Move on to embrace the entire Reiki system, and begin a new and wonderful journey

People move on to Master Teacher level for many reasons. Some wish to pass on the gift of Reiki to others, while others are focusing more on their own personal and spiritual development. Some take the course because they want to see all that there is of Reiki, and do with it what feels right for them. Moving on to this level does not mean that you are committing or dedicating yourself to becoming a Reiki teacher, though you never know quite where Reiki might lead you!

The home study approach

Your Reiki home study course is based on carrying out a great deal of practical energy work under the guidance of your teacher who provides you with one-to-one support, and supported by some good quality training materials. I am happy that this course gives you as much as you would have had, had you attended one of our ‘live’ Reiki Master Teacher courses. The course materials consist of:

• A 200 page manual that is extensive, comprehensive and easy to read
• A separate guide to running Reiki courses at First Degree, Second Degree and Master Teacher levels
• five audio CDs with detailed commentaries, guided meditations and real-time “let’s talk you through it” guides
• A DVD demonstrating how to carry out attunements and empowerments
• A book of thought-provoking Reiki articles written by Taggart
• Detailed course instructions guiding you step-by-step through your projects

During your Reiki home study training course you will read text, look at images and read summaries, you will listen to Taggart talking, be guided through energy exercises and watch demonstrations, and of course you will be in contact with us regularly and asking questions when you need to. In fact, I think that this home study course has some definite advantages for you when compared with a ‘live’ course: instead of having the time available to you limited by the length of a two day course, you can now work by yourself for a much longer period, and you will have the opportunity to spend a lot longer working with the various exercises. This is why Reiki home study is so effective: you have the opportunity to work with the energy for far, far longer than is possible on any live courses, and you receive the undivided attention of your teacher.

“What we have tried to do is to provide our students with a ‘learning smorgasbord’, where they can use the material or medium that best suits their particular learning style: we have text, we have images, we have summaries and flow-charts and diagrams and even puzzles, we have audio commentary and instructions and we have video sequences. By using these different media in combination with each other, and by having students carry out extensive practical exercises over many weeks, learning and understanding is enhanced.”

Taggart King, Course Director, Reiki Evolution

“The home study approach is an excellent idea. It allows you to study at your own pace and in your own way. It’s easier to take on board new ideas and absorb them over time. I have so appreciated doing the Reiki Master course over a period of time. I feel as though I have learned so much more than I would over two days – especially as I have a very demanding job.”

Shirley Climpson, Essex

“The whole course has been excellent and has allowed me to really work through each part in my own time, to develop each aspect before I moved on. There is no possibility of feeling out of your depth, unsure or isolated with these courses. Support from Taggart throughout has been constant and continues to be so. The CDs and DVDs are excellent and I use the CDs on my own courses. Another strength of the course is that it addresses all modes of learning. You can read, listen or see and hear techniques demonstrated. I took a long time to complete the course because of personal circumstances, and this illustrates another strength: I just carried on with my daily meditations, kept in contact with and received support from Taggart and moved to the next section when I was able.”

Gail Holdsworth, Nottinghamshire

Basic Themes of the Reiki Master Teacher Distance Learning Course

Mastership with Reiki Evolution concentrates on a number of themes:

• The Original system that Mikao Usui taught
• The role of energy exercises and meditations in the original system
• Experiencing energies in different ways
• Using energies on yourself and others
• The use of Symbols
• The use of the Reiki Kotodama
• The power of Intent
• The potential of Intuition
• Western ‘attunements’
• Japanese ’empowerments’
• Distant connections and self-empowerments

Receive one-to-one support as you work through your course

It would not really be good enough to just give a student some training materials and tell them to get on with it. We think that it is very important to make sure that our home study students have carried out all the practical exercises that they need to carry out in order to feel confident in what they are doing, and it is important that we are on hand to answer and questions or queries that our students have, and to advise them and support them as they progress through their course. What we do is to break the course down into a series of stages, or ‘projects’, where for each stage the student does some reading, listens to the audio commentary, carries out practical energy exercises and then sends us feedback by e-mail to let us know what they have done and what they have experienced. We can then gear our support to what the student has done and what they need. Training is one-to-one.

