The Kether School of Reiki

Reiki Discovery

by Storm Constantine

The Bitter Side of the Fruit
Before I actually learned about Reiki's background, I presumed the reasons people wanted it was either to work on their own self-development or else heal others. If I fell into either of those categories, then it was the former, although the main reason I decided to 'get' Reiki some time ago, was because my friend, Reiki Master Paul Weston, whose opinion I greatly respect, suggested it for a different reason. As I was involved in a lot of visionary questing work at the time, he thought I'd find Reiki of benefit in keeping myself healthy in mind and body. I didn't know much about Reiki then and assumed it was just some eastern 'thing' that Paul was into. However, the fact he had been interested enough to keep with it and eventually become a Reiki Master suggested there was more to it than I guessed.
It was only once I had Reiki for myself and, thoroughly amazed by it, was eager to delve into the subject that I discovered yet another side to it. This is something I feel quite strongly about, which is why I want to address it first. Basically, what I had assumed to be a fairly newly-discovered and exciting form of energy healing was in fact the subject of heated factional battles within the Reiki world that had been going on for some time. It was difficult for me to see any philanthropy and altruism in certain schools' vicious attempts to discredit rivals. A cynical part of me couldn't help thinking they simply sought to secure their own source of income. What I had believed to be a wise, gentle body of loving healers was, in part, a snarling pack of adversarial wolves. An unpalatable truth struck me. Not everyone who acquired Reiki used it altruistically, although it seemed they believed they did. As with so many things in our modern world, it appeared that the desire for affluence was sometimes the prime motivating force, no matter how many other noble or ascetic justifications were laid over it. Many Reiki Masters believe that Reiki is God, and that it is the essence of love, yet even espousing this belief, it appears that some are quite capable of furiously suing those they believe threaten their livelihood.

A Clear-Sighted View
Then I discovered another astonishing fact. After my first and second degree initiations, Paul advised me to buy William Rand's first book, because - in his words - it was one of the most sensible. Reading it, I learned that Rand had done a lot to debunk many of the popular myths about Reiki and its founder - or rediscoverer - Mikao Usui. He had learned that a lot of the so-called history of Reiki had actually been made up or embellished upon, perhaps to fit in with Western and/or Christian values. However, the truth was just as fascinating. (I won't go into detail here, because this information is available on many other sites.) Rand was also against exploitation, i.e. charging unfeasible amounts for initiation. I recommend any Reiki practitioners to read Rand's books, if they haven't already done so. From reading Rand, I bought books by Frank Arjava Petter, because I noticed Rand had written the introduction to one of them. I guessed that if he was happy to endorse Petter's book, it was probably OK. In fact, Petter's work greatly expanded my understanding and awareness of Reiki, and inspired me to be creative with it.

