In this fourth post of this series on Reiki, I will share my testimony about Reiki, but there are certain details that I must keep confidential, as I am dedicated to at least attempting to remain anonymous if possible. Allow me to briefly set the stage. I was raised as a Christian and was a strong believer in Jesus. Once I became independent, I began to have many questions and to explore my spirituality. In the process, I discovered New Age philosophies and practices. Things such as near-death experiences, astral projection, psychic abilities, reincarnation, etc. became fascinating to me. I longed to know and experience God deeply, but was going about it the wrong way. Over time, my beliefs evolved and I experienced quite a bit of existential conflict and confusion.
For personal reasons, I became depressed and decided to join a cult out of a desperate need to be understood and to belong. The cult claimed to promote free thinking, which really meant thinking like them. As a consequence of involving myself in this cult, I became agnostic and was subjected to arrogant manipulation and spiritual trauma. Though that sounds terrible, and it was, this was the turning point in my life that caused me to call upon the Lord. Sometimes our worst decisions in life can lead to our best ones. In my darkest moment, I cried out to Jesus, and He saved me. I left the cult abruptly, and have been a Christian ever since. I will tell a more elaborate version of that testimony in a future post, but the reason that I have shared a short version of it right now is to provide a backstory for my involvement in Reiki.
Rededicating my life to Christ did not make all of my questions and New Age beliefs go away overnight. I had to go through a period of relearning in order to gain discernment and understanding. My heart broke (and still breaks) at the thought of others suffering in the way that I did. I longed for a way to help others recover from spiritual trauma and find deliverance. Thus, I became interested in healing.
Although the desire to heal had been in my heart for a long time, I had never had a reason to pursue it, especially because I wondered if God would really use me to heal anyone. Rarely in my experience with going to church throughout my life had I seen healing occur. Despite my prior exploration in the New Age, I had never really done any serious research into Reiki and had never practiced it. I had read positive things about it from a Christian author, however.
I knew a few people who practiced Reiki, a couple of them being Christians. Although Reiki seemed like a possibility, I cautiously hesitated to pursue it due to my previous traumatic spiritual experiences. I felt the Lord calling me to be a healer, but had no idea what to do other than to pray and ponder. One day, my friend, who is an unbeliever and practices Reiki, came over to my house to hang out with me and asked me if they could try their Reiki on me. Thinking that this was oddly coincidental, or even synchronistic, I consented. I had received Reiki treatments before, which had not seemed to have had any negative consequences, so I wanted to have the chance to reevaluate it.
Well, that night I dreamed about Reiki literally all night. At the time, I felt like that was a confirmation that I should do it. Retrospectively, however, I recognize that that was Satan tempting me. A few weeks later, I addressed one of my Christian friends who practices Reiki in order to ask them about their experiences with it and to ask them if they could attune me. The conversation went well, and my friend agreed to attune me, so I decided to pursue Reiki.
I received various additional signs which I believed confirmed my decision. However, I cannot share those in detail, as doing so could give away my identity to certain individuals. My story right now as I have told it could apply to many people, so I will keep it that way. All I can say is that I had a few positive dreams about doing Reiki, and a friend gave me a prophetic word, of sorts.
My Reiki master friend expressed generosity and kindness to me, and the attunement went well. I did not have any mystical experiences during the activation ritual like many people claim to have. When I tried Reiki on others, however, I would receive insights about them that they had not told me, and the sessions seemed to have positive results. One friend received alleviation from a headache and newfound energy after having a session with me. A few other people felt emotional clarity and peace after receiving Reiki treatments from me. All the while, I thought I was being used by God and serving as a vessel for the Holy Spirit to flow through.
Though I believed that Reiki was what God wanted me to do, I still had doubts, which I now know were the Holy Spirit warning me. The first red flag that I encountered about Reiki was when I was reading a book called Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss. At one point in the book, Myss describes how she has an ability called “medical intuitiveness” and how she spontaneously channeled a spirit for a client. After reading that, I put the book down and never picked it up again. I instinctively knew that something didn’t feel right about channeling, but at the same time, I didn’t completely rule it out, either. It would be accurate to say that I was a rather double-minded person. At the time, I thought that maybe New Age practices weren’t all bad and that maybe I had only had traumatic spiritual experiences because of having associated with the wrong people in that cult.