“This course was amazing – in depth, explicit and diverse. Extremely well supported by the written word, audio, visuals and e-mail.” Carol Gunn, Hampshire  “To start with I was unsure whether a home study course would be as beneficial as attending a course in person. But this course has more than exceeded my expectations. The manual is so comprehensive and easy to read, it’s more of a pleasure to read rather than a course manual. Along with the CDs it is very easy to work through and follow the detailed instructions for each section. I liked being able to report back after each section and awaiting Taggart’s quick e-mail response. I am sure that by working through the energy practices at your own speed has actually strengthened the use of the energy in everyday practice. By being able to do this at your own speed takes the pressure off, whereas if you attended a course with a set timetable you have to work at the speed of everyone else.” Melanie Perry, West Sussex  “All questions I asked were responded to quickly and with accurate information and it is easy to tell that Taggart is very well informed and passionate about Reiki. I thought the whole of the home study course was amazing, it is very well presented and easy to read and follow. I liked the fact that it gave me the flexibility to study around my accountancy exams and full time work.” Niki Leach, Tyne and Wear  “Excellent. Very personal, very inspiring, and always encouraging. You are a natural! Okay I had to wait a few times for the feedback, but if I hadn’t set out to do a ‘war and peace’ job on my feedback I would have got a quicker response. The feedback was always welcome, and always useful.” Jon O’Neill, Nottinghamshire  “Your support was as if you were by my side, encouraging and reminding.” Susan Robinson, County Durham  “The support was excellent. it was great to be able to email thoughts and questions and know that I would get an honest reply, some positive feedback and some pointers to improve my practice. I don’t know how you manage this, considering the number of students you have and all the other things that you develop! I think that the structured approach to the distant learning course, with feedback at each stage is so beneficial, compared to learning everything in a weekend and then only approaching the Reiki Master if you are struggling with something.” Lucy Wilkinson, West Yorkshire

Tune in to the Reiki energy

During your home study course you will receive a series of distant ‘Reiju’ empowerments which are there to support your work with sacred Shinto mantras called ‘kotodama’ and to move you on to (or “attune” you) at Master level. These traditional Japanese empowerments help to open up further the channels through which Reiki flows, they emphasise to your system important aspects of the energy that you will be working with, and they introduce you powerfully to a state of oneness. They are equivalent to Western-style Reiki ‘attunements’ but come closer to passing on what was intended by Reiki’s founder, Mikao Usui. During your course you will also receive some Western-style Reiki “attunements” at a distance, so you will have been initiated using both original Japanese and Western-style methods. During the later stages of your course, you will ‘tune in’ to distant Reiju empowerments which we send out every day, on Mondays. Your Reiki potential will not lessen over time, so tuning into these empowerments is not essential, but doing so will make a difference to you and your Reiki practice and echoes the practice of Reiki’s founder, Mikao Usui, who empowered his students on a regular basis.

Further your self-healing and spiritual development

Our approach is to view Reiki as primarily a self-development, spiritual development and self-healing method and this is particularly so at Master Teacher level. While we do deal with the treatment of others comprehensively on this course, we do not lose sight of the fact that Reiki is about self-development first, and the treatment of others second. So we echo the original system that Reiki’s founder taught by rooting your practice in personal energy work. You will learn to enhance and deepen your self-healing by getting to grips with and fully assimilating the energies of the kotodama, by working to develop your Tanden and by learning to empower yourself regularly. By the end of your course you will know how to – in effect – give yourself a Master attunement every day. This is a powerful activity that will really move you on spiritually and in terms of self-healing.

Experiencing Energies

We begin the course by considering the different ways that we can experience different aspects of the energy: using symbols, using sacred Shinto mantras called Kotodama, and using pure intent. We put this in the context of the original system that Mikao Usui taught and show how energies can be used when working on the self and when working on other people.

Working with Symbols

We include a range of original and non-original symbols on the course, though we don’t want overemphasise the use of symbols, because we believe that they have assumed an unnecessary importance within the world of Western Reiki. The symbols that you learn on the Master course allow you to send Reiki to heal at the soul level, produce balance in an instant, deal with aspects of karma, and focus energy intensely on the mind or the emotions. During the Master course you will be ‘attuned’ to these symbols:

• The Usui Master Symbol
• The ‘Tibetan’ Master symbol
• The ‘Fire Dragon’ symbol
• Other symbols, channelled by Taggart and others

On this course, the symbols are used primarily as tools to allow the student to experience different aspects of the energy, and students will be meditating for some time on the energies of the two ‘Master’ symbols.

The Reiki Kotodama

The Kotodama, or ‘jumon’, are sacred Shinto mantras used by Usui before the introduction of symbols into Reiki. We show how these mantras can be used when carrying out treatments, we become familiar with their characteristic energies, we discover how they can be used for self-healing and spiritual development, and we learn how they can be used in conjunction with Reiju empowerments. During the course, the student will be chanting the kotodama over an extended period to further their self-healing and spiritual development, to deepen their connection to and experience of these energies, and they will also be using these energies when treating others.

