What is a Reiki Attunement?

A few years ago, a guy joined one of my Reiki Level 1 classes feeling a bit uncertain about the whole thing. He was really interested in the training but he’d read lots of things about the practice on the internet that made him uncertain about whether it would contradict his religious beliefs.

He went through the whole training, had the attunement, and was, by the end of it, really excited to go away and practice Reiki, now certain that it didn’t in fact go against anything in his religion.

Then he started reading stuff on the internet about Reiki again. I’d warned him that most of it was just new age nonsense and nothing whatsoever to do with the practice, but he carried on reading anyway. So, all of his old doubts and conditioning crept back in. He phoned me three times asking about spirit guides in Reiki (there are no spirit guides in Reiki), ascended masters (there are no ascended masters in Reiki) and other new age bolt-ons that he’d read were a critical part of the practice. Eventually, he told me he had prayed to God to have his attunement removed. Like some sort of divine surgical procedure.

Oddly, about a year later, he called me and asked if he could sit in on another class and review it. I was a bit confused by this strange change of direction but told him he could attend. During the class he whispered to me that I would need to re-attune him as he had prayed to God to remove the original attunement.

I asked him to raise his hand in front of his chest. “Can you feel that, Mohamed?” I said. His expression changed immediately, eyes lighting up. The Reiki flow was still there. Of course it was. That moment says more about what attunement really is than any theory ever could.

Programme Update

The Abundant Self is now into Week 3, and the momentum is building. It’s been encouraging to see how everyone is engaging with the practices and showing up for themselves. A few minor timing tweaks will help smooth out the flow, but overall it’s working well, and laying a strong foundation for what’s to come. The Abundant Self will launch again, fully out of its Beta phase later on this year!

News

There’s a new article live in the Knowledge Centre this week that explores the Reiki attunement in depth. If you’ve ever wondered what it actually is, or how it works, this is the one to read. In all my years of working with Reiki, I have never come across anyone in the Reiki community who has the slightest idea about how this process works. Here’s a clue: it has absolutely nothing to do with ‘connecting to the energy’. You can find the article here:

What Is a Reiki Attunement?

If that article gets a bit heavy for you, and it might, there is a simpler plain-English version here:

What is a Reiki Attunement? A Plain English Explanation.

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All the best,

Steve