Reiki Distant Attunements, Do They Work?

My Personal Reiki Lineage

Distant attunements are a controversial subject among Reiki practitioners the world over. With very strong views on both sides.
The International Reiki Organisation accepts practitioners and master/teachers who have had distant attunements. The International Association of Reiki Professionals also have no restrictions on those who have distant attunements, indeed they welcome practitioners of all Reiki paths and recognise the validity of diversity.
The Association of Australian Reiki Professionals insist members have 'hands on' training and attunements in Usui Reiki with a proven lineage leading back to Master Mikao Usui; as do The Reiki Association and the UK Reiki Federation.

So what's the big deal? Well, that depends which side of the fence you are sitting on.

Those who have had their attunements done 'hands on' or 'in the physical presence of' a Reiki master have almost positively paid a small fortune for the privilege. There is also a very strong possibility these same people have recouped a lot, or all, of that cost by charging their own students similarly exorbitant amounts of money. This has been going on for decades, since Madame Takata returned to Kauai in the summer of 1937, gained her Master attunement and certification from Master Hayashi in February 1938, and subsequently opened her own clinic on Hilo in October of 1939. She was a very gifted healer and teacher, although her refusal to allow students to take notes or provide any training materials means we have only word of mouth verification for much of her work. She is, however, single-handedly responsible for bringing Reiki to the western world.

With first the inception and then the progression of the internet and our ability to use it for many purposes came the ability to impart information and receive payment for the sharing of that information in the form of online courses. And, apparently, the ability to scoff and laugh at those who thought they were actually learning or receiving something of value; despite our search for spiritual knowledge specifically teaching that this behaviour is beneath us.

You see, what it all boils down to is the arguably limiting belief that while Reiki energy, or life energy, can heal over long distances, and indeed transcend time and space, it is just not possible to attune a person in the same manner. Why? Through all the articles I have read, all the discussions, debates and arguments I have seen I have yet to find a believable, reasonable explanation for this view on the matter; other than the desire to keep the cash flow flowing.

Distant healing sessions using  CKR and HSZSN are commonplace once you have been attuned to Reiki level two, or advanced practitioner level, or Okuden if you prefer. All you need is the ability to draw or visualise the symbols, and connect to the energy, and you can send Reiki healing to any point in time or space. Reiki energy, or life energy, is sentient; it knows your intention and brings healing energy to the person, situation or place you intend it to go to. All the energy needs in order to work is for your intention to be clear, and for the highest good, and for the recipient to be open to receiving the energy. This is true whether you are doing an 'in person' session or a 'distant' session. Those who are not yet familiar with Reiki, feel free to read over this paragraph again; I want you to be sure you understand the principle of sending Reiki energy, even if you have no intention of ever being attuned and are merely reading to kill some time.

The attunement to Reiki level three, or Master/Teacher level, or Shinpiden, comes shortly before or after taught DKM, the master symbol. We are now able to teach and attune other's to all three Reiki degrees, or levels. We can do this traditionally or we can choose to take a more modern approach. Madam Takata prefered a singularly oral approach where Master Hayashi and even Master Usui himself provided written materials.

Many masters are now finding they can spread the message and healing of Reiki much more effectively by using online training platforms to reach a wider audience. Many of these individuals offer their courses at very reasonable and affordable prices. Some provide comprehensive training manuals that would take many lessons to go over and learn 'in person' but can be read between lessons and referred back to should one wish, some have no written manual and are delivered in the oral tradition via video lessons. I have trained with three Reiki masters in all, two who provided similar but not identical manuals and one who stuck to the oral tradition. Those offering online Reiki training generally also offer distant attunements, after all what's the point of learning it all if you then can't use it, right? Some charge extra for the attunements, others include it in the cost of the training.

My personal collection of Master/Teacher certificates

Now, if Reiki energy is sentient and only needs your clear intention for the highest good and the recipient's openness to receiving the energy; and we can send this energy through time and space using the HSZSN and the CKR, or the DKM alone; tell me again why distant attunements can't work? Surely if a Reiki master is attuning one of their students they are doing it with the intention that the student be attuned and for the attunement to be for the student's highest good, right? And if a student is having a distant attunement we can safely believe they asked for the attunement and are open to receiving that attunement, right? Obviously both sides of the argument agree that Reiki energy works, otherwise they wouldn't really have a view on the argument to begin with. So why do some people believe that Reiki only works over distance for healing? Hmmmm...

