Speaker 1: Welcome to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM paranormal
Speaker 1: podcast network. Now get ready for us Strange Things with
Speaker 1: Joshua P. Warren.
Speaker 2: Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
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Speaker 1: Ready to be amazed by the wizard of weird. This
Speaker 1: is Strange with j Warren. I am Joshua pe Warren.
Speaker 1: At each week on this show, I'll be bringing in
Speaker 1: brand new my glowing content, news exercises, and weird experiments
Speaker 1: you can do at home, and a lot more on
Speaker 1: this edition of the show, What's the Real Deal with Reiki?
Speaker 1: You know, when I was growing up, the schools that
Speaker 1: I went to in the rural mountains of western North
Speaker 1: Carolina were pretty tough. There was a lot of fighting
Speaker 1: that went on back then, and I didn't even realize
Speaker 1: just how violent many of my school experiences were until
Speaker 1: I met my wife Lauren, and she was like, nothing
Speaker 1: like that ever happened when I went to school. So
Speaker 1: anybody who went to the schools I went to during
Speaker 1: the years I to them has seen some pretty bloody fights,
Speaker 1: and I have been in some of them. That was
Speaker 1: just the way it was. And now, frankly, I have
Speaker 1: always been or growing up, I was always large for
Speaker 1: my age, so that helped me quite a bit. But
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you know, when you're a freshman
Speaker 1: in high school and you're up against three seniors, that's scary.
Speaker 1: You need to you need to have a little extra
Speaker 1: understanding of how to defend yourself. And things really started
Speaker 1: getting rough in middle school and then you know right there.
Speaker 1: I remember one day I was in middle school and
Speaker 1: the teacher came running in and the middle school was
Speaker 1: next to the high school, and they just locked everything down.
Speaker 1: Cops were all over the place because there were gang
Speaker 1: wars and stuff like that, believe it or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the mountains of western North Carolina. So I when
Speaker 1: I was quite young, I started studying the martial arts,
Speaker 1: and I was very good at it. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact. You know, as I got older, I started
Speaker 1: doing some wrestling in high school and I usually won.
Speaker 1: And one day, when I was sixteen years old, I
Speaker 1: went into this bookstore. This is right after I got
Speaker 1: my driver's license so I could go wherever I wanted.
Speaker 1: So I went to this bookstore in Asheville and they
Speaker 1: had a big, nice section of martial arts books. So
Speaker 1: as I was standing there perusing the books, there was
Speaker 1: a woman who came in also to look at the books,
Speaker 1: and she looked like she was maybe in her late
Speaker 1: twenties or something like that, but she was wearing a gee,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, like the robe with the belt
Speaker 1: that somebody would put on to exercise martial arts. And
Speaker 1: so we started talking to each other, and she brought
Speaker 1: up the topic of chi chi. And I had heard
Speaker 1: about she and read about she before when I was younger,
Speaker 1: but I didn't I never really had any kind of
Speaker 1: a personal interaction with itch Key Prada. It's the idea
Speaker 1: that there is some kind of a bio energy field
Speaker 1: around your body, and that that field is connected to
Speaker 1: your physical wellbeing, and that another person who has a
Speaker 1: certain talent, certain skill, can take his or her chi
Speaker 1: and sort of project it onto your body in various
Speaker 1: ways in order to well kind of heal you or
Speaker 1: clear your chakras or help you in some way. And
Speaker 1: she started talking to me about all these chi exercises
Speaker 1: and she said, here, put your hand out, So I
Speaker 1: put out my hand and then she held her right
Speaker 1: hand over top of my hand and put her left
Speaker 1: hand below my hand, and then she goes, all right,
Speaker 1: are you ready? I said yeah, And in about two seconds,
Speaker 1: it felt like my hand was in an oven. My
Speaker 1: eyes lit up because I looked at her and I thought,
Speaker 1: I understand people have body heat, but it's like she
Speaker 1: flipped this switch, so to speak, and her bio energy
Speaker 1: fieled and I felt this very significant heat and it
Speaker 1: lasted for about ten seconds and then she shut it
Speaker 1: off and I was like wow, and I was just
Speaker 1: instantly amazed. That's one of the most That was one
Speaker 1: of the most exciting moments of my life, to be
Speaker 1: honest with you, to be you know, to experience something
Speaker 1: like that at that age. And she started talking to
Speaker 1: me about the reality of how you can train and
Speaker 1: use this kind of energy field. And then of course
Speaker 1: later on I ended up meeting Grandmaster Tom Cameron, who's
Speaker 1: been on all these TV shows like Ripley's Believe it
Speaker 1: or not, and we became friends, and he does these
Speaker 1: demonstrations where he projects chi and can affect scientific instruments,
Speaker 1: and he even goes so far as to do these
Speaker 1: these demonstrations where he he appears to knock people down
Speaker 1: without touching them. The reality of that is debatable, but
Speaker 1: I could do a whole show about Tom Cameron and
Speaker 1: some of the amazing things that I was able to
Speaker 1: document by working with him. And of course this idea
Speaker 1: of having a human bio energy field especially appeals to
Speaker 1: me because I've always been a big fan of Star
Speaker 1: Wars and it's it's similar in a way to the Force.