“I am really pleased that I did the course. The course has exceeded my expectations, I feel that I have learnt some really fundamental things about energy work that give me confidence to apply the learning myself. I think some of the elements of the original methods – particularly Reiju empowerments, kotodama, and the concept of Earth energy and Heavenly energy are so beautiful and simple that they take my understanding of Reiki to a higher, more spiritual level – and I am quite an “earthly” person, so I didn’t expect that! Thank you.” Lucy Wilkinson, West Yorkshire

The Power of Intent

We spend some time working with Intent, and go through various exercises that help to ‘open our eyes’ to the simplicity and power of Reiki, and the importance and versatility of intent in terms of directing the energy and experiencing different energies. To gain the most out of this course, the student will need to have to hand a group of friends and relatives that they can use a ‘guinea pigs’ to practise things on as they work through the various stages of their course. The course is mainly practical, you see: Reiki is a practical, hands-on activity, not just about book learning.

“In three years of being a Reiki practitioner I had developed the use of “intent and intuition” to a degree but realized that my abilities were a long way off the standards that I later achieved during the course. My confidence increased daily as did the energy, and my loyal friends and clients who participated in my trials (“freestyle practice”) were extremely impressed as well as surprised. Although we were ‘in awe’ and a little apprehensive at the power of the energy we also had fun as we explored its possibilities.” Carol Gunn, Hampshire

The Potential of Intuition

We spend some time talking about how to develop intuition and give some suggestions for moving beyond the basic “Reiji ho” approach. We will practice working intuitively in a number of different ways and introduce a method where we can directly perceive someone’s energy system, and we also explore some “mind’s eye” visual shortcuts. Again, students will practise various intuitive exercises on their group of friends and relatives, gaining facility through repetition.

Various other techniques

The comprehensive course manual summarises a number of different ‘non-Reiki’ techniques that have been introduced into Reiki over the years, or techniques that can be used with Reiki. The main areas are as follows:

• Healing attunements
• Reiki ‘psychic surgery’
• A Reiki ‘microcosmic orbit’ meditation
• Reiki and crystal healing grids
• Pendulum dowsing
• Antahkaranas

Healing attunements seem to have derived from the work of William Rand, and are designed to be used to help a client open themselves fully to the effects of Reiki. I see them more as a Reiki ‘blessing’. Reiki Psychic surgery is a ritual which focuses your intent in a particular way. The microcosmic orbit meditation takes the energies associated with the Reiki symbols round the functional and governor channels, and crystal healing grids are used to send distant Reiki 24 hours a day by using ‘charged’ crystals in a particular geometric pattern. ‘Antahkaranas’ are Asian symbols that produce a healing effect of their own, without the need to be attuned to them. The basics of pendulum dowsing are presented in the manual, to allow students to look in more detail at their clients’ chakra systems and to contact their spirit guides if they wish to pursue this aspect of Reiki practice.

Western-style ‘Attunements’

Mastership allows you to pass the Reiki ability to others, and you will be using the course manual (with step-by-step instructions, digital images, drawings and summaries), the Audio CDs and the DVD to make the process of learning attunements as straightforward as possible. You will practice the attunement process extensively during your home training with Reiki Evolution. We use the example of a Second Degree attunement as a focus for teaching, then going on to talk about the differences between that attunement and those at First Degree and Master levels.

“Many thanks for guiding me through such a rich and full course. I was very impressed by the quality of the materials in particular the attunements section. You managed to break down a complex procedure into understandable and memorable steps and repeating across different media and formats really helped the learning process.” Clare Ewins, West Sussex

Japanese ‘Empowerments’

The Western-style attunement process is not the only way to convey the Reiki ability to students. The Reiki Evolution Master Teacher course also includes training in the ‘Reiju’ empowerment process that has been passed to us by Usui Sensei’s surviving students. Reiju empowerments represent a wonderful, simple, elegant, powerful and inspiring method that can be used as alternatives to the Western-style attunements at all levels. We also consider the use of distant attunements and empowerments, explore different methods that can be used to empower the self, and students will practise these variations as part of their training with us.

