All posts by taggart@reiki-evolution.co.uk

You can feel yourself getting sleepy…

meditation, mp3s, , , , , , , ,

developing reiki intuition course tina shaw…or how the use of hypnotic techniques and trance states with Reiki can do quite amazing things for people.

Through experimentation – and I would like to thank the hundred or so Reiki people who volunteered to be my guinea pigs when I trialled my first three “Reiki Hypno meditations” – I discovered that using a combination of a Reiki-style meditation with gentle suggestion patterns had a tremendous effect on people in just a few weeks of listening to a 10 minute audio track most days.

As well as being a Reiki teacher I am also a qualified Cognitive Hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner. I trained at Regent’s College in London with the internationally respected Quest Institute and a lot of the course involved perfecting the art of making hypnotic suggestions, a series of elegant and subtle suggestion patterns that can help guide people’s subconscious minds so that a person lets go of whatever is holding them back in their life, and enhances their potential.

To begin with I focused on what I think are quite common challenges for people starting out with Reiki:

  • Calming your mind so that you can be in more of a mindful state
  • Developing your intuitive side
  • Enhancing your sensitivity to the energy

This is what some of my students said after listening to the Reiki Hypno meditations for a few weeks…

“The constant activity in my mind feels to have calmed down. I still have random thoughts, but I now have the ability to let them pass, without grabbing hold of them and picking the bones clean.”
Anne MacKenzie
“Certainly, without any question, the MP3 has been a huge benefit to me. I have often wanted to learn meditation but never found the medium or created the opportunity. Your track has changed things to such an extent I would like to learn more and develop my meditation skills.”
Jim Furze
“I just seem to be able to get on with life without so much worry. I don’t think i realised how very different i have been feeling and how much calmer not just i am but my family and my life is until i sat down to write this.”
Jo Cole
“I have often felt no sensitivity to the energy but found that this changed quickly once i started listening to the MP3. I have become much more aware of heat and energy in my hands when using the MP3 and giving treatments. I have been very pleased with the results.”
Pauline
“In all I’m delighted with the results. The trial has helped me more than I believed imaginable. My confidence has grown immensely and I’m raring to take my second degree and start working as a practitioner.”
Wanda
“My Reiki sessions have definitely altered for the better. I do tend to be more flexible in my approach… I am being ‘drawn’ to lay my hands on areas that I might not have been before…..and it is certainly a whole lot easier and less structured than before. I have ‘let go’ of all my former expectations of how the Reiki session ought to proceed…and the results are quite eye opening at times. It is as if I have been ‘attuned’ to Reiki in a new way ….all over again. I can’t quite explain it really!”
Carol Leslie

And this quite astounded me, actually. I was sure that the meditations would work, but I didn’t realise how well they would work and how quickly! I think what’s going on here is that when you meditate using Reiki you enter quite a deep trance state, where your subconscious mind is quite receptive to positive suggestion. Within Reiki, some people already use Nentatsu ho, where you rest your hands on your head and send an affirmation that is intended to be accepted by your subconscious, so what I am doing could be seen a a turbo-charged version of this, using the best of Ericksonian suggestion patterns with the supporting and boosting effect of Reiki energy work.

Since I was so enthused by the feedback I was getting, I decided to put together three tracks that dealt with the Reiki precepts, creating suggestion patterns that focused on:

  • Releasing anger and worry/being ‘in the moment’
  • Embodying humility and honesty
  • Experiencing compassion and forgiveness.

