Dar' Shem:

The Reiki of Sophia

A brief synopsis for Reiki practitioners and other energy workers

Dar' Shem, the healing art of the Divine Feminine, came to Egypt from China under unusual circumstances. According to the legend, the man responsible for bringing it from its Buddhist source was a Jewish merchant in spices named Moses Daleoum.

In mediaeval times there was a well established trade route from Europe to India and China for merchants of silks and spices.
Moses, were are told, actually went to Peking himself, where he was entertained by his Chinese connections. During his stay he was witness to a remarkable cure of an aristocratic woman dying of post-partum fever.

The aristocratic family involved sought the services of a Buddhist monk who came to the house and performed a hands-on healing ceremony which resulted in the woman's complete recovery from a disorder that was usually fatal in Europe in those days.

Moses was very impressed and managed to get himself placed under the tutelage of one of the monks. The monk was willing to teach the techniques and philosophy to a visitor like Moses, who was important to a patron of the monastery, and who was willing to stay for an extended time to learn and digest the methods.

Moses ended up staying several years in China, and was totally changed by his experiences with the spiritual healers and their way of life.
Eventually he decided to return home. Whether this was to Italy or Spain was uncertain.

However, this was now the time of the Crusades, and when Moses embarked on a ship from North Africa on the final stage of his journey the ship ran afoul of one of the host of pirate vessels that preyed on the traffic across the Mediterranean from Africa.

Moses was spared as a valuable piece of merchandise, and was apparently sold as a slave into the domain, if not the household, of Salah-ed-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known as Saladin the Great in Western history books.

This puts us historically in the period 1175 to 1193, when Saladin was the widely respected Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and a model of chivalry to the Crusaders trying to recapture Jerusalem from him.

Moses made quite an impression with his healing arts, and eventually his fame spread to the area of Egypt where the Coptic Christians lived, near Tel Amarna. These Christians were not involved in the European need to recapture Jerusalem in Palestine. Indeed, the Syrians and Egyptians were among the first to accept the new religion of Christianity, and they were, and are known as the Coptic Christians.

The abbot of a Coptic monastery dedicated to Joseph of Arimathea offered to buy Moses his freedom. The conditions were: that he converted to Christianity Coptic style, apprenticed to the monastery herbalist, and taught his healing method to the monks. Moses, according to the legend, was pragmatic enough to do this, and his healing system has been used by the monks since that time.

It has been reported that the monks were instructed very recently to begin to spread the knowledge of their healing methods because of the need for the emergence of the feminine in every aspect of life.

Comment: It seemed unlikely to us that any monks would do this, and recent information from Coptic sources shows that the legend was like Takata's Usui legend, eventually untrue in nearly every detail and irrelevant to the practice itself. But that is what we were told when we first entered into the world of Dar' Shem. So like the first Takata story we repeated it.

The Present Facts

The system is now known as Dar' Shem, which has the double connotation in some Semitic languages of Dar-household, and Shem-the Name, possibly an allusion to the famous Jewish healers and mystics who used
the secret name of God to perform their wonders; like Baal Shem-Tov, the great Ukranian wonder worker who founded the Hasidim in the 18th century.

Dar' Shem is an energy based healing system along the lines of Usui Reiki, which came from the Buddhist Medicine tradition, though via Tibet instead of China.

Unlike Reiki however it is still almost entirely an oral tradition, and there are not dozens of books about it, some of which even print the symbols for the public to see.
There are four levels from novice to Master Teacher, and each level has its own triad of symbols, making twelve in all.

It thus easily correlates with the 3 x 4 systems of European metaphysics, as in the create, sustain, destroy triple law applied to the four seasons, which produces all of astrology, and a similar correlation among the four elements to make a filing system for much of alchemy.

Both of these were sciences in which the Arabic world was way ahead of Europe at the time of the alleged Moses, and the Crusades.
These Dar' Shem symbols are learned by the student, as in Reiki, and are placed in the electric field of his or her body during an attunement process. though that process is somewhat different from the Reiki ways.

The attunements have produced a minor cleansing process in initiates, but the majority of them have already been through the Reiki 21 day cleansing period. Because of this we cannot say much about the cleansing that may occur in absolute novices in energy work.

One of the big pluses in Dar' Shem energy work is the twelve symbol armamentarium. Some of these symbols act very specifically, though gently.

It is now clear that the standard Reiki from the teachings of the 22 Masters made by Mrs. Takata is not the complete system learned by students of Usui.

Both Reiki and Dar' Shem seem to have a Buddhist Medicine background, and a more complete knowledge of the Usui handbooks is needed to make known the other techniques, untaught in the West.

However, until that time, if it ever arrives*, we invite all Reiki and other energy workers who are aware of the value of the feminine in healing modalities, to learn about Dar' Shem.

Everyone in the Dar' Shem Association at the moment is currently a Master teacher in Reiki, some in more than one school, and all are Dar' Shem Masters after considerable experience in other fields.

To hear about Dar' Shem Masters in your area, or to tell us about your own Dar' Shem qualifications, so that we can add you to our list of practitioners, please write to us at the address on the front of the brochure.
We have not put a phone number because we would not accept anything but a written statement or a copy of a current certificate; so this will save everyone needless effort.

To those qualified by experience in energy work to learn, practice, or teach Dar' Shem, we will send you details of any nearby teachers, phone numbers, fax numbers and newsletters, and put you on our data base so that we can refer others to you.

* Since the first edition of this brochure the deficit has been remedied.

Frank Ajava Petter has found the facts about the Usui legend. He runs a translation service in Tokyo and has published a translation of Usui's Handbook that he gave to his students, and several other books about the true history of Reiki. And in May 2001 was brought out The Spirit of Reiki by Petter, Lubeck and Rand which is the definitive book on the subject.
These are all published by Lotus Light-Shangri La, and are available in all bookstores.

One day the same service may be provided for Dar' Shem. There is a known connection with two other Reikis that is being explored.

My comment on the new, clean Usui Reiki situation is to tell the story of the enormous clay Buddha, famous for its immense size. One day a workman broke a piece from it and found that under the clay the Buddha was golden. The monks had covered it with clay centuries ago to protect it from the current invading barbarians.

Takata's story may have been meant to protect Reiki around the time of Pearl Harbor. But Reiki works, and Usui needs no such cover. This is true of Dar' Shem too. The Moses story which was doubtful from the first, as history, is not needed. But as our lineage material we repeat it; as an example of the human need to have an explanation, but not as fact.