Greek gymnasiums become important centers where philosophers and athletes exercise and engage in philosophical discussions. The gymnasium was a place where the sick were healed, the young were educated, and the soldiers were trained. Aesculapius becomes worshiped as the Greek god of medicine. The winged staff with serpents remains the symbol of medicine.

Arab / Persian. Razi (860-932 A.D.) authored several books inspired by the work of Galen and Hippocrates. An encyclopedia of Greek, Roman, and Arabic medical practices prescribing proper diet, exercise, and massage as a means to treat disease and maintain health is his most important body of work.

Song dynasty (960-1280 AD.). The book Talks on Medicine (Yi Shuo) by Dr. Gao Zhang, describes feet as a tool of massage used to help broken bones mend, increase Qi and improve the circulation of blood. Dr. An-Shi Pang teaches the use of massage to ease the pains of childbirth. Volume IV of The Total Record of Economics (Jing Ji Zong Lun) teaches that”(For some sicknesses) you can use An, (for others) use Mo, sometimes use both, all called An Mo. When An (press), do not Mo (rub), (when) Mo (rub), do not An (press). Press with hands, when rubbing, use herbs sometimes. These are An and Mo. Fit (them) to the right purpose.”

Tang Tian Bao (742-756 A.D.) massage techniques were exported into Japan.” They were the ancestors of today’s Japanese massage.

I’ve recently received my Reiki Master attunement and have begun to exchange distance attunements with others. Sometimes I exchange Reiki Master attunements with other Reiki Masters, while other times I exchange distance treatments with Reiki Practitioners. I am also active in several Reiki online forums, Facebook and in Google+, and I read that distance Reiki attunements are at best not effective, and at worst, dangerous. Are distance Reiki attunements dangerous, effective, or both?

Answer:

There are many different perspectives from which this can be explored. Those different perspectives result in the variety of responses you may find elsewhere on the web, and among Reiki practitioners you know. One perspective simplifies attunements to a basic final result, and that is by stripping away the ceremony and special flavorings and fluff that make Reiki Attunements Reiki Attunements, then at the most basic level Reiki attunements can be perceived as something that helps all parties involved gain a new awareness.

New Awareness implies many things, but mainly it implies the process of becoming more consciously aware of energies that may or may not be or have been present in the observer’s life. The observer includes all persons involved in the attunement be they the provider, the recipient, any who may be present in a group during the attunements, and any and all participating by distance.
I have heard and read many testimonies that distance Reiki attunements "don’t work" or "caused problems", but that doesn’t mean that "all" distance attunements are bad or require additional precautions to be taken prior to participating in them.
Although I do not entirely agree with the position of other practitioners who are against distance Reiki attunements, I feel that their perspective has merit. Experiencing attunements in person gives both parties, the attuner and the attunnee a stable point of reference with respect to the energies being perceived (if any). In my opinion, it is far easier to gain a confident conscious understanding towards specifically identifying a frequency when the attunement is experienced in person compared to a distant attunement (especially when a live Video chat is not occurring).

Reiki Attunements help to awaken consciousness. Each person participating in the attunement process becomes slightly more consciously aware of greater realities during and after the process. Like attunements that occur in-person, distance attunements expand the awareness of the individuals participating–and because less tools to focus the conscious mind are present in the recipient, their awareness expands and senses a lot of additional energies are sensed.

Many of us in our life are prone to remember bad experiences from our past more easily than the good experiences, and that trait is oftentimes parallels what a person becomes aware of during distance attunements. I have received several e-mails where people have complained about the negative energies they "received" from the distance attuning Reiki Master who then went on to claim that Reiki Master was negative and should be avoided. It’s unlikely a distance attuning Reiki Master sets out with the intent to harm another person they are attuning, but it is very likely the person they are attuning begins to awaken to, to become more aware of, energies that are present in their life and even the energies in the lives of those around them.

Those new energies sensed can be good or bad, but as our tendency is to remember the bad experiences in our life easier than the good, it’s not uncommon for the attunee to focus their attention onto the negative energies more than the good.

Kiyoshi

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Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.). An Mo grew in popularity. “Masters of An Mo” were recorded in the Record of Official Positions (Tang Shu Zhi Guan Zhi). Subsequent editions describe a medical division with one Doctor and four Masters of An Mo. Tang’s Six Records (Tang Liu Dian) tells us that the Imperial Hospital employed fifty-six An Mo technicians and fifteen An Mo students.