Here are a couple of the responses that I received from people working with these Reiki meditations…

“I have all of Taggart’s hypno meditations and use them on a regular basis. I started with Compassion — a beautiful piece, relatively short, which means it can be fitted in any time. I have also found it a great starting point for work on the other precepts. I often listen to Compassion before I give Reiki or Indian Head Massage to someone. Humility and honesty are fantastic reminders for basic and decent behaviours, with humility constantly urging me to step back a bit, listen more actively, be more thoughtful … But the meditation I use most is Be free from Anger/Worry, and it has paid enormous dividends. In recent weeks, I can’t remember the last time I really felt angry or wanted to express anger. And it’s not that it’s suppressed — it simply doesn’t seem to be there at all. This meditation is a genuinely useful reminder of the futility of worry in many circumstances.”
SS, Cambridgeshire
” I am very pleased with the Reiki precept downloads. I have used them both personally and in group. I think what attracts me the most is their sincere simplicity. It allows one to relax and let the words wash over you. As my own Reiki path develops I am re-energized by new approaches.”
M J Perdue, West Virginia

It’s really fulfilling for me to be able to make a difference to people in this way. And so I moved on to a third collection of MP3s, this time dealing with:

  • Building self-confidence, confidence in your Reiki abilities
  • Establishing a good regular routine of working on yourself
  • Finding your own distinctive way with the energy, finding your own approach

 

Nentatsu Ho #1:

The Fundamentals


Experiencing mindfulness

Developing your intuition

Building energy sensitivity

Price: £19.99

To order by PayPal, use this button Add to Cart

Nentatsu Ho #2:

The Reiki Precepts


Releasing worry and anger

Humility and honesty

Compassion and forgiveness

Price: £19.99

To order by PayPal, use this button Add to Cart

Nentatsu Ho #3:

Spreading your wings

Building your Reiki confidence

Make your Reiki routine more consistent

Finding your own way with the energy

Price: £19.99

To order by PayPal, use this button Add to Cart

 

Try our distant empowerments

attunements, reiju empowerments, , , , ,
distant reiju empowerments, attunements
Distant Reiju empowerments for you to tune into every Monday

Hidden away on an obscure page on our web site (I now realise!) is something that I would like to make a bit more prominent, and that is that I send out a distant Reiju empowerment that any person who has learned Reiki can ‘tune into’. You can tune into the empowerment any time on a Monday, wherever in the world you are (I send out the empowerments in advance with the intention that they can be received the following Monday, whenever that might be local time, you see; intention is the key!). You can tune in more than once on a Monday if you’re feeling so inclined. 🙂

There are definite benefits associated with receiving regular Reiju empowerments, and indeed regular attunements. In fact, for a long time, International Reiki Master Teacher William Rand has recommended that Reiki Masters get together to attune each other, not because the effect of attunements wear off (they don’t) but because being re-attuned gives a lovely ‘kick-start’ to your system, hitting the ‘reset’ button and helping to clear stuff out: rather like a spring clean.

And it’s the same with Reiju: the effects of Reiju don’t wear off, but there are definite benefits associated with receiving this lovely, energising and balancing gift regularly if you can: not essential, but beneficial to receive nevertheless.

What is Reiju?

You could see Reiju as a simple, Japanese version of an attunement, which was used by a group of Usui Sensei’s surviving students to transfer what Usui used to bestow on students using intent. In the original Japanese form of Reiki, empowerments would have been received week in, week out, throughout a student’s life with Reiki, at First Degree, Second Degree and beyond. Some people are making Reiju empowerments available at their Reiki Shares by way of echoing this tradition, but not all students can attend evening get-togethers. Many people within the world of Reiki do not have access to empowerments at all: maybe their Reiki Master has not learned the technique yet, or maybe they have lost contact with their teacher.

Distant attunements or empowerments work incredibly well, and of course there is no difference between an attunement or empowerment given in person or given at a distance; distance is not relevant to the practice of Reiki.

Procedure

Each week I will perform a distant Reiju empowerment, done with the intention that it will be received by any Reiki person who wants to ‘tune themselves in’ to the ‘broadcast’. The empowerment can be received any time on a Monday.

This is what you can do to receive your empowerment:

    If you know about Hatsu Rei Ho, the basic energy exercises of Japanese ‘Gakkai’ Reiki, then go through the sequence as normal. When you have performed Seishin Toitsu for a few minutes, stay with your hands in Gassho and say to yourself ‘I will receive my empowerment from Taggart now’.

