Further commentary and insight into reiki:

Further commentary and insight into reiki:


There are some issues about reiki I feel I must address, so that the students we as reiki masters send out will know how to answer people. I was having a conversation on the internet one day with a man who I am guessing was a very misguided seminary student. We were discussing reiki. This man was very uneducated about what reiki is and what it is not. Though he claimed to be a reiki practitioner, he went so far as to say that in the united kingdom where he was located he has distanced himself from the reiki community there. Why? Because he felt they were the misguided ones. How did he come by what I call his mis-education about reiki? Well for several years he was apart of martial arts school. These people instructed him about the word reiki. To many people in the orient especially in the martial arts communities the word reiki is no different than saying the word chi or ki. To them it just means energy. the energy of the universe. In fact in the orient the word reiki is widely used for a variety of healing modalities as well as general use as the word energy. that is why we who practice reiki in the west always reference usui reiki ryoho. This is reiki as taught by usui and his school. This martial artist became very agitated when I said that reiki was a spiritual energy. “NO” he said “it’s cosmological, it is natural, it’s effect is in the corporeal realm”. Well I explained to him that it most definitely is natural, cosmological, and it is also spiritual. The physical is manifested and sustained by the spiritual. Everything to me is spiritual. Nothing exists that did not and does not and will not stem from a spiritual source. People always throw the word supernatural at me. They seem to think that supernatural means something that is un natural. Well this is not what the word means. Super natural means just what it says; super natural, that is another way of saying supremely natural. It also means the same thing as the word metaphysical, which means beyond the physical. The word reiki is translated to mean “universal life force energy”. when usui used the rei in reiki which translates to mean universal life force he meant a good deal more than the simple word he used. Rei implies not only the energy that all existence is made out of. Rei in this context implies also the source of all life, all living energy in the manifested universe. Usui was speaking about the divine or God. He was saying that the very energy of existence is filled and animated by the life force of the divine. God breaths life, the breath of life into all things and animates them with it. Usui was teaching us that the very energy of the divine used to animate all things was made readily available to us as a tool and a gift from God to help us as we make our way through this life. The martial artist was also very upset when I said that you can’t cause harm with reiki, it will not manifest anything negative, and it is no harm no foul. “Yes you can cause harm with reiki” he said “martial arts training is just that” “part of the training” he went on to say “is to concentrate ones own ki whilst deflecting and suppressing your opponents. Where the ki goes the blade follows”. This poor man does not know which way is up when it comes to the reiki taught by usui and others before him in history. He solved his own dilemma in his own words. Part of martial arts training is to concentrate and focus ones own ki. Ones own ki is right. You can use regular ki to cause a lot of damage. Ones own energy can be harnessed to cause someone, something, or ones own self a lot of damage indeed. Don’t people spend their entire lives doing just that; misusing their energy. But when we say the rei in reiki as teachers of the usui tradition we are not speaking of using ones own energy. in fact that is just what we tell our students not to do. We tell them to draw on the divine energy of God which is spiritual energy, as well as drawing on the energy of this planet which is powered by the sun star in order to help people heal. We should never presume to use our own energy to do this for several reasons. One is that it would deplete us and drain us, thereby leaving as vulnerable as the shamans of old who didn’t know how to ground themselves properly to take on the illnesses that plague our clients. Eventually taking on other peoples sicknesses would kill us as it did the shamans of ancient times. Secondly we physicians need to heal ourselves and take the beam out of our own eye. Our energy is not a high enough frequency to accomplish all that needs to be accomplished during a healing. That is why we use God’s own ki to work with and not ours. We always instruct our students that we are not the source of the reiki, nor do we ultimately control it, we are simply vessels and wielders of the reiki. And to be a reiki master does not mean that you master reiki but rather that reiki masters you! Ki and reiki are very different things altogether. The martial artist whose name was Thomas went onto to other issues he had with me, although he did not know me or the amount of training I did or didn’t have. He said that fools rush in, and that anyone could be a “reiki master” now in the space of a weekend. There are many false reiki teachers in the world. People like diane stein who try and do mass attunements, who try and do distant attunements, and there are places on the internet now that claim they will make you a “reiki master” through these ridiculous methods within twenty four hours or a weekend. These things do not work. These methods do not attune someone to reiki. You can not become a reiki master overnight. It takes hard work, and discipline, as well as true spiritual growth to achieve true mastership as usui taught it. I assured the doubting Thomas that I had actual training that lasted for a good long while, and that even after I had my masters certificate it was a long while after that I waited till I took on students and started teaching. Let me say this again in as plain a language as I can. If you did a weekend class that ended with a mass “attunement”, if you did a twenty four hour class that ended with a distance “attunement” than you are not a real reiki master or practitioner, according to the usui tradition. You have missing frequencies that can only be passed on through the actual touch, of laying on of hands; by a true master who is acting as a channel for the divine energy to come and do its work.
