Reiki
| Also known as | Usui Reiki Ryōhō (Usui Reiki Therapy); Usui-shiki Reiki Ryōhō (Usui-style Reiki Therapy) |
|---|---|
| Traditions and lineage | Japanese, from Usui Mikao (1922); Western Reiki, through Hayashi Chūjirō and Hawayo Takata |
| Status | Approved |
| First approved | 11 October 2026 |
Reiki is a practice whose practitioners describe themselves as channelling a cosmic energy, also called Reiki, for the wellbeing of body, mind and spirit. In the second half of the twentieth century it grew from a little-known therapy, practised by a few thousand people in Japan and among Japanese Americans, into a practice found around the world.[1] Practitioners place their hands lightly on, or just above, the person receiving Reiki.[2]
Description
The name of the original Japanese practice, Usui Reiki Ryōhō, can be translated as "Usui Reiki Therapy": Usui is the founder's family name and ryōhō means therapy. Reiki is often translated as "universal life force energy", but early Japanese texts don't settle the meaning of rei, and "vital force" is at least one of its meanings.[3]
A session
The person receiving Reiki lies on a treatment table or sits in a chair and stays clothed. The practitioner rests their hands on, or just above, the body in a sequence of positions, without massaging or manipulating it, and doesn't touch private parts of the body. People report sensations such as warmth, coolness or tingling, or notice nothing at all.[4] The Victorian Government's Better Health Channel gives the length of a full session as 60 to 90 minutes;[4] Cancer Research UK says sessions usually run from 20 minutes to an hour.[5] In the Western Reiki taught by Hawayo Takata, a full "foundation treatment" takes about an hour, with twelve hand positions each held for five minutes.[3]
Practitioners also treat themselves, and self-treatment has become central to Western Reiki practice. Reiki can also be given at a distance, to a person who is not physically near the practitioner.[6]
Training and attunement
Western Reiki has traditionally been taught in three levels: Reiki 1 for beginners, Reiki 2 for advanced students, who learn three symbols and can give distance treatments, and Reiki Master, which trains students to teach and to initiate others. Newer styles vary. Students are given the practice through an initiation, usually called an attunement in the West, which a Reiki Master performs.[6]
In the original Japanese society, the comparable ritual is reiju ("bestowing reiki"), which pre-war branches practised at every meeting. Advanced practitioners there learn three symbols, which are not disclosed to the uninitiated, at the level called okuden ("inner transmission"); some rituals are performed only by those granted shinpiden ("mystery transmission").[3]
The precepts
Usui's five precepts (gokai) ask the practitioner, for today, to let go of anger and worry, to be grateful, to carry out their duties and to be kind to others. His memorial stone says they should be recited morning and evening.[3] Translations used in the West vary. The version most used by The Reiki Alliance also asks practitioners to honour parents, teachers and elders, to earn their living honestly and to show gratitude to every living thing.[6]
Scope
What it includes
- Treatment of another person with the hands placed on, or just above, the body[2]
- Self-treatment[6]
- Distance treatment, taught at Reiki 2[6]
- Teaching Reiki and giving attunements, by Reiki Masters[6]
What it is not
- Reiki is not a treatment for illness or disease, and it will not cure them.[4]
- Research hasn't clearly shown Reiki to be effective for any health purpose. Studies of its use for pain, anxiety, depression and other conditions have mostly been of low quality, with inconsistent results, and science hasn't found evidence of the energy field that Reiki is thought to work with.[2] Nor is there scientific evidence that Reiki prevents, treats or cures cancer or other diseases.[5]
- Reiki is not massage: the practitioner doesn't manipulate the body.[4]
- Reiki is not usually described as a religion: there is no academic literature that labels it one, and most practitioners call it a spiritual practice, although some scholars see religious elements in its worldview.[6]
Traditions and lineage
Usui Mikao and the Gakkai
Usui Mikao (1865–1926) was born in Taniai village into a merchant family of samurai ancestry. Around 1922 (possibly earlier) he performed twenty-one days of austerities on Mount Kurama, where he acquired the healing powers at the heart of the practice. In April 1922 he moved to Tokyo, founded the Shinshin Kaizen Usui Reiki Ryōhō Gakkai and opened a training hall in Harajuku. He died of a stroke on 9 March 1926 in Fukuyama, and in 1927 the Gakkai erected a memorial stone to him at Saihōji in Tokyo.[3] Some sources date Reiki's development earlier, to the late nineteenth century.[4]
Some stories told about Usui are not supported by the evidence. For example, there is no evidence for the claim that the state recognised his work after the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake.[3] The Gakkai still exists, but as of 2016 it had about five hundred official members in five branches, meeting mostly around Tokyo and only in Japanese.[3]
