For a while now, I have been seeing and hearing about online classes that teach Reiki. I find the concept very interesting, yet scary.
I had been pointed to a site a few years ago that had an online Reiki manual for all levels. Anyone could go there and learn Reiki... for free. Effectively, it is the same as learning Reiki from a book. Of course, there are few (if any) books that are Reiki instruction guides. (I had heard that someone was writing an actual instruction manual at one time, but I haven't heard of it in a few years.) I know a lady in south Florida that will be either having an interactive online Reiki class, a downloadable Reiki instruction book, or a Reiki class video. There are two inherent problems with the idea of learning online or from books, or any other means where you do it alone ‘in the privacy of your own home’. The first is that there is no teacher present to tell you whether you are doing it right or not. The second is the attunement.
One of the things that is nice about taking a class is that there is someone there to guide you if things just don’t seem to work the way you think they should. All too much of energy work changes based on the individual. When we do scanning of a subject, some find hot spots to be problem areas while others see them as cold spots. And no, it is not as simple as hot and cold. Each person feels something different. And that includes how they feel the Reiki energy. I just find it difficult to think of anyone learning without the aid of an instructor. (My Reiki manuals are ‘how to’ instruction guides. But I still say that although they give a step by step explanation, they should not be used as a stand-alone source of instruction.)
But even if they could learn, they would still need to be attuned. A student told me of one source that said that a person could attune themselves. Hmmm, no. You see, the whole point of attunement is for the symbols to be passed down from one person to another. One of the Reiki 3 symbols is the symbol that allows a person to pass symbols (give attunements) to another. If you don’t have that symbol, and it didn’t come from someone that had it, then it just doesn’t work.
Now, going back to belief in energy, and knowing that belief is energy, I can see where it might be possible to tap into those energies simply by having that belief in the symbols themselves. Since a lot of people believe in these symbols, there is a lot of energy there. But it is still not giving you the full piece that you need to get through a proper attunement.
Another thing that I hear a lot of is ‘distant attunement’. Now, in what I learned, part of the attunement process involves tracing the symbols on the top of the head (crown chakra - where the Reiki energy goes in) and the palms of the hands (where the Reiki energy goes out). Of course, there are other methods, but I don’t know how they came about. The point is that one can not trace these symbols if one is not present.
Going back another step, and thinking of astral projection, it might seem possible. I know it is possible enough to create an image of one self and project that to any distance. While there, that image can do whatever one could do being there as a live, physical body. One can clean the aura, align the chakras, and give Reiki in the normal hand positions. Knowing this, I can see where an attunement might be given. But knowing the energies involved, I would still think twice about it unless I had no other choice.
The problem I have with people that claim they do distant attunement, is one usually doesn’t know whether it happened or not. If you got an e-mail message that told you to be in your living room at a certain time on a certain day for attunement, you would if something didn’t come up. Maybe you got stuck in traffic. Then you would have missed the attunement and have to reschedule it.
Or say you were where you were supposed to be, but the person attuning you had an emergency and got called elsewhere. You might walk away thinking you were attuned, and not be. Or maybe the person doing the distant attunement just plain old forgot, and then figured that you would never know the difference. The point is that it might not happen, and you might not know. I just have too much distrust in this.
Personally, I feel much more secure going to an instructor, taking class, and getting an attunement right there by that person. I know it happened and I know it’s valid. Enough said?