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Bringing balance into our lives is the most effective way to get the best out of life. The system of Reiki centers on bringing the body back into balance. This is a Japanese technique from the early 1900′s created by Mikao Usui. The word can be translated as either ‘spiritual energy’ or ‘universal energy’. The first level is taught over a two-day period and has dual competencies; the student may use it on clients (in conjunction with other therapies) and on the self as a personal development tool.

The purpose of a Reiki treatment is to re-align and bring the body into a natural balance physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The energy washes down through the body clearing energetic obstructions and strengthening the flow of this energetic ‘river’, or the meridians. Therefore, there are similarities between the system of Reiki and other therapies such as acupuncture. The differences are that this system does not manipulate the energy or body, is not intrusive and is an extremely simple technique that anyone can learn and use in complete safety.

A client will find that Reiki works on many levels. This system is not diagnostic and does not aim to achieve specific results. It is believed that the client’s body is always in survival mode and will therefore draw the energy where he/she needs it rather than where the practitioner believes it is beneficial. This is why the practitioner cannot harm the client, as it the client’s body that is in control of what is energetically happening.

To be aligned or balanced sounds wonderful but what does it mean for the client? Initially, one moves into a deep, restful space and may or may not actually sense the energy according to one’s sensitivity. Benefits of this ‘giving over’ to the energy may be clarity of thought, renewed physical strength, calmness, reduced stress levels, a sense of connectedness as well as the easing of conditions such as insomnia, depression and addiction. True relaxation is reflected in one’s face after a Reiki treatment. Stress tightens the muscles and skin and when we relax we look and feel years younger.

Clients do not need to remove any clothing during a treatment and hands are placed either on or just off the body. Practitioners are taught to channel energy from around them through their bodies and out through their hands. The client then draws on this energy. This means that the practitioner does not use his/her own energy and feels refreshed afterwards rather than exhausted. In fact the practitioner is receiving a treatment at the same time as the client -making it beneficial for all involved.

To practise this system it is necessary to learn from a Reiki teacher (often called a Reiki Master). It is possible to integrate Reiki into any health or beauty modality once the practitioner has completed the first level of the 3-part system. If the practitioner wished to work solely with the system of Reiki then it would be suggested that the practitioner complete the second level of the system and join a student clinic to build experience with the energy and on-on-one client skills. The third level of the system continues the practitioner’s own personal development and may be used to begin studying toward becoming a Reiki teacher.

Clients today are more interested in spirituality and well-being than ever before. To be able to bring these elements into the traditional clinic environment of a salon or spa, a special atmosphere is created. Clients today expect ‘Holistic’ treatments. This meaning that they wish to be pampered from every direction including the more mystical and spiritual paths.

It is exciting for clients to know that when they come for a treatment there is likely to be a new element added to the more traditional salon and spa techniques. If a client knows that the practitioner is continually upgrading their knowledge and abilities then the client will also feel confident in such capable hands.

The International House of Reiki is run by the founding directors Reiki Master/Teachers Frans and Bronwen Stiene. This International Reiki centre prides itself on its professionalism, student support systems and strong ethics. Courses are held regularly in Newtown, Sydney and Fitzroy, Melbourne as well as in other state capitals on arrangement.

Frans and Bronwen’s open, informal style of teaching has been an inspiration for students and clients throughout Europe, Asia and Australia. Their research book, The Reiki Sourcebook, is due out in December 2003. Frans and Bronwen have traveled to Japan to research Reiki and teach a traditional Japanese form of Reiki.

In fact – it is both! The word ‘Reiki’ is used in the West to also represent a healing system.

Usui Mikao, the founder, did not call his teachings by this name. ‘Reiki’ appeared written in conjunction with his teachings but this was merely to point out that the teachings worked with spiritual or sacred energy.

Generally, his teachings were called Usui do meaning ‘the way of Usui’, and his healings were known as Usui teate translated to mean ‘hands on healing’.