We are taught that during a session we are merely channels for the energy. We allow the energy to flow through us, we use the symbols to amplify the energy and help us channel it, we release the energy to the recipient so their bodymind can use the energy for their highest good. This works whether we are in the same room or on the other side of the planet. We can use HSZSN to send energy through time, forward to an upcoming exam or surgical procedure for example, or backward to help us deal with a past trauma. We are told, over and over, to let go of our ego, we personally do nothing more than act as a conduit for energy. The energy itself, we are taught, knows where we want it to go and what we want it to do when it gets there. We are also taught that intention is key, we set our intention, gather the energy, channel it and let it go. Another lesson we learn is that our perception of reality becomes our reality, if we believe it will work then it will work, if we limit ourselves with our beliefs then we limit our possibilities.

Maybe that last lesson is really the key to the whole argument. Those who believe in distant attunement find that distant attunements do in fact work, exceptionally well. Those who are clinging to the limiting belief that only an 'in person' attunement can work find they are stuck with this reality. It is this disbelief in distant attunements that prevents some masters utilising this wonderful way of reaching and attuning more prospective Reiki practitioners and masters. This limiting belief keeps them tied to the old way of charging exorbitant rates for a service that is needed less and less as more of us become aware of greater possibilities.

Just as an afterthought - Master Mikao Usui himself never had an 'in person' attunement. How could he? He is the founder of Reiki, there was nobody to attune him to the symbols or the life energy. Master Usui was attuned to life energy and the Reiki symbols through meditation; indeed Dave Nelson of Reiki Infinite Healer holds the firm belief that anybody can self-attune with training, knowledge and the desire to do so. Our perception of reality becomes our reality.

Reiki, life, energy is sentient, intention is key...

AdawnSpirit Ebook And Cards

Finally, after what feels like a hundred years of hard labour, the AdawnSpirit Divination ebook and cards are out there.
Yeah, so it wasn't really a hundred years but it certainly took about that many days off my expected life span, and gave me many more times that in grey hairs.
Take it from me, deciding to design and create your own divination cards is one thing. Then deciding to publish them for the world to buy (or the one or two people who actually want them) is a whole other ball game.
First, there's the dreaded Edister, who insists that you haven't written nearly enough and have to add all sorts of stuff you know needs to be in there but really didn't want to write.
Then said Edister decides that providing the option to download the pdf files and print your own cards isn't enough, there has to be a way to get them professionally printed, and so sets you the task of uploading said images to makeplayingcards.com. Just make sure you haven't resized your image files to actually fit the cards or you'll have to resample them all to improve the quality after you went to all the trouble of making them nice and small to print your own copy.
Then of course there's all the different versions and file types of all the various images that aren't actually images of the cards themselves - there's the book cover image in at least two different file formats. There's the logo, in various incarnations (with text, without text, with different text). Don't forget that the 'About Author' blurb at the back needs a photograph of the actual author - no you can't use an avatar.
So yeah there's a bit of fine tuning required before you can actually hand over your literary baby to the Edister, who then begins chuntering and grumbling about all the different file formats she then has to provide for different online book retailers. At least Gumroad just needs a couple of PDFs right? Right, kinda. One of those PDFs has to be a printable file with good quality images of all the card images sized to print - encore for the resampled images uploaded to makeplayingcards.com, copy and paste, and we're done, right?
Wrong. Once that printable PDF file of the images is done you have to create a new product on Gumroad to offer it for sale. Then you have to wait for Edister to send you the finished ebook. Then you have to upload that to the pre-lease that was already there and hit the 'release now' button. Then you have to make another new product to offer the ebook and card image file as a bundle and upload them both together. But then you're finished right?
Wrong again. Now begins the life long task of attempting to find people interested enough to actually buy the products and use the cards.
So please, please, please, please, please even if you're not interested in cartomancy yourself, even if you think nobody you know could possibly be interested in cartomancy, pass on this blog post and spread the word. You never know, somebody in your life could be a closet cartomancer, just as I was for 30 years.

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel Was Not A Train

The Pyramid Spread

I have finally finished the first draft of the AdawnSpirit Divination book. The fate of the book is now in the hands of its editor. It has been a much longer, harder slog than I initially thought it would be, largely because I didn't initially appreciate just how much information I was going to have to include and explain. Much as I would have liked, it is not just a matter of giving a brief interpretation for each card and the bare essential instructions on laying out and interpreting a spread.

