tends to connect people with various universal ethical principles
12) The natural world has great wisdom to teach us through its own metaphors.
13) This life may be but a sojourn, but it is an important one because through it we are either meant to learn something, or demonstrate our values, or both.
14) Our deeds create a lasting record of our values in the memories of others.
15) Killing other sentient beings is primitive, and we will leave it behind.
16) The ancient world may have had people who witnessed things most modern day people have not perceived for whatever reason.
17) The human story is not at its end. In fact, we are just at the beginning.
18) A new way for the majority of people to understand each other and their place in the world lies just beyond the horizon.
I do not feel compelled to sort out why this list is fairly current with most forms of spirituality and religion on the planet. I leave that to those who are more accomplished in theological matters. These are simply the spiritual undercurrents I have identified through my own religious and spiritual studies of many different belief systems. Most people who present for psychotherapy with me have endorsed many, if not all, of these beliefs.
Why Reiki fits into mental health
"They are coming to you out of hope and for hope," she said.
These are the words of my professor who ran one of the psychotherapy training clinics I attended over the years. Mental health improvement requires hope. Hope is an exercise in faith. And faith is the realm of human spirituality.
The entire enterprise of psychotherapy is grounded in the client's hope that life could be better. People initiate and keep their psychotherapy appointments because they seek one or more of the following: more joy, meaning, productivity, or inner peace; better health or relationships; and less loneliness, fear, anger, or sadness.
If hope is not there, in my experience, clients stop coming. They have no reason to keep appointments if nothing is reasonably expected to improve.
So the therapist not only receives a client because of the client's hope, but also must show the way, just like a good guide. A valuable guide has no doubt that the journey will be successful one. So too with a valuable therapist, who is merely a different kind of guide, easing the journey over the terrain of various life experiences.
Reiki fits in with mental health because, at its core, Reiki is about preparing the mind with symbols and meditations to receive the harmonic influence over life itself. It is the discipline of tuning into love, health, and peace. It is that simple. In order to do this, Reiki's teacher to the West recommended reciting the Reiki Ideals twice per day.
The Reiki Ideals
by Mrs. Hawayo Takata, who brought Reiki to the West
The secret art of inviting happiness. The miraculous medicine of all diseases. Just for today, do not anger. Do not worry, and be filled with gratitude. Devote yourself to your work and be kind to people. Every morning and evening, join your hands in prayer. Pray these words to your heart. Chant these words with your mouth. Usui Reiki Treatment for the improvement of body and mind.
We know an awful lot about what Mrs. Hawayo Takata was trying to convey here about states of mind; the West's social and medical sciences are just now playing catch-up to the Eastern way of thinking about total (mental, physical, and spiritual) health. Our popular self-help literature is only beginning to turn to the "secret art of inviting happiness" — as a matter of fact, one of the most popular books like this is titled The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (2006). That book is about the Law of Attraction, which is the energetic invitation of good things into our experiences.
But Takata was practicing Reiki in Hawai'i in 1937, after she learned it from Dr. Chujiro Hayashi in Japan, and became its grand master after he committed suicide as his conscience dictated, rather than engage in the bloodshed of World War II.
We know that anger is problematic for health states from our medical sciences. Cynically hostile people tend to have higher blood pressure leading to coronary heart disease, the nation's #1 fatal health problem.
My own research has been added to that of others showing us that practicing gratitude has a good correlation with healthy states of mind, such as less anxiety and depression. Gratitude also fosters healthy body processes such as lower blood pressure, and is correlated with self-care improvements such as weight loss and increased exercise. My own study surprised me when I found a correlation with practicing gratitude and higher rates of smoking cessation among the people who did it well.
Devoting oneself to work appears to hint at the concept of flow. Flow is a state in which feel really good and achieve a lot of success when we are highly immersed in an activity that is so engrossing that we seem to lose track of time doing it, according to researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Takata appears to be calling Reiki practitioners to flow, much as Freud was reported by Erik Erikson to have said that love and work are the cornerstones of human life.
Finally, it is impossible to heal ourselves or others in any spiritual sense unless we are kind. When we injure others, all we do is injure ourselves. When we are kind to others, this kindness is reflected back to us and we experience the added benefit of feeling good about what we just did or said.
