I know I have talked about distant attunements before, but I think after yesterday’s class, I have more to say about them.
Attunements are something given to Reiki practitioners to help them pass on the Reiki energy. Most Reiki masters give their attunements in person. Some give them at the beginning of class, while others give them at the end as some type of graduation. Others give attunements distantly, and this is one of the big controversies about the attunements themselves. Can one be attuned from a distance? What could go wrong, and what could go right?
But first, we need to understand what an attunement is and we’ll forgo the joke that says you can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish. Sorry.
According to most people that teach Reiki (and William Rand’s group is no exception), the Reiki teacher gives the student the ability to do Reiki through the attunement. When Rand’s people try to put it in scientific terms, they claim that the attuning process changes something in one’s DNA which allows that person to accept and pass on Reiki energy. I have always thought that this was just so much felgercarb.
I was doing Reiki without any attunements. Now, these other teachers also cover that by saying that if one was doing Reiki in another life, the attunement passes through. Diane Stein claims at one point that she was doing Reiki long before taking any classes. Yet later on claims that you can not do Reiki without being attuned, and whatever you are doing ‘that looks like Reiki’ is not. Uh huh. Yeah.
This is a controversy that has been going on in Reiki for forever, and will undoubtedly continue to do so. I just see it as a means of controlling the teaching, and to some extent that is not a bad thing as we don’t want a bunch of fakers pretending to teach the art. But we also don’t want it so controlled that everything is done in secrecy like it has been for ages.
According to Dictionary.com, to attune is...
to bring into accord, harmony, or sympathetic relationship; adjust: He has attuned himself to living in the quiet country.
Archaic. to tune or bring into harmony, as a musical instrument
And attunement is...
being or bringing into harmony; a feeling of being "at one" with another being
I have always felt that we have the ability to do Reiki. We simply need the training to learn how to use it. I have felt that the attunement better aligns the student with the energies so they can tap into it easier. If I follow these definitions (and I have actually never looked them up before) giving an attunement is bringing the student into harmony with the Reiki energies. As I said, aligning.
Now let’s actually get to what started this post in the first place... distant attunements.
I was taught that an attunement is done by tracing the Reiki symbols on the top of the head of the student and the palms of the hands (where the Reiki energy comes in and where it goes out). There are other teachers that do other methods. In truth, since it is energy, it really does not matter how this is passed.
Since I can astral project, I can understand how one could be there, and trace the symbols. (When one astral projects, one takes with them an astral body with astral hands, arms, legs, etc.). But I really doubt this is the method being used.
I remember seeing this video one of the massage teachers was playing at school. It had someone who claimed to be a Reiki master standing in Sedona, Arizona next to a table with a big crystal on it. His video instructions had the students stand and, breathe, and move their arms to various positions. “Hold you hands out to the side. Now put them over your head.” At the end, he claimed that they were attuned. Bull-oney.
Some things I have always questioned is how and when these attunements happen. I have a friend that got a distant attunement one time. She said it was powerful. But, did this master actually do the attunement? You see, one can go into a corner at the appropriate time, but what if the master forgot? What if something came up that kept them from being where they needed to be to do the attunement? One would think that you might know. But I say you might not. Let’s look at it this way...
To get her distant attunement, she followed the instructions she was given. A little before the assigned time, she went to a quiet place and got herself into a deep meditation. Now think about this. What happens when you go into a deep meditation? Well, your mind opens up to energies, and with those energies comes possibilities. We reach an alpha state where our mind is open to anything. We are letting our subconscious take control and do what it feels it needs to do. Our conscious mind which controls our every waking action is turned off, disabled.
During this time of meditation, we are also open to spirit. Or it might be better put to say we are more open to spirit. You see, in this state, it is very possible to have an incredible experience, to have the world shake, and not receive an attunement at all. Your conscious mind may go into this thinking that you are going to get attuned, and by having that impression, whatever happens during your meditative state, you may think you have been attuned.
There was a man a couple years ago that claimed he could heal people in his sleep. He would go to sleep with the intention to heal someone. The next morning, that ‘subject’ would find that their problems were gone. This actually makes sense because we are again working with energies. Whether you believe you are removing negative energy and replacing it with positive (which is what Reiki does) or changing the subject’s auric (energy) field which is then reflected in the physical body, does not matter. Energies are changing and the subject is feeling better.
To show it could happen, they devised a test. A subject was chosen along with a date. The morning after, the subject had been cured (or healed) from whatever problem they had decided to work on. The problem was that the person who was to do the healing admitted to forgetting all about it. He actually did not focus on this person and therefore did not do anything but sleep. (I actually give him a huge amount of credit for admitting that.)
But the bottom line was that the subject was healed. So how was that possible. Well, the subject expected healing to occur while he was sleeping, and in that subconscious state, he actually healed himself.
I feel the same thing is true for distant attunements. If the master forgets to do the attunement does that mean the attunement did not happen? I will have to get back to you on this one as I really do not know. In true belief, one has to be attuned by a Reiki master to be attuned. One could surmise that the student, through the meditation, actually attuned themselves. Or we could believe that spirit could have done the attuning. If this is so, does the spirit need to have been a Reiki master? Probably not. Spirits deal in energies we can only dream of, and therefore can do many things we can not.
Now, when one gets an attunement in a Reiki class, they are not in a meditation. They are conscious. They may feel the world shake, or they may not feel anything. I have seen it happen both ways. Some people see colors. Some people feel energies (I know I did when a friend re-attuned me, but it did not happen the first time). Some people feel nothing. If I took the time to put them into a deep meditation, I might find more people feeling much more than they currently do. But that kind of time is not available. And whether they feel nothing or feel the world shaking, the attunement still works.
So, do distant attunements work? I still don’t have an answer for that. (Yes, you read all this way for no solid answer.) I believe that they are possible, but I also have my doubts. I guess I still prefer doing it locally and manually. I feel the most comfortable with that, and the most sure. This way, I know it was done and done right. There are no lingering questions.
So, still have questions? I do too. But think about them, and go with what your gut tells you is true. This is the true test of anything.