Attunements are integral to Mikao Usui's teaching. To practice the system of Reiki healing energy, students must first receive attunements. Methods differ but the purpose is the same: to strengthen the students' connection with spiritual energy and to raise their personal energy levels.

An attunement is where a teacher completes a physical ritual around a seated student. The student generally has his/her eyes closed and might concentrate on breathing or another form of meditation. There have been many variations on this. Some teachers touch the body and others do not. Some move around the front of the body and the back, some claim to even attune the feet. An attunement is relatively short - a couple of minutes - but is pleasant for the student to sit and enjoy the sense of energy in the body.

Attunements were initially called reiju in Japan and when the system moved to the West they were called initiations, empowerments or attunements.

Without an attunement it is not Reiki, the system, which is being practiced. Many people practice similar techniques but do not use attunements and therefore do not practice what is called the system of Reiki healing energy. This is not to say that whatever they practice is better or worse than this system.

There have been many claims made about the effect of an attunement. In the West it is habitual to rationalize each thought and movement. Here the hunt for the perfect explanation of 'what an attunement does' is ongoing. Some traditional Japanese Reiki schools explain the attunement with the words 'more practice'. In other words, 'if you keep practicing then you will discover the answer for yourself'. Something as profound as an attunement cannot be analysed on the human level merely experienced.

In essence the purpose of an attunement is: a) a sense of reconnection to one's true self and b) a clearing of the meridians allowing the student to conduct more energy through the body.

No matter which branch of Reiki healing energy students find themselves in, there appears to be no right or wrong attunements. Many roads are taken within the boundaries of the system of Reiki.

Though attunements may vary from branch to branch they all seem to work to some degree - provided there is a perceptible basic core of the ritual coupled with clarity of intent.

There are different set-ups that teachers will use when performing attunement on students. Most teachers perform the complete attunement on one student at a time. Some may even go so far as to take each student into a separate room, once again performing the complete attunement on the back and front in one go.

If students are in a very large group people may make noise etc creating distraction and it is necessary to wait a long time before receiving the attunement. If it is a large group some teachers walk down the front row of students completing only the front section of the ritual and then walk down the back of the row, completing only the back section. The attunement ends with the person they began with. It has been suggested that this method creates an incomplete energetic connection between the teacher and student.

Whether one is alone in a room or with a group of other students the attunement will still work. Students may also receive as many attunements as they wish - in fact, the more the better. In Japan these are repeated on a weekly or monthly basis and are not aligned to receiving new levels of certification. They do not appear to change the ritual for separate leves either. In the West the attunement has a different focus and work toward achieving a new level with each attunement. The attunement is also altered for each level. This system is less aligned to the traditional belief that a student will only ever take in the amount of energy from an attunement that is needed (or desired) by the student at that particular time.

At no point does an attunement rely on the 'power' of the teacher. It is true that the more work that a teacher does on him/herself the more energy that can flow through the body. This gives the student the opportunity to draw more energy - but the student can only draw as much energy as is needed or desired.

Reiki teachers have been know to announce that the first level attunement works on the physical level while the second level attunement works on the emotional level and so on. These are examples of Western mystification where the teacher pretends to control the attunement process with their 'power'. An individual will draw the energy in wherever the body decides, whether it be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. This is not for the teacher to decide.

As an attunement is a powerful clearing of the body's meridians it is impossible to undo this or 'wipe it out'. Each attunement received takes the student a step further to re-aligning oneself with the natural function of the body - once again either mentally, physically, emotionally or spiritually.

For this reason it is also impossible to 'make' an attunement last for a limited period of time. Some crafty individuals have been known to say that a free 'sample' attunement will only last for four (or five or six or seven) days. Students believe they are given something wonderful and then it is taken away again. If students didn't know any better and wanted to continue receiving the benefits of Reiki they would then need to pay (maybe again) to do a course with the teacher. Apart from the fact that an attunement cannot 'wear out' within a pre-arranged time (energy does not wear a watch!) there is also a major misconception about Reiki here.

Attunements are beneficial and integral to the system of Reiki healing energy but it is the personal practice that brings the student blessings - not the 'power' of the teacher. Once again, if fear is used as a method of getting students and clients then this is not the way of the system of Reiki but the way of individual's ego.

This is an extract from The Reiki Sourcebook by Bronwen and Frans Stiene and permission granted from the publishers, O Books. The ISBN number is 1-903816-55-5. Visit their website at www.o-books.net