There were two things that really stuck out from the seminar this past weekend. One was the definition of mediumship, and the other was the using the spirit to do healing work. The first one surprised me, but the second was no surprise at all.
Let's start with the easy one first, using spirit to do healing.
Jan had mentioned that by using spirit to do all types of energy work, it made it easier for the healer to do the work. She had specifically said that Reiki healers don't have to work that hard if they let spirit in to do the work for them. Now while that seems to be a new take on the topic, it is something that I've been doing for a long time now, and something that I teach although I would not have put it in that term.
According to how I define it, Reiki is universal life force energy guided by spirit. The first syllable Rei is defined as spirit guidance, or God consciousness. The idea being that Reiki energy is guided by spirit to go into the subject where it needs to go most. I see a lot of Reiki healers concentrating on what they are doing as they do their healing. In my mind, this limits the amount of energy that can come through. What I tell my students, is to form the image of Reiki energy coming in and coming through them, but then to push that image to the back of their minds so they are not actively thinking about it. They need to know that it is there, and that it is happening, but not be actively concentrating on it. In doing this, I feel one opens a better connection so that more energy can flow through one at any point in time.
As I have always told my students, I seem to be able to channel more Reiki energy when I'm distracted rather than when I'm concentrating. This is why I talk while students are doing energy work exercises in the classes. I get them to create the conditions of Reiki energy coming into them and through them, and then be distracted so it could happen automatically without their interference.
In effect, according to Jan, I am living spirit through to do the work rather than pushing myself to get the Reiki energy where it needs to go. And since this is spirit guided energy, it makes a lot of sense. Yet while she thought this was something new, this is something I've been doing for years. This is something that I actually learned the first night I had a Reiki class even though this class was not taught by the teacher. It was taught by a student that we had convinced to come back to a massage school with us and show us a few things. Up until that time, I had been doing Reiki I concentrating in guiding every bit of it. That night I realized that I needed to step back, and let the energy do its own thing and not interfere. This is not something that I was taught, this was something that I felt compelled to try. This is how I have been doing it since that time. In a way, it is nice to know that I have been doing what I should be doing, which is leading spirit in to do the work.
Now back to the definition of mediumship.
When we think about mediumship, we think about someone like John Edward talking with spirits and giving information to someone looking for. He gives evidence to prove that he is talking to the people that he says he is, and then passes on a message. This is called doing an evidentiary reading. But in truth, according to Jan, any time one connects to spirit, one is doing mediumship. One does not have to be doing a reading to connect to spirit. One simply needs to be looking for information about something, and this does not need to be specific evidence.
When I walk into my treatment room, I connect to spirit. I have been getting guidance on my energy work and massage work for years. I have been drawn to certain places on the body and doing certain moves. I learned long ago, even in massage school, that I was being guided to do something that was right for the person that I was working on. Sometimes, I decided not to follow the guidance as I felt that the client might not be comfortable with the movements I was being shown, but I knew I was being guided. So effectively, as soon as I walk in the my treatment room, I am doing mediumship because I am immediately connecting spirit and opening myself up to any guidance that they can supply me.
I had never thought of it in these terms. But it makes a lot of sense. I know that the information is coming from outside, and I know the source of that has to be spirit, so it makes sense that I am doing mediumship because mediumship is connecting spirit.
All too cool.