    If you are not familiar with Hatsu Rei Ho, simply get yourself comfortable in a chair, with your eyes closed and your hands in the prayer position. Take a few deep breaths to calm yourself, and then say to yourself ‘I will receive my empowerment from Taggart now’.

You may notice a lot happening; you may notice very little. What you notice may continue for less than minute, or you might be experiencing things for 5-10 minutes. It is quite variable… see what happens, and post a comment below to let us know what you noticed!

Reiki Evolution teacher get-together

kotodama, reiju empowerments, reiki energy, reiki gathering, , ,

reiki master teachers from reiki evolution

On June 1st we held our first get-together of Reiki Evolution Reiki Master Teachers, in central London. About half of the team were able to meet and it was a real pleasure to spend time with a group of such lovely, talented, positive, creative RMTs. I feel really honoured to have these people as part of my team. The room fairly crackled with energy as we did a Reiki circle, chanted the kotodama and gave each other empowerments, and it was great to chat, share ideas and experiences, to get to know each other and to plan how we are going to move Reiki Evolution forward together.

We talked about blogging and creating podcasts, shared ideas for courses and explained the ways that we made our own courses distinctive. We laughed, we chatted, and we really came together as a group, which was excellent. We all learned from each other and it was great to be amongst people who were so open and accepting.

The most amazing experienced was when we chanted the kotodama together (Reiki mantras that pre-date the use of symbols within Reiki and which were taught by Usui Sensei to most of his students). I didn’t realise how many strong voices there would be, and there were such harmonies! It was gorgeous to take part in and listen to, and we would have carried on forever I think, though eventually people would have fallen off their chairs from the hyperventilation! Sitting, basking in the energies we had elicited, I certainly just wanted to stay there undisturbed with a silly grin on my face. What an experience! So powerful.

We finished the day giving empowerments to each other and it was a very special time, supporting and empowering each other as a team. The room was sizzling with energy! Everyone decided that they wanted to meet again, and not in a year’s time, so looks like we shall be getting together later in the year.

A Reiki Chakra meditation for you

reiki chakra meditation

All a bit New Age?

Working with the chakras has ended up being taught quite commonly on Reiki courses, mainly because Reiki spent a long time travelling with the New Age movement and picked up various New Age ideas like working with chakras, and Angels, and Spirit guides and the like.

There’s nothing wrong with working with these ideas or principles, of course.

But they’re not anything to do with Reiki, so these things wouldn’t have been part of the original system that Mikao Usui taught, or even the system that Dr Hayashi passed on to Mrs Takata, or even what Mrs Takata taught.

They’re not really anything to do with Reiki but they end up being bundled with it.

And for that reason, we don’t really focus on chakras at Reiki Evolution: we focus on the Tanden (Dantien in Chinese), an energy centre in the abdomen, the centre of your personal Universe, the place where your creativity and intuition reside.

But let’s do something with chakras anyway!

In any case, lots of Reiki people do chakra meditations and like chakra meditations so I thought I would be fun to put together a guided meditation for you, but with a bit of a “Reiki Evolution twist” to it.

You can find it below and I hope you like it.

Listen to my Chakra meditation

Get yourself comfortable, click ‘play’ and close your eyes. I’ll do the rest!

Over to you

Once you’ve listened to my Reiki chakra meditation, please post your feedback below to let me know how you got on, and what you experienced.

It will be great to hear what you thought of it.

I have loads of Reiki meditations for you

reiki audio cdsIf you liked that meditation, I am sure that you will love some of the other meditations that I have for you.

If you head over to this page, for example, you will find another free meditation called the “Releasing exercise“.

Try that.

And if you’d like to dive in a bit further, how about these Reiki meditations?

