Jan Egerton

Yesterday, mesothelioma nurse Lisa-Hyde Barrett wrote about her use of Reiki on mesothelioma patients. Today, Jan Egerton discusses her experience as both a patient and practioner with holistic treatments used to reduce stress and induce calming. Jan is a certified healer through the Darlington Spiritualist Church in England and received the Anne English Healing Award this year.

When I was first diagnosed with mesothelioma I inquired about the use of massage to help relieve my pain and soreness. I had heard the old wive’s tale that massage shouldn’t be used on cancer patients. But my oncologist sent me off to the Holistic Centre within the hospital grounds where both massage and Reiki were offered.

I already knew the practice of Spiritual healing and had used this several times over the years, so having the opportunity to try Reiki appealed to me. I had six Reiki sessions at the Centre, each time a group of six patients would be led into a comfortable room and two Reiki Masters would then work on each of us. The hour would fly by, and at the end of the session I would usually feel like I had been asleep for hours instead of just the one hour I was in there.

This positive experience led me to find an aroma/massage therapist who also uses Reiki. I have been going to her for the past seven years, and at the end of each session she adds a little Reiki practice.

I find Reiki and spiritual healing very similar. I attend a spiritual healing service once a week, and as well as being a qualified healer, I also receive healing.

Spiritual healing is also gathering energy. The healer becomes a channel for God and spirit to work through their own spirit and by thought or touch can guide healing to the spirit of the patient.  The belief being that the spirit of a person can then use this energy to work from the inside out and try and heal the body. In healing, the word disease comes from the spirit being dis-eased.

There are various ways to try spiritual healing. Many churches actually have healing services or you can ask for a recommendation for a private sitting or the name of a Qualified Healer. In the UK, a healer must be trained – this means 100 practical supervised healing services together with a theory course. It usually takes at least two years and a final assessment before the person is certified as a Spiritual Healer.  A strict Code of Conduct has to be followed by the healer, and the healer must also have insurance to practice.

There are slight differences between Reiki and spiritual healing in how the healing is applied. With Reiki, the hands are allowed to hover above a person’s body; in spiritual healing they have to be placed on the body or just inside the person’s aura, they are not allowed to massage or hover.  The result is the same, energy is sent into the body for the body to help heal itself.  Absent healing can also be used, this is where any person can sit and bring to mind the name or face of someone they know who is ill, all they need to do is ask for healing to reach that person.

When I sit for healing I often find one of the healer’s hands is giving out heat, like a hot water bottle which soothes my back, while their other hand is ice cold, usually where my muscles are quite tight.  It all depends on which area needs healing as to what temperature is emitted. Cold tends to be for muscle and arthritic problems, whereas the heat generally is used on pain. I usually drift off, although spiritual healing may only last ten minutes and Reiki tends to be an hour. The other difference between the two is that some healers only place their hands on the patient’s shoulders, and the body or spirit guides the healing to where it is needed. But like many, I like to feel the hands placed on various areas of my back where most of my pain is.

No one can prove or disprove whether Reiki or Spiritual Healing can help. However, the good thing about both of them is that they can’t do any damage, and they aren’t a drug with side effects. All good practitioners of these methods will always tell you to carry on with all medical treatment you are receiving. Healers and Reiki practitioners are not there to diagnose or cure, but to give you complementary aid in helping your recovery.

Article source: http://www.mesotheliomahelp.net/blog/2013/05/reiki-and-spiritual-healing-perspective-of-a-mesothelioma-survivor-and-healer

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Article source: http://hometownstation.com/calendar/%E2%80%9Creiki-circle%E2%80%9D-35095

I wish I had some magical healing power. Or even the ability to let her die immediately and peacefully. Perhaps I should learn Reiki.

Reiki started in the early 1900’s invented by Mikao Usui whose teachings involved the use of palms to transfer healing energies from one being to the other . Students are taught different techniques for pressure as well as the pressure points of the body. Reiki is considered a way of channelling healing energy from the universe through the practitioner into the patient.  Originally used only on humans it is now commonly used on animals as well.

