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22 A Journal of Contemporary Shamanism VOLUME 6 ISSUE 2 FALL 2013 moments after I felt the magic of the heated energy flowing from the hands placed gently on me to realize that this was what I had been waiting for my entire life. That same day I scraped together the money for a training that began the next day. My instructor was an Israeli who looked like Jesus Christ and during the attunements I sobbed with all my broken heart as Heaven opened up and filled me with light. Soon after that I learned that I had serious physical heart trouble. At that time it was said that the Japanese originator of Reiki Mikao Usui who had received this transmis- sion for healing during an experience of enlightenment in the early 1920s was a Christian who had discovered Reiki during his search for the way Christ had done healing. And so I learned from the Israeli that Reiki was Jesuss method. We were given secret Japanese and Sanskrit symbols to strengthen the Reiki and I immediately questioned that Jesus Christ would have used these symbols. Soon I discovered that Reiki was also a form of prayer and while praying in that way I dared to ask Jesus Christ to give me the symbols that he himself had used for healing. If anythingand I seriously doubted that I would receive anything I expected Hebrew or Aramaic symbols. But no the symbols I was given to use in place of the traditional Usui symbols came to me in the form of light looking more like what I imagined the Druids and Celts would have used I realized later that they could also have been from Central Asia. I was told that these were the Grail symbols for healing so I under- stood that this was Grail Reiki and I very quickly learned that the symbols could be combined in ways that the traditional Usui symbols could not. I was also told that I should begin to celebrate a Grail Communion ceremony for healing and that it should consist of water and grain bread infused with the Grail symbol energies. Still I didnt know whether to take all this seriouslyI figured it might just be my imagination. About shamanism I only knew what little I had read and what I had learned from Michael Harner in an early-1980s workshop but I was about to learn that the Grail Reiki work was meant as just one part of a far-wider shamanic practice. When I went into prayer mode again and asked Usui whether these symbols were indeed to be used for Reiki he said I should use them that these symbols would be simpler for Westerners. Always doubtful whether my communications with the spirit world were real in prayer then I asked Usui to give me a concrete sign that this was so. I said I didnt want anything like an inner voice that it needed to be explicit in the visible world. I never expected to get that sign and I immediately forgot about it. By that time however I had learned that the story of Usui being a Christian and the head of a Christian university was not true. Usuis memorial stone had been located in a Buddhist cemetery in Tokyo and there was a short biography inscribed on it. We learned that Usui came from an old Samurai family. On his family crest was a circle with the Pole Star at the top an ancient Taoist symbol around which revolved the sacred Ursa Majorthe Big Dipper. We also learned from his tombstone that Usui had prac- ticed divination and spent time studying in China where Buddhism was closely intertwined with Taoism. Indeed Usuis spiritual connections with Central Asia and the North Pole would prove most important later for understanding why the Grail symbols were revealed to me in the context of Usui Reiki. Nevertheless it took me a while to get up the courage to use these new symbols. But one day I did so when exchanging attunements with three Reiki masters. I figured that if the symbols didnt work it wouldnt matter since these people were already Reiki masters. But they did work and the energy was most powerful. I suddenly found myself having to come up with a certificate for Grail Reiki and I decided to create a certifi- cate with an image of the Grail on it. I began to look through my collection of Grail books but nothing seemed to be right until I picked up a book I had never opened. I was almost at the end of it when an image of a Communion chalice on a cloth popped out at me and I immediately knew that this was the one. When I read the inscription on the following page my stomach went queasy. It said The Christian flag in the Shimabara Rebellion 17th c. Japan. 2 I looked that up and found that indeed Christianity had been outlawed in Japan and history said the last of the Christians were massacred at that time. This was a piece of history about which I had known nothing. I learned however that some Christians had remained and gone underground including a number of Samurai families. These Christians had continued to practice Christianity secretly risking horrible public tor- ture and death. 3 I went into Reiki prayer-meditation mode again and asked Usui if his was one of the families that had continued to practice Christianity underground. He just smiled and said Keep looking. The story was becoming more complex. Still I wondered whether the Grail symbols I was using even if Usui had en- dorsed them had really come from Jesus Christ. But I hesitated to ask Jesus for a sign fearing that would be pure hubris. Finally one day I got up the courage and spoke to him in that form of Reiki prayer where the veils between the visible and invisible worlds are very thin. Jesus I said if these are really the symbols you used in healing please send me a sign so that I know it is not my imagination. And Jesus I dont want an abstract sign like a voice from a cloud or whatever. I want something very explicit in the visible world. Again I never expected to hear anything more. A Magdalene Easter A couple of weeks later on the Sunday following Easter I attended a cel- ebration to honor Mary Magdalene held