Dr. Tao Wang in his book The Extra Important Secret (Wai Tai Mi Yao) teaches the use of massage to cure stomach aches by saying: “Rub both hands to make them warm, use them to massage the stomach; [thus leading] Qi downward.” Dr. Si-Miao Sun in his book Thousand Gold Prescriptions (Qian Jin Fang) introduces Lao Zi’s 49 Massage Techniques. Dr. Dao-Ren Lin’s book, The Secret Prescriptions for Connecting Broken Bones (Xian Shou Li Shang Xu Duan Mi Fang) discusses theory and presents methods for the treatment of injuries.”

I see many people advertising their Reiki services as a Reiki Master. How do I become a Reiki Master?

Answer:

When it comes right down to it, there are no formal educational requirements to become a Reiki Master. No High School Diploma or College is required, but rather simply the ability to complete the required protocol of the school or individual issuing the designation.

The Reiki Learning Lounge has interviewed many prominent Reiki Teachers. Those interviews may be found here.

Kiyoshi

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Copyright © Kiyoshi Takahashi

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I recently went through the Reiki Attunements and was not cured. Why didn’t my Reiki Teacher or Reiki Attunements cure me?

Answer:

The simple answer is that Reiki in and of itself does not cure, it only may help a person heal themselves. Healing is something that may occur on many different levels of being that includes body, mind, and spirit.

Ultimately, you are the only person who can heal you. Licensed physicians may be able to help cure you of a disease that involves a specific anatomical part of your body, but healing is holistic and involves everything in your life. That includes your body, your personality, your potential to think, your philosophical and spiritual values, your living environment, your social environment, and many more things that have contributed to your life experience that have helped make you into the person who you are today.

Reiki is something to be awakened from within you, not given to you by someone else. The ultimate role of your Reiki teacher or teachers is to help you realize who you are, not to keep you in a place beneath their status.

Becoming more self-aware may help lessen many discomforts in your life, allowing you to heal through past experiences. Although past events in and of themselves may never be changed, your experience of those events—the energy of those events—may be changed. If those experiences were negative, then you have the potential to change the energy of those experiences into something positive and useful in your life. No Reiki teacher can give you that power, but a Reiki teacher may help you realize the power within you to create such changes and in so doing, heal yourself.

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Some Reiki schools such as the Holistics Academy (http://www.holisticsacademy.com) have an astronomical cost for training. Is it worth it?

Answer:

I’m not professionally or personally (such as through friendship or forum correspondence) associated with or connected to the owner of that website in any way, but strongly support the direction its creator is taking Reiki, including the cost.

Over the years, especially since Instant Distance Reiki Master Teacher attunements became available through free online forms requiring only one’s e-mail address, people who are outside of the Reiki community have grown to discriminate against those within it.

That discrimination is not because some Reiki person is giving away a Reiki attunement and/or certificate, or even because another Reiki person is charging for Reiki attunements and/or treatments over the internet, but because of the way many Reiki practitioners treat others because of their “Master” certification. The discrimination is present because Reiki practitioners have earned it.

One time when I was volunteering through hospice at a clients home, the family had brought in a friend who talked about Reiki just like Born Again Christians talk about their religion. The discussion continued (led by the Reiki person) who, quite humbly in the conversation, admitted they were a Reiki Master. I believe the polite “ohhhh!, is that so” comments by the family were received as pleasant flattery by the Reiki person, but to me their faces and eye motions said something expressing more concern than anything else. During the conversation, the Reiki person eventually educated the client with the life threatening illness and her family that they wanted this to happen.

While that concept may be true in the circles that believe in the Law of Attraction, I know through common sense that all of the agencies that I have ever volunteered through would find telling the family that they want their loved one to suffer this slow, painful dying process is completely inappropriate.

The family, along with the hospice patient, were stunned with absolute disbelief at what they heard from this Reiki person, and it was no surprise to me when they immediately invited this Reiki Master out of the room.

The family was polite while that person remained in their home, but my God, once that Reiki person was out of the house they opened up and were furious, and sickened by the statements.

My role as the volunteer was to simply listen, and I learned a lot about the way Reiki practitioners were becoming perceived by others.

Now, why would this Reiki Master say something like that? In the new age Law of Attraction communities, which may sometimes include forums like this, it’s easy to say something like that without experiencing the actual repercussions of those words.

