Reiki?

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TheGoodLife said:
Here’s some info from www.reiki.org:

"Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by “laying on hands” and is based on the idea that an unseen “life force energy” flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one’s “life force energy” is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy.

The word Reiki is made of two Japanese words - Rei which means “God’s Wisdom or the Higher Power” and Ki which is “life force energy”. So Reiki is actually “spiritually guided life force energy.”

While Reiki is spiritual in nature, it is not a religion. It has no dogma, and there is nothing you must believe in order to learn and use Reiki. In fact, Reiki is not dependent on belief at all and will work whether you believe in it or not. Because Reiki comes from God, many people find that using Reiki puts them more in touch with the experience of their religion rather than having only an intellectual concept of it."

Reiki sounds like just another way to feel more connected with God. What’s so awful about that?
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lately it seems like many pagan beliefs has entered the Church and nobody is stopping.

what is so bad is that these come from pagan beliefs. it is energy based on human power. japanese dont believe in God like we do. do you not see the danger in this. the devil is sneak and the wolf comes dressed as sheep.
 
That is so corrent Reiki comes from Satan and his followers and not from God. Too many people think that when someone tells this it is spiritual that automatically it must be from God. Well the father of all lies is spiritual in fact he was created by God to be the most beautiful and powerful angel. So no wonder so many people fall for his lies which is also why so many of our Religious have also fallen for his lies and allowed him to bring his ways into the Holy and Apostolic Church. Ask your self, who do you think is running the United States? It is not Obama but Lucifer and he is using Obama as his tool. Mason and devil followers and worshipers will always excell in worldly things and Satan is number one when it comes to the culture of death. He introduced death in the garden of eden and he is doing the same with Reiki and making those that do not know their faith fall into those lies. God Bless and may everyone learn the Truth, the Way, and the Life.
 
Autumn said:
Johnette Benkovic has done several shows about Rekkei and how the practice of it is in complete opposition to the Catholic Church and its teachings. She had a former Rekkei master on who described the process of her training and it was chilling.
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I was taking an Old Testament course at a “Catholic” college and found out the instructor was a Rekkei master. What’s truly chilling is the low standards at Catholic colleges these days.
 
From a Catholic Reiki Master:
"Q. Is Reiki compatible with religions like Christianity?

A. Yes, it absolutely is. I am a strong Catholic who goes to Mass almost every day, and I find that Reiki strengthens my faith in God, not the other way around. Reiki works not by our own power, which is relatively microscopic, all things considered, but rather by making us a channel for the healing power of God to work through us. Reiki Practitioners are just God’s hands in the world, like all Christians are called to be.

The founder of Reiki, Dr. Usui, was a dean of a small Christian College. He set off on a life long mission to learn to heal as Jesus did, in order to try to answer a question one of his students had when they were challenging the Bible. If it weren’t for Christianity, Reiki wouldn’t even be around.

In itself, Reiki has no religious ties. It is very spiritual and will often draw people closer to God, as it sort of awakens many people’s faith, but it neither compliments nor opposes any religion. Some Reiki Teachers will try to pass their religious philosophies on to their Reiki students, but Reiki, by nature, cannot itself support or damage anyone’s religion."

I was hoping to find something on this in the catechism, but the catechism in general doesn’t cover much information about “new age” practices.

Going back to the original question: I would guess that if it is on the archdiocese’s website, someone of proper authority from the archdiocese would have probably been notified and taken a look at it, if someone from the archdiocese did not notice it internally right away. The fact that it was still posted on the website meant that the archdiocese probably saw it and did not find anything wrong with it, and I would trust their authority best.

I personally do a lot of research into new age type stuff, so that I can give educated responses, advice, wisdom, explanations, etc. to the youth in my church community. In my experience there is a good method for figuring out if a new age practice is against the church. It involves a series of questions, each answer leading to a different following question that will eventually define a practice well enough to say if it is for or against God’s plan.
  1. Is there scientific backing and explanation for it? No
  2. Does it rely on a specific source of power rather than random chance? Yes
  3. Does it draw from within a person? No
  4. Does it draw directly from divine power of God? Yes
It is probably an okay practice.

I have put a fair amount of research from a variety of sources into this conclusion. Is it possible that I can be wrong? Yes, I am not an expert, and even if I was, I’m only human. When all is said and done though, Reiki seems to be a good new age practice. Also, the fact that so many different religious people follow it implies that if it were a bad thing, some bishop some where along the line would have brought the issue to the USCCB to discuss, and all the bishops in the U.S. would be working together to stop it.
 
Factuality said:
From a Catholic Reiki Master:
"Q. Is Reiki compatible with religions like Christianity?

A. Yes, it absolutely is. I am a strong Catholic who goes to Mass almost every day, and I find that Reiki strengthens my faith in God, not the other way around. Reiki works not by our own power, which is relatively microscopic, all things considered, but rather by making us a channel for the healing power of God to work through us. Reiki Practitioners are just God’s hands in the world, like all Christians are called to be.

The founder of Reiki, Dr. Usui, was a dean of a small Christian College. He set off on a life long mission to learn to heal as Jesus did, in order to try to answer a question one of his students had when they were challenging the Bible. If it weren’t for Christianity, Reiki wouldn’t even be around.