‘Reiki’ the word can be found in the branches of schools that developed from Usui’s teachings. Both the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai (Society of the Usui Spiritual Energy Healing method) and Hayashi Reiki Kenkyu kai (Hayashi’s Spiritual Energy Research Society) use the word ‘Reiki’ to signify ‘spiritual energy’ but neither actually called the system – Reiki.

Hawayo Takata was the first student of these teachings in the West. Hayashi Chujiro, her teacher, came with her to Hawaii to help her set up her practice. At his farewell dinner he presented her with a westernized certificate. This official gesture ensured that she was seen as a legal teacher and practitioner in the Japanese system. The certificate states that she was a ‘Master of the Usui Reiki System of Drugless Healing’. Once again the term ‘Reiki’ is used to mean spiritual energy rather than any complete system. Included in the certificate though are other statements that appear to refer to ‘Reiki’ as a form of energy as well as a system. This was 1938 and was the first time that there was any inconsistency in the use of the term ‘Reiki’. This was due likely to the difficulty of translating Japanese into English. From that point on the word ‘Reiki’ jointly represented the system based on Mikao Usui’s teachings as well as ‘Universal Life Force Energy’.

The downside of using ‘Reiki’ to mean a system is that people are unsure as to what particular practices fall under that name. All the systems named Reiki today claim to use spiritual energy in their practice. There appears to be no other definition to the system than that. This leaves the door wide open for individual discrepancies.

Many traditional Japanese teachers call the system ‘Ryoho’ which means ‘healing method’ or ‘Reiki Ryoho’ which means ‘spiritual energy healing method’.

Today, people even talk about ‘Reikiing’ something. This particular use of the word is a new addition to its many interpretations.

The term Reiki Master was never used by the founder of the system of Reiki, Mikao Usui.

It was introduced when the translation of Japanese to English became necessary as the system moved out of Japan.

The question that we’d like to ask is this… is this the right title to call yourself when you are teaching, especially in our modern age?

There are many Reiki teachers today who feel uncomfortable calling themselves Reiki Master. This is because the title implies that the Reiki Master masters spiritual energy (Reiki). For this reason Shibumi International Reiki Association asks their Registered Practitioners and Teachers to refrain from using the title Reiki Master, instead calling themselves Reiki Teachers.

One of the first things you will learn when you study the system of Reiki are the precepts. As the foundation of the system, they are a good place to refer to when researching what the implications of calling yourself a Reiki Master might be.

The precepts are: For today only Do not anger Do not worry Be humble Be honest in your work Be compassionate to yourself and others.

These precepts are not only to be read, but lived by. What do these precepts say about the term Reiki Master?

“Be humble” one of the precepts reads. Wait a minute… is calling myself a Reiki Master in line with being humble? Doesn’t humble mean; to not be proud or arrogant and to be modest?

“Be honest in your work” is another of the precepts. This precept is plainly asking for honesty in the practitioner’s life as life is our work. This includes teaching or practicing the system of Reiki. Yet, claims of being a master of spiritual energy/Reiki is not in line with honesty. It is not possible for us to say that we have mastered spiritual energy. Life is a spiritual journey, there is always something more to learn.

So isn’t it time that we start to change the title of Reiki Master to something more realistic, humble and honest. Shibumi feels that as we are teachers of the system then the term Reiki teacher fulfills these requirements. We need to walk our talk.

A good reference point for us might also be to look at modern spiritual teachers and learn from them. The Dalai Lama, for example, states that he is just a simple monk. To practice is not to collect things and put them in your basket, but rather to find something in your sleeve. Shunryu Suzuki

Viewpoints about the system of Reiki and its past are numerous. On our new website we have many pieces about the history of Reiki and its teachers as well as modern teachers and their teachings. But let’s look at a potted version of what has happened to the system since its beginnings in the early 1900s.

1860-1915
In 1865 Mikao Usui was born to a samurai family descended from the Chiba clan. He studies martial arts and reaches a high level called Menkyo Kaiden within the art around 1890[1]. Mikao Usui marries Sadako Suzuki and they have a boy, Fuji and a girl, Toshiko. He becomes a lay Tendai priest[2].

