`What is Reiki?" was the question everyone asked when they heard I was going on a one-day Reiki course. I had heard the word mentioned several times before but was very vague on what Reiki actually was. I now know that Reiki originates from 19th-century Japan and can be loosely described as a hands-on natural healing and energising technique. The Japanese word "Reiki" means "universal life energy".
Irish Reiki Master, Teresa Collins, has just written the first book to be published in Ireland about Reiki. In addition to being a Reiki Master, she is also a physiotherapist who has practised in both Canada and Ireland. To explain something of what Reiki is, Teresa is holding a one-day demystifying course for journalists.
We are going to be trained to be Reiki teachers, Level One, Teresa tells us. This course usually takes two days, but she is condensing it to one day for us. "The energy this course requires is the equivalent of climbing Carrauntoohil." We all look a bit fazed by this.
The day starts by each of us taking an "Angel Card" from a pack. These are tiny cards with pictures of angels on them and a single word, which will be our individual theme to focus on for the day.
"Being here in this room is like being in a microwave," Teresa tells us. "These Angel Cards will provide the cue for your concentration." Among the words that turn up are communication, delight, truth, simplicity and love. The one I draw is balance.
Teresa tells us that before anyone can practise Reiki, they must first be "attuned". This is a process which involves her, as a Reiki Master, working on each of us individually "to open up your energy channels and allow a free flow of your emotions". It's possible, she says, that in this process, we will start to cry, as all those blocked-up emotions are released. There is a large box of tissues on the table. "You look a tough crew, though. You mightn't need them."
She will be giving us two attunements, one in the morning session and one in the afternoon. Since we are supposed to keep our eyes closed during the attunement session, it's a bit difficult to know what is actually going on, so I open my eyes periodically. For about four minutes, Teresa moves around the person she is working on, gesticulating with her hands, rather like a stylised dancer. Occasionally, she puts her hands on the person - on their heart, head and hands. Then she blows three times on them and bows. Nobody needs the tissues.
Afterwards, she asks us what we felt or saw while she was working on us. "You might have seen your ancestors or angels," she suggests. Personally, I felt calm and sleepy. Others described "seeing purple"; "feeling giddy like as if I was on a ship"; "wiped out, as if I'd been hit by a bus"; "almost fluffy, and seeing a red light and then a white light". "White," explains Teresa excitedly, is the "colour of pure energy."
We move to another room, where there are two massage tables set up. This is the point at which we start practising to lay hands on each other. By now, having started our attunment process, we should be able to "channel the energy through the hands". One person lies down and three others take up positions around them: at the head, feet and chest area. For four minutes, we keep up each of these positions. Then the position changes slightly, for another four minutes. We change four times in all. All this is done with closed eyes.
Feedback on this experience from the people receiving the energy: "I felt really hot"; "felt as if I was vibrating"; "felt a lot of pain and a bit panicky,"; "felt nothing, other than a sense of relaxation." Those laying hands on said: "I felt as if more energy was going through one hand than another,"; "felt tired,"; "felt nothing."
In the afternoon session, everything is repeated. Comments on the second attunement, after which some people lie down on the floor with cushions and appear to go to sleep include: "I saw waves of lilac"; "felt enormous heat"; "saw a shaft of light with shadows behind it." The shaft of light, explains Teresa, "is the energy behind the blocked emotions." Some people, including myself, feel nothing more than a gentle sensation of relaxation, or as one woman puts it: "there's been no great Road to Damacus change."
Like all Eastern medicines and natural homoeopathic remedies, such as aromatherapy, herbalism and acupuncture, Reiki is becoming increasingly popular in the West. So what does Reiki actually do for the person who is having it practised on them? And what differentiates it from other forms of alternative medicine. Several hours later, I'm not sure how much clearer I am on this.
"We don't like calling ourselves healers, although Reiki is perceived as something which heals," Teresa says. "Reiki Masters are more like natural channellers. The healing is done by the person taking the energy.
"If someone comes to us with a serious illness such as cancer, Reiki can help, but it takes time to heal, and in the meantime, that person would need to be treated with orthodox medicine. We don't diagnose, becuase many Reiki practioners wouldn't have a medical background."
Reiki treatment can help those who are suffering from stress and stress-related illnesses such as back-pain. It also apparently promotes the white blood cell count and can help a person in coming to terms with their chemotherapy treatment.
Teresa estimates that there are now 30-40 people practising Reiki in her home city of Cork now. "A lot of them practise it in conjunction with other things, such as massage. It's still a word-of-mouth practice. People hear about us and then try us out." She says that it usually takes four sessions of one hour's duration before there are any real results. Teresa herself charges £20 an hour, which she suggests is the standard going rate.
"One of the biggest changes in medicine in the next hundred years will be that everyone will be working with energy," Teresa assures us, as we gather up our Angel Cards and come down from Carrauntoohil.
Reiki At Hand, by Teresa Collins, will be published by the Collins Press next Friday. Price £12.99.