Reiki is very old, and yet its core values are current with modern trends in psychological treatment. It seems to be a natural step to incorporate its values into the practice of psychology, whether we are practicing self-psychology, doing treatment, or trying to understand the human condition.
Why Reiki should be taught to everyone
Since the beginning of my Reiki practice, I have added my voice to the many others who have called for Reiki to be taught to people as a natural way to relax, and therefore promote healing. The reason is because I learned it myself when nothing else seemed to be helping me.
In 1998, I was misdiagnosed as having Parkinson's disease and prescribed dopamine replacement therapy medication. It seemed to work to stop the right lateral tremors. Following that prescription, and others, I experienced a cognitive decline due to side effects until 18 months later, when the misdiagnosis was rejected at a Parkinson's disease treatment center. My medication was tapered, the shaking abated as predicted by the clinic's doctor, and I returned to a medication-free life.
During that 18 months, when nothing made sense about what physicians and neurologists were saying about my health, I studied Reiki. It calmed me. It comforted me. I was able to use it with loved ones and even pets. It connected me with the spiritual world in a tangible way that I could witness and it opened up my experience to subtle things I never noticed before that point. It was a gift that I would have never discovered had I not become ill.
I then decided to become a Reiki teacher. I knew Reiki had great power. I knew that power had something to teach people about our highest natures. And that is why I am convinced that it is something people should learn, especially before illness strikes.
Our medical science tells us that stress is often an underlying cause for illness, or it can exacerbate existing problems. Reiki is a nondenominational spiritual technology for rinsing away stress. That means Reiki is a wellness technology and belongs in the category of primary prevention — addressing the problem of stress before it converts into an illness, or it exacerbates an underlying or current physical problem.
Reiki is most often used as an adjunctive therapy to medical treatment. That is the way I used it in the beginning as well. It reminds me of people who learn to meditate or do yoga after they experience negative health events like chronic illnesses, fatigue, cancer or heart attacks. Clearly there is a need for complementary, participatory medicine for these purposes.
But what Reiki also offers is a pathway for all of us to take care of not only ourselves, but also the others with whom we share our lives. I cannot send yoga or meditation to my loved ones, my friends, my cat, or the Earth itself.
But I can send Reiki.
So Reiki becomes the spiritual technology of taking care of ourselves, our loved ones, other creatures, and our world itself. It is the mechanism by which the human being accepts and carries out his or her ultimate planetary responsibility: custodianship of the Earth.
Energy: the right metaphor for today's world
Have we reached the right time in our existence as a species to begin having the discussion about energy? It appears to be the focus of so many of our real world problems. The search for energy and its exploitation show us further evidence of humanity ruining our planet every day. Our efforts to harness energy safely or use it with greater efficiency receive praise from every corner of our world community.
Is this the time for us to start talking about human energy as well? What about life energy, the energy sustaining our private existences? If we spoke about, say, efficient harnessing of caloric energy, would we feed more people on the planet? Would there be less waste and less pollution? Would fewer animals and people die needlessly due to improper caloric practices (raising animals for food is environmentally expensive, and eating high calorie foods disrupts the human body)?
The answer obvious to many thoughtful people to all of these questions is simply "Yes" and we need to immediately address these problems. But showing people there are problems is not sufficient to make it personally meaningful. Even in the face of huge energy disasters with frightening or life changing consequences, people do not always incorporate their thoughts about conserving energy into their habits.
To make it personally meaningful, my suggestion is that the discussion of energy should dominate conversations about how we relate to one another and deal with the spiritual problems in our lives. We should be examining what constitutes renewable personal energy, relationship energy, group energy, organizational energy, political energy, ethical energy, etc. The right medium for this discussion is the inclusion of Reiki's understanding of energy into the lexicon of human relational understanding.
Our physicists tell us that all matter is ultimately energy, and that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be converted to this or that alternative form.
Our intrapersonal and interpersonal understanding, as a species, would surely benefit from what our physicists seem to already know.
Reiki psychology, the study and practice of harnessing and sharing universal life energy, could not be more relevant to our time.
What you will not find in this book
This book was not written to build a case for Reiki as a legitimate complementary health practice. There are plenty of other people who are engaged in the science of Reiki, and I have little interest in repeating their efforts. Like many spiritual practices, Reiki resists being measured because its value is too subjective from person to person.