Speaker 1: And you know, here, if you just look up the
Speaker 1: Force on Wikipedia, it says the as a metaphysical, mysterious,
Speaker 1: and ubiquitous power. In the Star Wars fictional universe, characters
Speaker 1: refer to the Force as an energy that interconnects all
Speaker 1: living things in the universe, maintaining cosmic balance. Particularly force
Speaker 1: sensitive characters, usually through rigorous, self disciplined training and mindfulness,
Speaker 1: are able to connect to the Force and thus access
Speaker 1: and willed certain superpowers. You know, it's interesting because they
Speaker 1: go on to say, and of course I wrote this
Speaker 1: book called Use The Force, a Jedi's Guide to the
Speaker 1: Law of Attraction, which you can read for free if
Speaker 1: you go to Joshua Peewarren dot com and just you'll
Speaker 1: see the book cover there somewhere and just click on it,
Speaker 1: and it's multiple languages. But it says here that that
Speaker 1: when Lucas he interjected the Force into his work, that
Speaker 1: he wanted to quote awaken a certain kind of spirituality
Speaker 1: end quote in young audiences, suggesting a belief in God,
Speaker 1: without endorsing any specific religion. And it says he developed
Speaker 1: the Force as a non denominational religious concept distilled from
Speaker 1: the essence of all religions, premised on the existence of
Speaker 1: God and distinct ideas of good and evil. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: that's getting a little in depth here in terms of
Speaker 1: how you make sense of all this. But you can
Speaker 1: see again how that this concept was appealing to me
Speaker 1: to think that we do have this subtle energy field,
Speaker 1: and you might be able to control your field, and
Speaker 1: you might be able to well improve your body, help
Speaker 1: other people, heal other people, move object all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. And of course, if you know, I grew
Speaker 1: up in the Southern Baptist Church, and if any of
Speaker 1: you have a Christian upbringing. Were actually in many many religions.
Speaker 1: You've probably heard of the laying on hands. That's a
Speaker 1: religious practice, and let's see, it's used as both a
Speaker 1: symbolic and formal method of invoking the Holy Spirit, primarily
Speaker 1: during baptisms and confirmations, healing services, blessings, an ordination of priests, ministers, elders, deacons,
Speaker 1: and other church officers, along with a variety of other
Speaker 1: church sacraments and holy ceremonies. And of course you know
Speaker 1: the idea, and again this spans many different religions. There's
Speaker 1: a whole list of them, and not they're even African
Speaker 1: traditional medicine, Navajo religious ceremonies. It's not just a Christian thing.
Speaker 1: The idea is that you can place your hands on
Speaker 1: someone under certain circumstances and it's beneficial. It's a sacred thing,
Speaker 1: some kind of power is being transmitted there. So all
Speaker 1: of this kind of ties into this thing that I
Speaker 1: started hearing about many many years ago called reiki and reiki.
Speaker 1: If this is brand new to you, it's spelled r
Speaker 1: ei ki. And there were people who would come to
Speaker 1: me and say, oh, I'm a reiki master, So what
Speaker 1: does that mean I say, oh, well, I can do this.
Speaker 1: I can. I can give you this reiki session where
Speaker 1: you just relax and basically I will use my hands
Speaker 1: to manipulate your energy field in a positive and therapeutic way.
Speaker 1: And there have been times where people would give me like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe a sixty second reiki sample, but
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to think about that. Well, recently
Speaker 1: I've had people emailing me saying, Josh, what exactly is
Speaker 1: the real deal with reiki? Can you do a deep
Speaker 1: dive on this? So I was like, you know what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good I think it's time I want to
Speaker 1: go and get an actual, in depth reiki treatment from
Speaker 1: a professional reiki person here in the Las Vegas area.
Speaker 1: But before I do that, well, I'm going to share
Speaker 1: with you some of the what I've learned so far
Speaker 1: about the reality of this and how it may or
Speaker 1: may not work. And then I'm going to ask some
Speaker 1: of you to give me tips if you know anything
Speaker 1: about like where I should go because I don't want
Speaker 1: to go get a reiki treatment and it sucks. And
Speaker 1: then I come on the show and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: Reiki's a bunch of baloney. I want to make sure
Speaker 1: you know if I do it, I do it right.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna do this deep dive into reiki and
Speaker 1: if it might be able to actually help you and
Speaker 1: me and all of us if we open our minds
Speaker 1: a little bit more than usual. Hey, do you like
Speaker 1: this show? It's free and if you want me to
Speaker 1: keep doing it, you gotta support it. Go to Joshua
Speaker 1: Pwarren dot com. Check out all the cool things in
Speaker 1: the Curiosity Shop that you will not find anywhere else
Speaker 1: in the world. And I have some new ones coming
Speaker 1: out very soon, and trust me, you're gonna love some
Speaker 1: of the new items. And be sure on the homepage
Speaker 1: to take two seconds to sign up for my free
Speaker 1: and spam free e newsletter. Just put your email address
Speaker 1: in their hit submit and you will instantly receive an
Speaker 1: automated email from me that's got some free online goodies
Speaker 1: that will help you start actually seeing the force is real.