1915-1920
Suzuki san, Mikao Usui’s cousin, studied with Mikao Usui formally from 1915 until 1920 (and communicated with him informally until his death). She states that the first teaching to his students (12 of whom are claimed to still be alive) were the precepts. He also gave meditations and mantras for his students to practise. She said that during this period he became well known as a healer even though his initial teachings were based on strengthening one’s spirituality rather than direct healing. Mikao Usui used a reiju that was in fact a ‘spiritual blessing’ for his students. This was the forerunner to what is known as an attunement today. The Reiju was not created to attune/empower or transform someone, it was merely intended as a spiritual blessing. What was taught at this time appears to have been based strongly on traditional Japanese cultural and religious mores without it actually becoming a religion.

1920-1926
A group of nuns, two of whom were called Tenon in and Yuri in, worked with Mikao Usui from 1920 until he died[3]. In 1922 Mikao Usui climbed Mt Kurama and practiced an austerity training culminating in a deeper or different understanding of his spiritual practices[4]. The Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai is created by Mikao Usui one month later in Tokyo[5] and is set up to cater to naval officers and other lay people. The symbols are introduced to the system to help those who had difficulty sensing the energy within them and in 1925 Mikao Usui moves to Nakano outside of Tokyo. A number of healing centers are set up[6]. Chujiro Hayashi, a retired naval officer and surgeon, studies with Mikao Usui in 1925. It is guessed that he may have written the first hand position manual for Mikao Usui. Some of Mikao Usui’s students become well known such as Toshihiro Eguchi and Kaiji Tomita. In 1926 Mikao Usui died of a stroke.

1927-1933
Chujiro Hayashi practiced under the auspices of the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai until 1933 when he opened his own centre. The Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai continued to practise in quiet and still exists today. Some modern researchers have said that Chujiro Hayashi never had time to finish Shinpiden (teacher level) and he and the other naval officers merely emulated the reiju used by Mikao Usui.

1933-1938
It is believed that Chujiro Hayashi began the first actual commercial centre where people would come for healing and practitioners would work on them. Chujiro Hayashi wrote that he had taught 13 Reiki Masters by 1938. From 1936-1938 Hawayo Takata, an American born Japanese woman studied with him and became one of these Reiki Masters. Other students of his were Chiyoko Yamaguchi (whountil recently taught in Kyoto with her son Tadao), his wife – Chie and Tatsumi. We understand that there are other practitioners trained by him alive in Japan today. Chujiro Hayashi’s teachings were from the latter period of Mikao Usui’s life and may have been adapted by him to suit a more technical and clinical approach to the system rather than a spiritual one.

1938-1980
Hawayo Takata took the system of Reiki back to Hawaii, US and set up the first non-Japanese Reiki clinic. It seems that what she taught technically was in line with her teacher’s teachings. She did not teach the chakra system and neither did Chujiro Hayashi. Instead, her diary relates that she knew of and taught about the hara method. Her historical knowledge of the system on the other hand varied according to the time and occasion it was told in.

Chujiro Hayashi died in 1940 and his wife continued teaching in his place.

By the mid -1970s Hawayo Takata realized that she needed students to pass on what she had taught. She trained, in total, 22 students to teach the system of Reiki, as she knew it. Hawayo Takata died in 1980. During this period there were still people practising in Japan who were taught by Mikao Usui and his students. These students/teachers appear to have had no inclination to contact the strands of the system that were being practiced in the West.

1980-2003
After Hawayo Takata died her students began to set up their own practices and create Reiki groups and associations. Debate began over what was the true system of Reiki. A group called The Reiki Alliance standardized the Western system and taught what they called Usui Shiki Ryoho. Hawayo Takata’s granddaughter was their head and the term ‘Grandmaster’ was created to reflect her position. This term had not been used in the system of Reiki in either Japan or the West previously.