In itself, Reiki has no religious ties. It is very spiritual and will often draw people closer to God, as it sort of awakens many people’s faith, but it neither compliments nor opposes any religion. Some Reiki Teachers will try to pass their religious philosophies on to their Reiki students, but Reiki, by nature, cannot itself support or damage anyone’s religion."

I was hoping to find something on this in the catechism, but the catechism in general doesn’t cover much information about “new age” practices.

Going back to the original question: I would guess that if it is on the archdiocese’s website, someone of proper authority from the archdiocese would have probably been notified and taken a look at it, if someone from the archdiocese did not notice it internally right away. The fact that it was still posted on the website meant that the archdiocese probably saw it and did not find anything wrong with it, and I would trust their authority best.

I personally do a lot of research into new age type stuff, so that I can give educated responses, advice, wisdom, explanations, etc. to the youth in my church community. In my experience there is a good method for figuring out if a new age practice is against the church. It involves a series of questions, each answer leading to a different following question that will eventually define a practice well enough to say if it is for or against God’s plan.
  1. Is there scientific backing and explanation for it? No
  2. Does it rely on a specific source of power rather than random chance? Yes
  3. Does it draw from within a person? No
  4. Does it draw directly from divine power of God? Yes
It is probably an okay practice.

I have put a fair amount of research from a variety of sources into this conclusion. Is it possible that I can be wrong? Yes, I am not an expert, and even if I was, I’m only human. When all is said and done though, Reiki seems to be a good new age practice. Also, the fact that so many different religious people follow it implies that if it were a bad thing, some bishop some where along the line would have brought the issue to the USCCB to discuss, and all the bishops in the U.S. would be working together to stop it.
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As a faithful Catholic - I am sure you would readily submit to our Bishops on this matter?
 
I should probably clarify what I was saying a little bit better. My post was pretty much just something I pulled from a file on my computer that I had used to collect my thoughts when researching this to answer a very similar question for someone in my church about a year ago. The USCCB has now come out with a document that wasn’t out at that point, and I do apologize for not checking the USCCB’s website one more time for a more authoritative answer before that post. To answer the question of “as a catholic, would you listen to the bishops if they had said it was bad?” the answer for me is without a doubt yes, but I am guessing that would be a question you meant for the person I was quoting, and that I couldn’t say, as it was just a quote from a website.

In general there is a lot of misunderstanding about reiki, but my main concern is that a crusade against reiki is turning into a crusade against the church. throughout this thread people have ripped apart the name of nuns, bishops, and the church itself, on the assumption that reiki was a bad thing, when they did not know for sure. Going off the facts previously mentioned throughout the forum, many bishops seemed to think it was ok, so the logical conclusion is that saying “Brides of Christ” are unholy is not a well thought out assumption. Also, some people have tied in very bizare things into this discussion, like mentioning that walking a labyrinth is evidence that new age practices are evil, which I don’t quite understand.

I personally did take all the Reiki courses, right up to Reiki Master, so that I could get an inside view on it, and see from the inside how much is speculation, and how much is really true. As it turns out, most things that have been posted on this thread (including most of the links) were full of almost pure speculation. For those who have said that new age practices are the cause of convents closing down, I know for sure that the convent about 10-15 miles from my house is closing down just like the other convents across the country, but don’t exactly have new age practices, so that argument is out as well.

All that being said, there is a lot of confusion about Reiki, and a lot of misunderstanding, but the USCCB has ruled that it is “inappropriate to encourage that use of Reiki as a form of medical treatment” according to the link above which goes straight to the source of our theological doctrine. Therefore, Reiki is pretty much out. Are new age practices satanic? Some are, some aren’t. The USCCB did not testify to that end on Reiki, they simply said that it “redirects” our religious focus away from God. To avoid going on a retreat because a nun at the convent practices Reiki is not wise, as then you are allowing it to take away from your own spiritual growth. Many people who practice Reiki are very good holy people, with what the bishops would consider an area they probably need to work on.

There are some practices that are inherently evil, and will eventually cause people do go directly against the will of God, and there are some practices that are not specifically good, but depending on how it is implemented many not cause a person to be any less holy than someone who maybe makes a few too many fibs. Also, there is a clause in there that states that basically with the scientific knowledge we have at this point, it is not a good Christian practice, but if chi, or such were to be scientifically backed up, who knows. (I may talk to my bishop about that next time I see him to get a better feel for this)

Simply put, Reiki is a bad practice, according to the Bishops of the United States. It is not a satanic practice, and is certainly not dark magic, although some new age things very much are. I would not recommend skipping retreats because people there practice Reiki, unless of course the retreat is about Reiki. Also, don’t use Reiki as a way to call people heretics and unholy. As the Bible puts it, remove the beam from your eye first [while I take care of removing mine from my eye]. It is not a validly accepted form of treatment, as at this point it has been classified as “superstitious in nature.”

(I apologize for the mix-up above. At that point I had not seen the document from the USCCB which came out a couple months ago. That document does make all the difference for those who are wondering).
 
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