I wonder if some people's negative reactions to Reiki is actually a healing crisis.

I am certain that was not the case for me or my friend.

I wonder if some people's negative reactions to Reiki is actually a healing crisis.

I think that is many times the case.  However, crises of healing are often avoidable--at least, they can be minimized with the right knowledge.

Advanced Reiki practitioners are called "Masters."  I believe a Master is a person who knows what to apply where, how much of it, and when.

Prescribing heavy antibiotic regimens, I think, is unmasterful.  It's unmasterful because it's overkill.  It's like using a cannon to kill a fly.  Common sense tells us that when a person has a little non-life-threatening virus, all they need is immune-system support.  They don't need cannonfire in their intestines.

Reiki can be like cannonfire.  Sometimes it's overkill.  It's a powerfully high vibration.  Sometimes all a person's aura needs is a nice little comb-through, a little support. 

Healers, like everybody else, fall into the thinking of: Well, if a little of it is good, then...         

I have a meditation practice wherein a run energies through my channels.  At first I thought, after feeling great after doing it: Wow, I should do this all the time...  It was disastrous.  It's like deciding to jog twenty miles every day instead of a mile per day.  Sure, your body can hack it, but there are consequences. 

If you exercise constantly and then suddenly stop, you have a recipe for a body crisis.  If you walk/jog a mile per day and then skip a deal it's no big deal.

...There's also the possibility of contamination with Reiki, but that's been covered well in the other posts.

My point is: a person doing healing work or seeking healing work will be better off if they keep cause-and-effect in mind.  A tea infusion might work wonders for your cold, but if you drink eighty cups of it, you'll likely be bloated and will have to pee every ten minutes.  Similarly, Reiki can create uncomfortable processing-effects and you may or may not have the awareness to deal with them gracefully.

I can relate to what you are saying about various whatevers becoming bastardized! ... What comes to mind is Martial Arts ... in which making the moolah is the primary goal...and you have these little so called 5th degree Black Belts at age 8....scuza me, but baloney. The 'tests' these little kids went through were mostly for show...and had NOTHING to do with the spiritual teachings behind Martial Arts.

Look at the so called Health Food Industry ... making money off of promises of health, youth, and renewed brain function. Don't get me wrong ... I am into herbs and homeopathics and NOT the AMA (except for emergencies which hopefully I will avoid creating) ... but we have to admit that both allopathic AND alternative methods of healing have been 'tainted' --to put it nicely! So, it still comes down, to me, that whatever transpires is the result of the Dance between healer and healee... the Law of Attraction being the Name of the Tune.  The lyrics being: You Create Your Own  Reality. No blame games allowed in the Dance studio.
Peace,
Summer

Reiki is NOT just human touch.  Reiki is a specific ley line of esoteric energy passed along in a secretive manner from entities and/or sources that are questionable. Many people have negative reactions to it. Some of these reactions can be extremely severe.

Human touch is the hug of a mother as she cradles her baby, the kiss of a lover who adores their partner, the person stroking a beloved pet from a place of authentic affection.

Ya don't need no initiation or woo-woo rituals to do that.

Whoa, this is a very long thread and I apologize if I'm not quite up to speed but I have to agree with LipstickMystic here. Anything steeped in secrecy and ritual can't possibly be STO. Simple as that....big red flag....

i'm sorry - im sticking to my guns on this one.
if you have witnessed negative turns by applying Reiki,or experienced it your own applications - then I would seriously question the individual who taught the technique being used.
If a person is not in control of both their mental and emotional faculties while apllying Reiki,yes,I can agree that things could go astray - but those are issues they should've work through before actually working on somebody else,or processed,so to speak.Again,we get back to who taught them and how were they taught.These are the question that should be asked.
Were the proper processes followed?
Probably not. Money talks and bulls**t walks.Alot of people get involved with Reiki (both teaching and treatments) for the titles (ego gratification)and the money they can make from it.Neither intentions will yield good results.

I don't believe any of these things apply to my situation.  I received my attunements from a friend who is of an extremely high spiritual vibration, and she received it from a very pure line... yet it was still very clearly incompatible with my energy field.

I'm glad that you believe in it so completely, and hopefully have not and will not have any negative reactions from it in yourself or someone to whom you channel Reiki.

I still think it's important to acknowledge the possible negative effects from Reiki though.  Otherwise practitioners may be so trapped by the absolute conviction that Reiki can do no harm, that they may turn a blind eye towards any evidence to the contrary, which in my opinion can be very dangerous.

I was taught that Mrs. Takata's grandaughter, who now "carries the torch", says to perform reiki only on those who give explicit verbal permission, regardless of intent.  I pretty much follow this, but there have been exceptions.

I don't even really like the word "intent" when it comes to energy healing, because it seems like the only correct intent is to merely be a conduit and nothing else. 

Don't get me wrong, I can be controlling at times, but I'm very careful with reiki, and even with prayer.  Maybe I do miss and that's why I get sick sometimes.

...anyway gal,gotta go now

...One energy behind Earth energy, personal power, emotional energies, and so on and so on.

When I was taught Reiki, I was taught that Reiki (universal life energy) is the essence of all that is.  I was taught, in fact, that Reiki is not a modality or a tool.  I was taught that Reiki IS.  And actually I was taught that the central purpose of Reiki is not healing, but enlightenment.

That there is a concentrated, coherent source-energy makes sense to me.

I was also taught that Reiki is intelligent and that, by itself, it flows where it's needed...meaning, basically, that it could do no harm.

I immediately struggled with the above statement, and over time I've personally found that Reiki--like lesser vibrations--responds to intent whether that intent is informed by ego or from a conscious communication with Higher Selves.

It is intent that matters, I believe.  But a pure intent does not mean that a non-pure healer can't contaminate a healee.  I think there are no guarantees. 