First there is the introduction itself, the bit where I had to justify my belief that my divination cards could in any way be any good to anyone. Of course they work for me; I devised and designed them, I put a lot of thought, research and effort into finding images and symbolism that resonate with me. But how do I know they will work for others? The simple answer is; I don't know. I have to have faith that the symbolism understood by our subconscious and superconscious minds will work for anyone willing to put in the time to learn; just as it does for the Lenormand and the Tarot.

Second I had to give comprehensive meaning to each of the four Houses along with each individual card in each house, both upright and reversed, taking into account the symbolism of each House and numerological influences. That's meaningful symbolism to assign to four Houses with two interpretations for each card in each House.

Next I had to do the same for the Major Influence cards. Twenty four cards each requiring two interpretations, one upright and one reversed.

At this point I at first thought I just needed to add a few spread layouts and explain what each position meant and I would be done. But no...

The third task was to explain the significance of multiples in a spread. In other words, what additional meaning can we derive from two sixes appearing in a spread (a need for creative pursuits) or four eights (doing too much, gossip and rumours). This is a concept most definitely derived from the Tarot yet it doesn't appear to be standard between Tarot readers. I did a lot of research and eventually found the influences which felt right for me.

And still I was not done. Edister (that wonderful amalgamation of sisterly love and editorial slave-drivery) insisted I had to fully explore the energy flow between the Houses as this gives even more depth of meaning to each spread. At this point my brain very nearly exploded. I had to enlist the assistance of Edister to help me first visualise and then understand the energy flows. In fact I have to admit that Edister did a great deal of the heavy lifting on this one.

It was now time to add the spreads. Firstly I needed to introduce the concept of a card spread for divination use. Then I had to explain the spreads I have included as well as showing and explaining an example of each.

Lastly a conclusion, acknowledgements and that annoying bit at the end where I had to talk about me. From the first inkling of an urge to design and create my own divination deck to having finished the first draft has taken around two months.

Now I get to sit and fervently hope there are not too many glaring errors or omissions and nothing more needs to be added. In the meantime I am awarding myself a well earned day off...

When The Student Is Ready But The Teacher's A Flake

Image by Sasin Tipchai on Pixabay

Most of us have heard the saying I have shamelessly butchered in the title of this post. It is built on the premise that when a person is at the point in their life where they are ready to learn a specific thing, the Universe will conveniently direct their steps into the path of the teacher they need. Back in the days of the Theosophists, this was probably more or less the case... but I bet they never accounted for this living entity we call the Internet. These days when the student is ready a whole slew of teachers crawl out of the woodwork with grasping hands and call-to-action buttons.

I have been waylaid by these grasping, button wielding fiends on occasion and had to extricate myself rather rapidly from what would be a disastrous transaction. The increasing popularity of online learning has made it all too easy for charlatans and thieves to pilfer the hard-won bank balances of the unsuspecting. Yes, I did say thieves! I once enrolled on a course to find the whole thing was plagiarised material from a selection of websites and books with a few embedded YouTube videos thrown in. The pseudo authors of this alleged course were not even savvy enough to use a single YouTuber's videos, that would have been far too easy, no they had misappropriated the intellectual property of four or five different YouTube contributors. Plagiarism is the lowest form of theft in my opinion. When somebody has gone to the time and trouble to write a book, or produce content for a  website, or filmed and edited a video they should be able to share their content without it being stolen by dishonest reptiles. Apologies for the rant there, plagiarism really is a bugbear of mine.

My first foray into Reiki led me to quite a good online course. The price was good and included all three degrees. The attunements cost extra. A while later I found Lisa Powers' Crystal Reiki and have to say the attunement she provided not only came free with the course but was also much more profound and created a much deeper connection than my initial attunements. The depth of the connection to Crystal Reiki energy from Lisa was enough to convince me to enrol on her Reiki l, 2 and Master courses to reinforce my original attunements, even though those original attunements had worked and given me the connection needed to access the life energy. Sometimes the first teacher is not so much wrong as just not right for you.

Image by Geralt Altmann on Pixabay

On another occasion, I found what looked to be a promising course purporting to teach Shamanism and provide the nine rites of the Munay Ki. Turns out that was a bad joke. The lady in question was every inch the typical fluffy-bunny-willow-wannabe-wicca-flake that abounded around the height of Buffy The Vampire Slayer's popularity, just a little older these days. The annoyingly cloying, airy fairy voice, coupled with exaggeratedly willowy hand gestures, was bad enough but when she confused creating an alter with casting a circle and made unnecessary reference to being a witch I knew this was not the course for me. I was looking for personal spiritual progress, not a terrifying free-fall into bad fanfiction. One refund later and I actually stumbled across a teacher I can work with, who allowed students to preview lessons before enrolling and actually demonstrated workable techniques in the previews. I have at this moment in time not yet begun the course, I am a little preoccupied with Lisa Powers' Reiki courses at the moment. I will, however, be paying close attention to this new teacher too. 