Barbara Weber Ray, another Reiki Master of Hawayo Takata, began her system calling it The Radiance Technique and claimed to have the only true teachings. These teachings appear to be influenced by her New Age beliefs.

Other students, including Iris Ishikuro and her student Arthur Robertson, drew more New Age concepts into the system of Reiki during the 80s. It was at this point that mythological Tibetan teachings entered the scene. People began to channel information from spirits and guides and the system of Reiki took on a new life quite different from its Japanese origins.

The Westernized version returned to Japan in the 1980s and these modern, western teachings became very popular there – just as they had in the West. It was not until the 1990s that research began to provide the fascinating facts that early teachings of Mikao Usui and his students were still being practiced in Japan. The new millennium has brought with it a gradual opening up by the Japanese. Amongst some of these older teachings that have come to the light are:

The traditional Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai has a member, Hiroshi Doi, who has taught Westerners branches such as Usui Reiki Ryoho and his own Gendai Reiki Ho.

Chiyoko Yamaguchi, a student of Chujiro Hayashi, teaches today, as does her student Hyakuten Inamoto.

Chris Marsh is slowly passing on Suzuki san’s knowledge of the early teachings to the West as well.

All in all it is an exciting time to be involved with these teachings and to know that as practitioners we can continue to learn and upgrade our knowledge and personal experience.

[1] Suzuki san, born in 1895 and a cousin of Mikao Usui’s wife. Suzuki san is still alive today according to her student Chris Marsh.

[2] Mariko Suzuki

[3] Dave King claims to have had contact with Tenon in and supplies this information.

[4] Memorial Stone of Mikao Usui in the Saihoji Temple, Tokyo.

[5] Memorial Stone of Mikao Usui.

[6] Frank Arjava Petter’s research

Let’s break the concept down into simpler explanations. If you don’t know what Reiki is, in a nutshell, it is a technique or a spiritual practice that is used to heal. In simpler terms the practice reduces stress and induces deep relaxation, among other benefits.

The technique was developed by Japanese Mikao Usui and was primarily intended as a form of therapy that could be used in tandem with conventional techniques for treating physical, emotional and mental illnesses. It is a healing technique.

The concept of celestial Reiki is the same. But instead of having a spiritual experience limited here on Earth, one who practices celestial Reiki takes into account the other planets of the solar system as well as stars and constellations, particularly the star constellations of the 12 signs of the zodiac.

According to the teachings of Reiki, there’s an energy that can be channeled to help heal diseases. This energy is universal and flows within us as our “life force”. This life force energy dictates our feelings and dispositions. The more active the energy flows through us, the healthier and happier we become.

With celestial Reiki, the “life force” that is used to heal in ordinary Reiki is taken further. The earth’s core “life force” energy is used to heal the mind, body and soul. And since all planets and star systems emit a particular “life force” signature, celestial Reiki practitioners harness that energy and use the energy from the celestial bodies to heal the human body.

Reiki treatment involves the whole body. This includes the body’s physical state and its emotional, intellectual and, of course, the spiritual well being. When you look at it, Reiki is a simple self-improvement technique. And since the “life force” energy it teaches is said to be present in all things, anybody can use this energy to heal and promote recovery.

It’s not limited to individual energy, but encompasses the universe. This is why the “life force” energy in Reiki is infinite. And regardless of how many times or how many people use it, the “life force” energy can always be utilized to heal.

However, Reiki is not taught but rather the ability is transferred by a Reiki master to his student during the stage of what they call “attunement.” At this level, the Reiki master passes the ability of Reiki to a student allowing hem to tap to the “life force” energy which will give him the ability to heal wounds and illnesses and generally improve one’s quality of life.

One need to emphasize, however, that Reiki is not a religion. Instead, those who practices Reiki get more intimate with their own religion, understanding and enriching their own religious beliefs. A Reiki practitioner has to promote the way of good living in order to master the flow of the “life force” and promote harmony and peace for true healing to happen.

