By saying I don’t retrain people, I mean that I don’t come from the perspective that either what they are doing or what they received need to be corrected.

Everyone who attends my classes pays the class fee. It doesn’t matter how many other classes they have taken, with me or other Reiki masters; if they want to take a space in my class, there is a fee to be paid. It’s very simple.

Similarly, everyone in my First and Second degree classes receives initiations. If they didn’t want the initiation, why would they be in the class? It’s really not an issue.

Some Reiki masters have the perspective that initiation only happens once, and the word itself seems to imply that, at least in English, but since I had so many years of receiving practices from respected spiritual lineages behind me when I learned Reiki, I never had that perspective.

Perhaps the word empowerment is a more appropriate word than initiation. Initiations begin our practice, empowerments enable us to practice. At the beginning, they are the same, but in the continuance, the perspective of an empowerment may make more sense.

Usui gave initiation every time he gathered with his students. Continuing initiations are a meaningful blessing from the teacher that continue the expansion of our practice.

Maybe I’m making too much of this, but I think it’s unfortunate that it seemed there was a need to defend distant training. No one was attacking it. It’s important to me that this is a safe forum in which people can make thoughtful, respectful comments that express widely divergent perspectives; that we be able to disagree and argue the merits without anyone feeling attacked.

I never retrain practitioners, but anyone who wants to take my First degree class is welcome. Often Reiki masters attend my classes. I don’t feel that I am correcting what they’ve learned, but rather giving my perspective. I also don’t see it as a student retaking First degree, but rather that they are taking another First degree class. Although I teach the fundamentals in all my First degree classes, each class is unique to the participants and cannot be replicated. I’ve even had my own advanced students take another First degree class and find it deepening. We absorb the material differently when we’ve been practicing a while.

Only people who have taken my First degree class are invited to take my Second degree class, for just the reasons Beth mentions. Not only are there no training standards in Reiki, but also I have a more comprehensive take on the practice than other teachers. For example, someone coming into my Second degree class who believes that Reiki is a separate energy would be confused to hear me speak of the Reiki connection rather than Reiki energy.

I agree that distant initiation can work. I also agree that the continuing availability and support of the Reiki master is important to many students’ continuing practice. I appreciate that you bring this sensitivity to your teaching.

I still don’t think it is the best way to teach Reiki. There is something about interacting in-person that is irreplaceable by even the most sophisticated technology.

But I am also mindful that not everyone who would like to practice Reiki has access to a sensitive, responsive teacher in-person. Although I don’t think even high quality distant training such as you describe is optimal, Alice, I have seen that it can be effective.

Whereas I don’t promote it, I certainly don’t rule it out. Thank you for your comment and I hope I’ll see more of you here.