Episode 87: Reiki
Sources:
https://docplayer.net/17917825-Usui-reiki-training-manual.html
https://pdfcookie.com/documents/the-shamballa-system-manual-1-0256zrm0j8l1
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-16353/the-3-levels-of-reiki-what-are-they-what-do-they-mean.htm
https://mindalignmentprocess.org/map-healing-program/l
Show me on the bear where the Reiki touched you! Hokey religions and ancient pseudoscience are no match for a good doctor at your side, kids. I'm Spider...
...and this time around we are going to take a closer look at Reiki and some other energy healing methods both related and unrelated and I'm going to talk about some of the things I experienced with some of them. Two in particular and they were both forms of Reiki. But before we get into that...
...a “sometime” prophet, a guy who doesn't like pronouns he can't choose himself, mountainous delusions of hate-fueled grandeur and Rick Wiles' personal war on drugs. I give you the return of Christians behaving badly...
CBB Notes:
The Christians might be wrong about a lot of things – okay they are wrong about a lot of things – but boy do they feel their opinions are correct! And it's really hard to convince them once they've decided something's true. Especially if their opinions come out of their own heads!
For instance, our first story involves...prophecy! Because of course it does. It's sort of a...choose your own adventure prophecy in that there's really no coherent explanation of it. Evangelist Robin Bullock, he of the 'riding motorcycles with Jesus' fame, has issued yet another prophecy. It's the same prophecy as all of his other ones: Trump is going to be back as president....sometime.
Way to be open in the scheduling! I'm sure he was kind of tired of putting dates on things and having to change them once the date came and went. But I'm not sure this is better:
“Men will not remove him,” the Lord said. “I will.”
So do not be discouraged. Whatever you see, as November comes and goes, you just remember something: God is still going to do what He said He was going to do. And in Heaven, people that people recognize as president is not recognized in Heaven. Or some governors — not recognized in Heaven.
Because the fraudulent stuff didn’t start at the very top. It started here and worked its way up. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. So you can look for a big event to take place, probably at, I caught it in my spirit standing here, something… there will be a prophetic event that will happen very soon, and it will be, I don’t know if it will be in this country, maybe another nation… but it will be known loudly. It’s an event, I don’t know what it is. I am not sure if it’s nature-related or something but there’s about to be a big event. And look for the word “tidal,” and I believe that’s connected… to a wave of something… But this prophetic authority and governmental authority is about to start."
I don't know about you but I'm totally convinced.
And here's a scary guy with a lot of influence, saying insane things:
Lance Wallenau, a Christian Nationalist who is a proponent of Seven Mountains Dominionism, took to his podcast to declare that 'wokeness' is an Anti-Christ religion. He goes on to say that systemic racism “doesn't exist”. Well, I'm sure it doesn't for him... Here's a quote:
“The Wokeianity of the Antichrist system is an extorted confession of faith,” he said, “where you have to use the gender pronoun arbitrarily chosen by a student” even if that student’s reality “isn’t real for you.” ...
Wallnau claimed that “wokeism” has infiltrated corporate America through a scheme by “the homosexual movement” to get gay people hired into human resources departments, where they could “hire their own woke people” and “get rid of the conservatives or evangelicals.” He claimed that the HR director of a major corporation angrily told him that the movement was not seeking acceptance from Christians but instead would force Christians to “bow” to the need to affirm and celebrate homosexuality.
I'll take “things that never happened” for $500, Alex...
https://www.texasobserver.org/dominion-theology/
This guy has a huge sphere of influence. He's a teacher, a speaker, a life coach and a podcaster. His social media lists hundreds of thousands of followers. He was invited to the White House under the last guy to sit in a briefing on Middle East issues. In 2020, Wallnau said that Trump’s reelection would set the stage for the church to take greater authority in the world. When that didn’t happen and Joe Biden was sworn in as president, Wallnau declared Biden to be “an illegal counterfeit.”
As opposed to all those legal counterfeits, I suppose.