  • Distant healing meditations
  • Self treatment meditations
  • The “Reiki inner smile” meditation

 

 

Picture credit: Adamo Corazza

Workshops for National Gathering 2011

reiki gathering, , ,
reiki share, reiki gathering, reiki festival
2011 Gathering in Regent's Park, London

Right, that’s sorted out now. For our first ever Reiki Evolution National Gathering at Regent’s College, London [October 29th] we are having six workshops, three in the morning and three in the afternoon. We had offers of eight workshops from my team of teachers, so I canvassed all 80 people who had booked to see what their preference was, and this was the result. The six workshops at the 2011 gathering will be:

Discover your intuitive self (Tina Shaw)
Health at your fingertips (Hannah Shine)
Working with sound (Mel Diamond)
Taoist yin yoga (Sue Norman)
Shamanic healing ritual (Kay Gillard)
Reiki and crystals (Linda Vickers)

All I need to do now is to work out who is going to attend which workshop, based on their preferences, which is giving me more of a headache than I had anticipated, so I know what I am going to be doing this Bank Holiday weekend: sitting on the floor surrounded by little pieces of paper, shifting them around from one pile to another as I try and accommodate everyone’s preferences as far as I can without blowing a gasket! 🙂

And I still have to announce what speakers we are going to have. There will be one or two. So watch this space!

We were overwhelmed by the response from Reiki Evolution students who wanted to attend. Since this was the first event of it’s kind we didn’t know what size venue to book – there’s no point in booking the Albert Hall if there’s just going to be tumbleweed drifting across the empty rows! – so it was a big surprise to find that all 80 tickets sold out in three days. In 2012 – and I’m fairly sure we’ll repeat the event – we’ll book a bigger venue!

How to start a Reiki treatment

reiki treatments,

how to start a reiki treatment advice

A simple ritual to get your Reiki treatment started

People in different lineages are taught different ways of starting off a Reiki treatment – the ritual(s) that you carry out to get things started – and I thought it would be useful to share with you the sequence that we teach on Reiki Evolution courses, so that you can compare it with what you were taught.

It might trigger off some ideas and help you to develop your own way of doing things if you wanted to.

When standing by the recipient, our students are taught to go through a sequence represented by the letters A, C, B, M, F.

A = Affirm
C = Connect
B = Build
M = Merge
F = Flow

Below I describe these stages in a bit more detail…

Affirm

It’s quite common, I think, for Reiki people to make some sort of affirmation or dedication before starting a Reiki treatment, and we have students silently affirm, “I dedicate this treatment to the highest good of [client’s name]”.

It’s just a nice way of reminding yourself that when you carry out a Reiki treatment, you do so in a ‘neutral’ way, with no expectation of a particular result, metaphorically standing aside to allow the energy to be drawn by the recipient to where it needs to go. So you’re setting the right intent.

Once you have gone through this process again and again with different clients, you probably don’t need to keep on reminding and re-reminding yourself at the start of each session: you know what your intent is.

Connect

Here is where we focus our attention on our ‘connection’ to the energy, and we have our students imagine that energy is flowing down through their crown, down through the centre of the body to the Tanden.

And just focusing on that for a little while can bring a lovely meditative state, ideal for carrying out a Reiki treatment on someone.

Build

Now we direct our attention towards the Tanden, that energy centre two finger-breadths below your tummy button and 1/3rd of the way into your body.

This is the centre of your personal universe, the location of your intuition and creativity, a part of the body that is focused on in many traditional practices, for example martial arts, flower arranging, even the tea ceremony.

Here we notice that the energy starts to build here, strengthening and intensifying.

Merge

Having focused on our ‘connection’ to the energy and the building up of Reiki within us, now we move our attention to the recipient on the treatment table before us, imagining that we are merging with them, becoming one with them, experiencing a state of oneness.

We are neutral, empty, with no expectations, a necessary bystander in the process that is to follow.

Flow

And finally, we allow the energy to flow, drawn by the recipient to the most appropriate places for them on that occasion.