Going back to celestial Reiki, what we currently know about the solar system and stars is given a new light by practicing this form of Reiki.

Understand that the universe’s “life force” energy can be channeled it into one’s hands to heal not only on the individual level but eventually heal the whole planet as well. And by connecting with each planet and star system, Reiki practitioners are able to accomplish such feat.

Lineage in the Reiki community is one of those tenacious subjects that never really goes away. Many Reiki students first hear about their own lineage from their teacher and, from then on, it can become increasingly relevant to them.

In many traditions, lineage is used as a kind of validation that the practices, methods and teachings taught in the tradition really do stem back to the person who first created them. This means that, within some of the more competitive corners of our Reiki community, lively “my lineage is shorter than your lineage” discussions flourish abundantly. There is often an unspoken belief lurking quietly beneath this kind of discussion, that a shorter lineage can make a teaching more relevant, stronger, or even more directly transmitted from Mikao Usui although, if we examine this view rationally, it is impossible to find any logic or common sense in it. However short their lineage is, any teacher can make changes to the practices they teach.

Some Reiki students spend a lot of time collecting lineages from different teachers by attending lots of different classes, keeping track of their resulting personal lineage in a kind of complicated spider’s web or expanded family tree which contains the names of all the teachers they have worked with. The unspoken thought behind this could be based on a need to feel “well connected” within the Reiki community, or it could express a search for pure truth which is, as yet, undiscovered.

These are both rather uncomfortable ideas when placed in the context of spiritual practice, so where does the concept of lineage come from and how does it really relate to us as Reiki practitioners?

In many eastern spiritual schools there are 3 different ways of describing lineages and how they function:

1.Transmission Lineage is used to describe the line of teachers who link current practitioners back to the founder of a particular school, such as Mikao Usui in Reiki or Bodhidharma (Daruma – Japanese) in Zen Buddhism. This kind of lineage validates the practices which are currently taught as being directly transmitted in unbroken line from the founder. It can only work effectively as long as none of the teachers in the lineage have changed those original practices. Keeping practices exactly as they were taught to us is known as “practising purely”.

2.Organisational Lineage is held by the people who are senior members of a particular school and therefore influence what happens within it. This kind of lineage is an administrative tool which allows decisions to be made and actions to be taken for and in the community organisation. It functions in the same way as a senior management structure in businesses.

3.Primordial Lineage is a far deeper and more direct form of lineage. It is the most profound connection to our own reality that we can find within ourselves. It is where we discover our own true enlightened nature deep inside of us. This kind of lineage is the ultimate answer to those “who has the shortest lineage?” competitions. It is not possible to hold a lineage shorter or more direct than the primordial lineage because it is the thing that connects us with our original nature in one simple, pure, deeply profound step. It is available to every practitioner and the person who is responsible for it’s cultivation is ourself. Primordial lineage is our heritage as living beings. It is the centre of our being, our primordial energy.

Primordial energy can be described in many different ways. In some eastern teachings it is described as a direct experience of Emptiness. In other traditions it is seen as discovering our own inner wisdom and knowledge, or the union of wisdom and compassion or wisdom and method. It is the state of being where we are able to see things as they are without any attachments whatsoever. Here we become part of the lineage of all beings who have discovered this primordial energy within themselves. It is this primordial state that eastern spiritual practitioners are aiming to achieve.

As we can see from the definitions above, the primordial lineage is a far more innate kind of lineage than the transmission and organisational lineages, although both these forms of lineage perform extremely relevant functions within the community. The primordial lineage differs from them on a fundamental level in that it is central to each one of us as a human being and therefore as a Reiki practitioner. It is the thing that makes us one with all that is and allows us to understand how that works. It is our true being, stripped of all the paraphernalia that we carry round with us in this life. It is the thing that would be left if all our baggage was miraculously lifted from our shoulders. It is the diamond at our heart that our spiritual practices polish.

