Mike Sciacca Supernatural forces and spirits of...

Mike Sciacca

Supernatural forces and spirits of the dead are certain to stumble

around Downtown today and into the night as children and the

not-so-young dress the part in celebration of Halloween.

Most Halloween festivities, based on folk legend, tell of

supernatural beings from the dark side: ghosts, witches, vampires and

werewolves. All figure to be on the prowl tonight, some seeking

candy, others simply trying to put up a fright.

But every day, toward the east end of Main Street, where ghouls

and goblins figure to roam sidewalks freely, a different kind of

supernatural force can be found.

It is where Derek Campbell practices “reiki,” an art he describes

as the Universal Life force of healing energy that is used to balance

chakras and clean out a person’s aura field.

Reiki is an ancient Japanese form of hands-on healing of the mind,

body and spirit that first transforms the inner person and is used to

heal anything of an emotional, mental, physical or spiritual nature,

Campbell said.

“This energy has a mind of its own because it goes to the place

where your body needs it most, whether it be at any of those levels,”

Campbell said. “Reiki causes a deep-seeded healing as well.”

“What I mean by that is, people store different types of issues,

such as being happy or sad, in different parts of their bodies. Reiki

causes some of those issues to come out.”

Campbell said that after a session or even during a session, the

person being healed may start to feel several different emotions at

once, reminding that person of a past issue or problem.

“This causes the person to embrace the emotions in a different

manner because they know it’s not how they feel right then and there,

so they are able to deal with it and let it go,” he said. “When the

healee is ready to let go, a release happens and they are freed from

that stress in their nervous system.”

“Everyone knows that the less stress you have in your nervous

system, the better off we are, the more we can do and the better we

become as human beings. During a session I can find the place where

you store stress in your body and take it out. Reiki is an amazing

stress reliever.”

The Huntington Beach resident has been practicing reiki for four

years. He holds sessions for clients at Vibe Tribe in Downtown.

“I truly believe that Derek has a connection to a higher being,”

said Lizanne Zendejas, an intuitive card reader at Vibe Tribe who

co-owns the yoga and wellness center with her husband, Luis. “He

really is at a higher level of consciousness, and even though he’s

just 20 years old, he seems as though he’s been around for a thousand

years.”

Campbell says that while his spiritual self was always there, it

was just a matter of recognizing it in himself.

His spiritual journey took him through a couple of different

religions. He went to Catholic church, Sunday school and served as an

altar boy. He still respects the religion, he said, adding that he

related to plenty of things that were said in the Bible.

But still, his spiritual thirst was “not satisfied.”

He studied jiu-jitsu and began meditation, which was “all I needed

to do in the first place,” he said.

While in middle school, Campbell even dipped into Wicca, an

earth-based, nature-centered religion. American Wicca University says

is it is built around the use of positive thought and action and love

of nature to create an atmosphere of positive energies that are then

used for our own benefits.

“I think it is a beautiful, misunderstood religion,” Campbell

said. “What Wicca got me in touch with was the balance of my

masculine and feminine energy and to realize how beautiful and

wonderful the earth is.

“I used one particular meditation that I still use today,” he

said. “That meditation was the first to bring me deep inside myself,

to an astral plane, and I will never forget that experience.

“After Wicca, which lasted about a year, I started to realize that

all I needed to do was to mediate, and I started experiencing

wonderful mediations, started to actually feel the earth’s energy and

I realized how I already had tons of natural abilities to manipulate

energy and use it to positively change me and to help others with

themselves,” he said.”

Campbell said that reiki has opened many doors for him and is part

of his spiritual practice.

“The ability to do reiki is a natural ability that can be

performed by anyone who is taught and attuned to reiki,” he said.

“Usually, during an attunement, one would have a spiritual

awakening.”

Campbell said he also can “read” a person.

“It’s all about feeling the person’s energy, which is pretty

easy,” he said. “During a session -- or even without a session --

because my body is so sensitive to energy, I can read what the

person’s energy field is like: how they are, what happened to them in

the past, what is possible in the future, things like that.

“Sometimes I see colors, which we call a person’s ‘aura.’ It’s

pretty cool when it happens.”