The Cost of Reiki
From the start, I had felt uncomfortable with the fact that Mrs Takata, who'd first brought Reiki to the West from Japan, had charged extortionate amounts of money for bestowing the third degree, Reiki Master. Her view was that people wouldn't appreciate Reiki unless they had to pay a lot for it. Its high cost was an indication of how precious it was. Although, with the greatest benefit of the doubt, you can perceive some justification for this, (more on this later), I cannot condone the fact that Reiki Mastership was then only available to the more affluent members of society. Just because you can afford $10,000 to become a Reiki Master doesn't make you more suited to acquiring it than someone who'd have a hard time getting $100 dollars together.
Fortunately, some Reiki Masters felt the same and the price for all three degrees of Reiki has plummeted drastically, which has allowed it to become more popular and easy to acquire. In the UK, the average cost for Reiki I is about £70. Some Masters charge as low as £50, while others head towards the £100 mark and beyond.
When I first became a Reiki Master Teacher, I considered that I would never charge anyone for attunements, because this wonderful gift should be available to anyone who desired it for free, and I'm sure a lot of equally righteous new Master Teachers feel the same! But given the enthusiasm with which my friends flocked to my door, I realised there has to be a cut off point. It's all very well initiating your best mates and family for free, but when a friend of a friend's boss's mother comes along, you realise you either have to make a nominal charge or refuse to oblige them. As a self-employed writer, my time literally is money. I can't spend all day, every day giving Reiki and not have time for anything else, otherwise my mortgage wouldn't get paid and my cats would starve! I realised that if I initiated those closest to me for free, and they went on to become Reiki Masters, they could then initiate a certain number of people without charge, and so on. This would help spread the healing power of Reiki without exhausting me! When I decided to form the school, affiliated with Paul, I realised I'd have to work out a system of charges that would be fair to both Masters and students.
The majority of Reiki Masters offer seminars or courses, usually over a weekend, during which a group of people will be initiated. The benefit of this is that more people can be attuned, which is surely a good thing for Reiki, if not the human race! But I personally would not have liked to be given Reiki in a group workshop situation with a lot of other people I didn't know. Initiation can affect people in powerful ways, and sometimes things come out that are very private and personal. Paul always gives Reiki attunements on a one-to-one basis, and this is something that I have elected to make my practice as well. I like to make initiations special, personal events that take as long as is necessary. In a group situation, one person might need more support and comfort than others, which I don't think is fair on the people whose initiation is quite a smooth ride, who might end up receiving less attention. Also, if someone's having the screaming abdabs, bouncing off the walls, they might feel intimidated by strangers being present, even to the extent of bottling up their feelings and not expressing them. One benefit of Reiki initiation is the release of these feelings, enabling you to purge yourself of any past 'baggage' that's been lurking unresolved within. So it's important the student feels completely comfortable with 'opening up'. Even if you're not affected emotionally that drastically, information about your spiritual path in life can crop up through visualised images, and I believe a committed Reiki Master should then expand upon those messages, spending as much time with the student on it as required, which again might not always be possible in a group situation with limited time. Paul and I did several meditations during my initiations, on imagery that came to me during the attunements. Once Eloise and I started working together, we decided that we'd be happy to initiate couples, people who are close friends or related to one another, and who want to share the experience, but we'd never initiate more than a couple of people at a time. But we did realise this would mean it would take us a lot longer to initiate twenty people than if we just ran one or two weekend seminars, and this would therefore have to reflected in our charges.
If a Reiki Master charges only £50 for first degree, then it makes sense that they offer it in a group workshop situation. Initiates do not pay for the Reiki itself, but the time and service of the Master. This is clearly why some Masters opt for the group attunement process. It enables them to initiate more people in a shorter time. If people prefer the one-to-one attunement method, then they should obviously expect to pay a little more for the Master's time. At present, we charge £80 for first degree, which we feel is fair, given the amount of time, care and effort that we put into it.
We do think it's important that people are given the opportunity to have the gift of Reiki for themselves, whoever they are and whatever their circumstances, which is why we would never insist on being given money for our services, if it was clear someone who couldn't afford to give anything was sorely in need of Reiki's benefits. We do feel there should be some kind of exchange between Master and student, but this doesn't necessarily have to involve money. We are open to bartering. Some people have given us pictures they've painted or other creative things they've made, in return for Reiki initiation. I've also heard of people doing their Reiki Master's gardening for a few weeks as payment, or else cooking them a meal.
Initially, I was rather scornful of Mrs Takata's take on human psychology, in that she felt they didn't value things they hadn't paid for, but as time has gone on, I've become more understanding of it. If someone studies a martial art, it often takes a great many years of strenuous exercise and study to become a master of it. To many people, Reiki is something to be suspicious of, because it seems just too easy to acquire. Nothing that good can be so cheap. When I've given talks, members of the audience have asked questions about this. It's so bizarre, but I can really see how it might make someone feel better to pay for Reiki, because it then appears to have more value. They might have had to save up for a while, so that when the time comes for their initiation, they feel that it's a special occasion they've worked for. We've initiated many people for free, and the majority of them have continued to use Reiki, but others have just taken the first degree out of simple curiosity because it was offered for free. They never even bother to use it again. Much as this isn't really my business, I still can't help wondering whether if they'd paid for the initiation, they'd have continued to use Reiki, as they wouldn't want to think they'd wasted their money. Human psychology is a strange thing!

