As I’ve been explaining to clients, there are a lot of different kinds of reiki out there. Students of Mikao Usui, the founder of the Reiki system, added their own variations of reiki to their teaching, and then from there, with many generations of new students, some reiki practitioners went on to found their own methods and styles of reiki.
Still other practitioners combine what they’ve learned about reiki with other practices or skills: from massage to crystal healing and often clairvoyance and psychic advice. Reiki, particularly in the United States, became associated with New Age practices (and subsequently made fun of in popular media: there were jokes about reiki in Magic Mike 2!). People often combine reiki with reference to the Indian belief in chakras, the seven centres of spiritual power in the human body.
My teacher, Frans Stiene, and the International House of Reiki, aim at focusing on reiki as it was practised and taught by the founder, Usui, to get back to its purest form.
And I’ve followed Frans’s lead…
Lately, different clients have told me about other reiki treatments they’ve had. During one, a client had to remove his shirt, and had crystals laid on him. During another treatment, the reiki practitioner talked during the whole treatment. What I hear often is reiki practitioners who give messages (psychic or spiritual) or diagnoses (saying what part of the body they think is blocked, or if there are imbalances).
So, I thought it might be useful to say: I don’t do that.
- When you come to the session, you remain fully clothed (except for your shoes) and if it’s cold, or you feel more comfortable, I can cover you with a blanket.
- If you really have the need to speak during the treatment, then that’s fine (though I think I’ve only had one client talk a bit during a treatment out of nearly 400 treatments), but I will remain quiet once the treatment starts. I think it’s important to not get in the way of the treatment with chatter or noise.
- The biggest thing is that I don’t do diagnoses, or give messages. What’s important is not what I feel, but what you feel, during the treatment and in the days afterwards. I actually think it can be harmful if a practitioner tells someone that they have a blockage in their heart chakra, or they are imbalanced. How do they really know that, and what does it all mean? Reiki shouldn’t be about practitioners projecting our ideas, assumptions and beliefs onto a client; it is about you taking from the treatment what you need at the time, and then observing how that plays out afterwards.
And a final P.S.: if a person says they are doing reiki and asks you to remove articles of clothing (except for your shoes)… don’t do it. You might consider questioning them… or reporting them.