Online learning is amazing. It is so easy to find an affordable, or even free, online course for just about any topic you could possibly wish for. A little self-indulgent studying is good for the soul, a little academic or vocational studying is good for the career prospects. Just be aware that quite often the first teacher to appear is not going to be the one you ultimately learn with. When you think you have found the right teacher, keep looking, then keep looking some more; don't be surprised if the teacher waiting patiently behind all the graspy handy, call-to-action buttony, in-it-for-the-money grabbers is the one you have been searching for.

Image by Jan Vasek on Pixabay

For all the teachers out there, I have joined your ranks, we should all learn from the mistakes of airy-fairy-fluffy-bunny-willow-wannabe and the despicable plagiarists of that first course. If you are going to teach then make sure you teach what you are claiming to teach; and make sure your content is either your own original content or used with permission of the original author. There are a lot of courses out there to compete with; in order to succeed those of us aspiring to pass on our knowledge are going to have to produce high-quality content and bring our A game.

Much Luck

Dawn xx

Why Edister Is A Pain In My Butt

OK. So I am rapidly finding that understanding and working with the AdawnSpirit cards myself is one thing, explaining the interpretations so other people can understand and work with them is something else entirely. The AdawnSpirit Divination book is unlikely to be released earlier than the anticipated 4th February 2020, I have a lot of work to do yet.

For my own use I originally made very concise, abbreviated notes, the whole lot fit on four A4 sheets of paper with a couple extra sheets for the spreads. That was enough for me. I knew what they meant and they served their purpose. Unfortunately for me my single-minded editor, who is also my very determined little sister, is insisting on more detail.

Apparently if you expect other people to be able to use something you have designed and created you have to provide comprehensive instructions; and as the force that compelled their inception is also demanding they be shared then I'm going to have to buckle down and hammer out those comprehensive instructions - with example readings as Edister (AKA little sis/editor) feels is necessary.

I rather casually asked if, as she wears several literary hats, she could ghost write it for me and expand on the information I had already given. That suggestion earned me what Paddington Bear would describe as a "Hard Stare" and the very carefully articulated, "You would have to give me something TO expand on first."

So, yeah, I'm taking that as a slight "NO!"

It appears Ms Edister feels that I should be explaining not just what each card means but also why, and how I worked the interpretations out. This could be a longer job than I had at first anticipated. I'm beginning to think I should have felt compelled to take copious notes throughout the whole process.

Sincere apologies for the shortness of this update, I have a lot of work to do to hit that 4th February deadline. Here I go, back to the grindstone...

My Personal Cartomancy Journey

My small collection of divination cards

It is almost thirty years since I was first introduced to a friend's deck of tarot cards. Right from the beginning I was hooked. I borrowed those cards and studied them. Just as soon as I was able, I got my hands on a deck of my own. I continued studying the cards and began 'reading' for anybody who would let me, practicing the art of cartomancy for all I was worth. I quickly realised that this was something I was good at, I was performing accurate readings easily.

My prefered deck of Rider Waite inspired tarot cards

A very basic Rider Waite inspired deck of cards

The two decks shown above I have had for some years. To the left is a deck of cards which are my 'go to' cards when I am performing a reading with tarot. They are quite large, as are most tarot cards, and I do have some difficulty handling them on occasions; they are also part of one of those 'Learn Tarot' sets with a cheap deck and a basic book. However, they are the tarot deck I have the most instinctual connection with despite their lowly origin, the book however was discarded soon after purchase as not really being worth keeping. The cards on the right are much smaller (and easier to handle which is why I wanted them) and came free with an old periodical that I subscribed to specifically for the cards, I stopped the subscription just as soon as I had them all. Hands up all those who remember the 'Mind Body Spirit' periodical, yes, these are those cards. Unfortunately, despite being small enough to handle with ease and being Rider Waite inspired, I found the spiritual connection just wasn't as strong as with the other deck.

