Reiki Article Series

When I first became involved with Reiki, and I heard that some people carried out distant attunements, or studied Reiki without meeting their teacher in person, I thought "what a con; that's ridiculous". Experience now tells me that I should not have been so hasty in judging something that I had no personal experience of, and knew nothing about.

The first thing to say about distant attunements, or distant Reiju empowerments, is that they work. I have had experience of both of these, and the distant Master attunements that I have carried out have given me the most powerful experiences that I have ever had. Someone said to me a while ago that 'all attunements are distant attunements', emphasising that it is not the Reiki Master who attunes someone, any more than it is the Reiki practitioner who heals… the Reiki Master is just the channel, the vehicle through which the attunement comes, the catalyst, the mediator, and not the origin of the attunement. The attunement comes from above, and the Reiki Master is just making the introductions.

Distant Reiki treatments work, so why on earth wouldn't distant attunements work!

Distant Reiju

'Reiju' is the name given to the original Japanese empowerments used to connect students to Reiki. They evolved through time into the complex and cumbersome Western attunement styles. When Reiju first arrived in the West, a few of us got together in the autumn of 1999 to do distant Reiju on each other to see what would happen. Every Sunday evening we would sit down and, at our allotted time, we would send Reiju to the other two people. I would go through the movements on an imaginary person (people) in front of me.

When I was receiving Reiju, at the allotted time I felt my head fill up with flickering white light, and then purple lights, after a while my third eye started fizzing and pulsing, and a little later my hands heated up and tingled like crazy. The sensations stopped at the exact time that the sender stopped sending the empowerment (we swapped notes shortly afterwards). When I sent Reiju, the recipients had similar experiences.

I have used distant Reiju to attune two people who were not attuned previously - the children of a friend of ours. Immediately after the distant Reiju empowerment, the little girl was able to channel Reiki. She was not consciously aware of the empowerment because she was distracted doing other things rather than sitting expectantly, but Reiki came through without any doubt, as she gave a treatment to her mother.

Distant Western Attunements

In August 2000 I carried out a distant Master attunement on a friend of mine - someone who is already a Reiki Master. I performed the attunement on an imaginary person sitting in front of me on an empty swivel chair, and started by intending a strong connection between myself and the recipient. I went through the attunement as normal, sending the symbols, tapping and blowing etc, intending that the recipient was in front of me rather than being 300 miles away.

From the moment I started I felt amazingly charged with energy, and rather than being a mechanical process it became a wonderful flowing exchange of energy, and I felt merged with the energy and the recipient so strongly; it was an astonishing experience. The whole process took just seven minutes. This is what the recipient had to say in an e-mail shortly afterwards:

My Dear Taggart,

I sit here feeling very emotional at this moment. I am still a little 'spacey' so I am drinking loads of water after giving myself a lot of grounding!

The Attunement was fantastic, I was on a swivel stool and I had smudged the room with sage and lit scented candles and had my little water fountain running, I wanted to make this really special you see.

I was sitting on my stool, hands in Gassho then all of a sudden YOU connected! I could feel you behind me especially just by my right shoulder, The energy was so powerful, gentle, loving, comforting, beautiful all rolled into one! I had lots of very deep pulsing in my palms and I felt something VERY strong run right down my spine! I could have sworn that somebody had touched me, so strong was this!

I felt a lot of energy coming in through my crown too! At the end of the attunement, I was left with a feeling of such love and deep connection that I nearly wept!

Even during my 'hands on' attunements I have never felt anything like this! it was so beautiful, powerful and loving.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart Taggart, I know that you have given me something REALLY special.

For a person with such a businesslike exterior, you have the most gentle yet powerful loving energy, I felt it at soul level and I am truly blessed to have you as my Reiki Master.

Hope to hear from you soon!

With much love and gratitude, L.H."

I carried out another distant Attunement and Empowerment in March 2001, when I re-attuned another Reiki Master. She was 400 miles away, and this was her experience:

"Hello Taggart,

I am coming down very slowly after my beautiful Master Attunement and I realise how much of my energy was "out of body" when I spoke to you shortly after the attunement. Oh how I wish I could stay in that wonderful state of being, but alas, I am here on earth for a reason. So for now I hopefully will complete the mission I set out and chose to do with joy.

Just before the attunement process began, I "heard" someone say "are you ready?" I replied "yes" vocally and quietly. I was also aware of another soul coming in and standing behind me with their hands resting very gently on my shoulders. My hands became ice-cold and then this cold energy moved down to my feet and then started to surround me. It felt very soothing, loving, delicate and so, so protective and safe. Then came a down pouring of infinite peace, light, indescribable shimmering colours of which I have never seen before in this lifetime. I felt my whole entire being start to open and expand to this wonderful essence which was cascading down and over me. Both my hands became great big gentle healing hands and someone "said" "now you know what comes from your hands when you are being used to channel healing energy".

Next came an indescribable opening of power, an opening of powerful, loving, gentle, blue-ish, no colour, golden, silver-ish clouds and I was whooshed up and along at great speed through an opening within these clouds. There was no fear or anxiety. It was tremendously fabulous and exciting. During all this, believe it or not, I was aware of my face becoming very, very hot! Then this great Master of Empowerment came forward from the cloud structure and I was enveloped in pure unconditional love and tenderness. I became very emotional and could not stop crying for a short time, but it was tears of sheer joy, as I have never felt such love from another being before. I was accepted and loved unconditionally and completely. Such sweet joy, it is difficult to put into words, with our limited vocabulary which we use at this stage in our evolution to communicate with each other, but thankfully some of us are moving forward rapidly in this field!

There were also many other beings of great love and light doing their work and I was made very welcome. I asked the Master what I should call him and He told me "it's enough that you know I am "Love" as you are. Call me forth and I am here with you". Again, can't put it into words, but it's in my soul, the feeling of great privilege of being taken to this realm, this dimension of love, light, wisdom and infinite eternal peace and joy. I prostrate myself in reverence and humility and gratitude for this wonderful experience of pure soul joy, which I could never, I do not think, have in the physical body.

I thank you Taggart for your gentle soul energy and for being such a beautiful channel and teacher and for assisting and helping to guide me on my spiritual path of growth. Just one more thing. The attunement took approx. 10mins. When I came back to planet earth, it was one hour later: 10pm and still coming down!!!

Blessings, Light and Love

M.C."

It seems to me that there are very few limitations with Reiki, and that any limitations that we impose are our own personal restrictions.

© Taggart King 2001