Q&A: Is Reiki Dangerous?
It is only possible to walk on one road at a time. Try to walk on more than one, and you end up nowhere
I found an interesting question in a forum on Facebook today, and thought it was worth posting my response on the blog. It is not uncommon for teachers or sects to denounce other systems, and sometimes this can be with good reason – in a spiritual market that is largely motivated (like every other market) by money, people remain vulnerable and susceptible to being misled. If as a teacher I knew of any system which I felt was misleading more people than it was guiding, I might be prompted to discourage those who ask me, from walking on that path.
“I need someone to lovingly explain something to me. I am reiki 1 only, my mom does reiki. And I had a session yesterday by a healer. Today I woke up and saw the Catholic Church article from the Vatican saying yoga and reiki is “evil and dangerous”. I don’t believe it As the healers speak of God and archangel. Can someone give me a good and loving explanation?”
I read the original article, it mentioned nothing about Reiki – we need to be careful about websites exaggerating news to create a sensation. Personally, I disagreed with what it said about yoga, but that’s my opinion. I will address your question anyway, because it brings up important points.
There are also some Hindu teachers who have discouraged their followers from learning Reiki and similar modes of healing. Yoga and Reiki have both become so popular today that they are being misused very widely. Many people knowingly and unknowingly use them to meet selfish monetary and egotistical goals. I know people who have been hurt in the name of Reiki and Yoga. I say ‘in the name of’, because in their original form, both cannot harm anyone. But when distorted by different practices and by the ego, they can hurt. I have also observed that the lack of a proper leader/ teacher has many in both these fields positively lost, and because there are so many lost just like them, they all get together and think they are on the right path. Most people experiment with different methods in a bid to hasten their spiritual growth. This is nothing but greed, and must be checked.
There are two options when one sets out on a spiritual journey. In the beginning, one has to ‘follow’ another. This might mean being religious, or following strictly some sort of scripture.
But this is only the beginning step, required for those who are so new that they cannot separate the good from the bad. Yes, for these sorts of people if they are going to church, or even a mosque, yoga and Reiki can be quite dangerous, because they offer sometimes a drastically different belief system – and it is better usually to stick to one path than to try to run on many.
However, there comes a point for many, when they grow beyond the point where they need to be told what is right and wrong. This is when your heart is big enough, and you have grown up enough to be able to hear the voice of your heart. There may be a short phase where you go astray, but this is where all ‘rules’ start to break for you, because deep inside you now ‘know’ what is right and wrong.
We have to realise that no spiritual pathway offers any guarantees. Every path has its pitfalls and every teacher – even the best – can lead you astray. We must never forget that a real spiritual pathway is about independence, and about realizing your own divinity. Any path or teacher that uses fear to control you, or prompts you to depend on either people, belief systems, imaginary figures or objects, is not leading you towards the ultimate truth.
What you need to do is go deep inside and listen to your heart. What does your heart say about the value and place of Reiki for you. Each one of us has a personal truth. What’s yours, is all you need to know 🙂
Author of ‘Healing Through Reiki’, Ashwita learned Reiki in 1997, and started teaching it in 2006. She now incorporates other forms of energy healing, as well as hypnotherapy and past life therapy in her work. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, crafts, reading and painting.
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I love Reiki, and believe that it is fundamentally harmless, but one of the problems I have with the system is the tendency of practitioners who offer the Reiki initiations to grossly exaggerate the benefits of Reiki. It has been over 20 years since I have actively interacted with Reiki users, and I just happened to stumble across this site, and felt motivated to respond to the issue you have addressed.
Many users tend to perceive Reiki as if it were some kind of magic, or enchantment, that will always be present and available to treat your ills. But in fact, Reiki is a very specific form of healing energy, it is real, it exists, and it is tangible. And the energy is not always transmitted when the initiations are given. As in any lineage, success is due to the quality of the teacher and the student. After I first received my Reiki initiations, I would look for a practitioner to give me a treatment when my physical well being was low, and I would pay for this treatment. What I discovered were people who called themselves Reiki masters, who had taken all the initiations, and yet their bodies psychic energy system had not been activated. Due to a lack of experience and/or sensitivity to psychic energy, they were unaware of their condition, and were unlikely to develop insight, because they had been told that if they paid and participated in the rituals, they would automatically acquire the transmission. If they didn’t feel any energy, or if the patients they treated didn’t experience any energy, that was all right, because it was magically there, and everyone experienced it differently. It is my feeling that the system has been too widely dispersed, and the quality of teachers and students have been diluted.
Another widely misunderstood issue is that spiritual energy cannot be patented. Many people are already working with the energy, even if they are unaware of it, such as people who seem to have natural healing powers.
Finally, Reiki is in many ways a fairly mild, comforting healing energy, which is why it is so safe, and in the field of energy work it is not exactly the be all. There are advanced practitioners, such as highly advanced students of Buddhism, who work with much more powerful energies on a daily basis, and who are always seeking a higher level of energy. I mention this because so often Reiki practitioners or “masters” exhibit an unconscious arrogance, when in fact they should be very humble, and thankful for the opportunity to experience the level of sacred energy that they can achieve at any given moment in time. Spiritual advancement requires effort and work, and cannot simply be taken by paying an amount of money, sketching a symbol with your hand, and murmuring some magic words.
Anyway, I’ve never encountered a forum where I felt that I could express my concerns about some of the consequences of the wide spread popularity of Reiki, so thank you.
Good One 🙂
Thank you for sharing Susan 🙂 and glad we could provide a space where you could express yourself.
In my journey so far I’ve learned that there is no ‘be all’ at all. That would be too easy, no 🙂
I have come across this very subject a number of times during the 16 years I have been practicing. My own sister refuses my reiki, and is extremely wary of where the energies come from, and what they are. I have recently begun a blog that includes posts about my experiences with reiki, and I actually just published a post that defines my thoughts on reiki today, hahaha. I won’t post the link here, but I will if you let me know that it is ok. I think this is an important concern to address with the general public, as it seems to come up rather often.
Trish
Hi ashwita. Happy to see your post. I have doubt about a spiritual guru. His all teaching are good. But when I reach close I feel they lack unconditional love. They say expectation is my problem . whenever my mind get expanded I feel they are evil. But theses days I feel they are good except for unconditional love. I love their meditation and spiritual beauty. But beauty without true love. I love all unconditionally and want to work in a spiritual field where I can be myself. Can you suggest me something.
Changeling in reiky means changeling some spirits??
I have not trained in any energy healing. Still I tried to heal someone with a stroke. After that I met two bus accident. How to remove this healing resulted bad karma?
Meditation should be quite helpful. Also if you spend time in nature, just resting at the foot of trees, you will find it deeply healing.
It does not matter whether they have unconditional love or not. There is no field where you can ‘be yourself’ – because there is no ‘yourself’. It is like water saying ‘I want to be in a vessel where I can be myself. Water will always take on the color of the vessel it is in, or reflect the whole room if it is placed in a glass container. If you love unconditionally, there is no situation where you cannot be yourself, because you will be able to unconditionally love whatever situation you are in. And if the universe wishes to utilize you to help others, then no one can stop you from being in a spiritual field.
Yes it’s ok Trish 🙂 Thank you for stopping by