Receiving Seiki
at the Mississippi Crossroads
Essay and Musical Track
This essay was originally published December 6, 2020.
Like Osumi Sensei, we feel when it is the right time to give someone seiki. We were fortunate to have learned from her how to give a transmission from any distance, including doing so in a visionary dream. There is no way of predicting when this will take place, though we are both usually aware when the process is in motion. Just this past week, such a transmission was given to another Guild member in a big room dream.
We tell that story, and also at the bottom of the page share a musical track Brad previously made that perfectly fits the occasion. It’s a blend of sounds made by Osumi Sensei giving seiki to a patient, accompanied by Brad playing the old hymn, “Throw Out the Lifeline.” A perfect mix of raw sushi and deep-fried tempura.
Crossroads Seiki Transmission
Brad felt it was time to give one of our Guild members (we’ll call him Bob), a traditional seiki transmission. He announced it in the online Guild salon and later privately told Bob to get ready because it was coming. Brad followed through and sent Bob seiki. He was amazed how soft and ready Bob was to receive it. This kind of transmission begins with the spiritual mind and body (little me) and then it may or may not pass over into big me consciousness. No one knows why this is so or whether it is better to remain unconscious or conscious about important spiritual matters administered to you.
We are happy to announce and celebrate that a few nights ago Bob received his first transmission at around 10:30 pm. Like Osumi Sensei said about a few of her clients, “He was very hungry, even greedy, for seiki.” She said this, as do we, with a smile. After this initial transmission, Brad fell asleep and the seiki work with Bob continued. Here is Brad’s report:
I woke up every thirty minutes throughout the night, finding each transmission more energetically intense than the one before. Bob received a total of twelve seiki transmissions. Each time I woke up I clearly remembered the number of transmissions I had given, which I found to be a bizarre kind of awareness. At transmission number eight, something extraordinary happened.
It began in a visionary dream where Bob, Hillary, and I, along with the entire Guild, were at the crossroads in First Creation Mississippi. This is where the blues men of long ago went to make a deal with a mediating spirit so their music would forever be infused with soul. Since Bob plays the guitar and loves the blues, it was delightful that we went to the crossroads together. Even wilder than that was noticing that the whole Guild was there, too, standing about twenty feet away from us.
Down from the sky the spirit arrived to make the deal. I was shocked to see that it was my father, now a young preacher in his late twenties or early thirties. Dressed in a suit, he began to preach. I had forgotten what a great preacher he was. He was just as loved as my grandfather, though he had a different preaching style. My grandfather “shouted” in the old school way, while my father didn’t holler but was more pleasing to ears unaccustomed to ecstatic fervor.
Pondering this difference also reminded me of what I had learned from Caribbean shakers and sanctified black preachers: “You can tell when someone has the spirit, because their body will jolt and jerk when they hear an anointed preacher shout. If they aren’t physically moved by shouting, don’t feel its wake-up call, or find it revolting (rather than re-volting), then they aren’t hooked up to the holy spirit.” Most of them add, “If someone doesn’t feel God when I shout, then that tells me they are dead.”
All ancestors on our three lineage ropes have the same assessment—if you don’t feel sacred emotion when it is expressed through anointed sounds, then you do not yet have seiki, n/om, and the holy spirit. In this case, Mother Samuel from St. Vincent says, “If you don’t feel it, you have to pray.” Furthermore, a response can’t be faked because it’s obvious to those with the spirit. That’s what Zora Neale Hurston meant when she said, “If you haven’t got it, you can’t show it. If you have got it, you can’t hide it.”
Special Instructions for the Guild
My father was more of a spiritual warmer while my grandfather carried a fire for spiritual cooking. Each could emotionally mediate and communicate between earth and heaven. Both preachers played their part in the scheme of things. In the dream, my father came to deliver some words, so he was likely better suited for that role. He looked at Bob and said,
“Preacher, whither Thou goest, will you go? Where Thou lodgest, will you lodge? When criticism is needed, will you dare meet it, either in its deliverance or reception?”[1]
He then turned to the Guild and asked the same thing,
“Preachers, whither Thou goest, will you go? Where Thou lodgest, will you lodge? When criticism is needed will you dare meet it, either in its deliverance or reception?”
I knew what he meant by “preacher” because in my religious upbringing there were two kinds of preachers or ministers. Anyone belonging to the spiritual community with a sincere commitment was expected to embody the teachings of Jesus and “minister” to others through their particular social role. For example, if someone was an usher or coordinated meals in the church, then that was their form of ministry. The second form involves the preacher-leader(s) of the community who are anointed to be in charge of spiritual discernment and rope mediation.
The same doubleness generally applies to the congregants and leaders from any religion. Whether you’re a member or leader of a community, the vision teaches that the crossroads presents you with the decision to follow the path of the hollowed and hallowed. You are invited to lodge in the big room. This is a commitment to big room living.