Reiki is a healing art. What training I have had as a social scientist has taught me to respect researchers and always foster further inquiry, but I remain more humanistic. One cannot overly objectify beauty, truth, meaning, love, music, or even morality. Psychotherapy itself, born of the humanistic tradition, is less science and more art. It cannot be manufactured or industrialized. It loses something when that is attempted.
To those who may resist these statements, I offer to you that your holistic view of the human experience is under attack by those who would systematize and objectify everything about human behavior for their own gain. We cannot have this conversation about universal energy, meaning, love, and connectedness without identifying the forces working to their detriment. Therefore, we will address them, and the challenges they present to human understanding, in the next chapter.
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Chapter 2: You are more than you have been told
Have psychology and medicine joined the business of telling you what you ought to be fixing and what you should be doing with your mind?
Ironic, because prescriptive thinking appears to be the domain of dogma, which is the business of telling people what is true without giving them proof. Psychology's roots are not in the dogmatic tradition, however. Psychology is the study of the mind, and thus, it is considered a science.
During the Middle Ages, medicine was practiced in barber shops, where causing people to bleed was believed to be curative of various ailments by letting the “bad blood out” to eliminate infection. The red and white swirling pole outside modern barber shops is a symbol of that tradition. On a pole, used and fresh linen bandages were wrapped to keep them as clean as Middle Ages technology allowed. The old, laundered bandages were red. The fresh ones were white.
Healers of the mind and healers of the body were supposed to be the liberators of humanity from dogma since the time of the Enlightenment. Yet today, psychologists often focus on what is wrong with you, and your medical bills continue to financially bleed you. So why do we still live in the Middle Ages? Why are the healing professions still bleeding you?
My answer: They have joined the battle for your life energy.
Some are on your side, but most are on their own side.
The need-makers
Here is what western psychological and psychiatric science has to say about all people, to be contrasted with what the rest of the world has been trying to teach us for some time.
There appears to be a consensus among many psychology professionals (counselors, social workers, and psychologists) that psychological problems must be vigorously addressed when they significantly interrupt or inhibit what is considered normal social, occupational, or educational functioning. This is a medical model that has emerged out of psychiatry and has only become popular because, to be painfully honest, these serious interruptions are usually those things for which managed behavioral health organizations (MBHOs) will reimburse clinicians.
While it is true that these problems must be addressed when they are at this “decline in functioning” level (various forms of depression or anxiety are most common, often buried beneath other problems such as anger and personality disturbance), addressing things this way more accurately approaches reactive care, rather than curing the disease. My assertion is that most of these conditions indicate some form of human misery which usually emerges out of “square pegging” a person — trying to fit a “square peg into a round hole” — as the expression goes.
We are constantly being told, even in the freest countries in the world, what we “ought to be doing.” If this message is not coming from our parents, it comes from our teachers. If it is not our teachers giving us the message, it is our employers or our churches.
And most significantly in modern society, if it is not any of those most understandable influences, then the directives emerge from the various forms of media that we are consuming constantly (television, advertisements embedded in all electronic media, computer applications, Internet, and radio, just to name a few media sources).
They are all trying to jam our square pegs into their round holes.
We are being programmed, and our programmers, the need-makers, are usually those who have their own gain in mind. Need-makers are not really working for our benefit (even though they may believe that they are helping us by offering us a product or a service). They are working for themselves. And that is OK. The freedoms to engage in a transaction (“I get something as you get something”), or to speak freely of what one creates, are both good signs for a society. In places where these freedoms do not exist, there is usually strong evidence indicating that members of the society are oppressed.
But the freedom to live in a highly evolved, free, capitalist society with need-makers and consumers comes at a huge price. In the information age, we are constantly being told that we ought to be doing something else. Someone always seems to have a message about something, usually a product or a service, which will enhance our lives. And very often, the evidence is compelling in favor of the new product because we have an entire army of professionals (advertisers, marketers, and publicity experts) who dedicate their lives to creating desire.
How does this relate to mental health? Well we are constantly being told that what we have now is not “good enough.” Many of us are in tremendous trouble with debt because we keep upgrading things — our homes, our automobiles, our computers, our educations, our clothing, our food habits, our life plans — in order to comply with all the “oughts” we have been programmed to follow since we were children.