We have established ourselves as a clear channel, a free-flowing conduit, stepping aside metaphorically to allow the energy to be drawn by the recipient, creating a ‘healing space’ that they can use for their highest good.

We follow the flow of energy, resting our hands in the areas that are drawing the most energy, staying there for as long as the energy needs to flow there, resting our hands in just the right places for that person on that occasion.

Though intuitive working is something that we focus on mainly on our Second Degree courses, some of our First Degree students find that they are already feeling guided by the energy and we encourage them to go with the flow, ‘getting out of the way’ – not worrying or trying to puzzle out why you are being drawn to a particular area, just letting it happen.

Nice and simple

So there is a simple sequence that you can follow.

I really like the way that it flows from a simple affirmation, noticing your connection to the energy and building the energy within you, moving your attention towards the recipient, merging with them and allowing the energy to flow.

It’s like a lovely meditative dance with the energy.

Over to you

If this sequence differs from what you are doing currently, why not try it and see how you get on with it. And post a message below to let me know how it went.

Maybe there is something that you could incorporate into your own ritual, whatever that might be.

None of these things are set in stone, of course, and you can find your own distinctive way, so I hope the above has been helpful to you.

Here’s lots of advice about giving treatments

reiki books first degree manualIf you’d like some guidance about giving Reiki treatments, I have a whole load of advice and suggestions for you in the Reiki Evolution First Degree course manual.

This isn’t just available to Reiki Evolution students: anyone can work with our manuals.

You can order a professionally-printed copy, or you can download your manual right now.

Here are the links that you need:

Reiki First Degree manual

Reiki First Degree eBook

 

 

 



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			The “21-Day thing”
		

		
		

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reiki 21 days twenty one


Where did the 21 day thing come from?


I wanted to talk a little bit about the “21 day thing”: the 21-day self-treat or the 21-day clear-out after attending a First Degree course.


I’m a bit puzzled by this and I’ve been trying to fathom where it came from, and why it should be recommended.


I think this idea probably came into being because it echoes the story told about Mikao Usui’s discovery of Reiki on Mt Kurama where, according to the story that Mrs Takata passed on, Usui Sensei went up Mt Kurama and fasted and meditated for 21 days, culminating in him being hit by a bolt of light, seeing symbols, and Reiki was born.


We know now that this isn’t actually what happened: Usui didn’t fast for 21 days up the mountain, though he did carry out something called the “Lotus Repentance meditation”, and this did last for 21 days I believe.


But this was quite a formalised process – an established Tendai practice – and he went home at night after each day’s meditation. In any case, this did not lead to the ‘eureka’ moment that Mrs Takata spoke about since Usui was already teaching his system before he carried out the first of his Lotus Repentance meditations, and he performed these meditations several times during his lifetime.


7 x 3 = 21


People have speculated and taught that the 21 consecutive days of self-treating is required because the energy makes a visit to each of a person’s chakras three times during this period.


The emphasis on chakras within Reiki seems to have originated within Reiki’s journey through the New Age movement, where some lineages have incorporated various New Age practices like crystals, spirit guides and Angels etc. Chakra work wasn’t part of the original system.


And this three-times-through-your-chakras seems to me to be a bit of ‘reverse engineering’, where you have something that you’re supposed to do, and then you back-track to try and find a justification for it, to make sense of it in your head.


Some suggest that if you carry out a practice for 21 days then you will have established it as a habit, and there may be something in that, actually.


Don’t stop after 21 days!


The problem that I have with this idea of a 21-day practice is that some people “do their 21 days” and then stop, or have only a sporadic practice afterwards, as if once you’ve done your 21 days… that’s it, you’ve cleared yourself out and you don’t need to work on yourself so dedicatedly afterwards.


And I also have a problem with the idea that you have a clear-out just during that 21 day period and then you’re sorted.