Speaker 1: You can attract more money, you can become magical, you
Speaker 1: can feel better. Joshua P. Warren dot com is where
Speaker 1: you sign up for that newsletter. I am Joshua P.
Speaker 1: Warren and you are listening to strange things on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Coach to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network, and
Speaker 1: I will be right back. Welcome back to Strange Things.
Speaker 1: Call the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, a wizard of weird, beaming into your
Speaker 1: wormhole brain from my studio in Sin City, Las Vegas, Nevada,
Speaker 1: where every day is golden and every night is silver
Speaker 1: Gietato Zume. And I'm telling you I believe in this
Speaker 1: bio energy force. I believe there is such a thing
Speaker 1: as chi or key or prana or oregon. There are
Speaker 1: different names for it and different aspects of it. But
Speaker 1: what is the reality of walking into a studio a spa.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure a place where someone says I have
Speaker 1: trained in this, I'm a level this or level that
Speaker 1: you just relax and I'm gonna wave my hands around
Speaker 1: you here and you're gonna feel better after this. How
Speaker 1: realistic is that? And look, I always like to do this.
Speaker 1: Let me just go straight back to Wikipedia and tell
Speaker 1: you what Wikipedia says. Now, well, you should understand something.
Speaker 1: Wikipedia is a convenient compendium of knowledge, and I think
Speaker 1: Wikipedia is great if you are going to go and
Speaker 1: look up kind of widely known mainstream facts like how
Speaker 1: tall is Mount Rushmore or what year was Alexander the
Speaker 1: Great born and when did he die? And you know
Speaker 1: stuff like that, especially old stuff. Wikipedia, however, despite their claims,
Speaker 1: the way it's edited by people collaborating it is very,
Speaker 1: very biased when it comes to at least three things.
Speaker 1: Number one is any kind of a current event. Number
Speaker 1: two is anybody who is alive right now. And number
Speaker 1: three is anything that whoever the editors are at any
Speaker 1: given time, anything that they think does not fit within
Speaker 1: the current superficial, mainstream scientific view, which is usually about
Speaker 1: you know, fifty years old, going back to the way
Speaker 1: the world is supposed to work. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: if anything that is paranormal or supernatural or even any
Speaker 1: I mean even things that involve spirituality and belief in God,
Speaker 1: there's always like a bias against that stuff. It's a
Speaker 1: very superficial, materialistic approach that's taken by the people who
Speaker 1: choose to be to contribute to Wikipedia articles. And so
Speaker 1: anytime you go and you look up any of these
Speaker 1: strange things that I talk about, it's just like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is bis and I mean it's like I don't
Speaker 1: have a Wikipedia page which is fine with me. But
Speaker 1: if somebody did create a Wikipedia page about me, it
Speaker 1: would say, Oh, Joshua pe Warren, he is he is
Speaker 1: a He's an insane man who makes dubious claims about
Speaker 1: obvious pseudo scientific beliefs in ghosts and UFOs and psychic
Speaker 1: activity and wishing machines. And he's just a horrible person.
Speaker 1: You know. I think I'm gonna write my own Wikipedia
Speaker 1: article and save them some time in trouble Someday that'd
Speaker 1: be funny. I'm gonna get some friends and they're gonna
Speaker 1: put together the most horrific Joshua p. Warren is the
Speaker 1: biggest Well, I can't cuss on this show. Coast won't
Speaker 1: let me. But anyway, bear that in mind because they
Speaker 1: obviously take a very negative spin on reiki. Here's the
Speaker 1: very first thing it says. Reiki is a pseudo scientific
Speaker 1: form of energy healing, a type of alternative medicine originating
Speaker 1: in Japan. Reiki practitioners use a technique called palm healing
Speaker 1: or hands on healing, through which, according to practitioners, a
Speaker 1: universal energy is transferred through the palms of the practitioner
Speaker 1: to the client to encourage emotional or physical healing. It
Speaker 1: is based on chi, which practitioners say as a universal
Speaker 1: life force, although there is no empirical evidence that such
Speaker 1: a life force exists. Okay, sure, yeah, how to we're
Speaker 1: just running around here dancing and singing and telling jokes
Speaker 1: without any kind of a life force involved at all.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back to the article. Reiki is
Speaker 1: used as an illustrative example of pseudoscience and scholarly text
Speaker 1: and academic journals. The marketing of reiki has been described
Speaker 1: as quote fraudulent misrepresentation and itself as a quote nonsensical method,
Speaker 1: with a recommendation that the American government agency NCCAM should
Speaker 1: stop funding reiki because it has no substantiated health value
Speaker 1: and lacks a scientifically plausible rationale. Wow, they're not holding
Speaker 1: back on Ricky, are they. Clinical research shows it as
Speaker 1: not effective as a treatment for any medical condition. Blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. All right, so I think you see they're
Speaker 1: saying this is this article is saying there's nothing to
Speaker 1: this the etymology. And by the way, I got an
Speaker 1: email a while back from an unpleasant lady in my opinion,
Speaker 1: who said, well, I think every time you say etymology,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're saying entomology. Maybe it's just your
Speaker 1: Southern accent or whatever, but she's telling me entomology is
Speaker 1: the study of insects and etomologists, like, I know that,
Speaker 1: and maybe it is my Southern accent. But amazing that
Speaker 1: people will take the time to email you something. The
Speaker 1: etymology reiki comes from a combination of let's see Japanese
Speaker 1: word rey r ei, which means universal, and key, which
Speaker 1: means vital energy. Okay, so universal vital energy, simple enough,
Speaker 1: and says Reiki's teachings and adherents claim that she is
Speaker 1: a physiological force. It could be manipulated to treat a
Speaker 1: disease or a condition. There is no evidence that she exists.