This constant dissatisfaction harms us. There are so many messages about what we should be doing that we cannot possibly get everything done. We spend more than we earn to achieve the “oughts.” And we forget to listen to the most important source of information.
The self.
Most individuals have no idea how hear themselves. They have constructed a mental fantasy about who they really are, without ever having listened to the other ways of knowing.
Your knowing is not limited to what you have seen, heard and learned about yourself from others. That is a form of suffering that most people living in this media-saturated society automatically endure.
Your intelligence is not limited to what modern intelligence tests have to say about you. As Harvard professor Howard Gardner pointed out many years ago, most forms of intelligence cannot be quantitatively measured anyway.
Your destiny is not wrapped up with your health status, a reflection of only one way of knowing yourself.
You are more, and this work intends to help you realize that. However, you will need to bear in mind that the need-makers listed above will always oppose your advancement beyond a need for products and services.
Why commercialism opposes spiritual wellness
Most people want stuff. That is what makes capitalism so powerful around the world. It is our modern nature to want things, which is at once regrettable and enjoyable. We are "having" creatures. We economically evolved this way. I do wonder if we will have time to evolve out of "having" and into "sharing" and/or "experiencing."
Interestingly most other creatures want to have things for a very temporary amount of time if at all. A very limited number of creatures save things. The “savers” include spiders, ants, bears, bats, and cats such as mountain lions. Humans alone, however, hold onto things for too long.
So, we want to have things, but do we ever really finish to the point where we have all the things we want? And when is it that we actually want what we have?
Most of the people I have met who have everything they want are those wise enough to know that things are temporary, but experiences are forever. Those people tend to be in the autumn of their lives to achieve that kind of wisdom, because the opposite would appear to be true to the uninitiated.
The only things worth having are those that provide experiences. And even then, is anything truly possessed? Or is everything, including life itself, only a manifestation of borrowed energy? No possession — no thing — appears to be absolutely owned by anyone in the final analysis. This is why the Buddhists wisely teach against attachment.
But the powers of commercialism wish for you to be attached.
Attachment creates fear, loss and despair. If everything were viewed as either eternal or consistently temporary, commercialism would not have any hold on human beings. Spiritual wellness requires gratitude and, to at least some degree, non-attachment. It does not matter what creed you follow — most convey the same message. Either nothing really belongs to anyone, or it all belongs to the divine. Either way, those who have spent centuries thinking about and teaching what is considered to be spiritually valuable have little regard for "having."
That is to say, most philosophers and scholars warn against attachment. Yet ironically, religious organizations are very interested in things such as wealth and possessions in order to further their presences in this world.
If we were all spiritually well, and therefore psychologically healthy, it is my contention that many industries would suffer. Need-makers depend on our fear, our self-loathing, and our need to manipulate others too much to sustain a place in a spiritually healthy world. Industries that would suffer might include cosmetics and fashion, weight loss, healthcare, medicine, and certainly anything related to law enforcement and warfare.
That appears to be a very small price to pay for wellness.
The mistake: Western science opposes the unseen
Western science is a source of so many modern miracles. Medicine and the marvels of technology — from mass agriculture to personal computing to transportation — owe their fairly recent advents to the scientific method. But unfortunately, there is more to the world than can currently be measured by science. The entire realm of subjective experience can only be studied from the periphery, as "this person's point of view" or "that group's majority opinion." Sadly, this creates the perception that the qualification or quantification of knowledge in the social sciences is somehow less useful. That could not be further from the truth.
It is important to understand that many of the most valuable human experiences are tied to our subjectivity. They resist being measured. My idea of beauty is not likely to match yours; likewise, your aesthetic taste may not match up with someone else's tastes. I may perceive beauty you do not, and likewise, you may see value in something I do not.
Western science wants us to standardize our knowledge. It wishes for us to provide evidence that everything we claim is real can be seen, touched, or measured in some way. And the fact is, most of what we humans judge to be good resists scientific analysis, at the current time. That may change, but for now it seems to be true that qualitative and quantitative analyses of such things are missing something important.