The 'Lord Of The Rings' tarot deck

A couple of years ago I had the misfortune to misplace my cards, which was quite upsetting. A friend bought me the Lord Of The Rings tarot, pictured above, to replace them, for which I will be forever grateful. While the cards are beautifully illustrated, and the author has tried very hard to remain true to the books, I just cannot get on with them. Each card has a reference to the books which may or may not make sense. For example, the card on the right in the image above tells us that "At Weathertop Aragorn musters his companions against the approach of the riders" while this is an accurate reference to the books, his companions are not shown in the illustration. The card is also shown as the seven of wands, wands are traditionally concerned with creative or business endeavours - surely a card depicting the anticipation of battle would be better in the suit of swords? I find this mismatch of suits and situations is rife, along with some faulty book references. I do love the artwork though and will continue trying to connect with them.

My original, slightly worse for wear, Lenormand deck

Very soon after my initial introduction to the tarot, possibly around twenty-seven years ago, another friend introduced me to the Lenormand divination deck of cards. This was a whole new concept that I embraced wholeheartedly; quickly realising I have a strong spiritual connection to these cards which, of course, I just had to purchase for myself. In pre-internet times this meant a phone call to a shop somewhere in London, I think it was somewhere near Covent Garden. I then had to send off a Postal Order, then wait what seemed like forever for the cards to arrive by return of post. Readings with the Lenormand soon became my prefered method, although I still used the tarot cards too. Accurate readings were now practically guaranteed every time; there's always that one person who tries to 'fool' the cards with a silly, nonsensical question, those readings are invariably nonsensical in return. I often offer two readings together, one with each deck, and find that the two readings always complement each other, with one expanding on the messages of the other. When I thought I had lost my cards I found a replacement Lenormand deck online, it's not as good. As you can probably see from the photograph below the verses are far more simplistic. Some of the images are not even the same, call me a creature of habit but I just couldn't 'connect' to these cards in the same way. They didn't feel right. Still, it's nice to know I have a backup should my original deck hide from me again.

My newer doesn't feel like me Lenormand deck

Over the years I have owned various decks of divination cards, some I still have, some have fallen by the wayside. I currently own six decks of cards, with three others I can call to mind that I no longer own. I did own tarot cards purporting to be those of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, they had two distinctly different Justice cards (for the purposes of meditation); I found those cards to be overly pretentious and really struggled to connect with them both visually and spiritually.

Another deck I used to own was a Lord Of The Rings divination deck that were again beautifully illustrated, and came with a convenient map of middle earth. These cards were marketed as divination cards rather than tarot cards. They didn't have the suits, pip cards or arcanas associated with the tarot. Each card depicted a character, group of characters, situation or place from the LOTR books as well as the hobbit. Each interpretation incorporated the character or personality of the character portrayed, or correlation to the situation the characters found themselves in, or a correlation to the events that occur in the place depicted. Those cards were lost in transit somewhere in the last twenty-odd years.

I also once owned a peculiar deck of cards claiming to foretell fortunes in love. I don't remember what title this deck was given, nor do I remember ever having any success with them. I do remember they had three 'mini-decks' that should be shuffled separately with a card from each giving the reading. They were amusing but not a deck I would actually perform readings with.

Around twenty or so years ago I made my own deck of cards. I no longer remember how many cards were in the deck, nor what many of them were. They were all hand-drawn and looked rediculously childish. They were, however, surprisingly accurate despite my only ever showing them to two people. Strangely, over the years I have kept my cartomancy talent largely to myself; there have been friends who knew all about it and requested readings readily and frequently - there have also been partners I have shared my life with for a while who knew nothing of it and never saw so much as a card. This was never a conscious decision, it appears to have been an organic choice that was made by my subconscious or superconscious minds without my conscious involvement in the process.

The AdawnSpirit divination cards

Around the November of last year (2019) I felt a strong compulsion to once again devise and design my own divination deck. With very little in the way of ideas for these cards I trusted to the Universe and spirit energy to guide me. With a lot of searching, and researching, the result is a sixty-four card deck of cards consisting of four Houses of ten pip cards and twenty-four Major Influence cards. This deck is not a new tarot deck, nor is it a new Lenormand; although elements of both are very much in evidence as having been large influences in their design and creation. This time I am being quite forcefully guided to share the cards rather than keeping them to myself. Thus the AdawnSpirit divination cards are introduced to the world. It is my hope that those for whom these cards will work well are naturally drawn to them once they are out in the world.

Introducing AdawnSpirit

Introducing AdawnSpirit

AdawnSpirit is a bright shiny new spiritual and holistic service available online and, if you're lucky enough to live local, in person.

Located in Doncaster, UK, AdawnSpirit incorporates the Adawn Holistic services already available at Just Cuts on Cleveland Street along with spiritual services such as cartomancy; with the intention to add online courses and more spiritual based books over time.