Speaker 1: Reiki is thus classified as pseudoscientific. How many times is
Speaker 1: it's going to say pseudoscientific? Then they of course they
Speaker 1: refer to some skeptoid podcast, says technique. A session usually
Speaker 1: lasts for approximately one hour. A Level one practitioner places
Speaker 1: their hand or hands on or near various parts of
Speaker 1: the body for several minutes. During this time, a vital
Speaker 1: energy is meant to flow from the practition into the
Speaker 1: client's body. Level two practitioners alternatively may offer their services
Speaker 1: at a distance with no skin contact. That's interesting. We
Speaker 1: will come back to that later. So they placed their
Speaker 1: hands very lightly on you or just near you. It
Speaker 1: seems like, so where did all this come from? Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so Wikipedia says, here's what and again and again I'm
Speaker 1: going to go back and I think clarifying correct some things.
Speaker 1: But Wikipedia says that this man and I have no
Speaker 1: idea how to pronounce his name, This Japanese man named
Speaker 1: Mikhail Usui originated the practice in Japan, and he was
Speaker 1: born in eighteen sixty five and he died in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty six. And it says, according to the inscription on
Speaker 1: his memorial stone, sue he taught his system of reiki
Speaker 1: to more than two thousand people during his lifetime. And
Speaker 1: then while teaching reiki and fukuyama, he suffered a stroke
Speaker 1: and died. He was only sixty years old. Now that's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting because this is a man who is practicing,
Speaker 1: you know, this healing art in his in his opinion,
Speaker 1: and yeah, he has a stroke and dies when he's sixty.
Speaker 1: Now you might look at that and say, well, that's obvious,
Speaker 1: as an obvious piece of evidence that this is not
Speaker 1: working to help keep you healthy. But you also could
Speaker 1: alternatively say that this guy had a limited amount of
Speaker 1: chi he could tap into in his life, and he's
Speaker 1: projecting it to thousands of people all the time. He's
Speaker 1: giving his own life force away and cut his own
Speaker 1: life short. I don't know which angle sounds more reasonable.
Speaker 1: But does that mean that if you are a reiki
Speaker 1: practitioner you're prone like not a reiki patient. But if
Speaker 1: you're a practitioner, does that mean that you are prone
Speaker 1: to die earlier? That would be an interesting study to
Speaker 1: see if there is a list of reiki masters over
Speaker 1: the past I don't know, fifty years or whatever it's
Speaker 1: out there, and see how old they were where they died.
Speaker 1: Did they die at a young age because they were
Speaker 1: giving up their life force for others? And then it
Speaker 1: goes on to say the first reiki clinic in the
Speaker 1: United States was started in nineteen seventy by a student
Speaker 1: of mikail Usui. That man's name was The first was
Speaker 1: started by okay It was started by a student of
Speaker 1: a student. So basically, mikhao Usui had this student named
Speaker 1: Chujiro Hayashi, and then Chujiro Hyashi had a student who
Speaker 1: really took it sort of more mainstream in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting is, so you have this progression of minute.
Speaker 1: I know that you're probably not keeping up with this,
Speaker 1: and that's totally fine. But what's interesting is that the
Speaker 1: guy who they're saying came up with this, he taught
Speaker 1: it to this other guy named Chujiro. And Chujiro died
Speaker 1: when he was fifty nine, and he died of suicide.