This book proposes that faith has a place in psychotherapy and psychological understanding of what constitutes mental health. It has long been established that hope is an important part of wellness, by cognitive therapy's Aaron T. Beck and various existentialists. Hope is only peripherally quantified by using Likert scales (people assigning a number to how they feel). We cannot measure hope in the blood or with brain imaging — yet.
It resists being observed, except to the subjective eye. Laymen as well as trained clinicians know when hopelessness is interfering with people.
Knowing that hope is so important to psychotherapy and psychological wellness opens the door to faith. By that, I do not necessarily mean healthy people must believe in a divine presence, though this belief is certainly not excluded from such a definition.
By faith I am referring to a belief that is not based on proof.
And this definition of faith in something that cannot be quantitatively measured or qualitatively measured well is required in mental health, even if the concept is restricted to belief in the self or belief in the capacity to heal.
Or the faith that we are all healers, in some way. Reiki proposes that.
Why war is incompatible with Reiki
Before we continue exploring why we are more than we have been told, and the potential of Reiki psychology to reveal much more about who we are and who we are supposed to be, I would like to reflect on the most dehumanizing of experiences this life has to offer: war.
Thou shalt not kill.
Depending on how you translate this Judeo-Christian commandment (some say "murder") it appears clear to the spiritually connected person that there is something wrong with killing. Life appears too precious, too sacred to allow our governmental systems to commit acts of systematized murder. I do not feel the need to go into detail on this. If life is sacred in some way, war is unspeakably unholy. That is why the thought of a “holy war” — Muslim, Christian, or otherwise — is so repugnant to so many people.
I realize that people commit evil acts in this world, and some of them need to be stopped with force because no other options exist. However, I know that the Reiki energy that I am going to discuss has nothing to do with dominance or violence. Others knew that too. Dr. Hayashi committed ritual suicide rather than fight in World War II after he taught Reiki to Mrs. Takata.
To evolve into the universal healing technology of Reiki, human beings must evolve out of being warlike. To do this, new technologies must be developed to stop people without killing them. I suspect they already exist, and are just more expensive than killing others. As our greater conscience awakens, I believe we will do better than we are doing at the current time.
Eventually, all of humanity will evolve beyond its war on other animals, too. Draw your own conclusions about this point as you feel comfortable.
Our potential in a spiritually connected world
As we move forward into understanding how all things connect to one another, how time itself is an illusion, and how we may tap into a universal Source for comfort and peace, we human beings will finally assume our planetary roles.
This is something to be discussed at length later. But in the mean time, let us review the implications of what this would mean for treatment and maintaining good psychological health.
Grief and loss would be easier to accept
The discipline of non-attachment taught in the spiritual discipline of Reiki would help people move past the things that are difficult to accept, such as loss of loved ones, declines in ability, and the end of relationships. This is achieved not by stoic discipline, but by a deepening of the connection between the Reiki practitioner and a different time perspective — past, present, and future being fused into one Eternal Moment.
Patients would take more responsibility for wellness
Those under the care of doctors would, by definition, take responsibility for their own health as Reiki practitioners. It is one thing to take vitamins, eat right, exercise, do yoga, or meditate and hope for the body to heal itself. It is slightly but significantly different to surrender to the healing, harmonic influence of the universe and allow it to heal you (or not). Either way, those who task "fixing them" to their doctors have a lot to learn from the spiritual discipline of Reiki, which involves an active listening to the body and the way it receives energy.
So far, a great deal of my experience in psychotherapy indicates that people usually enter sessions taking far less than optimal care of their health. This appears to be an ongoing topic of discussion for most people who see me, and it is my belief that a great deal of the wellness work would be accomplished easier with an introduction to Reiki.
People would have a greater awareness of the nonverbal world
Perception of the movement of energy enhances communication by teaching people to notice the subtle things: body language, temperature, shifts in skin coloration, tone of voice, and small changes in environment. They tend to perceive themselves and others in space in a sharper, more highly defined way. And most importantly, they develop a sense of the nonviolence required in meaningful interpersonal interactions. This is something that can only be felt. Empathy is heightened. And so what we are able to witness, as people become Reiki practitioners, is an acute awareness of what constitutes good energy in themselves, as well as other people, places, and experiences.
