The Reiki Digest for August 9, 2006: Extraordinary and Ordinary

When you do a Google or Yahoo! news search on the word "Reiki", most of the items that turn up are simply announcements for upcoming Reiki classes or demonstrations. That's not really news, unless you look at it from a larger, longer-term perspective. For example, here's a typical one from the Village Voice of Hot Springs, Arkansas:

Reiki natural healing and Reiki healing circle at Good Sam's

The community is invited to attend a free introduction and demonstration of Reiki natural healing from 7-9 p.m. Aug. 14 at Good Samaritan Health Care Center in the conference room. Bring your aches and pains to experience first-hand how this method of natural healing may be able to help you...

That simple public service listing also gives us a bigger story: the extraordinary healing art of Reiki is becoming ordinary, a part of everyday life in more and more places, even those that aren't trendy new-age meccas. For example, these Reiki classes are being offered by an Arkansas hospital, the Reiki program there has been going several years and there has been enough interest that a limit has been established on the number of students. Nurses and other healthcare practitioners can get continuing education credits for studying Reiki.

Multiply that by the several hundred similar announcements that show up every week, and you get the larger story about how commonplace Reiki has become.

Earthsend founder Carolyn Jackson, featured in last week's post about sending Reiki to the Earth, is in the news again this week with the re-release of her book, The Spirit of Reiki (not to be confused with the book of the same title by Lubeck, Petter & Rand, or the CD of the same name by Guna Sangah).

In Danbury, Connecticut, USA, we find another example of the classic newspaper feature about Reiki: Reporter Susan Tuz experiences Reiki firsthand from Reiki Master Teacher JoAnn Duncan.

Unfortunately, the story contains an all-too-common error: "Reiki is based on a belief in seven chakras, or energy centers, that the life-force energy travels in the human body."

Although those Reiki practitioners who are familiar with the chakra system in Ayurvedic medicine (the healing tradition of ancient India), Reiki is not based on belief of any kind, nor is it based on the chakras of Ayurveda.

A student newspaper, the State News at Michigan State University in East Lansing, includes Reiki in an article about natural healing, quoting professors of medicine there at the university on how natural healing methods may help deal with the rising cost of prescription drugs and health care in general.

In Littleton, Massachusetts, USA, Reiki Master Pamela Ross, whose specialty is Reiki for her husband's patients (he's a dentist), has opened her own bookstore.

From the dentist's office and the bookstore, we follow Reiki to the bus and the gift shop, as Reiki Master Jeanne Sano trades a three-hour commute for her own small business close to home.

This week's podcast of The Reiki Show from the International House of Reiki in Sydney, Australia, features a delightful interview with Phyllis Lei Furomoto, granddaughter of Hawayo Takata, to whom most everyone reading this owes a debt of gratitude for bringing Reiki from Japan to the rest of the world.

Celeb-Reiki

This week's Celeb-Reiki is actress and Reiki practitioner Sharon Stone, whose Reiki has made the news as far away as India.