“I was amazed at the power of the energy and the feeling of “oneness” with the client. I would not have believed it was possible to do a “distant attunement or empowerment” but I proved this possibility not just to myself but the people who participated who were all very impressed.” Carol Gunn, Hampshire

The Audio CDs

Our Reiki Master Teacher course uses two audio CDs that contain an hour of commentary and 45 minutes of meditations and instructions. The ‘commentary’ CD summarises the main themes of your course and the ‘meditations’ CD contains various useful tracks, for example two tracks which talk you through carrying out a Reiju empowerment and a Western-style Reiki attunement. By having on CD the main things that are said to you on a live course, you really receive a version of ‘live’ training, but in the comfort of your living room, or your car, or on a walk (using a Walkman) or wherever you choose to listen to your CD. You can, in effect, ‘replay’ your teacher again and again! The attunement and empowerment audio guides talk you through the various stages, just like a teacher would do on the day of a live course. So instead of fumbling around trying to read the instructions in your manual while trying to keep in the flow of it, you can simply flip on the CD and follow the instructions. You will thus learn effortlessly through doing, and your practice attunements and empowerments will flow all the more easily because of this.

“Being able to listen to your voice on the CDs was a great advantage and I felt that I had indeed been there at your teaching.” Susan Robinson, County Durham  “With regard to the CDs I was at first a bit dubious. I have listened to other audio media before and found the voices can be a bit distracting but fortunately you have a very pleasant speaking voice and tone, with a relaxed and easy way of putting things across.” Karen Lewis, Staffordshire  “Firstly, what a pleasure it is to listen to your voice – quite different to many others out there. The exercises/meditations on the CDs are perfect, as I can follow their timing rather than getting lost in time and space! We all have busy lives to lead on our journey and following these meditations quite simply means that I actually do do them daily. It is also nice to just relax and listen to the knowledge and I can do that anytime, anywhere to suit my needs. It is a wonderfully layered approach to learning.” Veronica Hayes, Suffolk  “The meditation exercises on Audio CD are definitely one of the best ways of demonstrating original Reiki – we use then a lot in our Reiki share group.” Lucy Wilkinson, West Yorkshire

The Reiki Master Teacher Distance Learning Course Manual

Each Reiki Evolution course is accompanied by a comprehensive manual which covers everything we deal with on the training days, and more besides. For the Reiki Master Teacher course we produce and extensive manual, running to 200 A4 pages. This is a complete and practical guide to Reiki at Master/Teacher level, containing text, digital images, flow-charts, summary sheets, Mind Map and illustrations.

“To describe these as comprehensive would be an understatement. Anything and everything you need to know about Reiki is contained within these! I found these immensely useful – I still do, and I still find them interesting to read through and look at again. They are well organized, presented, and written. My interest is primarily in the original system of Mikao Usui, but it was interesting to see what other people had experienced and discovered in reiki. If we let dogma and doctrine into reiki then it would be no longer reiki. The fact that in the manuals you were not frightened to express an opinion, but managed to avoid sitting in judgement was very well done – and is very difficult to do well.”

Jon O’Neill, Nottinghamshire

“The Manual was simply excellent. Your thoughtful approach, the easy informal style made the reading and re-reading a pleasure rather than a chore. I have searched and read so many books on Reiki to find the truth – it is all here and waiting for everyone. The various photo sequences were excellent. I continue to refer to the manual and continue to learn from it.”

Veronica Hayes, Suffolk

The “Teaching Reiki” Book

Each Reiki Evolution RMT home study course is accompanied by this 370 page book, written by Taggart. You’ll find a wealth of advice about how to set up and run your Reiki courses: read articles about planning and structuring your courses; find out how to explain things to students in a way that honours their learning preferences and personality types; discover how to create top quality course materials and how to support your students long-term.

We look at the differences between ‘Western’ and Original Japanese Reiki and I explain how I created “Reiki Evolution” courses, which pass on the essence of Reiki’s original form. Read this book and you’ll know how to teach “Reiki Evolution” style: what to say, what to teach, and even how to teach Reiki in a ten-week ‘Evening Class’ format.

A book of Taggart’s Reiki articles

Each Reiki Evolution RMT home study course is accompanied by a printed collection of Taggart’s Reiki articles, called “The Orange Book”. This is ideal to dip into, to ponder, something that you can refer to, and re-read, gaining different insights as you revisit the pages during your journey with Reiki.

The DVD Video

Our Master course is accompanied by a DVD containing approx. 30 minutes of footage, demonstrating how to carry out Reiju empowerments and Western attunements. Please note that we also have available a VHS video cassette for the benefit of people who do not own a DVD player.