Giving a Reiki treatment involves the practitioner putting his or her hands lightly on or near the animal’s body. Different hand positions are used, depending on the condition being treated. This energy flow can be administered either in a “hands-on” way  for animals that are used to being touched or it can use a “distance healing” approach  to an animal who is not usually touched, such as fish or wild animals. Both approaches work equally well;

Animals , I am told,  respond well to Reiki, specially with regard to muscular aches, pains, back problems and strains. It can reduce stress, anxiety, nervousness and skin or coat problems and  is used to Often the animal will enter a state of deep relaxation or sleep. It also helps with behaviour problems or stress due to abandonment or ill-treatment.

Lots of people in India do Reiki.  Any Reiki Master can give Reiki to animals. Abroad , many animal lovers who work as animal handlers or in veterinarian’s offices are taking Reiki training so they can use Reiki in their work.

Learn Reiki so you can help animals. Adapt the techniques used for humans to animals. As is the case for humans, Reiki healing sometimes leads to a curing of an animal’s illness, but it may also lead to a peaceful death. For a person who has a pet or volunteers at a shelter, Reiki is a healing tool to be able to offer to your animal friends.

So many dogs come to our shelter that have been abused and thrown out. Shelters abroad get Reiki people to come in once a week who treat the physical and mental conditions of the animals that need it the most.

Here is one case written by a Reiki Master working in an animal shelter “ “Trooper had been treated so badly that he walked in a crouch afraid to raise his head in case he was hit.  He was frightened of everything. I  brought him to a room where I gave treatments. The whole way to the office, his body crouched no more than an inch or two off the ground. Every few steps he would stop suddenly in fear, as if he wasn’t going to survive the short trip. I began the treatment by introducing myself to Trooper and letting him know that I was there to offer him Reiki, which would help him heal. I let him know that receiving the treatment was his choice.  At first, he nervously wandered around the office. But after a few moments, he began to relax, choosing to lay down right under my hands, taking a deep sigh, resting his head on the floor. The whole atmosphere of the office became quiet, relaxed, and incredibly peaceful.

After about an hour, Trooper woke up, turned around to face me, and gave me the familiar look that many of the dogs I treat give: “Thanks. I’m done now.” I thanked Trooper for his openness to healing and took him back to his kennel. Incredibly, he was walking normally, his body no longer slinking along the ground.

His transformation was even noticed by the staff, who exclaimed, “He looks so much calmer than before!” This almost immediate response is very common for the dogs that are treated with Reiki. No matter how stressed out they may initially be, Reiki can help them become calm and relaxed. It is a wonderful feeling to watch the change in their behaviour, the emergence of a peaceful look in their eyes.”

Here is a short guide to Reiki with animals which I read on the Net:

It is important to do Reiki animal healing on your pets as soon as you sense any changes in behaviour habits;  temperament, eating, elimination and energy levels.

When applying Reiki animal healing, lay your hands very gently on the area in question; Do not force the animal to sit still, while you do your work; rather raise your hands just off the surface of the body. Reiki will flow equally even if the hands are up to 4 inches above the skin. Spend extra time on sensitive areas, but remember to treat the animals entire body—other parts reacting to the initial injury can be energized and brought into balance.  Continue to treat, until the animal is back to its normal routine without any symptoms.

When treating domestic animals start the treatment by laying hands at the base of the ears near the neck. This seems to calm down animals. Then the animal can be treated systematically . When working on small animals (mice, hamsters, guinea pigs, frogs, and birds), cup your hands gently around their bodies, without pressure. You may experience a rapid heartbeat, but not to worry, the animal will relax. If the case of caged wild birds or fish in a tank, place your hands around the cage or tank and  allow the energy to flow between your hands for 20 to 30 minutes so the creatures have time to absorb the energy they need.