Speaker 1: He committed sepulcha. Now, why in the world did he
Speaker 1: do that? So the disciple of the guy who invented
Speaker 1: the guy who invented reiki died of a stroke when
Speaker 1: he was sixty. His student who went on to popularize this,
Speaker 1: committed suicide at fifty nine. We got to take a break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, I'm gonna tell you why he
Speaker 1: did this. It's a wild story, and then we're gonna
Speaker 1: dig even deeper. I'm Joshua P. Warren. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
Speaker 1: Paranormal podcast Network, and I will be back after these
Speaker 1: important messages. Welcome back to Strange Things called the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Coast to Coast am Paranormal Podcast Network. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Joshua P. Warren, and this is the show where the
Speaker 1: unusual becomes usual. So they're saying here that the guy
Speaker 1: who developed reiki as we know it was born in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five and then in nineteen twenty six he
Speaker 1: died of a stroke, and then he taught it. One
Speaker 1: of his disciples was as this other guy named Chujiro Hayeshi,
Speaker 1: and he was born in eighteen eighty. He died in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty from sepeka, a Japanese form of ritual suicide seppuku,
Speaker 1: and usually when a Japanese person commits sepucha, the person
Speaker 1: takes a large knife or a sword and just disembowels
Speaker 1: him or herself. It was originally reserved for samurai and
Speaker 1: their code of honor. And now, of course that's a horrible,
Speaker 1: horrible thought, isn't it to just take a take a
Speaker 1: big blade and just cut your guts, you know, just
Speaker 1: shove in there and slide it across your guts. But
Speaker 1: sometimes I've I believe I've read that, you know, you
Speaker 1: might have a buddy there with a big sword who
Speaker 1: will just after you do that, go ahead and chop
Speaker 1: your head off to prevent further suffering. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: why why did this guy who was like a stepping
Speaker 1: stone and bringing reiki over toward the west, why did
Speaker 1: he do that? And so I said, hey, Grok, because
Speaker 1: it didn't say in the artist article why he did
Speaker 1: Why would he do the groc You know my favorite
Speaker 1: search engine now Grock, I said, why did this guy
Speaker 1: commit suicide? Interesting? Says that he took his own life
Speaker 1: on May eleventh, nineteen forty. The reasons for his decision
Speaker 1: are rooted in a combination of cultural, personal, and historical factors.
Speaker 1: Says he was a retired naval officer and physician who
Speaker 1: dedicated much of his later life to developing and spreading reiki,
Speaker 1: including his own clinic. He went to Hawaii from nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty seven to nineteen thirty eight, where he taught reiki
Speaker 1: alongside a woman named Hawaiiu Takata, and this was a
Speaker 1: significant moment in bringing reiki to the West. However, upon
Speaker 1: returning to Japan, he faced a profound dilemma as World
Speaker 1: War II loomed. The Japanese military, aware of his time
Speaker 1: in Hawaii and his naval background, reportedly pressured him to
Speaker 1: provide strategic information about millilitary targets such as warehouses and
Speaker 1: installations in Honolulu ahead of the impending conflict with the
Speaker 1: United States. As a pacifist who had embraced Reiki's healing
Speaker 1: properties and principles, Hayashi was deeply opposed to participating in
Speaker 1: war efforts or betraying the trust of those he had
Speaker 1: taught and healed in Hawaii. So, refusing to comply with
Speaker 1: the Japanese military's demands, he was labeled a trader, a
Speaker 1: grave accusation, and that to honor bound culture and in
Speaker 1: this context losing face, bringing shame to himself and family.
Speaker 1: This was intolerable. So sepacha was offered as a way
Speaker 1: to preserve his honor and avoid further dishonor So how
Speaker 1: about that. So here is this guy who apparently I
Speaker 1: guess he was in good shape, sounds like it anyway,
Speaker 1: probably that they were asking him for some type of
Speaker 1: participation and the war effort there, and he says, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that, and so he commits suicide.
Speaker 1: But then his student was a woman named Hawaiio Takata,
Speaker 1: Japanese American woman who was born in Hawaii and They
Speaker 1: say that she was a huge part of actually popularizing
Speaker 1: all the reiki stuff in the US, and says that
Speaker 1: she actually lived to be a fairly fairly old lady.
Speaker 1: She was born in nineteen hundred. She died in nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: so she was almost eighty years old. They say her
Speaker 1: cause of death is not exactly known, but the grox
Speaker 1: as some sources suggest that heart disease may have been
Speaker 1: a factor. Thank you, all right, Now, this is sort
Speaker 1: of like an overview I've given you of me trying
Speaker 1: to understand, like where did this come from? And sort
Speaker 1: of watch the story. But trust me, I'm not the
Speaker 1: kind of guy who does research just from what kind
Speaker 1: of free stuff I can find on the web. Now,
Speaker 1: if I want to do research, I go out. I'm
Speaker 1: not a cheap scale. I spend money. I buy books.
Speaker 1: I sometimes hire professional researchers to go and dig up
Speaker 1: files for me from courthouses. And I mean, honestly, that's
Speaker 1: how I grew up. When I was doing research writing
Speaker 1: my book Haunt at Ashville, I spent tons of time
Speaker 1: in the libraries and the courthouses and in special collections
Speaker 1: and learning my way around that world to go, you know,
Speaker 1: get authentic stuff. So here's one book that I bought.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be a reiki master book here, and
Speaker 1: it's called Simply Enough Reiki for Beginners, The step by
Speaker 1: step guide to unlock Reiki's self healing and aura cleansing
Speaker 1: secrets for deep healing, peace of mind, and spiritual growth.