Using this forum here as an immediate example simply because we are here reading it, how many of the contributions from new and experienced practitioners can be considered something that can be found in many of the Reiki books on the market today? In contrast to that question, how many of the contributions here make the attempt to provide a creative contribution, that although may ultimately say much of the same that is present in many Reiki books (and any other popular book about spirituality or religion), appears to be original or at least attempts to be original?

In response to the first question, to me the answer is most. In response to the second question, not nearly enough.

Another example I wish to make is with many, not all, but many of the Reiki books today, in my opinion, can be summarized like this: “I’m special because I’m a Reiki Master… blah, blah, blah, These are the Reiki Precepts given to us by DOCTOR Mikao Usui blah blah blah and it’s Reiki and I’m a Master and that’s why I’m special.”

From my perspective, in spite of the high degree of Reiki Master many Reiki practitioners profess, their actions demonstrate a very limited amount of original creativity.

I do not believe or feel that those negatives, the lack of original, creative contributions in Reiki forums, or the embarrassing lack of original creative Reiki thought expressed through books is a direct fault of the practitioner, but rather the training (well, specifically, the lack thereof of the training).

The website offering the two year program appears to offer a bit more than a few “secret” Reiki manual pages and hocus-pocus-booga-booga instant Reiki Master Attunement certifications to appeal to those with low self esteem. To me, based on what I read, it offers a program that not only provides information (presumably spiritual information about Reiki), but it provides ongoing support over a two year period of time, support that includes up to a 90 minute phone call with the Reiki Tutor each month. They also require their student base to attend retreats, which creates a sense of community.

Why is that important?

The Instant Reiki Attunements and no-responsibility to the Reiki student once they are a Reiki Master has created an undesirable reputation for Reiki practitioners, because the attunements alone did not give the receiver any new social skills.

Regular, ongoing live conversations between student and teacher, in my opinion, are essential to helping a person change into someone new.

Now, for some, reading a Reiki book and either receiving the instant Reiki Master Teacher attunement certificate, or performing a solitaire self Reiki Master attunement is enough to allow them to preach Reiki to others, but whether or not those they preach it to are honest with them about such views in their presence is another matter altogether.

To me, that website seeks to create, grow, and nurture a solid community of people who sincerely want to help others using Reiki.

Cost is another matter.

Throughout the 80′s, if you wanted to be a Reiki Master, the ATTUNEMENT cost $10,000, and there were quite a few who wanted to keep it just that way. Big cost, no support, and that eventually led to lower prices and ultimately instant internet Reiki Master Teacher attunement certificates.

In modern times, many Reiki attunements today happen during single day or weekend workshops, and the support after those workshops isn’t always enough for those who need it.

I believe that one of the reasons the support doesn’t seem to be there is because a lot of people have to work for a living, which includes putting food on the table and paying rent. Is it right for a Reiki teacher that, just because they provide a Reiki attunement to someone, is obligated to be present 24/7 for that student?

One of my Reiki students the day after the attunement began to send me text messages the next day. One hour that day I received eight text messages, there was a pause of about thirty minutes, followed by six text messages during the next hour, a pause of two hours, followed by eight text messages during the hour, a pause of 45 minutes, followed by six text messages in the hour, and then a pause until 11:30 p.m. my time when I received the final text of the day which said “Good night!”

I’m not only among those who work to eat, pay rent, and what have you, but my mobile phone is also a business tool… and I simply could not productively work with that quantity of personal text messages coming through throughout the day.

The fee this training course prescribes combined with the terms not only defines boundaries between tutor and student, but it also serves to attract those financially well-balanced enough to be able to afford it. I suppose that the least politically correct way to say that is that it will help lessen the amount of crazies in the community… but rephrasing that, the cost helps attract those that are right for that community.

I don’t feel that that website and its resources are a rip-off at all, quite the opposite in fact. I think it begins to offer the general Reiki community a lot organized structure and much needed community support, all of which will help all involved heal.

I respect what they are doing, and wish them the best of success as a business, and in the way of providing Reiki healing to others.

Copyright © Kiyoshi Takahashi

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The Chinese Book of Han (111 A.D.) mentions in its chapter on Blood, Qi, Shape and Spirit that when the mind and body become shocked, Qi does not flow efficiently through its channels, resulting in sickness. The cure it prescribes is An Mo (massage) with herbs.”