In my experience, the way that people react to Reiki in terms of ‘clearing out’, whether that be in terms of physical reactions or states of mind or emotions, seems to vary greatly from one person to another. And while Reiki doesn’t seem to give people an experience that they can’t handle, some can make a great big fast clear-out initially, some have it happening in dribs and drabs, while for others the process may be delayed for a while.


Everyone’s different. And there’s always something more to clear out!


We all live lives, we have stress, we suppress emotions, we fail to deal with things, so if we carry on working with Reiki, there will be stuff that we will need to shift in the future to bring things into balance for us, not just in those first few weeks.


And just wait until you start attuning people: you may have a mega-clear-out waiting for you!


So while I don’t object to people working on themselves dedicatedly for three weeks – why would I? – I’d rather emphasise that if you’re going to gain the greatest benefit out of your connection to Reiki then you need to work on yourself regularly.


You don’t have to self-treat (or carry out Hatsurei ho) every single day (and then beat yourself up for not being perfect if you have to miss a day sometimes) but if you can make Reiki a regular part of your life then you will reap the rewards.


And that’s not just for 21 days: that’s for life.


Over to you


So, do you have a regular practice of using Reiki on yourself?


And, if so, what have you noticed in terms of the way that your mind/body has responded to that ongoing energy work?


Did you have a bit of a clear-out to begin with, or a great big clear-out, and then occasional ups and downs after then?


Need a hand with your Reiki habit?


If anyone does want to carry out some task or practice for 21 days in a row, here is a free online service that will keep track of what you have been doing, sending you an e-mail every day to see what you have done. It’s called Habit Forge.


Did you like this blog?


If so, you are going to love this book…


 










“Whether you are at Level 1, 2 or Reiki Master Teacher Level (regardless of the Reiki flavour you are trained in), this book is very much for you! Within hours of starting to read this book, it has rejuvenated and enriched my own practices with a wealth of information and useful examples too.


The more you read the more you’ll have those wonderful ‘aha’ moments. I know I am already benefiting personally from the knowledge I’ve gained, but so will all my family, friends and clients too. Thank you Taggart for creating this incredible, uniting, enlightening book.”


Heidi Gaffney-Evans








Liberate Your Reiki!


86 Articles About Reiki: One Inspiring Vision


In this Reiki book you will find 80+ articles about Reiki, written by Reiki Master Teacher Taggart King. You will discover how to set your Reiki free, free from the constraints, dogma, rules and regulations of Western-style Reiki courses. Get back to Reiki’s original Japanese method and embrace simplicity, flexibility, creativity and intuition.


This book is suitable for people at all Reiki levels: beginners, those who are developing their Reiki, and Reiki Masters/Master Teachers. You will find advice about self-treatment meditations, energy exercises to build your ability as a channel, you will discover how to work with your intuition and embrace the power of intent.


Explore different distant healing methods and discover the beauty of Reiki’s original Japanese form. Learn how to use creativity and visualisation to enhance your self-treatments and treatment of others, and ditch all the silly rules and regulations that stifle the practice of Western Reiki in many lineages.


Finally, read Taggart King’s “10 Rules of Reiki”, the essential principles for a powerful and fulfilling Reiki practice.


This professionally-printed Reiki manual has 370 A5 pages, a glossy soft cover and we will send it to anywhere in the world!


Read the contents list before you order, if you like, by clicking on this link: Table of contents


Book: 370 pages.


Price: £15.99 + p&p







Or Download a PDF version now for only £12.49










 


 


Author: 

Picture Credit: Martin Fisch


 

	

	
	


							

							


	

				

			Video: Reiki Precepts in Japanese
		

			


	

		
Hi,


One of my team of Reiki Teachers, Kay Gillard, recently put together this short video sequence to teach the Reiki precepts in Japanese. Kay said:


“I love to chant the Reiki precepts in Japanese when I am sitting in  gassho – Usui would like us to do this every morning and evening as part  of our practice… do gassho every morning and evening, keep in your mind and recite…  Continue reading Video: Reiki Precepts in Japanese →

	


	


							


	

		
				