The Shadow of Dogma
Another thing I'd like to address here is dogma within the Reiki world, as some of the information I've seen certainly amounts to this. In his books, Frank Petter describes how he faced all kinds of problems because of his views, which were seen by the Reiki 'establishment' as virtually heretical. When I first read about it, I was extremely disappointed. Surely, the whole point of Reiki coming to the Western world was to help heal ourselves and our environment, to make people more aware and spiritual? Within this ideal, people should be recognised for their creativity, their drive to look deeper into energy healing and expand upon the original method. For some reason, certain Masters feel theirs is the only 'proper' Reiki: a view with which I heartily disagree. Reiki is a dynamic system that constantly changes. Symbols and methods might mutate, but if the energy behind them is constant, how can it matter? Some of the books I've read on Reiki have had a tangibly pompous and sanctimonious tone and the authors' views are clearly very rigid.
Everyone is very keen to stress that Reiki is not a religion, but a large percentage of writers harp on about Reiki being God and their manuals are full of prayers or religious affirmations. If they want to think of Reiki that way, they're entitled to think so, but there's a danger of evangelising. I'm not a Christian, and the majority of people I've initiated aren't either. Therefore, I think Masters have to be careful what terminology they use during attunement and in any workshops or further training they offer afterwards. No one - whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan, a member of any other religion or atheist - should find the terminology used during an initiation distasteful. I would certainly have felt uncomfortable if my Master had started calling on God during my attunements.
We habitually used an opening 'address' before attunement, which we believed was pretty much non-denominational and would offend or frighten no one. We felt it gave the process a spiritual feel, but would accommodate everyone's beliefs, whatever they were. If a student wanted privately to call upon - say - Allah to be present, they could do so. The wording of the address was designed so they could interpret it to fit their own beliefs. However, one student said afterwards that the wording made them feel that they were joining some kind of religious cult! This gave us a bit of a shock, but also made us realise that prior to attunement, people's religious beliefs, or lack of them, should be discussed, so that the terminology we use can be tailored for their comfort.

The Reiki Symbols
When I was given Reiki II and Reiki Master by Paul, he stressed how the symbols are secret, and are not supposed to be written down. The initiate should learn them by heart. However, he allowed me to make copies of them, provided I'd keep them away from uninitiated eyes. His reason for the secrecy was that when someone receives second degree initiation, and they see the symbols for the first time, they have a greater impact on the subconscious than if the symbols were already familiar and known. The symbols 'do not work' without second degree attunement, so what's the point of knowing them beforehand anyway? He told me that some writers had broken this rule and had published the symbols, and I'd read in certain Reiki manuals about this, which was viewed rather dimly by the writers concerned.
I acquired Diane Stein's book 'Essential Reiki' precisely because she'd published the symbols. In the book, the author states that Reiki is changing so rapidly, with so many new schools popping up, that there's a danger of the original symbols being lost, or at least they won't be known by initiates coming from non-traditional schools. She justifies publishing the symbols just for the record, so to speak, and I can't argue with that. I was intrigued to see just how much the symbols Paul had given me differed to those Ms Stein had received. Mine were listed as 'alternate' versions, (obviously the author will give hers as the main ones, because these are the ones she learned from her own Masters - in her position, I'd do the same), but she points out that Mrs Takata herself often changed the symbols during initiations, so there must be quite a lot of variants out there. The book is really a manual for Reiki Masters, but because it will sit next to more elementary works on book shop shelves, inevitably people with only Reiki I, or even just interested parties who have yet to acquire Reiki, will buy it. This is unavoidable, and not the most desirable circumstance, but I still support Ms Stein's position. Reiki's progress should be documented, and it's very useful indeed for new Reiki Masters to have access to this kind of material. Not everyone wants to join an association or attend organised Reiki events.
Since reading 'Essential Reiki', I've acquired other books containing the symbols. In one of them, 'Reiki at Hand', by Teresa Collins, the third and fourth symbols bear hardly any resemblance to other versions I've seen. Yet, these different symbols work just as well for those who use them. This led me to conclude that it is the intention behind the symbols rather than the shapes themselves that enable Reiki to be directed in different ways. Or perhaps it's simply that the versions you receive at initiation are somehow attuned to your energy field, and that's why they work for you. It's interesting to note, however, that the first and second symbols (known as the 'power' and 'emotional/mental healing' symbols respectively) have the fewest variants. It is only the various versions of the 'sending' and 'master' symbols that seem to differ widely from one another.
As for all the other symbols that are cropping up, I think that they are valid in their own way. Some writers have said that there are hundreds of 'lost' Reiki symbols that were not revealed to Usui, but that they exist in shrouded corners of Tibet, waiting to be rediscovered through meditation and other means. I do not know whether this is correct or just wishful thinking, but that said, I do think that if symbols come to a person during meditation in connection with their Reiki work, and after being used are shown to have effects and benefits, they should not be discounted as being powerful in their own right. As long as the channellers make it clear the symbols are not part of the Usui system, then I don't think anyone can argue with their use or inclusion within an advanced Reiki course. By advanced, I do not mean somehow better or 'higher' than Reiki, but just that after third degree some practitioners might want to take their studies further and investigate some of the new material and different methods that have evolved from Reiki over the past twenty years.