If you don't know what Seven Mountains Dominion-theology is, here's a brief explanation from a 2016 Texas observer article:
[This theology] holds that Christians must take control of seven “mountains,” or areas of life: family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government. Many proponents of this theology believe that God inspired the Founders to produce the Constitution, and declared that “biblical values” have made America the greatest country on earth. They also encourage Christian pastors to run for public office at every level, and called upon all Christians to exercise their “sacred responsibility” to vote for candidates who uphold biblical values.
Sounds a lot like the Republican party, doesn't it? As if you need any more proof.
And from the scary to the just plain ridiculous:
Sixty-eight year old Rick Wiles took to his TruNews program to warn us all of the drug cartels bringing their army to the texas coast to slaughter Americans and also to declare that if that happened he would “shut down his channel” and go down to texas and fight.
Of course he blames this scenario on former president Barack Obama and...George Soros. Because of course he does.
Here's a small sample of his rant:
“The communists running Homeland Security, they’re going to betray the Americans,” Wiles said. “I fear a massacre is coming. A massacre of Americans on the Texas border. When it happens, it all breaks loose at that point because we all have to pick up our arms and head to Texas. All of us. I will walk away from TruNews. I will go to Texas, and I will fight. If this happens, that’s what I’m doing. I’m going to Texas to fight because there’s nothing left. You can’t just sit there and allow this to happen.”
“When is [Texas Gov. Greg] Abbott going to act?” Wiles asked. “When is he going to send troops to the border and order them to open fire? The thing that’s going to hold them back will be the women and children the cartel is using as human shields. Thank you, George Soros, for your evil, diabolical plan that you have because this is organized. The communists have organized this invasion. … George Soros is paying [for] it. Why is that man allowed to continue walking around? Why? He is an enemy of our republic. Why is he allowed to continue to operate in this country?”
I don't honestly know what's more ridiculous, Rick Wiles' “second alamo” or the idea that Rick Wiles, a nearly 70 year old man who recently recovered from Covid, is going to the texas border to fight.
[Patreon/Promo]
Next week: Tracts: The Weapons of Their Warfare? (working title)
Main Topic
Just to get this out of the way, let's recap one salient point that I've made about this subject in the past: most of what we are going to talk about tonight happens in every pentecostal evangelical church out there and even in some more mainline evangelical denominations. Every single time you use your hands as a means of sending healing energy, you're doing Reiki. There's debate over which came first but you're definitely doing the same thing. And it's as useless as a screen door on a submarine no matter how you present it.
All energy healing methods are rooted on something that makes them suspect from the very beginning, and that's a little thing called belief.
Now, anyone who has listened to this show for any amount of time knows how we feel about that around here. It's one thing to believe in your doctors and the skills they've acquired and developed. We have reason to believe in those things, especially if the doctor has performed the same procedures numerous times with success. There's proof of a medical degree, there is observable evidence of the outcomes of their treatments, surgeries, etc. In short, we can observe that what they do makes a difference and measure the actual long-term effects.
In those instances, our belief in the skill of the physician is valid. It's rooted in science. We have peer-reviewed data that shows that treatment X has the likely result of Y. With energy healing, we have things like hope, belief, positive thinking, and other things that flat out provide no way of knowing the probability of a desired outcome. We go to a reiki session because we're having migraines. We believe that the treatment will help and it might – temporarily. But without medicine or proper medical therapies the problem isn't going to be solved long-term.
This is why, in a lot of cases, when you show up for a reiki treatment, a “responsible” practitioner will first pull out a waiver that says, among other things, that you shouldn't stop taking prescribed meds, you shouldn't stop seeing your doctor and you should still do everything your doctor says to get or stay well. OK... so if I still need all that, what's the point of going for reiki?
Well, Reiki sessions are cool [describe]
And that's just for the person receiving Reiki. It's kinda fun as a practitioner, too. [ad lib]
But before you ever get to this point, you have to go through the levels. Yes, there are levels to Reiki. Three, to be exact.
