REIKI - SENSE AND NONSENSE (part 1)

Dr. Usui Mikao, the Japanese physician who developed Rei Ki

When I was still living in the Netherlands I got acquainted with the Dutch new age guru Jomanda who tended to attract much media attention, and she had been doing so since the early 1990s. She claimed to be able to cure people in a paranormal manner. Busloads of people would travel to Jomanda’s village to get a glimps of that woman, who would stand on a stage in a long blue dress and cure people en masse by the magic power of her healing hands.
She would sell little bottles of tap water that she had blessed and that was thought to have healing powers. Back then, I thought Jomanda was a lot of rubbish taking advantage of desperate sick people and making good money off them. I have never changed my mind on that.
A few days ago, I was watching Dutch World Television in Thailand. A news broadcaster spoke about the controversy around the death of the Dutch actress and comedian Sylvia Millecam, who suffered from breast cancer. Instead of choosing conventional therapy with proper physicians, she sought the help of Jomanda and two other alternative healers. It was believed that Jomanda and the other two healers had so much influence on Sylvia that they prevented her from seeking proper conventional treatment, even when Sylvia’s condition worsened. Jomanda wasn’t able to heal Sylvia Millecam, and the actress died. Jomanda and the two other natural healers were prosecuted.

Though Jomanda wasn’t a Reiki practitioner, I see some similarity with what I have been practicing over the past 8 years. A year after my arrival in the Himalayas, a Tibetan Reiki Master taught me the Usui Mikao Reiki healing method and made me a first degree Reiki therapist. From then on, I started treating people on a regular basis. A few years later, I met a German Reiki Master who taught me the second and third degree of Mikao’s Reiki healing method. As of 2004, I was allowed to call myself a Reiki Master and I am supposed to be able to heal and even teach, and attune people with the power of Reiki.

In my next posts, I am going to tell you about the sense and nonsense of Reiki, what Reiki can and can't accomplish. I will tell you what is true about Reiki and what is not. I will do so because I am upset with many of my fellow Reiki practitioners and I feel the need to prevent innocent people from making the biggest mistake of their lives and spending lots of money on quacks.