Monday, September 8, 2014

The Amazing Amount of Diversity in Just About Everything in all the Western Reiki Traditions

 I founded a Reiki Facebook Group called "Reiki For and Me" and also it's sister page, "Reiki For You and Me Distant Healing Group" several years ago.  I did this because I was a member of a Yahoo Reiki group for awhile and experienced a lot of back biting/stabbing and squabbling going on that really turned me off, but I was also keenly aware of the need for such a forum.   I've noticed over the years there is an amazing amount of diversity in how each of us has been instructed to do just about everything involving Reiki in the West.  How we were taught to connect with the energy (turn it on or access it), which symbols we use, (some more, some less), which hand positions to use, which closing techniques to do, which invocations, and so on, and so on.

So why is this?  Why aren't we all doing the same thing and being taught the same thing?  We should all know as Reiki practitioners, that Mrs. Hawayo Takata (who I call the Mother of Reiki) attuned 22 people to the Reiki Master Teacher level, and that these 22 Master Teachers went their merry way after her death and made many changes to the system, depending upon their particular interests at the time.   So we already see, that just shortly after Mrs. Takata left the physical world, Reiki was already being changed and morphed.  Some call this the  "Chinese Whispers" affect. Wikipedia's definition of Chinese Whispers:  is a game played all over the world, in which one person whispers a message to another which is passed through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group.  Errors typically accumulate in the retelling, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly and often amusingly, from the one uttered by the first person.

That, in my mind, pretty much explains it.  We also know that Dr. Hayashi also tweaked Usui's original system to fit his own needs as a Western Medical Doctor and Officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy.  But the good news is that in Japan, the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai (the memorial Reiki society set up by Usui possible before he passed or Hayashi after Usui passed (depending on where you get your information), still practices Reiki just like Usui Sensei did. Well I guess it's good news if you are Japanese.
 



 

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