Level I -
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Taught by a Reiki Master Teacher trained to pass the attunements and teach Reiki.
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The Reiki Ray is taught and explained
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Learning the hand positions used in Reiki (on oneself and others – but you can only “heal” yourself at level 1)
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Chakras
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The Reiki principles:
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Just for today: I will give thanks for my many blessings. Just for today: I will not worry.
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Just for today: I will not be angry.
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Just for today: I will do my work honestly.
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Just for today: I will be kind to my neighbour and every living thing.
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The history of Reiki
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Self-treatment
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Other uses of reiki (if you continue on...)
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Treating animals
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Helping people “cross over”
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At that point you receive your first attunement. This makes you an official Reiki practitioner but you still can't just go around healing people. For $59 you only get to touch yourself. To actually do anything useful, you need to advance to Level 2. But wait! There's more. There are possible side effects of the attunement process and they include:
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Headaches
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Cold spots
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Tingling throughout the body
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Exceptionally warm or cold fingers and hands
So be careful and don't over -attune! Three weeks to THREE MONTHS in between is recommended. And um... some people say they orgasm when they receive their attunements. I never saw this nor experienced it.
Level II
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The three Reiki Symbols (Focus, Harmony, and Connection)
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ChoKuRei – power
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SeiHeKi – emotional wellness
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HonShaZeShoNen - “The tower”
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Mental/Emotional Healing
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Distance Healing
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Use of the symbols use and their meanings
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Second attunement
Using The Symbols:
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Practice, practice, practice drawing them
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Draw in “a variety of ways” - but here are the strokes in order. Wut?? [explain]
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Picture them drawn in violet. Because that's the color of Reiki energy. Apparently.
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Draw in the palm of your hand (the palm chakra is where the energy is!)
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Draw over the wall of your treatment space
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Reiki also comes out of your fingers so draw the symbols over the body!
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If your hands are otherwise occupied (treating the person) then you can trace the symbol out with an imaginary ‘very long nose’ (like Pinocchio), and use small head movements
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Draw them with your eyes
Once you have had a great deal of practice in drawing out the symbols, and they become second nature, you can produce the desired effect by visualising the symbol in its entirety, and you can dispense with the ‘drawing out’ method if you wish.
Oh, but it gets better because then we're told...
There are no short-cuts in Reiki, and don’t take the above advice as meaning that you don’t have to bother drawing out the symbols: when you have drawn them 500 times, then you might think about ‘seeing them’ in their entirety. Don’t run before you can walk!
This technique is really only suitable for ChoKuRei and SeiHeKi. You will be an exceptional individual if you can see HonShaZeShoNen in its entirety, with its 20+ pen-strokes!
People just paid ou $139 and you're calling them stupid. Well, they did just pay $139 for this...
If I can memorize it, as I'm supposed to, then why can't I just draw it mentally? It's not that difficult. You just “feel special” if you can do it. Whatever...
Distance Reiki – here we go. You can reiki someone from literally anywhere in the world but it takes a lot of focus to just do this mentally, too (because how do you keep an image of your elderly mother or best friend in your head... no you need... props).
Pictures – make the symbols over a picture of the person
Proxy methods (including the “Teddy Bear” method)
If you're truly special you CAN just visualize the person but be sure you get the details right or it won't work. So if grandma has colored her grey hair and you're sending reiki to her, the reiki won't know where to go if, in your mind, her hair is grey but it's actually brown. No, I'm not kidding. Reiki is powerful but it's stupid AF.
“Beaming” Reiki – this just keeps getting better. You can either draw the symbols in the air and “send” them to the target, or you can just throw the Reiki at them if they are in your line of sight.
The Reiki “hit list.” - Yes, you can send reiki to a bunch of people at once by making a list of names and drawing the symbols over them.
Because distant healing works outside of time and space, you can also send distant Reiki to:
1. Yourself as a child, your inner child, difficult episodes in your past
2. Yourself in the future, in an anticipated difficult situation (e.g. job interview)
3. Your past life/lives, or future life/lives
4. Someone who has ‘passed on’
5. Heal a relationship between two people, but always for ‘the highest good’. (what, I can't use it to get my ex back if she's already with someone else?)
