stephanie brail

Back in my late 20s, I was trained to become a Reiki Master. Reiki is a gentle form of energy healing that is supposed to be safe and effective. It involves the laying on of hands in person, and can be done “via distance” through meditation and visualization. Reiki has its “generic” form, and many different “flavors” that come in the form of Reiki “attunements.” So if you want to heal your issues with anger, you can get a Reiki “attunement” for anger.

In my mid-30s, I started “channeling” Reiki attunements for myself. Actually, I hate the word “channeling.” It makes it sound like I was being a medium for an ancient being from Mu. By “channeling” I mean “receiving” energy from “spirit.” Sometimes “spirit” might be just plain ole “God” or an angel. I started writing manuals for my attunements and putting them out on the Internet. I wasn’t really thinking about making a business out of it. But somehow I got into the business of selling Reiki attunements. (My Reiki website is at elementalreiki.com. I don’t usually promote it here, or myself there, in part because I don’t want it to be about “me.”)

Many of my attunements have been extremely popular and have been shared around the world. One of them in particular has been a huge “success,” and that is Money Reiki. Money Reiki was given to me by Archangel Michael. I must have put Money Reiki out in about 2005 – I’d have to check my original manual to be sure. But I was definitely the first to put out something called “Money Reiki.” After that, there were some imitations and other energies that dealt with issues of “abundance” and “prosperity.” Money Reiki is probably the most well-known of my Reiki systems and it is probably the one I am known for. We’ll get back to Money Reiki in a second, but let me back up first…

Over the years, I tried to make a business out of Reiki, but I personally didn’t have the stomach for doing a hard sales pitch, nor did I want to take advantage of people who needed healing. But writing my manuals took a lot of work, and it seemed that my job was a thankless one, because the minute I’d put something out on my website, some other Reiki Master would buy it, resell it on their site at a discount, and undercut my own business. (In Reiki, attunements are historically handed down from master to student, so even if you write a manual, people can “resell” it unless you direct otherwise.) I never made a lot of money at it, and I was always doing other things to pay my bills too.

What bothered me most about this business is that it seemed like some folks were in it out of greed, not because they truly cared. They were snapping up other people’s attunements left and right and selling them for “pennies on the dollar” on eBay and other places. They were casting witchcraft spells to hurt their competition.

In general, I was very turned off not just by the business of Reiki, but of many people in the self-help business in general, some of whom are actively preying upon desperate people in order to make a buck. This is doubly true of people who focus on selling courses and workshops about “abundance,” “prosperity,” or making money. It’s like, many of these folks who are drawn to teach this abundance stuff, are themselves so broken and caught up in their own greed, that they willingly or unwittingly take advantage of broke people who are desperate to fix their finances. It’s a nasty business.

Many of the sentiments in my original Money Reiki system were completely counter to that sort of energy.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that my Money Reiki system was used by another Reiki practitioner who had built up an entire business around my system and even misled people on her website that she was the founder! Look, I don’t have a problem with people offering Money Reiki healing services, but it is a problem if someone is taking credit for something they didn’t create, or teaching things that are counter to the intention of the original energy. And the way I found out was through a very upset and agitated new customer of mine, who was freaking out because this Money Reiki business owner had warned him that the Money Reiki energies would be so strong, that he needed to be careful not to think any sort of negative thought, lest it be manifested!

I never, ever taught that as part of Money Reiki! NEVER! It is a fundamentalist interpretation of the Law of Attraction that I vehemently disagree with, for many reasons.

I admit I was not doing much to monitor what people were doing with Money Reiki on the Internet. I’ve now looked around a little bit. I guess in my wildest dreams I didn’t think that people would be creating entire businesses from Money Reiki. Well, now I look around and I see people are selling not only Money Reiki t-shirts, but Money Reiki BEER STEINS.

BEER STEINS? SERIOUSLY?

I am sickened. And heartbroken. Seriously.

