Dr. John L. Turner Blog

Aloha and welcome!

Rather than jump in with a full-blown description of Reiki, it may be more interesting to describe events as they happen which led me to study Reiki, compare with Johrei and other methods of “energy healing” and eventually, how it provided fodder and a stimulus for my current book project of how various methods of energy healing work and exactly what energy is involved.

In the beginning

Since 1995, I have worked with the Mokichi Okada Association (now known as The Light from the East). On all of the Hawaiian islands, there are MOA clinics and facilities, the largest being on Oahu, the next largest in Hilo. Clinics exist on the mainland such as in West Hollywood, but my participation is now limited to Hilo.

On the first and third Sundays of each month, I am at the clinic where members and visitors experience flower arrangement, the Japanese tea ceremony and Johrei, the medical art of Japan which I have described: the emission of a spiritual light from the hand to heal.

My function is as a clinic doctor, to answer medical questions and to help decide about the “key points” where Johrei should be channeled. However, I spend an equal amount of time, if not more, discussing spiritual matters and Mr. Okada’s philosophy and the method he described for elimination of disease, poverty and conflict. In Medicine, Miracles and Manifestations, the key reason that I still go to the clinic twice/month is explained It is not the stipend which they generously offer, but because I feel that there is a debt I owe to Mokichi Okada as prior to a six-year period of tremendous stress and personal conflicts, I had reached a point he described in his poem, “The Way for Man to Live.” The last stanza goes like this:

Let us have the strength,

To bear with any hardship,

Any mistreatment,

Accepting it with a smile,

Just as though it were nothing.

It took two years from the time I first read this, to the day I felt 100% assured that I had reached it. On that day, I fully understood how to accept it with a smile, just as though it were nothing. Then, on the very same day, the conflict began.

Had I not arrived at this state of mind, I may have been like Michael Douglas in the movie, Falling Down. But I was very fortunate. If you can see why certain events happen and that in each and every one is a learning experience, and through into the mix the fact that you yourself planned for it to happen, what more is there to do but extract the lesson, understand it, and accept it with a smile?

So, performing as the clinic physician, over the years I noticed that on occasion, I would ask a visitor, “How did you hear about Johrei?” and would receive the response, “I practice Reiki which is similar. I thought I would look into Johrei as another method of energy healing.”

In time, when such a person would appear, I began to ask, “What exactly is Reiki?”

For reasons that I did not understand at the time, the response was always vague, something like, “Well, it involves symbols, the use of energy from the hands, and it was started by a Japanese housewife in Honolulu.”

That explanation was interesting, but also, it was enough to turn me off. I had spent years studying the life, times and methods of Okada, his revelations, mystical experiences and the use of light from the hands, and the thought of something new, originating in Honolulu, was not very appealing.

But now, after having completed the Reiki Master level, I realize why the explanation of Reiki was purposefully vague and terse. And even in the beginning of my involvement with Reiki, reading about it on the Internet, I didn’t understand it at all until I took the first levels of Reiki training. Then some things became clear, but nothing striking until William Rand and the Master training.

In part, Reiki was closely involved with my obtaining New Page Books as a publisher for Medicine, Miracles and Manifestations. It began last year with Behler Publications and a woman named Lynn Price, author of an award winning book, Donovan’s Paradigm, a novel about a physician who utilizes the healing method of Reiki in her practice. Lynn is not only an author, but owner of Behler Publications and it appeared more than mere coincidence that her fictional story (Lynn is a Reiki Master also) about blending Eastern and Western Medicine seemed to be a companion to my non-fictional account of the use of Johrei and traditional medicine. What happened was that Behler was not to be the publishing house for my book, but was instrumental in leading me to New Page Books and along the way, Reiki instruction became necessary.

In the next section, I will introduce the principles of Reiki and the astounding possible connections with Johrei as both involved mountain-side revelations. Both involved association with a medical doctor who aided in spreading of the techniques, and both were developed at almost the same time in Japan. Both use a type of spiritual and/or universal energy and both can heal. Giving is key in both and eventually, I will analyze which may involved the “higher form of giving.”

Have a nice day!