The next red flag that I encountered about Reiki was one day when I met with a friend—the friend whose headache had gone away after having received a Reiki treatment from me. This friend confided in me that they had had a very distressing and demonic (not normal) nightmare. I don’t think that my friend connected the Reiki treatment with the nightmare. The thought crossed my mind, but I dismissed it as Satan trying to sabotage us and discourage me from healing. Later on, when I would have my own bad experiences with Reiki and repent of practicing it, I would put two and two together to realize that the Reiki treatment really had caused my friend’s nightmare. Luckily, while my friend and I had met, we prayed together, and I shared a prayer for deliverance with them. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to broach the subject with my friend now to check up on them, and I really regret having subjected them to such a dangerous spiritual practice. I had only wanted to help others, but instead, I had been hurting them.
The next red flag that I encountered about Reiki actually did not pertain directly to it. A friend and I went to an event where there were fortune tellers. So of course, we decided to have our fortunes told. I honestly had no idea what to expect and thought that it would be just for fun. Well, it turned out that my personal fortune teller told me things about myself and certain beliefs of mine that I had neither disclosed to them nor hinted toward. I had been expecting a brief palm reading, but instead I got a ten-minute session with a psychic who used tarot cards and channeling. At first, I was blown away by the things that the psychic had told me, and I walked away from that session trembling.
After much thought and prayer, however, I later came to the conclusion that this encounter had not been of God. Filled with regret, I went into my prayer closet, laid prostrate on the floor, and cried to Jesus for forgiveness. I was so devastated that I had been unfaithful to the one person who never leaves nor forsakes me. Amidst crying tears of sorrow at my sin, I began to sing “How He Loves” by John Mark McMillan. When I reached the lyrics that say, “if His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking,” the grace of God replaced my sadness and I began to cry tears of thankfulness.
It was this incident that made me trust my instinct that channeling is demonic. Mediums claim that channeling is not inviting a spirit into one’s body but rather tuning into the frequency that a spirit is communicating on. In other words, the medium supposedly acts sort of like a TV channel. That’s ahem, cough cough, total BS. Channeling is definitely opening oneself up to demonic possession. Remembering back to what I had read in Anatomy of the Spirit several months prior, I decided to research several other prominent Reiki masters to see if they also do channeling. With a quick search on the internet, I found that many of them do. 99% of the ones whom I looked up, do. I’m sure there are others out there who do not do channeling and whom I did not look up, but that’s aside from the point. Actually, to get technical, all Reiki practitioners believe that they are channeling universal life force energy when they perform healings, so…
Anyway, the discovery that research revealed to me made me feel very uncomfortable about Reiki, but it did not make me turn completely away from it yet. Instead, I half-way took a break for a while from practicing Reiki. In other words, I was hesitant to do it because of my doubts and only did it sometimes on myself whenever I wanted to test it again.
Shortly after the fortune teller incident, I finally found a church that felt right for me. I encountered the Holy Spirit there in a way that I had not encountered Him at any other church. The members there quickly became like family to me. Ultimately, God used my church family to bring me completely out of Reiki. During a worship meeting, I asked for prayer, and a couple of my church friends said that they sensed that my home needed spiritual cleansing. Some things that I have struggled with ever since the traumatic experiences I had in the cult are hearing voices while trying to fall asleep and having demonic nightmares. The nightmares, however, aren’t nearly as bad as the uncontrollable kind that I had when I was in the cult. God protects me by waking me up from them, and I seem to have fewer of them over time, but nevertheless, I still suffer this consequence. Reiki did not seem to worsen my problem at first, although I did notice my perceptions gradually and subtly become stranger during sleep than they had been before. This is what my church friends had prayed for me about, and they came to my home to cleanse it with prayer, worship, and the anointing of oil.
At that point, I asked them what they thought about Reiki, and they warned me against it, saying that it is an idol. Well, I did not want to hold onto Reiki if it was an idol—though I was not sure whether it was or not—because I wanted to be faithful to God. Therefore, my church friends led me through a prayer of renunciation, and I got rid of items that were associated with Reiki. It took me a little while longer to let go completely of Reiki because I was confused. Why had I had good experiences with it? What if I had made a decision out of fear instead of out of love by giving it up? What if I had thrown away a gift that God had given me?