6. Global crises, e.g. the Gulf War
7. The planet earth, nature, your garden
8. Divine figures, e.g. Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, the Goddess, Jehovah – why the fuck to any of these entities need my reiki?
And here it is: the piece de resistence...
If you are going to do distant healing, someone suggested that you should try to do it at 10pm since that’s when most distance healing organisations send their healing energy. If you cannot do it at 10pm, then you could do it earlier but ‘intend’ the energy to “go out” at 10pm!
Reiki alarms, then COOL!
Some of these are silly and laughable but some can really fuck with a person's mental health...
Apparently, you can also reiki your bed...
I send Reiki to my bed, with the intention that the energy will wait there for me, and flow into me when I get into bed at night. You can send Reiki to the future in an 'unconditional' form: it doesn't have to be set to be released at 10.00pm GMT... it can be sent with the intention that the energy will be released when a certain thing happens. E.g. when you walk into an interview room. You don't have to worry about Reiki landing on the previous candidate if things end up running late! Ooooh! More reiki alarms!
Other uses:
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Group distance reiki
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Reiki shares
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Room cleansing
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The power symbol as a filter (think dream catchers)
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Confidence boosting
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Help in meetings and interviews
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And the all-encompassing “everything else.” Yes, “everything else” is listed as a use for reiki in the manual. Reiki? I put that shit on everything!
Level III (Master Level)
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The Usui Master Symbol (DaiKoMyo) which must translate to wicker man or 1950s movie robot because that's what this shit looks like.
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It’s [sic] meaning, and application - completes the other three symbols taught at Level II.
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Masters are taught how to initiate others into Reiki using the attunement process.
“Due to the intensity of the attunement process, some reiki masters recommend that at least 21 days to a full three months pass between receiving the Level 1 and Level 2 attunements (Level 1 is required to receive Level 2).”
What Happens After a Master Level Attunement
• Your Healing Energy will flow stronger and vibrate at a higher, more intense level. It will continue to expand at your own pace.
• Your personal and spiritual growth will expand to higher levels.
• You will have a Master Symbol that will intensify your other Reiki Symbols
• You will become more at one with yourself and the universe.
• Your awareness of the intensity of the power of Reiki will expand.
• You may become more intuitive and psychic.
• The attunement and symbol will help you in your own life when needed.
• You will have a greater feeling of wholeness, fulfillment and completion.
• All the qualities of Reiki are enhanced by the use of the Master symbol.
• Further changes unique to you, will manifest themselves.
Wanna know what happened to me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Reminds me of my favorite number from A Chorus Line: Nothing. I felt nothing except the feeling that this bullshit was absurd.
The thing about each of these levels – they cost money. Yes. You get to PAY to be “attuned” to each level. Here's what I paid:
Level 1 Class: $59
Level 2 Class: $139
Level 3 Class: $600
And yes, I paid it. $800 total. I fucking paid it.
Why so much? [Explain the “exchange of energy” thing]
“Giving something for nothing creates an imbalance...”
OK, but why does it have to be money? What is is about the energy of currency that makes it supoerior to the energy of... let's say a hug or a bundt cake?
Some RMTs agree with me and give it away for free. And especially at that price, it's worth every penny. A lot of RMTs have taken to YouTube over the years to basically attune anyone who wants it to Level 3. The energy exchange there consited of things like gratitude. For something so juvenile and clearly fake, there are some very genuine people out there who understand the difference between wanting to help someone and wanting to fleece them.
Wanna see JUST how silly this is? Let me briefly describe some of the steps of a Reiki attunement. I'm going to keep going with this until I either get tired of it or until I start losing IQ points...
[PDF]
Shamballa/New Paradigm
But that's not all. Oh no. If you don't like the idea of a paltry three symbols, you can also get attuned to Shamballa, or as I like to refer to it: Roid Reiki (reiki on steroids).