We have, in terms of our evolution, only recently become a species that uses language. Nonverbal communication came first and is in many ways both more meaningful and relevant to properly aligned, authentic communication between two people who are supposed to care for one another. It is my hope that more people assume that responsibility as we advance.
No product needed
We are moving beyond the material. It may not seem like it, but we are learning how to do everything more naturalistically and with greater freedom. Our technologies reflect this. Computers and cell phones are now so portable that they are able to be used anywhere, and wearable designs for these products are now in the development stage.
Reiki fits in with and yet defies this trend all at once. With Reiki, the practitioner pursues psychological and physical health without the need for any accessory whatsoever. Reiki is, like karate, of the empty hand. And yet unlike karate, there is no struggle. So it is at once highly portable, and yet it costs nothing and is a burden to no one.
Reiki requires no product. There is not a good way to monetize it. Because it is not really measurable yet, there is no way to legitimately test or certify practitioners of Reiki. There is no way to license it, copyright it, or in any other way own it, because it already belongs to everybody. All one can charge for, as a trainer, is one's time, because the Reiki itself is totally free, and its results are so different (based on subjective experience) that it cannot make any guarantees of efficacy.
If one is going to create a Reiki product, all one can do is create a teaching tool such as this book. That is it. Everything else associated with Reiki that is sold for money is probably a scam. No one can sell you Reiki. It is already yours. Items, such as crystals, cannot be infused with Reiki energy. To sell such a product is missing the point of Reiki entirely. It is love energy. No “Reiki-charged” product can be manufactured or marketed.
The point of this chapter is to tell you that you already have access to this technology. It has always existed in the universe, and it always will. You need no special tools to summon it. Reiki is like a secret frequency you never intentionally selected on the radio’s dial, though you may have listened at times for a few minutes. My guess is that a part of you may have known that you are a special kind of radio, capable of receiving and amplifying a powerful force for good. Reiki teaches you to focus on that.
On prayer: from supplicant to actor
I believe that we have had this Reiki ability, innately, for hundreds of thousands of years, and that are only giving language to it within the past century as a technique for healing. I will say that it appears to connect us with a more ancient knowledge what our role in the world could be. This is my subjective experience of it, but I believe others who are experienced with Reiki would agree.
The higher reality of healing: gratitude
Mary Baker Eddy taught the Church of Christ Scientist, which she founded, that Jesus healed Lazarus by first thanking God for the gift of eternal life. Jesus was, in her view, acknowledging the reality of eternal life, and it was therefore gratitude for a higher reality that raised Lazarus from the dead.
This is a very interesting allegory for Reiki. Reiki proposes that there is no past, present, future, here or there. It is all happening now, at the same moment, in the same place. Our bodies perceive the universe unfolding in away that makes sense to our brains, but in fact, it is a grand misperception.
The advanced Reiki practitioner recognizes the truth that the mystics have heralded forever: ultimate oneness with ourselves and the Divine is not only possible but inevitable because it already exists. It always has, and it always will.
If we can understand this union between the self and the divine, on an energetic level, the dark corners of great despair are suddenly illuminated with blinding light.
What if prayer were less directional and more holistic?
If people from all walks of life understood their union with the divine, would they essentially change the way they pray? Would they offer their prayers the way a child petitions a parent, as so many have been taught to do? Or would they instead set their intention, abdicate the ego, and allow themselves the relief of radical surrender while paradoxically setting universal changes into motion on energetic and spiritual levels?
What would be the effect on religious institutions?
The time of religious institutions dictating to people what they should believe and how to lead their lives appears to be drawing to a close in the first world. The only churches that will survive this time will be those who respect dignified autonomy.
One religious authority that sees the handwriting on the wall has already banned the use of Reiki. The church stated that there is a lack of scientific evidence that Reiki is clinically efficacious. I believe this is a smoke screen. Reiki brings people into contact with harmonization. It relaxes, comforts, and soothes the nerves. Ironically, following hands-on healing, teachers of healing such as Jesus of Nazareth were documented as saying that everyone can learn how to perform such acts of faith.
Institutions choose to ignore what is not good for them, or to discredit any idea that threatens institutional supervision and authority. Systems excel at self-preservation to the detriment of the people they trap.