All of this uncertainty caused me to feel depressed. At the same time, I felt guilty for feeling depressed because my home felt much more peaceful, and I thought I should be feeling grateful instead. In His grace, God showed me a dream of a rainbow over a cloud to comfort me. He was the rainbow, and I was the gray cloud. This dream reminded me of the scripture that says that God will rejoice over us with singing (Zephaniah 3:17). I also now associate it with the scripture that says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time” (1 Peter 5:6, NIV). Though I felt so guilty and confused, God reminded me of His everlasting love for me and of how He is always watching over me.
The depression finally got to me, and I made the rather bad decision to try Reiki on myself one last time. After I did it, I knew that it had been the wrong choice. When laying hands on myself, I heard a demonic voice say something about my throat, which deterred me from attempting to heal my throat chakra. The next day, I came down with a fever and did not immediately make a connection to what had happened the night prior. Reiki experts would think that my illness was a result of my body detoxifying, but I know that is not true because of the demonic voice that I had heard. My illness started out as a fever, became a sore throat, and turned into full-blown bronchitis. My cough was violent and relentless, and I couldn’t sleep for two nights straight as a result. I felt so depressed and alone laying there awake, sick, with no one to hold me. The most devastating part of being this sick for two solid weeks was that I could not sing to the Lord. Satan attacked me in this way because he does not want us to worship God. He wants us to worship him.
On top of being ill, I had several demonic nightmares, as well as a demonic out-of-body experience. The OBE is too weird to attempt explaining. The only thing that I will say about the OBE is that it started out feeling nice with the sensations of warm energy vibrating from my hands to the chakras. Then the chakras swirled very intensely and I encountered the spirits behind these sensations. The source did not match the sensations at all. It is as the Bible says: “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). I won’t describe the rest of the OBE, as like I said, it is too weird. I now know that chakras are not naturally part of our spiritual anatomy. They are portals opened up by demons when a person messes with Reiki and other such practices. These portals give demons access to the person’s body, mind, and spirit.
Some examples of demonic nightmares that I had include a dream that involved my lungs being possessed by a snake and a dream that involved hellfire. Reiki is connected with something called Kundalini, which is supposedly a spiritual energy that surges through the spine and chakras and that is likened to a serpent. Recall that Satan is depicted as a serpent in the Bible. I never experimented with Kundalini awakenings and whatnot in practicing Reiki, as that was a line that I was unwilling to cross, but I’m explaining this phenomenon in order to point out the demonic nature of energy healing. Note that when you mess with Reiki, you mess with all of it, whether you intend to or not. Some Christians who practice Reiki, for instance, choose not to use the symbols or not to consult with spirit guides. In actuality, they are involving themselves with these forces without realizing it despite their intentions not to. Anyway, doing Reiki on myself obviously increased the frequency and intensity of my nightmares. Doing Reiki and other occult practices opens doorways to demonic oppression, attacks, and influence. It gives Satan legal rights to torment a person.
In addition to evil dreams and visions, I had a telekinetic experience. One day when I was having dinner and working at my computer, I suddenly felt a cold sensation that started in my shoulder blade. The coldness spread through my arm to my hand, and it was tingly. Then, I noticed that as I lifted my hand, a small plastic wrapper lifted along with it. At first, I thought that I was imagining things and that maybe the wrapper had just gotten stuck to my skin or that static was causing this to happen. I tried it with the other hand, and nothing happened. Then I tried again several more times with the initial hand, and the same phenomenon repeated itself. As the wrapper would lift, coldness would rush throughout my hand. Now, some people might think “How cool!” if this were to happen to them. Heck, I thought that telekinesis was cool, in theory. But in reality, I was like “oh h*** no!” I did not like the power. I concluded from this incident that if I had not been doing Reiki, then there would not have been a demonic opening for such telekinesis to occur through me.