Speaker 1: This is by someone named row heat Sahu, and I
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with this book or this author
Speaker 1: or this publishing company. This is just something I bought
Speaker 1: off of Amazon, like anybody else can, And I just
Speaker 1: think it's interesting to go to what is supposed to be,
Speaker 1: you know, an authoritative guide from a reiki master. It
Speaker 1: says here, have you ever sensed the calming vibe of
Speaker 1: another person? May feel it may feel warm, comforting, and
Speaker 1: very therapeutic. And have you ever felt the same energy
Speaker 1: inside yourself, whether in times of peace or during yoga practice,
Speaker 1: when you can sense your own life or it'swhirling within you.
Speaker 1: Reiki works similarly. It's a kind of energy healing that
Speaker 1: goes back to the late eighteen hundreds, yet its advantages
Speaker 1: easily apply to the modern world. Reiki is a compliment
Speaker 1: reform of energy healing that originated in Japan. It is
Speaker 1: a gentle but strong, hands on energy healing technique that
Speaker 1: has grown in popularity over the past century. And then,
Speaker 1: but here's something that's kind of interesting. Even though this
Speaker 1: book starts out saying like the same thing that Wikipedia did,
Speaker 1: that it goes back to the eighteen hundreds. Later on,
Speaker 1: it says reiki's origins may be traced back to ancient
Speaker 1: Chinese and Japanese medicine based on chi. It says people
Speaker 1: have been practicing reiki for over twenty five hundred years.
Speaker 1: So I guess that it's sort of like, you know,
Speaker 1: the fella I was talking about, kind of focused on
Speaker 1: it and branded it properly, and so they talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about him in this book. Okay, So here's
Speaker 1: something else that I didn't see online. Reiki principles. These
Speaker 1: are five principles according to this book, and see if
Speaker 1: you how do you feel about these five principles. Number one,
Speaker 1: just for today, I release angry thoughts. Number two, just
Speaker 1: for today, I release thoughts of worry. Number three, just
Speaker 1: for today, I'm grateful. Number four, just for today, I
Speaker 1: expand my consciousness. And number five, just for today, I'm
Speaker 1: gentle with all beings. Number six is tomorrow, I'm going
Speaker 1: to beat the crap out of everybody. I'm joking. So
Speaker 1: sounds nice, doesn't it. You think you could do that
Speaker 1: just for a day. Focus on the reminds you of
Speaker 1: the hippono pono, which, of course all also is interesting
Speaker 1: because it comes from Japanese roots, and so there's a
Speaker 1: there's a great similarity perhaps in the way that the
Speaker 1: Japanese culture treats their envisioning of the physical reiki energy,
Speaker 1: and how that treats all of this as a as
Speaker 1: a mental experience. Another section of the book, I Mark says,
Speaker 1: there is a totally non physical component of you that
Speaker 1: you may refer to as your spirit or soul. This
Speaker 1: is the everlasting higher portion of you. It is a
Speaker 1: multi dimensional and exists beyond the three dimensional realm in
Speaker 1: which your body resides. Soul connects you to higher realms
Speaker 1: such as creation, source, God, and divinity. The soul is
Speaker 1: in charge of inherent abilities such as inspiration, intuition, creativity, love, compassion, kindness,
Speaker 1: and humility. And the last thing I'll read you from
Speaker 1: this because I can't read the whole book myths. It
Speaker 1: says myth number one, reiki is a form of massage,
Speaker 1: and they say that this does not that's a myth
Speaker 1: because reiki does not intel bone or tissue manipulation. Healers
Speaker 1: employ a gentle touch with their hands on their shoulders
Speaker 1: or over the completely clothed bodies of their guests. They say.
Speaker 1: Another myth is that reiki is a new age practice
Speaker 1: with no scientific basis, and they say that they provide
Speaker 1: their argument against that. They say. Another myth is that
Speaker 1: it's very complicated practice. They say, no, it's not. Another
Speaker 1: myth reiki is capable of curing anything. They say, it's
Speaker 1: not a cure for anything. It just aids in the
Speaker 1: induction of relaxation, response, and promotion of a mind body
Speaker 1: balance favorable to healing. Another myth is that the benefits
Speaker 1: of reiki are instantly felt. It says it can take
Speaker 1: more than a single therapy session. So anyway, those are
Speaker 1: some of the the myths. And they also say a
Speaker 1: myth is giving reiki to others will deplete my energy. Oh,
Speaker 1: there you go. They're saying that's a myth as well.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Yeah, this book is called Reiki for Beginners,
Speaker 1: And when we come back, I'm going to wrap up
Speaker 1: this Reiki conversation, and then I got an email from
Speaker 1: a listener that I want to share with you about
Speaker 1: something that happened during a snowstorm that I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's kind of cool, maybe a little bit eerie. And
Speaker 1: then I might also have some time for some mental
Speaker 1: man out. Why do you think actors say to each other?
