Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Bishops Ban Reiki

Well in an interesting turn of events, people have reported that the Pope has banned Reiki practice as being "unscientific". Its actually a Council of Bishops.

An articles on Jeff Ollson's blog links to the real article published by the Guardian. Actually, if people actually read the real press release by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops they might get a more balanced understanding of the Bishops position... but its still a crock of poop.

Ok that's personal opinion there.

Reiki is a wonderful therapy option, and in many cases it constitutes the sole spiritual practice for people. Reiki is not of Christian origin (there were stories that its creator, Usui Mikao was a Christian minister or learned from a Christian school, but he wasn't and he didn't). The press release explains that the US branch of the Church doesn't believe Reiki should be a treatment in "Christian institutions". Oh and Usui wasn't a doctor either... I hate when people write that.

We have to be fair here. If we want people to let us have our own beliefs then we have to be willing to let other people have their beliefs. There are certainly Christian reiki practitioners who feel that reiki has no conflict with their belief system. Reiki is of course a different belief system, or more properly a set of beliefs. With reiki (as with everything else) people will hold on to whatever they feel is important to them, and let go of the rest.

Reiki is not a religion, but it is spiritual. I suppose the Council of Bishops feel that their religion should be the only spiritual path of its adherents.

It is unfortunate that the Council of Bishops choose to see reiki in this light. Why can't they see the use of reiki as a gift from God? There are definitely those who believe Jesus healed using Reiki (of course he didn't... the system of Reiki was created in the 1920's but energy healing of course is much older than that).

Of course the spiritual aspects could be removed from Reiki, but its not particularly something I'd be interested in practicing. Or actually maybe it would... I'll blog about reiki and energy healing in the future.

My Reiki teacher first sent an email about this.

For a good resource on Reiki, check out The Reiki Sourcebook by Franz and Bronwen Stein. I also have a small (but soon to grow!) collection of recommended Reiki books at my Amazon Reiki store. If you are interested, you check out my Facebook group I created AGES ago called Non-Fluffy Reiki. BTW: There is only a small number of Reiki books I recommend on my site because there are only a small number of REALLY GOOD reiki books out there.

Resources:
Reiki for Christians

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