Keep a journal of your treatment experiences on animals, and in time you will build a file on how best to treat animals.  Get anatomy charts of animals that you will be working on regularly, so that you can treat them specifically. Or instance if you are treating a cat for “feline leukaemia”, you cover the neck area and under the jaws where their lymph nodes are located. Work on the chest where the thymus gland sits and on the belly about 2 inches up from the hind legs on the cats left side. This is effective in building up immunity to the leukaemia. If your cat has a bladder infection, place your hands over the pelvic area on top near the spine. If an animal has a spinal injury, it is effectively treated by placing the heel of one hand at the base of the tail, with fingers pointed toward the head, and the heel of the other hand at the base of the neck, with fingers pointed toward the base of the spine.

Reiki does not replace medical treatments so do not attempt to a cure for a fracture or a skin disease through sheer touch. It is simply an auxiliary which, I am told, increases the blood circulation and helps muscles to relax, which in turn encourages healing.

Learn Reiki and then come to my shelter.

About the writer: Maneka Gandhi is a parliamentarian and animal rights activist. You may contact her at gandhim@nic.in

Article source: http://www.mizonews.net/op-ed/reiki-training-important-for-animal-lovers/

A young woman having a reiki head massage Photo: ALAMY

The first problem with a reiki massage is that you don’t actually get a massage. At least, not in the familiar sense of being pummelled like pizza dough, by a man with JCBs for thumbs. It’s probably best for Western minds to think of the no-touch massage as like listening to John Cage’s “Silent Symphony” or viewing Andy Warhol’s Invisible Sculpture, and to take consolation from the fact that at least you won’t come out with a big, ugly scar on your forehead.

Oops! Last week, the House of Commons deputy speaker, Nigel Evans, 55, claimed that a strange, two-inch mark above his nose had been caused by having a reiki massage at a salon in London’s Chinatown. Mr Evans, who had earlier been arrested on charges of gay rape and sexual assault (which he denies), explained: “I was suffering from a migraine and I happened to be passing a place for Chinese alternative medicine. They were advertising reiki massages and I thought, ‘Why not? It might help’. ”

Many and mysterious are the wonders of the Orient. While the salon in question disputes Mr Evans’s claim that the masseur scratched him, it seemed a good idea to find out what, exactly, does go on in the exotic world of reiki. The term is a combination of two Japanese words, rei (universal) and ki (life energy), which are dear to the teachings of the late Mikao Usui, a mountain-dwelling Buddhist monk from southern Japan, who developed a spiritual-healing technique in the Twenties.

The basic idea is that we are surrounded by a vast pool of cosmic energy, which, although invisible, can be summoned and directed by a trained healer (the reiki master), and funnelled into the patient’s body through entry points called chakras. The “massage” consists of placing the hands lightly on the chakras, or simply holding them over the body to guide the energy in.

It is just possible that Mr Evans’s migraine sucked so much healing power out of the air it scorched his brow on the way in. More likely is that he wasn’t having a real reiki massage, but one of the heavy-handed hybrids typically offered at walk-in salons.

To learn more, I went to see reiki master Alexander Koops at his home beside London’s Regent’s Canal. This is a discreet place with an appointments-only clientele, where the whiff of perfumed oil floats over tasteful arrays of crystals and quartz pyramids. There’s only so much reiki, Alex diplomatically explained, that a spiritual delinquent like me can handle in a single session. To benefit properly I’d need a cleaned-up lifestyle with less booze and gross-out food, and, ideally, I’d learn to meditate and try to think of myself – as reiki devotees apparently do – spinning inside a shining bubble. Reiki, according to its revered founder, is “a process not an event”.

“What reiki does,” said Alex, “is to replace bad energy, which we feel as things like anger and stress and frustration, with good energy, in the form of happiness and calm. Everything is energy of some sort. The whole universe is made up of it. You can’t destroy the bad energy, but you can change its nature from something that harms you to something that helps you.”