Shamballa is a form of Reiki that is founded on not just 3 symbols but 22 main symbols with hundereds more that have been “discovered” by founder John Armitage. When I went through this there were 352.
The attunements in Shamballa are “downloaded” to the practitioner and are activated by whispering “Welcome to Shamballa 1 (2, 3, or 4) into the practitioner's ear. And the theatrics of it all... Oh my fake jesus...
Shamballa represents “a way of accelerating your spiritual development.” Didn't the reiki master symbol do this for me already?
These days it's called New Paradigm and has been called other things at various times for various reasons, all of which come back to John Armitage getting channeled messages from St. Germain. Most of these messages involved new techniques and attunements that master level practitioners would need to get (and pay for). I'm certain he got his ideas largely from Scientology.
Some of the crazy shit that Shamballa teaches:
Reiki predates Dr. Usui. It started in... wait for it... Atlantis! It was actually the brainchild of the supposed Ascended Master St. Germain.
“Many of the Atlanteans, who were considered spiritually and psychically backwards, were used as slaves by the priests and priestesses and the Royal families of the Atlantean Island. St. Germain in that lifetime was given a number of symbols which could be projected directly into the energy system of an individual, and which would raise their vibration to a sufficient level where they would transcend their present spiritual handicap and be equals amongst the Atlanteans. He was given twenty-two symbols, a master number.”
You can do all four Shamballa attunements the same day. It's gentler than Reiki. Your body can take it. I got two in one session and the other two in a second session. The whole thing cost $40. But I wasn't one of Armitage's disciples. The whole thing had a real MLM feel... your attunements came down from basically your upline: masters who received it ahead of you and let it trickle down. Reiki was the same way. You had a Reiki lineage. Shamballa all originates with Dr. Usui and St. Germain. They work as a team.
Oh yeah, you could assemble healing teams with this! For me, I had the same team for Reiki and Shamballa. These were (and are) called MAP healing teams with MAP standing for “Mind Alignment Process.” My MAP healing team consisted of Dr. Usui, Kuan Yin, and Brighid. Nothing like a little Celtic-Asian fusion to make the reiki flow.
I would also call my MAP team into my circle all the time and I used reiki in rituals more than once. Instead of calling the quarters I would sometimes bind my circle with the reiki symbols and do healing magick.
When you want to use Reiki, you just start doing reiki. Shamballa has an on/off switch like a WiFi router. If you want to use it, you have to say or think “Shamballa On.”
Some of the things unique to Shamballa:
The Antahkarana is a special symbol that has its own consciousness. It works directly with your aura and chakras and varies its healing effect depending on what you need at the time of use. Since it is directed by the Higher Self, it always has a beneficial effect and can never be misused or used to cause harm. The symbols can be placed under a massage table or under the bottom of a chair. They can also be placed on the wall or they can be held against your body with the print facing the area needing healing.
The other Shamballa symbols are in the PDF I've linked in the show notes if you really want to waste your time looking at them. At one time, I had them and their properties memorized.
The levels are very closely tied to Reiki but there are four, not three. Once you are attuned to all four, you automatically “download” new symbols as they emerge. What a bargain! The levels look like this:
Level I: enables you to heal yourself as well as healing others.
Level II: enables you to transfer healing energies to distant places or people.
Level III: adds more symbols that enable you to start attuning Shamballa Reiki to Level I students.
Level IV: This is the teacher/master level and is attained once the individual receives all the three hundred and fifty-two symbols. It enables you to attune students of all four levels of Shamballa Healing.
Whoever attunes you also transfers the symbols to you. That's very nice of them.
I was actually told John Armitage's entire story and I still went through with this because I was still a little theist at the time and I convinced myself that the power and the practitioner are not one and the same and that Karma would catch up with this guy eventually. I decided that what I did with this was MY business and that I was responsible for being responsible with it.