There are also people who are charging anywhere between six hundred and ten thousand dollars per level. These people are also charlatans and frauds. They do not understand reiki or they would not be doing that. Reiki isn’t about money even though we do believe in charging for our time and our work. So I personally feel anyone charging over five hundred dollars per level is a false teacher and you should stay far away from them. Thomas was also very dismayed at the fact that I spoke of reiki as being a living conscious energy. he shuttered and used the “O” word. That is occult philosophy he said, and now we were treading in deep dangerous waters. Oooooooooouuuu……now I am fearful and trembling in my shoes was my response. Every time someone starts to try and fill you with fear tell them that there is no room for fear and evil in your life because you are filled with the love of God, you are filled with his Holy Spirit, and you are devoted to the lord. God is perfect and God is love, and the bible says perfect Love casts out all fear. So if you are afraid of God then you don’t really know him or love. He is not out to deceive you or do you harm. This is a ridiculous notion. Either you fear God or love God. You can’t have it both ways. He was upset because I said I don’t always know what I am doing but the reiki knows. Reiki is the presence of God. It does know best. It is an intelligent force that emanates from the creator of the universe who is the source of all love and compassion and true power. It is not simply an energy. it is more than this. Are you simply an energy? no you are also more than this. So if you yourself are more than mere energy, and you are channeling the energy of God into a person to try and help them find healing, than that energy has to know the full depths, and heights, the ins and out’s of a persons entire five fold soul being. You alone are not wise enough to know the heart of a person in its vast full richness. Only God can know this. Therefore the energy of God that comes to facilitate a healing must know this or else we could not and would not get results, it wouldn’t work, the energy could not do it’s job and accomplish true healing any other way. Reiki must be a living presence that knows what it is doing. Either you understand this or not. Either you know that it is God who is the source of all healing and life force or you don’t. If you do not know this then you have no business laying your hands on people to heal them. To God be the glory, we are mere vessels, and proud to be so. Thomas also said that acupuncturists and reflexologists don’t claim spiritual intervention. Well he has not known the ones that I have been privileged to know, because they did just that. According to the people that I have met who practiced these types of modalities, they understood that the divine spiritual energy had as much to do with the guidance, practice, and success of their work as their techniques or their own minds did. Thomas said to me that becoming a reiki master did not require any sacrifice or character building. Well I will say that he was and is absolutely wrong on that issue. I have been a reiki master for almost a decade and I can tell you that it is without a doubt entirely about character building. God has shaped me, sometimes painfully to mold me into who and what I am. My refining is not done and never will be. That is what life is all about here in this earth school. Thomas told me that any liar, and fraud can be a reiki master. Well I know many false teachers who went and got the title in a weekend and teach entirely from a misguided standpoint. They are not reiki masters even though they think they are. It is no different in church, just as Christ himself warned us. There will be many false priests and teachers of the law, many who come in my name and do not know me. Christ acknowledged that those people are not real priests or teachers, so my attitude can not hold any different truth on this issue. Thomas wanted to know if reiki was a presence than who was it. I can tell you with no hesitation that when I do reiki or have it done on me there is only one presence that I feel moving through me and that is the presence of Christ God Emanuel as the Holy Spirit. He went on to describe the “psychic link” or bond as he called it that is forged during an attunement between the teacher and the student. Well no, he is mistaken. There is an energy cord formed called an aka cord. This cord of energy is the same cord formed no matter what person you come into contact with. Some are big, and some are small, some are temporary, and others last for many years. When this cord is formed it is an energetic connection not a psychic one and in the reiki tradition this energetic link has been called “en” pronounced eeen. The only psychic link formed during a reiki attunement is between the student and God’s reiki. Though the cord may be thinned it is not typically cut until training is completely over and one of the parties usually the teacher cuts it on purpose. Thomas went on to say that he respected reiki because you can cure or kill with it. I adamantly oppose this notion, it is wrong and I will fight against whenever I hear it. You can not kill or harm with reiki, only with ki. And as stated before there is a huge difference between the two. Again I will also restate that reiki is both natural and spiritual since I make no distinction between the two. The more spiritual something is, the more apart of God it is, the more natural it is. Because God is the most natural thing. He further explained that I and others like me in happy ignorance invented and lived in whole realms of pure reiki fantasy. Well I am a realist and a pragmatist. Anyone who really knows me will testify that while I absolutely love fantasy, I do not live in one. Some people might say I lead a charmed life, those that really know me, understand this is not the case and could not be farther from the truth. My life may be many things but fanciful and easy it is not. Though I have no real complaints at this point, I feel I am very blessed indeed. As I explained to Thomas there are many things that I am working on changing about myself and the life I live, but despite those things I am