Hayashi Chūjirō
Hayashi Chūjirō, a retired Imperial Navy captain and one of Usui's students, founded the Hayashi Reiki Kenkyūkai (Hayashi Reiki Research Society) in Shinanomachi, Tokyo, around 1925. His society played an important part in bringing Usui Reiki Ryōhō to the West. He made a teaching tour of Hawaii in 1937–38 and died in 1940.[3]
Hawayo Takata
Hawayo Takata (1900–1980), a Japanese American woman born in Hawaii, is credited with leading the international spread and development of Reiki.[1] She began about six months of study with Hayashi in December 1935, took the practice to Hawaii in 1936, and was teaching on the North American mainland by 1951. Hayashi named her his successor. Over about forty-five years she taught more than ten thousand students and trained at least twenty-two Masters.[3] She died in Iowa in 1980.[1]
After Takata
After Takata's death, most of the Masters she had trained recognised her granddaughter, Phyllis Lei Furumoto, as her successor. In 1982 some of Takata's Masters and the Masters they had trained formed The Reiki Alliance. Hundreds of styles have emerged since, some adding elements such as crystals or Tarot cards.[6] Western Reiki has also returned to Japan: Mitsui Mieko began teaching it there in 1984, after training in New York City.[3]
Reiki in Australia
In Australia, Reiki is offered in many hospitals, nursing homes, palliative care hospices and community service settings.[4]
Victoria's Better Health Channel, in a page produced with Australian Reiki Connection Inc., advises people choosing a practitioner to ask about their training, credentials and membership of a professional association. It describes a professional practitioner as someone who has completed at least the second level of Reiki training, holds appropriate insurance, has first aid skills and belongs to a professional organisation. Professional associations set standards of practice and codes of ethics for their members, and many keep directories of practitioners.[4]
Safety and good practice
No harmful effects of Reiki have been shown.[2] Cancer Research UK knows of no reports of harmful side effects and considers Reiki generally safe for most people with cancer; it advises telling your doctor about any complementary therapy you use.[5]
Better Health advises people to follow their doctor's or specialist's guidance and never to stop a medical treatment on a Reiki practitioner's advice. It warns against any practitioner who claims to cure serious illnesses such as cancer, or who suggests giving up conventional treatment.[4]
Related modalities
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Stein, Justin B. Alternate Currents: Reiki's Circulation in the Twentieth-Century North Pacific. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2023. Publisher's description, reproduced at Hamilton College alumni books (accessed 11 October 2026).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "Reiki". National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, US National Institutes of Health. Last updated December 2018 (accessed 11 October 2026).
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 Stein, Justin. "Usui Reiki Ryōhō (Reiki, Japan)". World Religions and Spirituality Project, posted 14 November 2016 (accessed 11 October 2026).
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 "Reiki". Better Health Channel, Department of Health, State Government of Victoria. Produced with Australian Reiki Connection Inc.; last reviewed 13 August 2021 (accessed 11 October 2026).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Reiki". Cancer Research UK. Last reviewed 15 June 2022 (accessed 11 October 2026).
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 Beeler, Dori and Jojan Jonker. "Reiki (West)". World Religions and Spirituality Project, posted 5 February 2016 (accessed 11 October 2026).
Further reading
- Beeler, Dori and Jojan Jonker. "Reiki (West)". World Religions and Spirituality Project, 2016.
- Better Health Channel. "Reiki". Department of Health, State Government of Victoria, 2021.
- Haberly, Helen J. Reiki: Hawayo Takata's Story. Olney, MD: Archedigm, 1990. Takata's account of Reiki as she told it, described by the University of Minnesota's Taking Charge of Your Wellbeing reading list as a teaching story rather than a factual history.
- Petter, Frank Arjava, Tadao Yamaguchi and Chūjirō Hayashi. The Hayashi Reiki Manual. Lotus Press, 2003.
- Stein, Justin. "Usui Reiki Ryōhō (Reiki, Japan)". World Religions and Spirituality Project, 2016.
- Stein, Justin B. Alternate Currents: Reiki's Circulation in the Twentieth-Century North Pacific. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2023.
- Stiene, Bronwen and Frans Stiene. The Japanese Art of Reiki. O Books, 2005.
- Stiene, Bronwen and Frans Stiene. The Reiki Sourcebook. O Books, 2003; revised edition, Ayni Books, 2008.
- Yamaguchi, Tadao. Light on the Origins of Reiki: A Handbook for Practicing the Original Reiki of Usui and Hayashi. Lotus Press, 2007.