			Be like water
		

		
		

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reiki simplicity bruce lee




“Be formless, shapeless… like water”

“True refinement seeks simplicity”




 


…if you are wondering who said these things, you might be surprised to hear that they were spoken by Bruce Lee, film star and famous martial artist who developed Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts method that took the best approaches from different fighting systems and synthesised them into a flexible and effective fighting art. Jeet Kune Do is referred to as a “style without style” where, unlike more traditional martial arts which Lee saw as rigid and formalistic, JKD is not fixed or patterned: it is more of a philosophy with guiding thoughts, a “style of no style”. Bruce Lee often referred to JKD as “The art of expressing the human body” in his writings and in interviews.


And those comments got me wondering about Reiki, especially when Lee identified three different stages that someone’s practice could go through. He said that before training, people had a natural ability, something that was unformed and unfocused; training begins and the student learns how to follow the instruction, they are restricted to the framework that they are taught and many practitioners might not move beyond that stage, following the system almost by rote. The third stage is where the practitioner moves beyond the rote learning to embrace simplicity and flexibility.


So how does that echo one’s development with Reiki? Well before some people learn Reiki, they already have a healing ability, maybe unstructured or unconscious, unfocused, but a natural healing ability nevertheless. We have taught many such people, who have found that Reiki gives them a framework or a structure to work through, focusing and channelling and enhancing what they already had.


The student learns a particular approach, with some rules and standard hand positions and in some lineages quite a long list of things you can and can’t, should and shouldn’t, do with Reiki. Some practitioners remain at this stage, following the instructions they were given and remaining content with that way of working.


But you can move beyond that framework, simplifying your practice, altering what you do to the needs of the recipient. You can embrace intuitive working, where you leave behind those basic rules to go ‘freestyle’ and, where Lee describes his system as “The art of expressing the human body”, we could see intuitive working as “The art of expressing the energy”. Here we are empty and formless, flowing like water to where the water wants to go, joining with the energy and following it, directing the energy to where it wants to be directed, emphasising aspects of the energy that need to be emphasised. We stand as a flexible conduit between the source and the recipient, empty, formless, fluid.


I believe that clutter-free Reiki is the best Reiki, and that by cutting away the rules and the dogma we can ‘refine’ (to use Lee’s word) our Reiki practice. Emptiness is the goal here: no planning, no thought about what you might do, just being there with the energy and the recipient; your treatment has no form, no structure and you simply follow the flow of energy, becoming the energy, merging with the recipient, with no expectations other than to just ‘be’.


 


Picture credit: IQRemix




If you like the sound of this approach then you might consider doing some training with Reiki Evolution. We have live Reiki courses running throughout the UK and Taggart teaches one-to-one through his special Reiki Home Study courses. For more information, click on the links below:


Live Reiki courses

Home Study courses

	

	
	


							


	

				

			Podcast: Release anger and worry
		

			


	

		

			
In all Reiki lineages, the first three precepts are shown as, “Just for today, do not anger, do not worry”, and they are a really important part of Reiki practice. Learning to fully embody these simple Reiki principles has the potential to really transform people’s lives and it’s very much a work-in-progress where, by reminding ourselves of these Reiki principles regularly, we gradually mould our behaviour and experience the personal benefits that come through engaging fully with the moment, experiencing humility, compassion and forgiveness.

 Continue reading Podcast: Release anger and worry →

		

	


	


							


	

				

					

		
				

			My Manifesto for Reiki Tolerance
		

		
		

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reiki evolution rainbow tree


 


Honouring all the flavours of Reiki


The lovely thing about Reiki is that there are so many styles, so many different ways of working with the energy. Various people on the Internet have tried to compile lists of the different versions, and I think the total runs to a hundred or more.


Reiki seems to work as an effortless ‘carrier’, rather like a radio station and transmitter that you can play endless different songs through, but you need the underlying radio waves before the songs can be played.


Reiki is like those radio waves: a carrier that supports very many different ways of working.