Speaker 1: Break a leg? I'm Joshua Pete Warren. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
Speaker 1: para normal podcast network, and I'll be right back. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the final segment of this edition of Strange Things,
Speaker 1: Oh the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM paranormal podcast Network.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Joshua P. Warren. And I received
Speaker 1: a lot of emails every week, and I do my
Speaker 1: best to read every single one of them, but it
Speaker 1: would be impossible for me to reply to all of them.
Speaker 1: Having said that, I do want to go get a bonafide,
Speaker 1: credible reiki session to report back to you on. And
Speaker 1: so if you really know you know the behind the
Speaker 1: scenes on reiki and like what I should be looking for.
Speaker 1: I live in Las Vegas. I would like to visit
Speaker 1: somebody in the Las Vegas area. Email me and let
Speaker 1: me know what I should be looking for to find
Speaker 1: somebody credible so that I can have the best experience
Speaker 1: possible and not go get like scammed somewhere and come
Speaker 1: back and give it like a bad review. And also,
Speaker 1: I mean, it is very weird. They do say in
Speaker 1: some of these books and whatnot that there are people
Speaker 1: who can practice reiki long distance. And that is where
Speaker 1: a lot of people say, Okay, that ends my suspension
Speaker 1: of disbelief. I can't go that far. But he goes
Speaker 1: back to what I was saying about how we define
Speaker 1: you know, legitimate science these days, because if you talk
Speaker 1: to quantum physicists, they will tell you the craziest stuff
Speaker 1: you've ever heard is real. You know, entanglement, non locality cats,
Speaker 1: it's you know, Schrodinger's cat, I mean, Heisenberg uncertainty theory
Speaker 1: in a principle, all that stuff. So hey, look, you
Speaker 1: got you gotta have a very open mind and just
Speaker 1: try things out. And look if I go and have
Speaker 1: an experience and it doesn't work at least, oh no,
Speaker 1: and I'll have something that I can talk about. So
Speaker 1: shoot me an email. Go to Joshua Pwarren dot com.
Speaker 1: Scroll down at the bottom and you will find my
Speaker 1: email address. Here is an interesting email that I received
Speaker 1: from a woman named Susan Bossman, and this is about
Speaker 1: incident that happened in Germantown, Wisconsin in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1: She said, I was driving home in a blizzard at
Speaker 1: night as I approached an intersection where a tavern, an
Speaker 1: old log cabin, a church, and an old cemetery were located.
Speaker 1: I was out in the country where three roads cross.
Speaker 1: The snow was almost blinding, but I could see the
Speaker 1: outline of a person waving his arms up and down frantically.
Speaker 1: I thought the person was trying to warn me that
Speaker 1: there was an accident at the intersection. If this was
Speaker 1: the case, I needed to help out. As we were
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, I pulled my car quickly
Speaker 1: over to the side and it slid into the ditch.
Speaker 1: I was scared, but I knew I could run to
Speaker 1: the accident scene to get some help. I hurried over
Speaker 1: to the intersection in the deep deep snow to find
Speaker 1: there was snow man, not even footprints, just silence and
Speaker 1: the flake's falling snow. I was enraged as I felt
Speaker 1: someone had played a senseless trick on me. I went
Speaker 1: back to my car and was able to rock it
Speaker 1: back and forth to get it out of the ditch.
Speaker 1: A decade later, I attended a church in the same
Speaker 1: intersection for the grand opening of a museum of local history,
Speaker 1: and taped to the front door was a news article
Speaker 1: from approximately five years earlier saying that motorists should be
Speaker 1: aware of a ghost who plays with the traffic in
Speaker 1: the intersection. For ten years, I had been mad, thinking
Speaker 1: some mean person had played a trick on me that
Speaker 1: winter's night. This ghost allegedly also ventures into a tavern
Speaker 1: in the intersection and throws dishes around. After reading this article,
Speaker 1: I was almost embarrassed that I'd been so angry at
Speaker 1: the stranger, now knowing it was a ghost. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you for that report, Susan. And hey, well your anger
Speaker 1: was warranted because that's a mean ghost. The ghost should
Speaker 1: not have done that to you. Makes you wonder, though,
Speaker 1: is this a conscious ghost that's playing a trick or
Speaker 1: is it an imprint of some kind. Some of the
Speaker 1: most haunted places I've investigated are theaters where you have
Speaker 1: live actors who have performed on stage in some cases
Speaker 1: for decades or even centuries, and I think they get
Speaker 1: up on stage and they create this. They imagine things
Speaker 1: so vividly, they create some kind of a tulpa. And
Speaker 1: when I was in high school, going back to how
Speaker 1: much I did not enjoy much of my high school experience,
Speaker 1: even though I mean I was I had a lot
Speaker 1: of friends, I was well liked. I just hated a
Speaker 1: feeling confined. And I've always had a problem with condescending
Speaker 1: authority figures. But I liked opportunities to do creative things
Speaker 1: and escape from it. And so I got involved with theater,
Speaker 1: and I would do plays when I was in high school,
Speaker 1: and I learned pretty early on that it was bad
Speaker 1: luck to talk well, to say the word Macbeth in
Speaker 1: a movie theater. I'm sure some of you know that.