The teachings and practices taught in eastern spiritual traditions have their origin in this primordial lineage or energy. It is in this space that the teacher finds the answers to how to teach their students, so that they too can remember their own primordial lineage. This primordial energy has an unlimited potential and therefore is a vast storeroom of limitless methods. In this space the teacher will understand the uniqueness of each student and therefore be able to teach different methods, practices or ideas to each one, depending on their own distinct qualities and abilities.

Seen from this angle, the primordial lineage gives us an explanation of why some Reiki practitioners find it easier to work with the precepts, others prefer chanting the mantras, while others finds it easier to work with symbols and mantras together. The Reiki teacher’s role is to direct their students in such a way that they get the most out of the system of Reiki in order to eventually discover their own primordial lineage.

The foremost reason for being part of a Reiki lineage is to find our own primordial energy. If a teacher is not working with this in mind, but is maybe focussing on gaining personal power or influence, then the primordial lineage cannot function. When it is functioning correctly it empowers the student and teacher together. There is a deepening of self knowledge for both of them. This is the true wisdom that the very best Reiki teachers can show us and help us to work towards.

The relationship between a teacher and student can last many years. With this in mind, choosing a teacher is a significant decision. As students, it is important that we take responsibility for ourselves and our own practice. This means that it is our role to evaluate potential teachers so we can learn how to recognise those that are in the primordial lineage. This will allow us to make a wise decision when we choose a teacher.

Although many students find it tricky to recognise a teacher who is in the primordial lineage, we should remember that this energy is intrinsic to us. It is our birthright and the truest part of ourselves. This means that our recognition can be instinctive and instantaneous. It is never an intellectual thing. We know deep inside ourselves when things feel right and the primordial lineage is the most right part of us, flawless and absolute. Nothing can be more right than that. This is how we can tell whether a teacher is in the primordial lineage. When our Reiki path feels both simple and profound it is clear that the teachings are coming from the primordial lineage root. It is useful to understand that this is where our path should be heading if we are to make the best progress we can.

As Reiki teachers the primordial lineage is what we should aim to be sharing with the students we have accepted. We need to constantly work on our own practices and keep in mind the goal of a personal state of egoless-ness. If we are going to teach as well as possible we need to know ourselves very clearly and honestly. The energy space we are currently able to work in can be misleading. Our mind and ego can be very good at deceiving us. In a mind that is not free from “self” it could be very easy to confuse the energy space we are in with something deeper. Sometimes the best way to make sure we do not fool ourselves is to take guidance from our own teachers. It is comforting to remember that the primordial lineage is always within us, as we work towards finding it.

In many lineages there is an initiation or empowerment. In the system of Reiki it is often called an attunement or reiju. Initiations from a teacher within a lineage help us to become part of that lineage. It is important to understand that an initiation is an active process for both the teacher and the student.

For the teacher, an effective initiation is always given from the space of the primordial lineage or, at a bare minimum, with the primordial lineage in mind. If this is the case, it will trigger an initial experience of primordial energy within the student.

For the student, an effective initiation is received with an openness and willingness to accept it in the intention that we want to practice the system of Reiki to discover our own primordial energy.

If these two principles are not met the initiation can only be a pale reflection of a true primordial initiation with no deep trigger of that energy within the student. In short, the primordial lineage is always the base for any true initiation, empowerment, attunement or reiju. This is relevant to all initiatory spiritual practices.

The central purpose of the Reiki teacher is to work towards finding the primordial energy or lineage within themselves so that they can become an effective vehicle for the initiation to flow through. Once they are working in this lineage they need to be mindful of their role, guiding their students constantly towards discovering their own primordial energy. Each student needs to make a commitment to their own practice, staying in contact with the teacher so that they can be guided into the right way. Without this guidance, the student could quickly become lost in the darkness of dead-ends and side alleys.

As students and teachers, we are given simple tools in the system of Reiki that we can use diligently. This ongoing work will help us to move steadily towards experiencing our own primordial lineage. There is no quick fix option if we really want to deepen our practice and delve into the absolute. “Practise, practise, practise” really does make perfect. Perseverance is not exciting but the rewards are. We can take encouragement from seeing our fellow students and teachers making headway along the path and knowing that our own efforts are helping us to do the same thing.