My father finished speaking and I gave Bob the eighth and strongest transmission of the night. Then other Guild members came to the center of the crossroads and various ecstatic treatments were administered. Hillary and I shouted into Bob and everyone over and over, “Wake up!” Then the same questions asked before were asked again. Though everyone seemed eager to have arrived at the crossroads, only some people were truly ready to make the choice.
Everyone is offered the same deal at the crossroads. We will alter and restate Reverend Papa Legba Keeney’s words:
Where God goes, will you go?
Where God lives, will you live?
When criticism is needed, will you dare meet it,
either to give it or receive it?
At the crossroads you are first given the choice to surrender your individual will, the equivalent of letting go of big me authoritarian rule and allowing little me and its rope to God to take over, with elder shepherds helping when they can.
Second, you are invited to move all your actions into the big room so that it becomes the container of your life rather than a token notion carried in your pocket.
Finally, the question about “criticism” is twofold. First, it means that you must face that which holds back your learning to spiritually cook, something that is easy and natural but is blocked by old habits and attachments. Here is where most people can’t get through the portal at the crossroads. They want all the eland blessings of spiritual cooking but don’t want to receive any constructive criticism or give up the habits and ideological habitats that are familiar and pleasing to the yeti self.*
In the dream, my father enacted the second aspect of criticism—its delivery— without mincing any words. It sounded like what he used to say to his congregation when I was a young, re-stated for current times:
“If you support a man like Donald Trump, you are spiritually lost and unable to feel the touch of God. Don’t lie to yourself. Churches, temples, and other holy places are the devil’s playground and many people have been deceived. Face this tragedy in your life and let the authoritarian man go.”
To others he said,
“Just because you do not personally associate with racists, misogynists, and Ptolemy economists does not mean that trickster does not have more of a hold on you than God. Don’t get filled with pride just because you’re on the other side. Drop whatever does not stream from the holy fountain.”
My father faced a lot of personal attack because he was brave enough to pronounce provocative, Bonhoeffer-like views in a white, small Missouri farm town in the 1960s. And now, in the vision, he came back to voice them to the Guild. As a community leader and servant of God—even as an ancestor on the other side—my father is not afraid to deliver criticism when it brings you back in line with the main rope to God. Choosing to lodge in the big room means that all of you—including your politics and economics—must contribute to enhancing all relations.
We continued to shout, “Wake up!” while also shouting our three prayer lines deep inside everyone and administering endless seiki showers of blessings. Let’s say it was a busy night in First Creation Mississippi and we feel that as a result, things can’t possibly remain the same.
After the eighth seiki transmission to Bob, four more took place. In each there was more raw sacred emotion with tears flowing. These seiki interventions involved many people from the Guild. As we wrote to everyone the night after it happened: It matters not whether your conscious mind is today aware that any of this took place. What matters now is what we were advised to pass on to Bob and each of you. Here are Bob’s instructions:
You are to now have no doubt that you received seiki. Work on boosting this belief by feeling it is true. Flood yourself with this conviction so it is so deeply felt that it gives you another seiki jolt and volt. More will follow this week. Expect it, concentrate on believing it, and act like it is happening.
Here are the instructions for the rest of the Guild:
Have no doubt that you are standing and sleeping underneath a seiki thunderstorm where you are getting drenched. Care not whether you are being softened or seiki is filling every corner of your being. Believe that this distinction does not matter because they are more the same than different. Act like this downpour and flood of seiki, n/om, and holy spirit are happening, and constantly adjust how you act until you feel this.
This advice is the same counsel given by Osumi Sensei when she told her patients to have no doubt about their capacity to be healed by seiki. It is the same advice we recently gave about acting and believing that spiritual cooking is within easy reach if you follow the recipe.
Be grateful if you are not conscious of any of this in the night or day—such “not knowing” helps keep your conscious mind from interfering. If you sense something happened, be unsure what is going on and go back to working the 1,2,3 steps of the recipe in the forms that have come down to the Guild this season. If you must explain, do so with a one word answer—“seiki.” This is a glimpse of what it means to live like someone who lodges in God’s house. Don’t think about it. Don’t be hung up on naming whether you are this or that. Just do it!
Postscript
After reporting the vision to the Guild, Bob replied:
That same night I dreamed that I was in an unknown location with the Guild. Brad took me aside to a quiet location and administered seiki over a period of time. I am grateful for this marvelous transmission and hope that I can properly nurture this seiki and be a benefit to all my relationships. I think that this is a beginning not an end. I now give a deep bow and a shout of gratitude to Brad, Hillary, Osumi Sensei, the entire seiki lineage, and all who have supported on my journey. Voot! This is wild! I am happy and a bit overwhelmed. Love you guys. Can’t wait until nighttime; sleeping has never been so fun.
Ecstatic Track
[1] This is a transform of the scripture Ruth 1:16: “And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”
*Eland and yeti are two of our current metaphors for little me and big me, respectively.
-The Keeneys, December 7, 2021