An intention is a map, not a road. 

Plus, healees have intents, too--and that is rarely discussed by healers.  Healees may form intents completely at odds with the healer and their intent may be energetically stronger and from their little self, not their big self.

Not every Reiki practitioner that I've talked with was taught what I was: that Reiki IS.  Some understand it as one of many primary energies, or as an Earth energy.

Because of how I was taught, when I do Reiki, I set my intention to draw through me and out of me divine energy--the highest expression of spirit there is.

The highest expression of spirit there is, I've found, is not always what a person needs.  Or, maybe, it is always what a person needs...but what I'm saying is is that I've found that invoking the highest expression of spirit very often makes for a rough healing process.  It makes sense that the less a person is in tune with that highest energy, the more "destructive" it will seem.

Let's say Reiki is a "10" on a scale of 1 to 10.  And let's say a person aggregately vibrates at 3.  Probably, flooding the field of a 3 with 10-energy is going to have dramatic effects.  ...That's why I believe there are many healing paths available to us: so that we can ascend in small degrees. 

Sometimes drama and intensity is what's needed, but not always.

I've certainly been absorbing everything you guys are talking about here.

I agree with you that all of the issues you mentioned....about the person perhaps not having been taught correctly, or the healer not having cleared through enough of their own "stuff"...these could well have been part of the problem in the cases I've witnessed. 

I think the thing that makes me saddest about ALL the holistic healing pathways is that we can be so isolated. I've spent 20 years pretty "aggressively" talking about empathy, sensory awareness, spirituality, utilization of the upper chakras, etc. with just about anybody who wants to talk about these things to try to see if we can all come to some place where we're using similar vocabulary. But it seems that so many of the healing modalities have their own unique (and sometimes secretive, as can be the case of Reiki) protocols that two healers from different paths/systems rarely sit around, shoot the breeze, and troubleshoot through this stuff together. They're not given enough training, they don't have access to a good mentor to bounce stuff off of, etc.

So there's not a lot of sitting around the coffee machine comparing notes on the week's work, which I feel is essential with anything in life. Otherwise, how do we learn?  Books will  only take you so far. Workshops and periodic study with a teacher can only take you so far. But the ongoing process of contrasting and comparing your experiences with others who do what you do is the greatest teacher, I feel.  Nothing beats "talking shop!"

I think every healing path needs to be more transparent so people can understand the energies and techniques involved and make fully informed decisions about whether or not they resonate with them. There ARE universal experiences that cut across all healing modalities, energy perceptions and sensations. But most schools of healing are isolationist and use unique terms that make that path somehow sound like it's the "best" or the "sole path to truth."  And I don't like that. It sets healers against each other, when we should be seeking common ground across different systems that we practice. We're all energy beings, we all respond to energy, and we need to be talking about this stuff so we can better understand this amazing bodily system we inhabit.

When a healer lacks experience, even if they are well-intentioned, big-hearted, and gifted, they can get into some serious doo-doo when they work on people.  Because if something goes wrong, they might be out of their depth, unable to troubleshoot or talk about it with others who might be able to help. This was what was going on in the cases I followed and attempted to help out with.

I don't claim that dangerous side effects from a healing session are something that is unique to Reiki.  I'm sure they can happen with other modalities. It all depends on the healer, the client, the energy present in the session and how it's being directed, plus a million other things.

But my red flag IS way up about Reiki because of the extremely distressing stuff I've witnessed. Of the healing sessions I've been privileged to witness or participate in, a disproportionate percentage of the severe, melodramatic, life-threatening, "call-the-ambulance-he's-going-down" type effects happened when Reiki energy was applied. As a journalist of the "woo-woo," I have to take note of it. It's simply a fact that I've observed within the cases I've personally studied. 

Will this necessarily be true with all other healers who observe lots of healing sessions? I can't say for sure. I can only speak to what I've seen and felt and directly participated in, in a "man on the scene" role.

Holo, it sounds like you're very tuned in and know what you're doing, which is great. I hope you're teaching the "young 'uns" out there tips on discerning and clearing, etc.  It seems like there are far too few mature healers to help mentor the "newbies" out there.

And please note that when I use the word "newbie" I'm not using the word to refer to someone who is a "lesser healer."  I'm using the term to refer to someone who is "junior" in their training or experiences, perhaps into it just a couple of years, still learning.

I've found that many "newbies" are actually very advanced with their wisdom and talents....yet they lack a social circle to talk about this stuff with.  And many older, more "experienced" healers can, as you said, get all caught up in the titles and the ego gratification and hold themselves apart from gifted healers just starting out, sometimes because of jealousy or lack of time or even because they're not getting "paid" to share this information.

Me, I love encoutering some hot new talent who I can tell is going to far exceed anything I might be able to do in the healing department. That always excites me, to see the amazing and unique ways people can approach healing work. More and more powerful healers are "waking up" to their abilities each day. It's very cool.

I believe we each possess a unique connection to Spirit that is powerful, not a single one of us better or worse than the other. The challenge is for us each to remember this talent that we have.

Reiki will continue to be a valid and popular modality for many, and I honor that.   And I remain completely open to the idea that there are great Reiki practitioners out there who do good, and that they should keep doing what they are doing.

In this thread and in my articles I've simply presented a contrarian view for people who find that that Reiki as a healing modality doesn't resonate with them - largely because nobody is talking about this in a public venue, and many people with this view remain silent, isolated, and confused about what they are sensing. I've attempted to provide a potential framework for them.  And I understand it's not going to sit well with a lot of Reiki people who have had nothing but good experiences with that modality. Please consider this a "point/counterpoint" discussion, and take away from it what you will.

Anyway, carry on!

LipstickMystic aka Jennifer