The subjective has a place in healing. No pre-authorization is required to use what you already possess. And all this begins here, now, with you, in the next chapter.
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Chapter 3: Learn Reiki
I do not have much time. Neither do you. You have always had this ability.
You may have even known something was there — hidden. You just did not know how to consciously access it. You intuitively used a little bit.
We will practice first, and discuss more ideas later.
Reflections on the past
“The Divine Touch” was performed by kings of England and France. It was often employed to cure scrofula, a name given to various diseases of the skin. This ritual began with Robert II the Pious, but other sources attribute it to Clovis as founder of the kingdom. It was also said to have been started by Edward the Confessor of England. The belief that the royal touch could cure disease was common throughout the Middle Ages.
And when the men of that place recognized Jesus, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought all their sick to him and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed. — Matthew 14:35
“I tell you the truth: Anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.” — Jesus of Nazareth, quoted in John 14:12
Ponder these ideas as you try this
1) Despite what our senses tell us, everything is the same thing — one Whole. Nothing is separate.
2) Distance — that is space — is only a matter of perspective. There is only Here, and There does not exist.
3) Time is also a function of perspective. Past, present, and future are human observations. There is but one moment.
4) In the final analysis, all that was, is, and ever will be, is a Whole, Here, in One moment.
I would teach you Reiki traditionally, if doing so made sense
I love Reiki. It connected me to what I call the Source in a meaningful, easy-to-learn, non-dogmatic way. It started me on a wonderful healing journey, and introduced me to people who help the world every day. I am also thrilled that it is becoming more popular. I became a practitioner, then a Reiki master, and that led me to scholarship, and now this. Reiki practitioners acknowledge that people and especially animals use healing energy unconsciously, all the time. It is natural and used unconsciously to some degree.
Ancient knowledge: no certificate necessary
Touch heals by bringing comfort. Your dog or cat will sit by you, and share calming energy, when you do not feel well.
A hug really "makes it better" when we are sick or sad. It is naturally given, and naturally received. We automatically put our hands to the location of the pain, whether it is a headache or toothache. We grab and hold our stubbed toes and our burnt fingertips.
These capabilities are already present
Using our own energy to heal by bringing comfort is something we already know how to do, to a lesser degree. In this chapter, I am showing you to connect to the Source, instead of using your own energy to heal.
But first you need to learn to distinguish between your efforts and energy from the Source.
What to do: Invoke a loving person
The best way to learn is by using what you already know. You already know someone whose spirit was or is loving, generous, and kind to you. Invite that person's warm, gentle spirit into your hands.
1. Put your hands in front of you, facing each other about six inches apart. Notice the feeling in your hands.
2. Now cup them, and invite the spirit into your hands.
3. Notice what it feels like. Does it feel heavy? Warm? Does it tingle?
4. Now use your gratitude. Thank that loving person's spirit for what he or she did for you, and slowly, gently, cradle it toward your chest, allowing that person's good spirit wash over your body.
The good part about what you just did was you felt the love energy, which is the right frequency. It is subtle, right? But if you felt something — even a little bit — you are ready to continue.
Do not continue if you felt nothing
… simply because you may be wasting your time. You might want to try again, when you are more relaxed. Energy is subtle, and it is really about little barely noticeable tingles at first. But those tingles are very important, because they indicate the movement of energy. Our goals here are two-fold: the detection of energy, and the summoning of Source energy. Try again if you did not feel anything. Remember: You are learning a new skill. You may barely feel it at first but will become more sensitive as you practice.
Usually, the person who cannot feel energy will feel it if he or she tries again. It has a lot to do with how relaxed the person is, and his or her degree of openness to the experience.
Scanning: Learning to feel the energy of others
To do this well, it is helpful to have another person or an animal present.
1. Slowly move your hand toward the other and wait to feel the tingle, or warmth.
2. Practice moving your hand slowly in and out of the tingle or warmth zone.
3. Run your hand along the tingle or warmth zone, up and down the body.
4. There are places where the tingle or warmth can be perceived further away.
5. The more you practice, the further away you will be able to feel the energy.
Depending on circumstances, some beings have expansive energy around them. Others are more constricted. My best guess is that it has something to do with feeling connected to the world around them. It also naturally fluctuates with changes in thought and mood — it is a state, not a trait.
