Understand Reiki Attunments

    The Reiki attunement ritual is at the heart of Reiki in the west and it is a ritual widely discussed in the Reiki field. Having explored energy in the Reiki book, you will begin to understand the the need for a Reiki attunements process is an artificial one, based in misunderstanding. With the many types of Reiki attunements and teachers claiming to perform more powerful attunements than others, it is not surprising that these rituals are a hot point of discussion in the Reiki world. I now realise, after spending a number of years exploring Reiki and looking at various Reiki systems, that the Reiki attunement actually gets in the way of understanding Reiki, rather than promoting it.

     If the aim of Reiki is to broaden our understanding of ourselves, we have to ask what place does the Reiki attunement hold and what purpose does it serve? To understand that question we have to go right into the heart of Reiki and how it is taught. We also have to explore the Reiki attunement processes and the misunderstandings that it can lead to. Go our Reiki School web site and see what we can teach you without these rituals!



According to Reiki teaching no one can perform Reiki until they have been attuned to the ‘Reiki’ energy. This is innate in Reiki teaching and in Reiki Two we are told that until you have been attuned you are unable to use the Reiki symbols, without this ritual you cannot perform Reiki in any form. There has been much speculation about these Reiki attunements and I believe it is time to lay them to one side and move on. Because every thing is energy (really, it really is all energy) there is absolutely no need to perform any ritual at all in order to perform healing or to use Reiki symbology.

During the Reiki attunement, Reiki symbols are used to ‘attune’ (tune in) the person to Reiki energy. There are as many attunement processes as Reiki styles and many theories as to why this ritual works but the overall aim; whatever ceremony is used is this ‘attuning’ process. I have attended many attunements and like all Reiki processes it is the individual teachers’ ideas which are added to the basic structure and idea of attuning. Like other belief systems, Reiki is too reliant upon this ritual at this moment in time to define it and that is unfortunate.

     The Reiki attunement process is one where a Reiki Teacher will place, focus, draw or blow Reiki symbols into or toward the recipient. The Reiki Masters symbol is used, or variants of it and placed in chakras or other places where the teacher feels they are needed. This ritual is performed in various ways according to the tradition the teacher belongs to and there will be a difference between the various levels an individual is taking, i.e. the Reiki One ritual will normally be different in some fashion to the Reiki Two ritual and so on.

            The best way to understand any Reiki attunement is to think of it just like a healing session. One person is focusing energy toward another with a particular intent: in this case both parties have the intent to create the ability to heal and with that joint intent healing occurs. With a Reiki attunement both parties also have the same intent and so a healing ability occurs. Of course with greater understanding we will all come to accept that our healing abililty has nothing to do with a Reiki attunement but is a natural ability we we born with!

Understanding Reiki Attunements.

What is a Reiki Attunement?

Reiki Courses in Hertfordshire