Other Energy Healing Systems
We are completely open to studying other energy healing methods that have derived from, or share similarities, with Reiki. Since founding the school, I've studied forms of Seichim and Karuna with Paul. However, part of me still feels slightly uncomfortable with the adverts I see for these systems, which all appear to be a lot more expensive than Reiki. Again, a cynical voice within queries whether some of these have developed to create a system that is once again exclusive and highly priced, because Reiki has become so much more available and affordable. I can only presume that as more people become Masters in Seichem and Sekhem and such like, then the price will again come down.
Prior to learning these systems, I found Diane Shewmaker's book, 'All Love', interesting reading. I wanted to know a little about Seichem before I took the decision to learn it, and Ms Shewmaker's book is the only material published in book form on the subject to date. 'All Love' is actually a manual for SSR, (Sekhem-Seichim-Reiki), a system that recognises three distinct frequencies of healing energy. I think it shows just how creative people can be with Reiki - and I'm all for creativity.
Information on Karuna Ki, Tibetan Reiki and other variants can be found on Vincent Amador's web site (see links). This site is a gold mine of information for any Reiki practitioner and I like Amador's approach. No nonsense and straight talking. I might not agree with all his somewhat scathing remarks about New Ageisms - because I'm into a few of them myself! - but I found very little to argue with in his material. The Karuna I learned from Paul Weston was very sketchy, in that Paul had received training to Master Level from a practitioner passing through Glastonbury, but had not been given manuals or the history of the system. It didn't even have a name, and it was only after I bought Diane Stein's book and saw some of the symbols I'd learned in there that I managed to do further research and discover that what Paul had taught me was Karuna, which has a very convoluted history indeed. I recommend Amador's site for anyone interested in this subject, as it's huge. I have to thank him for providing me with the Karuna manual I so sorely lacked!

The Bane of Trademarking
I've read of individuals wanting to trademark certain terms associated with Reiki and Sekhem, in order to prevent others writing books or running courses on them. It flabbergasts me, because surely it's against all that Reiki and its derivatives stand for. Why is it that this fabulous gift comes into the world, only to be abused and exploited for gain? Reiki changed my life and I really can't understand how people can just view it cold-heartedly as a lucrative business venture. I don't meant to imply I'm against people earning a living from Reiki, because only a fool wouldn't appreciate there are marvellous healers and teachers out there, who really should be devoting their entire lives to their vocation - and everyone has to eat! What I am against is elitism and greed. Just as I have issues with certain Eastern gurus who have very comfortable lifestyles indeed, thanks to the donations of their devotees, I don't think it's right to over-charge. There will always be desperate people willing to pay anything to make sense of their lives, to feel better, to feel whole. The unscrupulous can take advantage of that. Reiki fascinates me, and has become a way of life, and I would love to know more about the modern derivatives, and see where creative and inspired people have taken it. But I refuse to pay through the nose for the privilege.
It is our intention, with the Kether School of Reiki, to offer a reasonably priced yet one-to-one service, so that each student can fulfil their potential. To us, Reiki initiation involves more than acquiring the ability to channel Reiki through the body. It should also involve a flowering of awareness, a sense of wonder and occasion. We like to encourage people to look their inner selves - honestly, directly and without filter - right in the face. This might not always be the easiest path, but it is the most rewarding.

Storm Constantine
Jan 2001, revised May 2002