Well, after all of that, I finally got the point. About time, right? I therefore gave up Reiki for good and deleted every single book having to do with Reiki and New Age spirituality on my computer, as well as every related file and website on my favorites list, and everything else that I could think of. Getting rid of virtual possessions is just as important as getting rid of material possessions when it comes to spiritually cleansing your living space. One of my friends from church came over and prayed with me again, and I was grateful for their grace and understanding in interacting with me. They did not judge me at all, but instead showed empathy. After my friend prayed with me, I recovered from my illness in a normal amount of time. (The antibiotics helped, too). I confessed my sin to God, repented, and officially renounced practicing Reiki. I still, however, struggled with nightmares and did not get enough sleep. When I was finally well enough to return to counseling, my psychotherapist said that I looked like I felt terrible and advised me to seek help from my church. I was so scared at night whenever it was time to go to sleep.
My friend from church had told me that the nightmares would try to come back, but that I would just have to say “no” to them. After enduring restless nights with extreme anxiety and depression, and perhaps a bit of suicidal ideation, God finally built up the courage in me to say “enough is enough.” So, I prayed to God asking Him how to defend myself and cleanse my home. Amidst praying, I felt the Holy Spirit tell me to proclaim God’s promises. Anointing my home with lavender oil and prayer, I proclaimed God’s promises, such as “love always protects” (1 Corinthians 13:7), and “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).
Additionally, I praised the Lord with singing and read scripture. As I was reading the Bible, I suddenly felt, saw, and heard a ball of energy whiz past my ear. By the Holy Spirit, I knew that that was a demon trying to scare me into thinking that the house cleansing was not working. I knew that Satan wanted me to believe that I had screwed up beyond redemption and that God would therefore not protect me. The demons were bluffing, and this was really their desperate scare tactic. The ball of energy whizzing past my ear startled me and caused me to jump involuntarily. In the name of Jesus, I commanded it to leave and I commanded that demons no longer had the right to be in my home. From that day forward, I was able to have restful sleep again. Though I still experience demonic nightmares at times, they are a result of Satan attacking me as a child of God because he hates Christ and not because he has any legal rights to do so. When Satan does not have legal rights to attack a person, that person has much greater protection from God. Additionally, we have to claim our promise to protection from God; we have to believe that His word is true. I know from experience that fearing demons and doubting our Christ-given authority as believers gives them leverage to oppress us. We especially have to understand God’s gift of grace for us and our identity as His children. I won’t pretend to have reached this point of total understanding yet, but I am on the journey there and God is working in me.
Now, I know without a doubt that all New Age practices and philosophies are not of God. I want nothing to do with them! There is no true meaning in them. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). New Age spirituality cannot offer any true peace or bring you closer to God. Please trust me on this one.
Giving up Reiki entirely was very difficult, because I did not (and still do not) know how to break it to my friend/former Reiki master. Additionally, I found it pretty hope-shattering to discover that I was back to square one and had seemingly no meaningful way to help others. I knew that Satan wanted me to feel useless, worthless, hopeless, and purposeless, but I could not help but feel that way anyway.
After having confided in a loved one about some of the things that I was going through, which I normally would have never done, my loved one prayed for me and I had a dream from God the next morning. As I awoke, I heard the Holy Spirit say, “Behind every masterpiece, there is a story.” Though I still experience depression on the path to finding my calling, I find hope in the message of this dream and in the encouragement that God gives me along the way. Even though my story is hard to live through at times, I take comfort in knowing that I am God’s masterpiece, so everything will come together. You, dear reader, are God’s masterpiece, too, so have hope! God loves you and wants you to experience true freedom in your life. The plans that He has for you and me are good (Jeremiah 29:11). Jesus Christ is our true Savior, healer, and deliverer. If you haven’t met Him yet, and you would like to, then ask Him into your heart.❤ I hope Jesus uses this testimony to call out to you.
If you are struggling with Reiki or New Age spirituality and need prayer or a listening ear, please contact me at: gabriella.claire33@gmail.com
But most of all, whatever you do, always remember to call out to Jesus!
To proceed to part 5 of this series, click here:
https://proclaiminglibertyblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/13/the-occult-practice-of-reiki-part-5-is-reiki-really-for-life/
To go back to part 3, click here:
https://proclaiminglibertyblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/05/the-occult-practice-of-reiki-part-3-whyhealing-in-the-name-of-jesus-and-healing-with-reiki-symbols-cannot-truly-be-reconc
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