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The Following article was first published in the Spring 2003 issue of 'Resonance', the UK Reiki Federation magazine. REIKI IN EGYPT Reiki may be a practice without religious affiliations, but try teaching it in an Islamic country, and a whole plethora of problems rear their heads! On arrival I realised quickly that Reiki had as yet made virtually no impact on this country, as was the case with almost all other complementary therapies. There was some covert activity by a few ex-pats involved in herbalism, homeopathy and some reflexology, but that was all. There are two main reasons for this. In Egypt, or more specifically in Cairo, where most of the population live - a city of 17 million - Islam is the dominant force in people's lives. In combination with this, due to a partially autocratic structure, the state and its apparatus can often be quite ruthless in its suppression of 'undesirables'. This has lead to many complementary therapy practitioners working with the pressure of their own fear of harassment. Under the guise of protecting the doctrines of Islam, the medical profession has in the past orchestrated purges of herbalists and others. Practitioners have been arrested and charged with practicing witchcraft, and their supplies have been confiscated or destroyed. Clearly all of this does not provide the most fertile of soils for any sort of healing work to take root in! Against this background, I was determined not to compromise my ideals or withhold Reiki from those that sought it. The very worst that I could expect, as an ex-pat (and a British one at that) rather than an Egyptian, would be to be repatriated, and that was unlikely. Reiki will always find a way where it is needed and in Egypt, Reiki is very much needed. Of course being in a foreign country with a totally alien culture and social structure, and with limited ability in Arabic, I had not even the vaguest idea of how to go about letting people know about Reiki. My plan therefore was very simple. Forget about it. Concentrate on my own Reiki practice and leave the rest to Reiki. If Reiki was meant to take root in Egypt, it would. Several months went by of quietly working on myself and then through a bizarre and totally unlikely chain of events, I found myself on the receiving end of a number of enquiries for both treatments and training. Things then began to snowball.
There were and still are setbacks. Some expected, in spite of my warnings to the contrary, instant cures. Others, like one devout Sufi, who had a very keen and open minded interest in spiritual development, could not bring himself to lay hands on, or even near to the bodies of the other female participants of his 1 st Degree class, especially when working anywhere remotely near the breast or the genitals. This is 'haram' according to certain hard-line interpretations of Islam and of course this had to be respected. Others wanted guaranteed, specific results. It was hard work. In the West, we make certain assumptions about people. We are not surprised when clients or students have some knowledge of the chakra system, or have tried other forms of complementary therapy, or have an understanding of say acupressure or reflexology. In Egypt, this is a dangerous assumption to make. It is very unlikely that Egyptians will have any sort of experience or knowledge of anything outside of Islam and the Western model of medical intervention. Consequently it is always necessary to go back to very basic first principles - very good discipline for me.
This kind of attitude could be seen quite rightly as detrimental in other forms of spiritual practice. In Reiki however, where a pot pourri approach and 'channelling' were not, are not, and should not be a part of the system, it is a definite boon, along with respect for Lineage. Reiki in Egypt stands a very good chance of remaining largely unadulterated by these types of non-Reiki practices. One of my main concerns as a teacher of Reiki was how I was going to get across to Egyptians those aspects of Reiki that fundamentally rely on an openness to and ability to understand Reiki's Buddhist origins. In the Reiki tradition from which I teach - Reiki Jin-Kei Do - there is a strong emphasis on Reiki being principally a personal spiritual development practice. This involves a plethora of energy awareness and focusing disciplines as well as a number of meditations, significantly Vipassana. Westerns, whether from a Buddhist background or not, have the mental orientation to be able to conceptualize and contextualize these disciplines within their own spiritual framework. The closed nature of Muslim society in Egypt (due to a State and socially dictated exclusively Islamic education from an early age) means that Egyptians find it hard to understand anything that is contextualized outside of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I needn't have worried however. As always, Reiki finds a way, and confirms its non-denominational stance even when presented to those whose religious beliefs stand in opposition to the religion from which Reiki was extracted. Love, compassion and wisdom are, after all, universal qualities that transcend the divides of religious doctrine. There have been times though where I doubted that we'd ever get to the end of the class due to the number of times that we had to stop for class participants to pray! Reiki is just beginning to take a hold in Egypt. There are now two others teaching from the Takata Lineage - one Egyptian and one ex-pat, and myself teaching from the Takamori Lineage. Sadly the Egyptian Reiki Master, who trained in the West and the only one of us who can teach in Arabic, and thus reach the bulk of the population, seems to have something of a Western New Age bias and a penchant for conveyor belt teaching. This seems to be leading to the usual distortions and add-ons so rife in the West, which simply diminish Reiki in the eyes of the public. Egypt is changing fast, and becoming more and more open to ideas from other cultures - particularly the West. Hopefully this will not lead to a diminution of the Egyptian ability to discriminate between the genuine and the delusional.
In Egypt, the mother of civilizations, and that great cultural melting pot for peoples across the globe, Reiki is bringing together individuals of different colour, race and religion. These are often peoples who according to their political, national or religious identities might consider each other as enemies. Reiki not only puts the lie to all of this man made nonsense, but is asserting every ones commonality in compassion and love. Hum-dil-allah (Praise be to God)! ( For upcoming classes in Cairo and other parts of Egypt, see the Class Schedule page) |
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I arrived in Egypt - a relatively liberal country (in Islamic terms) - in August 2000 to take up a post as the Head of Art in a secondary school. I had spent the previous 3 years practicing and teaching Reiki in my home town of Rugby in the UK, before deciding to make the move to Egypt.
By word of mouth and much underground networking people began to come to me. Some recoiled in fear; clearly this Reiki thing was 'haram' (evil, bad, from the devil). Others, and I have to say, the better educated, more affluent, and consequently, more Westernised, were able to set aside their trepidation and, at first very tentatively, give Reiki a chance.
This lack of preconceptions however, also had some positive aspects. There was a total lack of what I refer to as 'New-Age-flakey-ness' - the Western obsession with pot pourri spiritual practice, whereby people dip into this that and the other, never really getting to grips with anything, and invent their own spiritual systems and teachings. These are often based on very shallow understandings of tradition combined with so called 'channelled' teachings. In Egypt, because of the teachings and structure of Islam and its adherence to the Lineage system within its own tradition, Egyptians, in general, are very dismissive of anything that claims to have come from spirit guides, ascended Masters or the like. This is seen as delusional and, in the minds of more hard-line Muslims, possibly the work of the devil. Egyptians like their spiritual teachings intact, with nothing taken out and nothing added on (after all, this is why they claim that Islam is the only true religion left).
Over the last few months I have seen a huge increase in the interest being shown in Reiki, not only amongst Egyptians, but also the local ex-pat community, and now Arabs from across the Middle East and even Europeans wishing to combine a Reiki class with a holiday in Egypt!