Physical Energy Healing Methods
Magnet Therapy
Magnetic therapy is a pseudoscientific alternative medicine practice involving the weak static magnetic field produced by a permanent magnet. It is similar to the alternative medicine practice of electromagnetic therapy, which uses a magnetic field generated by an electrically powered device.
Practitioners claim that subjecting certain parts of the body to weak electric or magnetic fields has beneficial health effects. These physical and biological claims are unproven and no effects on health or healing have been established. Although hemoglobin, the blood protein that carries oxygen, is weakly diamagnetic (when oxygenated) or paramagnetic (when deoxygenated), the magnets used in magnetic therapy are many orders of magnitude too weak to have any measurable effect on blood flow. This is not to be confused with transcranial magnetic stimulation, a scientifically valid form of therapy.
Polarity therapy founded by Randolph Stone is a kind of energy medicine based on the belief that a person's health is subject to positive and negative charges in their electromagnetic field.[34] It has been promoted as capable of curing a number of human ailments ranging from muscular tightness to cancer; however, according to the American Cancer Society "available scientific evidence does not support claims that polarity therapy is effective in treating cancer or any other disease".
This bears a resemblence with...
Bioresonance therapy - a pseudoscientific medical practice in which it is proposed that electromagnetic waves can be used to diagnose and treat human illness. It was invented (in Germany) in 1977 by Franz Morell and his son-in-law, engineer Erich Rasche. Initially they marketed it as "MORA-Therapie", for MOrell and RAsche. Some of the machines contain an electronic circuit measuring skin-resistance, akin to the E-meter used by Scientology, which the bioresonance creators sought to improve; Franz Morell had links with Scientology.
Pyramids (Physical/metaphysical hybrid) – talk about this for a few, mention the alleged apple experiment
“This power is said to preserve food, maintain the sharpness of razor blades, improve health, trigger sexual urges and cause other dramatic effects.”
Just to be clear – there is no source of “energy” out there that can heal you save that expended by the people who develop medicines, therapies, medical tests, and surgical procedures to get their jobs done. Electricity in the OR is useful, too. But there is no Reiki Ray. You don't have Chakras. You can't cure cancer by drawing a swirl in your palm and touching someone and if your hands timgle a lot, you need to make an appointment with your doctor. Now.
It's nice to think that we have some sort of power to heal ourselves and heal others. When my arthritis was at its worst, I belived whole-heartedly that I could stop the pain with Reiki, and I actually did more than once, but not because I had some unseen power flowing through me. I was doing something. And that is always more comforting than doing nothing. Joints relaxed, muscles untensed. My entire body would react to the relief of positive action and my belief that I was doing something significant. But isn't healing supposed to be better than, say... Tylenol? Because the pain always returned and then I'd just hit it again with more Reiki. And again I'd feel better... for a bit. But only for a bit.
And I feel it imperative to say this again, too: if you're ex-evangelical you are particularly susceptible to suggestion about these kinds of things because the conecpt of energy healing has been “downloaded” into your brain for years. It might be tempting to try treating illnesses this way but please understand: there's nothing real about the power behind it, but there IS plenty of evidence behind the medicines and therapies an actual doctor orders and prescribes. Please don't place your life in the hands of a Reiki practitioner. If you want to try it, if it makes you feel good, feel free. There's nothing inherently wrong with it. It just won't make you well. Leave that up to the people with advanced degrees in areas like medicine and biochemistry. They can actually help you.
Oh, and the same goes for the couple other energy healing examples I mentioned. No basis in medicine? No clinical evidence? Not worth the money, time, or effort. It's time to start thinking realistically about your health and those who have already figured out a thing or two about things like Reiki will tell you: it's necessary and it will be an eye-opener when you do.
Seeking the truth wherever it leads is vital to personal growth and the truth is that pseudoscience and metaphysics will never be a match for science and medicine. Forget what you learned in church. Energy healing doesn't work no matter what label you choose to put on it. Put your health and wellness in the hands of educated professionals who can demonstrate how their services can help you. It's a decision that will take you one step closer to getting and staying unbound.