“The DVD was very well set out, very easy to work to – a bit like Reiju, simple but powerful. I particularly liked the fact that the two women showing us the Reiju routine did it slightly differently which I thought caught your course theme superbly. It is our intuition and intent which is the key to successfully working with Ki.” Jon O’Neill, Nottinghamshire  “Quite the most superb relief to have this tool! It is the icing on the cake to be able to see, as many times as necessary, the steps, the flow of the attunements and empowerments, and is the answer to every new RMT’s prayers!” Veronica Hayes, Suffolk

The Certificate

All courses are accompanied by an attractive certificate written in Japanese kanji and Western text, displaying the seal of the Reiki Evolution school and signed by your teacher. In this case your certificate confirms that you have received instruction and Reiju empowerments, have satisfied the requirements of the “Shinpiden” level of Reiki, and are certified as a Master and a Teacher of Reiki.

Course Fees, Terms & Conditions

The fee for the First Degree Home Study Course is £438.00 either paid in full in advance or in three monthly instalments of £146.00 each. The payments are non-refundable.

Your fees cover Taggart’s tuition for a period of one year from the date of enrolment. After that time, if you have not completed the course, you would need to enrol anew.

Reiki Master Teacher Online Course overview

Here is an overview of the way that the Home Study course will work, showing in general terms what you will be doing during each of the eight stages of the course.

Ongoing Support and Advice

We think that it is very important to keep in touch with people who have been through our courses. We believe that this is just as important at Master level as it is at Reiki1 and Reiki2. To find out how we do this for all our students and our Masters in particular, please look at the following paragraphs: Firstly, here are the various ways that we support all our students:

• Internet Support/Discussion group for all our students. You can contact approx. 1,500 other Reiki people (Sept 2011 figures) who have done the same training as you, Reiki1s, Reiki2s and Masters. If you have any queries, if you have any ideas that you want to share, if you want to simply enthuse about something, then go ahead.
• Free distant Reiju empowerments each week anytime on a Monday. Every week you can ‘tune yourself in’ to a Reiju empowerment from Taggart, anytime on a Monday (and more than once if you like!). This will give your Reiki practice a real boost and echoes the way that Reiki was taught by Mikao Usui, with empowerments week-in week-out throughout your training. In fact, we have teachers sending out empowerments that you can tune into any day of the week, and you find out about these when you join our online support group.
• Access to a network of regular Reiki shares (get-togethers) at various UK locations where you can meet other Reiki Evolution students, chat, receive Reiju empowerments and swap treatments
• Free ongoing support and advice.

Now you can read about the additional ways that we have found to support our Masters:

• Our online support group has a special section for Reiki Master teachers where you can contact several hundred Reiki Masters who have done the same training as you. If you have any queries, if you have any ideas that you want to share, if you want to simply enthuse about something, then go ahead.
• People that you teach can join the online support network too, a community of Reiki 1,500 people who have all trained in the same sort of way.
• We can provide you with professionally-printed Reiki manuals and audio CDs to use on your own courses, at heavily discounted prices. Reiki teachers all over the world are using these materials on their courses.
• We can provide you with Japanese style Reiki certificate templates, Reiki leaflet templates, and prints of the Reiki precepts in Japanese calligraphy to give to your students.

“I learned a great deal from your course Taggart, I had and still have the profound and expanding experience that I had been looking for. I won’t say it was easy, you must get out of it what you put in, but from the first there was committment from you, and obviously you had put in an outstanding amount of work yourself to present this course as you do. There was nothing left out, and you continually strive for more and more knowledge in Reiki as shown by your research papers and original stance. Totally brilliant, thanks for everything, Taggart.” Susan Robinson, County Durham  “The progress I made on your course far outweighed the progress I made with Reiki in the previous five years. I thoroughly enjoyed the course, I had fun, and it was everything I had hoped for. At the end of the course I have found it very easy to keep Reiki as part of my daily life. Usually you find that by doing a course by distance, that feel you lose out a little compared to doing the course live. Actually in this case I think the reverse could be true. I can understand how ‘western style reiki could be taught live, but I feel that the original teachings of reiki do lend themselves better to distance learning. I know I fully committed to doing the course, and I did surprise myself at the time I spent on a daily basis on the course – but it never felt like hard work. I spent far more hours than you said, but that was down to me and not your estimate being out! I took one day off during the course to allow the energies and lessons to sink in, but other than that I just got on with it.” Jon O’Neill, Nottinghamshire

Receive a ‘live’ attunement/empowerment if you like

For the benefit of those who might like to receive a face-to-face empowerment as part of their home study Reiki training, we may be able to arrange for you to receive a ‘live’ Master empowerment at one of the Reiki shares hosted by members of our team of teachers. This would be the same Master empowerment that you would receive on a live Reiki Master Teacher course with us.