blessed. Thomas reported to me that “reiki guides” were an epidemic in his locale, and he said people were urgently being told to find theirs. The way he spoke he was not talking about the reiki guides at all but rather about spirit guides. He philosophized for me that this was a kind of psychic or spiritual Russian roulette. People are just assuming he said that all spirits are good, helpful, and safe. Well I personally test all the spirits I speak to and work with to see if they are from God. Christ has given us a way to do this in scripture. He said people were being led to enter into “contracts” as he called them with unsavory spirit beings. He also added that such beings demanded a boon, and fed off of peoples energy. While I think he is right to a large extent about this issue, I disagree with taking a position of fear. I will give fear and evil no room in my life. Any seasoned individual who has had contact with spirits knows what should and should not happen. For us who are Christians we simply have to ask if yashua now called Jesus Christ came in the flesh. If the spirit says yes than it is of God. In the first great war in heaven only one third fell, which means there are two thirds or twice as many beings that are of God than are not of him. We Christians have also been instructed to put on the full armor of God. So for me at least it is quite easy to ascertain whether or not a spiritual being is of God. Also a spirit sent by God would never ask for worship or a payment, a compensation, or even a thank you. They would never try to make you feel afraid or ashamed. They would tell you to fear not, and to thank and honor God. The spirits who are of God give him all the glory. According to the theories that Thomas proposed teachers who have spirits misguiding them go out and corrupt their students. While this may in some cases be true, to make it into a blanket statement is an unfair underestimation of both reiki students and God himself. All of my students are taught to test the spirits and check them out to see if they are really here to help or hurt us. He went on to say that power can be used for good or ill. Well I say that power that is used for ill is no power at all but rather it is the height of insecurity. I have had many interesting interactions with fear based people, and many reactions from them. Once I had many so-called Christian friends, and they all stopped talking to me in one failed swoop. While on the phone with the leader of our pack you might say she began to tell me about the church service that she had attended that day and how the preacher was warning people of the evil new witchcraft leading people in the church astray. She went on to say that this new evil was called reiki. I laughed and asked her if she knew that I practiced and taught reiki and had done so for years. “oh no” she cried out in horror. “how can you do such a wicked thing”? I told her that she and the preacher who told her about reiki were both very wrong indeed! I told what reiki was and was not. She asked me if I told my students that they have to be saved Christians to do a healing. I said “no of course I don’t tell them such a ridiculous notion”! she sounded concerned and irritated. I could tell in her mind I was already burning in the fires of hell. I asked her if every time she went to the doctors office she asked the doctors religious persuasion? “no of course not” she said “why would I do that”? exactly I said! God is not limited by the hearts of men. If he wants a healing to take place he will use whatever vessel is around, whether that vessel is willing or unwilling, broken or whole, whether it acknowledges him or not! God uses atheistic doctors all the time to work healing miracles on people. He will even do a healing when no vessel is around if a healing needs to be done. And with that one conversation I lost all the Christian friends that I had for so many years. I decided that I didn’t really care. It hurt for a while but the trade off was well worth it because I know that I am doing the work that God himself wants me to do. I also had an older married couple come one time. I trained them in level one and they left never to contact me or return again. They would not even take my calls. Later I found out that after I taught them reiki they went around telling people that I did evil things to them called attunements and they had to get exercised afterwards so they could feel clean again. I think they had many very deep spiritual problems long before they ever laid eyes on the sight of me. I prayed for them and their misguided placement of blame for their spiritual turbulence. I prayed that they would find their way back to God, his truth, and his reiki. Then once in massage school there was a girl who went around telling people that she didn’t like my energy. She said a lot of nasty things about me. After finding out who was spreading these awful lies about me I instantly knew why she hated me. She hated me because I was a proud Christian man. She hated Christianity and everything to do with it. But if I were to gather up all the bad experiences that I have had since learning reiki, they could never even begin to compare with the number of all the good experiences that I have had. God used reiki to help transform my life into something I never dreamed that it could be. He used my reiki master Laura to teach me how to see life in such a very different and expanded way; full of richness I never knew before. God has brought me colleagues, friends, and students to share in this wonderful gift of life and love with. His reiki changed me, changed my life forever and I will always be grateful to him for that.
I can only conclude by pointing out the differences in Thomas’s fear based mindset and mine. I am making my way through this life and I know God and his reiki are here on my path helping me. I feel protected, safe, and loved. I know that God and his reiki are here evolving me. I am not afraid and you should never be either. Fear not! Just love God and devote yourself to him and that will make all the difference. I promise you it will transform your life into a sacred treasure and gift that you never knew it could be!

In the year of our lord 2009
Rev. Loush M. O’Raven