Given the scale of the challenge, Alex suggested I had a spiritual-healing massage with some gentle reiki thrown in. Flat out on his table, slathered in warm oil, I felt his palms descend. Was that actual heat spilling out of them, or is part of the cleverness of Reiki that it fools you into thinking the healer has hands like waffle irons?

He worked his way around the chakras – head, middle, feet – flexing his fingers to blast them with bolts of invisible energy. Lying face down, it is hard to have a clear idea of what is going on, and despite the sense of being wired up to some cosmic power plant, there’s a near-irresistible yearning to nod off. Alex cautions that Mr Evans’s story of being accidentally clawed by a masseur shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. “It wouldn’t happen in real reiki,” he says, darkly, “but there are people who mix other stuff in.”

Alex, 42, studied regular medicine in his native Germany, but tells me his plans to become a conventional doctor were overtaken by an interest in self-discovery and alternative therapies. Finding his fellow Germans to be sniffy about such things, he moved to London 12 years ago, trained as a reiki master, and now runs his own clinic.

“There’s no particular type of client,” he says. “You get all kinds. It’s mostly people who feel that maybe there’s something beyond mainstream medicine that can improve their lives.”

Reiki masters – at least the reputable ones – are careful not to make overambitious claims for the treatment. “We don’t diagnose, and we don’t offer specific cures,” says Alex. Yet the British Reiki Association’s website boasts: “Acute injuries can be helped to heal very quickly but more chronic illness takes longer. In some cases, such as terminal illness, there is not enough time for the progress of the disease to be reversed.”

There are, inevitably, many who think the whole thing is bunkum. Edward Ernst, an Exeter University professor of medicine and author of a critical investigation into reiki, scoffs at the underlying theory: “Nobody has been able to define or quantify this ‘energy’,” he writes. “It defies scientific measurement and is biologically implausible. These circumstances render reiki one of the least plausible therapies in the tool kit of alternative medicine.”

You could feel a lot worse than I did when I left Alex’s premises. A little later, over a glass of Meursault and a seared-tuna slice, I was reminded that you could feel a lot better, too.

Mr Evans’s forehead appears to be healing nicely. But did reiki help? Or cause the problem in the first place?

Article source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/alternativemedicine/10050877/Profile-of-reiki-massage-how-the-no-touch-therapy-has-made-its-mark.html

Commons Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans said he had the massage on Thursday to try to ease a migraine. He added: “As the chap came to finish, his fingers dug into my forehead.”

Evans, 55, denies raping a man and sexually assaulting another in Lancashire between July 2009 and March 2013. He has not been charged and is on police bail until June.

A woman TV reporter was asked to try to cover the bruise with make-up before Evans, who came out as gay three years ago, appeared in public on Sunday to protest his innocence.

It was still visible yesterday as he emerged from the Lancashire home of former Coronation Street actress Vicky Entwistle, where he spent the weekend.

Vicky, who played Janice Battersby, is an old friend. She let Evans stay at her home to avoid a “media circus” at his own cottage eight miles away.

After talking to wellwishers at his local pub yesterday, Evans said he was “absolutely staggered” to find four detectives at his door on Saturday morning.

The “incredibly pleasant and sympathetic” officers read him his rights and took him to Preston, where he was questioned “in dribs and drabs” for 15 hours.

Lancashire MP Evans has withdrawn from chairing debates on the Queen’s Speech but vowed he will not resign.

He said: “I am determined not to let these allegations destroy either me or my career. What doesn’t destroy you makes you stronger.”

Former chief whip Andrew Mitchell, who resigned over claims he called Downing Street police plebs, said Evans was right to stay in his post.

Mitchell, who denies the “plebgate” allegations, said he simply did not believe the claims about his Tory colleague. He added: “We do still live in a country where you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.”

Article source: http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/rape-accused-tory-blames-massage-1873608

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Article source: http://www.canada.com/Chronic+Pain+group+host+Reiki+reacher/8365367/story.html