Days 9 & 10

Well, the Pranic Healing Level One retake class is done. When I got home last night my husband informed me we were expected for dinner at his step-mom’s house. I opted for more sleep over writing in the blog, so you get two days worth. I was asked to compare and contrast Reiki and Pranic Healing. Remember these are my thoughts on my experience having taken each class within two weeks of each other. These are completely subjective and no doubt other people had very different experiences with different teachers.

Reiki I

1. My Learning Experience: The class portion had everyone sitting in a circle, including Maggie and Jaimie, the Reiki Master/Teachers. They also had a Reiki II student of theirs helping with the class. There were three students total making it a group of six. We learned the history of Reiki, their personal experiences with Reiki, and just some fun conversation went on as we all got to know each other better. There were some books for us to look through to see the different hand positions. I’d already read a lot about Reiki, so what I learned in class was just rounding out and confirming the information I’d gathered for myself. The hands-on portion was very communal, with everyone joining in and giving Reiki to our volunteers for the day. This included Maggie demonstrating the basic hand positions, but she encouraged us to let Reiki guide our hands – it is doing the healings, we are just the facilitators. Our only thought or intentions during healing were to see if the client was comfortable, and that we allow Reiki to do all the work. Since Reiki can do no harm, Maggie encouraged us to use our intuition and the client’s preferences to guide the healing. I walked away with a certificate saying I had complete Reiki I, and a page with the Precepts on it to use in meditations.
2. My Spiritual Experience: The attunement was AWESOME and extremely moving and empowering for me. I felt connected to everyone in the room in a profound way. It was an initiation and an expansion of my ability to channel Reiki energy vibrations. This was an experience I will treasure for a lifetime. The love overflowed during many stages as we perfomed the healings during class, deep and meaningful at times, light and playful at other times. This was such a joyful experience, that my heart expands even as I write about it. Maggie and Jaimie are pagan folk, so my little Wiccan self felt completely comfortable. Since it was done at Eye of Horus, my home away from home, it was absolutely perfect for me.
3. What Reiki Has that Pranic Healing Doesn’t: A Healer’s loving touch, and the knowledge that no harm will ever come from the healing. Also, the empowerment of initiation goes a long way in creating a true healer. I absolutely love Reiki, and I am so glad I was able to get my attunement when I did.

Pranic Healing I

1. My Learning Experience: There were five of us, all re-taking the class. The teacher, Bob Fisher, had a manual and a laptop with a Power-Point style presentation. There were lots of exercises to do, and specific techniques used for the many stages of Pranic Healing. Bob sat at the front of the class, with us students line up in a row before him. We were asked to perform specific techniques on each other followed by a review of our experiences, and then the next chunk of lessons. We went out for our lunches together and then back to class for more lessons, healing sessions on each other, etc. Much of Pranic Healing requires our specific intent to perform specific techniques, on specific Chakras. Lots of specifics to learn here. I received a binder with the basic information in it to take home, and I took a few pages of notes as well. Bob encouraged us to refer to our books during healing sessions to be sure we were doing the right thing for the right job. There was some Celebrity names dropped in some of the examples used about the importance of cleansing and removing chords.
2. My Spiritual Experience: Each day we did meditations in the morning before beginning, with Shoyeido incense burning all day. (I LOVE Shoyeido incense.) The meditations were nice, and from CD’s narrated by Grand Master Choa, the founder of Pranic Healing. I didn’t care for the meditation on the second day, it was on The Lord’s Prayer and as a Goddess loving gal I gave it a good try, but I had to flee to the faery forest in my mind and chant to the Lord and Lady to get through it all. To be fair, the invocation used addressed both the Divine Father and the Divine Mother, but I had to make it work for me. One cool thing happened, which was I connected to my Spirit Guide in a new way on the first day. But I never really connected on a spiritual level with anyone else in the room. I was the only pagan-type there, and despite mentioning my Wiccan practice a couple of times, nobody was even curious about my experiences. Pranic Healing is hands off, and I only felt the love for a few fleeting moments, and that was between me, my Gods and my Guides.
3. What Pranic Healing Has that Reiki Doesn’t: Energy cleansing and hygeine techniques including the use of a nifty spray on your hands and cutting chords to free the healer and student. Reiki may have the chord cutting technique somewere, but it wasn’t demonstrated to me in Reiki I. It’s a Trademarked, tightly controlled system and has a classic pyramid structure with the principle company receiving royalties on all the classes, which are to be taught strictly by the book. But I DO love the cleansing, and I will offer it to any clients that I may have in the future.

In My Humble Opinion

I think Reiki is more deeply spiritual than Pranic Healing, which for the second time left me feeling like the odd-one-out. Pranic Healing has FABULOUS techniques and they are definitely worth learning if you have the money for the class, at least Level 1. There was a Reiki Master in the Pranic Healing class as well, but she says she doesn’t do Reiki anymore and is all about Pranic Everything now, taking every class she can and re-taking them as often as possible.

But I could tell the difference between her energy and the non-Reiki people. Reiki may not be her path, but it is definitely mine. I may take more Pranic Healing classes in the future, because they are great on complementary techniques, but I won’t be taking any of their other more spiritual path classes. They just aren’t my style.

Hear ye the words of the Star Goddess;
she in the dust of whose feet are the hosts of heaven,
whose body encircles the universe…

Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold,
all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.

Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion,
honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.
And you who seek to know me,
know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not,
unless you know the Mystery:
for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself,
you will never find it without.

For behold, I have been with you from the beginning,
and I am that which is attained at the end of desire.*

SO MOTE IT BE!

* Passages are from the Charge of the Goddess, for those who have ears to hear.