This is the most important part: the Source
The importance of the Source cannot be over-emphasized.
Everything flows from the Source.
What is it?
The Source is the Harmonic Influence. The closest word is Love. It is always calming, always healing, and always correct. It can never do harm. It can only do the highest good.
It is the frequency to which healers are attuned. It is the healing vibration. It is universal peace. It is the reality of one whole Everything, right here, in one moment.
Most importantly: the Source is the Agent. It flows through us and does its Will. We do not control it, but we can become part of its energy. We are merely its conduits. We allow it to do everything. We do not do anything.
Is the Source another name for God?
One of the beauties of my traditional Reiki training was that it was un-dogmatic. It was made very clear to me that one did not have to be religious to do Reiki, but it accepted the possibility that divine influence may be involved. It is a spiritual, and not a religious, tradition. I find value in that. While I know that many equate the Source with God, you must find your own answer on this matter.
I will acknowledge that I enjoy looking for traces of common themes and healing practices, like those mentioned above, across different world religions and cultural traditions. I do believe there are convergences.
How to connect to the Source
Everyone can remember a time in life when he or she was totally at peace, happy, and whole. Remember this time. Recall memories of how expansive and masterful you felt. Remember the feeling of pure love. Evoke the joy.
1) Your energy changes as you recall this time, opening you up. Allow it.
2) Envision all the loving, good, healing and calming energy in the universe flowing through you. In your mind’s eye, see it coming through the top of your head, and down over your neck and shoulders, and washing over your whole body, to the toes.
3) Notice what it feels like. This is very important — envision the Source embracing you and flowing through you.
4) Once you feel this — and you notice the warmth and resonance — allow it to flow through the top of the head, over your shoulders, down your arms and out of your palms and fingertips.
It really is that simple.
If you stopped reading right here, you would know how to connect to the Source and let it flow. It is, purely, the love frequency in the universe.
This is the most valuable thing I have to tell you. The rest is about how to use it, but it is not as important. Many of the things I will write are things you may already know. But you may want to look at it, just to make sure that your own ancient, intuitive knowledge is in harmony.
The self-healing tradition
Now you are channeling the energy. You can summon it many ways, perhaps by thinking or saying to yourself words such as Source, Reiki, Spirit, Energy, or saying a prayer. Wait for it, and the tingle will come.
Now you may use it on yourself, to wash away trapped negative energy you have accumulated, and be bathed in the energy from the Source. This allows the matter-energy to resonate with the Source, and is traditionally thought to enable or hasten profound healing, relaxation, and creativity.
The tradition states that hands are to be held flat, with all fingers together and thumbs gently to the side. These hands do not grab. They are conduits for the Source, which is doing the work. The energy is doing the work. It easily traverses layers of clothing, because they do not matter. Nothing matters, because time and space do not exist.
1. Place the hands over the eyes, with fingers on the forehead. Allow them to remain there for about three minutes. You should feel the energy start to slowly tingle in your hands and warm your and third-eye region. Think of it like slowly turning on and off a spigot. Three to five minutes is a common length of time per position — it may take longer or shorter. The energy will start, flow, “go where it needs to go” and then slowly stop. Then move on to the next step.
2. Put hands on the sides of the face, resonating with emotional centers. Repeat the process in the first step.
3. Place the hands over the back of the head, bringing your spiritual center to resonance. Repeat the first step process.
4. Place hands over your neck, or slightly above your neck, chin, and top of chest. Allow them to rest however is comfortable for you. This allows the energy to clarify your unique voice. Repeat the process in the first step.
5. Place two hands in different locations on the abdomen in the solar plexus region. This is a major center for anxiety. Some people like to put one hand on their abdomens, and another on their foreheads. Others position their hands on their lower backs. It is up to you. Bring these areas to resonance, as above.
6. Some people sit up to do their knees, a symbol of one’s ability to move forward. I find value in this, especially because so many people have joint problems. Bring these areas to resonance if you desire.
7. Some people, particularly athletes, find value in also treating their feet. Again, it is up to you. You may also apply the energy anywhere else you wish. Bring the area to resonance, and allow yourself to rest before continuing your activities. Do this as often as you wish, inconspicuously, anywhere you desire.
What does it do?