What Reiki song do you sing?


Is it Karuna Reiki or Seichem, is it Reiki Tummo or Celtic Reiki or ‘Traditional Usui’ (in all its sub-flavours), is your song Jikiden or Raku Kei?


Or maybe it’s Rainbow Reiki or Lightarian Reiki, Violet Flame or Usui-do.


Some systems use a few different symbols, some use *loads* of symbols, some are structured, others are more ‘content free’; Reiki accommodates them all.


And it is true that some people will be attracted to a particular approach over another because everyone is different and one approach may feel more ‘right’ to one person than another.


I like to get back to the historical roots of things


To my eternal shame, I suppose, I am into folk music [there, I have said it: I like folk music!]. I play the five-string banjo.


But rather than playing Bluegrass music, which came into being in the 1950s, I prefer to play ‘clawhammer’ style banjo, which takes you back to the very beginnings of ‘Old Time’ music when the syncopated ‘slave style’ of playing blended with immigrants’ Irish and English tunes.


It feels right to me to play in a way that is authentic and ‘original’, so far as it is possible to recreate that style.


I also dabble with the ‘Anglo’ concertina and my preference is to get back to playing the ‘original’ English Anglo concertina style, so far as it is possible to glean what that was.


So it’s not surprising, then, that when I became involved in Reiki I was attracted to what was known about the form of Reiki that Usui Sensei was teaching in the 1920s in Japan, rather than the later styles that had developed and changed and mutated after the time of Mrs Takata.


Discovering Original Japanese Reiki


I was lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time, and received a lot of guidance from people who brought me a lot closer to understanding what the original system was all about, and my “Reiki Evolution” courses are based on that principle: to practise Reiki, so far as it is possible or practical, in a way that comes close to what we know that Usui was teaching to most of his students.


And for me that’s the bee’s knees, a wonderful way to practise that, *for me*, is much more fulfilling than the more standard ‘Western-style’ Reiki that I was first taught.


And we have taught many other Reiki people from a standard Western background who have found that the original system that we teach has many advantages.


There is no ‘one true way’


But not everyone is attracted to that way of practising Reiki because everyone is different, of course, and what I want to make clear is that I do not believe that what I teach is the ‘one true way’, the Reiki that everyone should learn, better than everyone else’s.


How arrogant and blinkered that would be, if I was to say such a thing.


I meet many lovely and open Reiki practitioners and teachers, who are happy and content to be practising Reiki in their unique way, and to accept that others can practise Reiki in their different way, and that’s it’s ok to differ. These are the Reiki people that I want to spend my time with: those who are open and content with the path that they are following, and who do not feel the need to look down their nose and impose their flavour and their rules on everyone else.


The curse of blinkered dogma


Sadly, there are some Reiki teachers out there who do actually believe that their way of teaching Reiki is the ‘correct’ way, that there is a ‘correct’ way to use the symbols, for example, and that if someone has been taught in a different way then they’re wrong.


This is sad.


This is divisive.


There are even people who believe that an attunement needs to be carried out in a certain prescribed fashion in order to be ‘correct’, yet the attunements that Mrs Takata taught have evolved and changed endlessly in different lineages; some are almost unrecogniseable.


And do you know what? They all work fine.


So I think we should be wary of Reiki Masters, no matter how prominent they appear to be, who tell you that what you are doing is wrong or that you shouldn’t do a particular thing: we are all on our journey with the energy, and our journey is our journey, leading us to practise in *our* way, not better, not worse, just different.


My belief


I believe that we should celebrate these differences, and be happy that there is infinite variety.


I believe that Reiki people should be free to find their own comfortable path with the energy, working in the way that suits them, rather than having to kow tow to the dogma and blinkered beliefs of another.


Over to you


So there you have it: my ‘manifesto’ for tolerance, acceptance, and mutual respect within Reiki.


I hope you agree with me.


 


And if you do, why not post a message below. 🙂


 


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