Speaker 1: Instead you say, oh, the Scottish play and the Scottish
Speaker 1: play or the Bard's play. Those are what they call
Speaker 1: them euphemisms. Words you would say instead of saying Macbeth.
Speaker 1: You know, William Shakespeare's play Macbeth. And the reason is that,
Speaker 1: according to theatrical superstition called the Scottish curse, speaking the
Speaker 1: name Macbeth inside a theater other than has called for
Speaker 1: in the script while rehearsing or performing will cause disaster.
Speaker 1: And apparently this goes back to the fact that, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever seen Macbeth, but it's
Speaker 1: Macbeth is about partly about a coven of witches, and
Speaker 1: the traditional origin is said to be a curse that
Speaker 1: was put on the play by a coven of witches
Speaker 1: angry at Shakespeare for using a real spell in his play.
Speaker 1: And one hypothesis for the origin of this superstition is
Speaker 1: that Macbeth, being a popular play, was commonly put on
Speaker 1: by theater as in financial trouble, or that the high
Speaker 1: production cost of Macbeth put theaters in financial trouble, and
Speaker 1: hence an association was made between productions of Macbeth and
Speaker 1: theaters going out of business. That's interesting, isn't it. And
Speaker 1: there are even places where this has taken so seriously
Speaker 1: that when the name of the play is spoken in
Speaker 1: a theater, tradition requires the person who spoke it has
Speaker 1: to leave perform a cleansing ritual and then be invited
Speaker 1: back in, and those rituals ward off the evil that
Speaker 1: uttering the play's name is feared to bring on and
Speaker 1: that's true. I've been in theater enough to know that
Speaker 1: that's true. In some places, that's taken very seriously, and
Speaker 1: I started, I don't know. I was thinking about that
Speaker 1: idea the other day that it's how interesting is it
Speaker 1: that Shakespeare, he's a mysterious guy anyway in history, that
Speaker 1: he may have somehow observed or come across this real
Speaker 1: witch's spell that he had adapted into his play, and
Speaker 1: that was like such a betrayal to those witches that
Speaker 1: they put this curse on him. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of superstition, like, for example, for good luck, you often
Speaker 1: say to an actor or a similar performer, break a leg,
Speaker 1: and that's supposed to bring on good luck. Now why
Speaker 1: is that? You know? If you look it up and
Speaker 1: you start digging into it, there's no one solid, good,
Speaker 1: proven explanation. One person here, let's see, who was an
Speaker 1: expert on superstitions, wrote this published it in nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: one in a British magazine. The stage is perhaps the
Speaker 1: most superstitious institution in England, after the race course. The
Speaker 1: latter is so superstitious that to wish a man luck
Speaker 1: on his way to a race is considered unlucky. Instead
Speaker 1: of saying good luck, you should say something insulting, such as,
Speaker 1: may you break your leg? So they were so concerned
Speaker 1: possibly that saying something good would jinx it, that you
Speaker 1: would say the opposite. But it may be more like this.
Speaker 1: Here's another resource that I found that's also kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of this before, and I doubt you
Speaker 1: have either. One of the more common theories about why
Speaker 1: you say break a leg refers to the early days
Speaker 1: of the theater, when the actors were cue to perform.
Speaker 1: There is a line called a leg line, and if actors,
Speaker 1: it's like an imaginary line on the stage. If the
Speaker 1: actors were not performing, they had to stay behind the
Speaker 1: leg line, which also meant they would not get paid.
Speaker 1: But if you were to tell the actor break a leg,
Speaker 1: then you were wishing them an opportunity to step across
Speaker 1: that line to perform and get paid. So the sentiment
Speaker 1: remains the same today, the term means good luck, give
Speaker 1: a good performance. That kind of makes more sense to me, actually,
Speaker 1: that there is this boundary because you know, everything is
Speaker 1: worked out in rehearsal, and if you get that chance
Speaker 1: to break through, well, you break a leg. All right,
Speaker 1: my friends, here it is Relax. Listen to the good
Speaker 1: Fortune tone. That's it for this edition of the show.
Speaker 1: Follow me at Joshua P. Warren, Plus visit Joshua Pwarren
Speaker 1: dot com to sign up for my free e newsletter
Speaker 1: to receive a free instant gift, and check out the
Speaker 1: cool stuff in the Curiosity Shop. All at Joshuapwarren dot com.
Speaker 1: I have a fun one lined up for you next time,
Speaker 1: I promise, So please tell all your friends to subscribe
Speaker 1: to this show and to always remember the Golden Rule.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening, Thank you for your interest and support.
Speaker 1: Thank you for staying curious, and I will talk to
Speaker 1: you again soon. You've been listening to Strange Things on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 2: Well if you like this episode of Strange Things, wait
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