I just can’t believe someone took something I put out into the world in an effort to try to shift the energy away from greed…and has so abused it to be selling Money Reiki t-shirts, magnets, and beer steins. Perhaps I’m being harsh – maybe the person is well-meaning. But it’s clear that they do not understand what Money Reiki is really about. (Don’t even get me started about how alcohol and Reiki don’t mix!)

Look, I’m not against people making money. And I’m not against t-shirts or swag in general. But when it comes to something like an energy specifically “channeled” to shift the world’s energy of money away from rampant greed, commercialization of this energy is just wrong.

And it’s clear, that if someone is selling beer steins “infused” with “Money Reiki healing,” it is not the Money Reiki energy I originally received from Archangel Michael. I truly hope that anyone who might be tempted to commercialize “Money Reiki” or put their own spin on it will take this to heart: Simply come up with your own name and manual for it. If you want to call it Money Abundance Something-Or-Other Reiki, that’s fine. But it’s not Money Reiki, nor are you working with the “spiritual energy of money” in the way that Money Reiki teaches.

Why do people glom onto other people’s ideas? I don’t get it. And that’s what makes me so upset about this – that someone took something that I put out for the good of the planet, hijacked it, and made it into something it was never supposed to be. All they needed to do was create their own name for their own thing. I don’t have a problem with people doing their own thing…but taking something that I intended for a completely different purpose, and using it for that which I have actively fought against in my life? Yes, I’m upset about this.

And maybe I partially feel responsible…like, if I had written my manual better, or not let things drop with it, maybe that client who came to me so upset wouldn’t have had that bad “Money Reiki” experience in the first place. I abdicated my leadership, and in the vacuum, someone took advantage of the empty space.

Ironically, when I found all this out, I had been working on a Money Reiki book, because a client of mine had suggested it to me. I was having a hard time writing it, in part because I was trying to decide how much more I wanted to do within the Reiki community, and whether I wanted to move on from it.

For the past year or two, I had been reluctant to put new Reiki attunements out there, and had been feeling somewhat of a desire to just step away from Reiki entirely. And the whole self-help business. Because I’m tired of greedy people and charlatans. And the “fake” niceness of people who say “love and light” but really don’t mean it, because they are simply repressing their inner darkness and anger. And frankly, while I think Reiki can be a good thing, I just don’t think it’s “the answer.” It’s maybe part of the answer, but it’s not going to fix you completely. If it did fix you completely, then the Reiki community wouldn’t be filled with so much BS, for one thing.

Sigh.

I’m not saying I’m perfect. In fact, that was precisely one of the reasons I never put myself out there as a guru. I get angry, and anxious, and deal with issues and problems like everyone else, and my spiritual practice has helped me only in that I have gotten a bit better over the years…just not completely “cured.” Maybe we never get completely “cured.”

At any rate, having this issue hit me in the face at this time is perhaps a good thing. For one, I see that if I put something out there, even with the best of intentions, it can be misinterpreted and misused. And when I go off into my little corner, and cease to be a leader and stop putting myself out there, because I’m feeling a little disillusioned about stuff, it doesn’t help matters. It just gives more power to the “crap.”

So I am going to try to speak up more, and share my perspectives more. You don’t have to agree with them, and perhaps you’ll vehemently disagree, but at least I’m not going to let other people take my work and turn it into something it was never intended to be.

I do think I am going to be moving on from Reiki eventually. I’m not “throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” and disowning Reiki. But I will be moving beyond the attunements business, with all its pitfalls and BS. I actually think at some point it might be best if I simply put everything I’ve ever done out there Reiki-wise for free. That might happen one of these days. In the meantime, I’m going to put my original Money Reiki manuals out for free for sure, and add some new addendums to hopefully clarify what it was all supposed to be about. You will be able to get Money Reiki Healing any time, without having to pay someone or buy a t-shirt.

And then, just maybe, I’ll finish that book.