Help walking the same way is something good that we can share with our fellow practitioners. We all have the potential to experience our primordial energy if we work at our practices steadily and patiently. Working with a teacher who is deeply connected to the primordial lineage and practising with people who are doing the same thing as ourselves are great ways to make sure we don’t get lost down those dead-ends or side alleys as we walk along the path towards our true heritage: our primordial lineage.

Here’s a little bit of that help right now: The next time you are faced with a “my lineage is shorter than your lineage” discussion, remember the truth of your own primordial lineage – and the potential primordial lineage of the person who is facing you.

In a nutshell, Reiki is a healing art that can help people with various types of physical and emotional healing needs. It involves the healer placing his or her hands on or over the client without actually manipulating any parts of the body. You may have seen similar healing modalities such as healing touch and therapeutic touch. But Reiki is not the same thing. Nor is Reiki the same thing between its practitioners. The oldest and most potent form of Reiki is formally known as The Usui System Of Natural Healing According To Hawayo Takata. It is called this because it was discovered by Dr. Mikao Usui in Japan and was developed by Mrs. Hawayo Takata. “Reiki” was the word Dr. Usui used to describe his discovery. Since being introduced by Takata to the United States in the 1970s, Reiki has become diluted and intertwined among other “healing” arts and modalities. Some people have even “invented” their own styles of Reiki.

But what is Reiki, really? How does it work? That is summed up in the word itself. “Ki” is the word to describe the universal life force that keeps everything alive and in motion. Ki, or chi, is the force that gives your heart the energy to beat, your lungs to breathe, your brain to think, and for you to become inspired. “Rei” means “movement.” Thus, we have the practice of moving the life force energy in order to create a healing effect. We all have the ability to do this to some degree. We always feel just a bit better when we hold our ankle for a while after tripping off a curb. A child feels more soothed and happy when we hold our hand over his or her cut finger. In effect, we are moving energy to create healing. The Reiki practitioner is specially attuned to do this in a much more magnified way, and the magnification of the moving force of energy has many implications. It can help a headache to go away. It can help a deep cut heal without scarring. It can help a person concentrate better while studying. And it can help a person overcome deep emotional hurts. It is a powerful healing force that balances the energies within the body to bring a state of wellness to all of its parts and to the whole.

A complete Reiki session is best performed in a relaxing environment, a quiet studio or office with soft music or sounds that are pleasing to the ear. The client lies on a massage table but is not unclothed at all. The practitioner then places his or her hands on or over different body areas, twelve on the front side of the body and five on the back. Even though no private areas are involved, the client has the right to let the practitioner know on which areas they do not feel comfortable being touched. In that case, the practitioner can hold his or her hands over the area, and the client receives the same healing benefit. A complete session lasts anywhere between sixty and seventy-five minutes, depending on one’s specific needs. Personally, the longest session I ever performed was two hours in length. The practitioner will hold their hands over a certain area longer if they sense that more healing energy is needed in that area. During the session, both the client and the practitioner may feel different sensations in different areas of the body, such as extreme warmth, tingling, or a deep relaxation. These sensations are clues as to where the healing energy is needed and indicate that the energy is definitely working. If a person is receiving a session because of emotional or subconscious needs, they may experience feelings of emotional “release” and relief. After the session, one definitely feels that something has changed for the better.

At the Sufletesc Center located in Saint Louis Park, Minnesota, I practice the original Usui System Of Natural Healing According To Hawayo Takata. Since I began practicing Reiki in June of 1998, I’ve taken care of many people who have said to me that they have been to other Reiki “practitioners” but somehow felt an enormously powerful difference between what I did and what they received from others. I then explain to them that there are different types of Reiki out there, and what I do is the unadulterated version. This leads to the discussion of what is involved in the training of a Reiki practitioner. First of all, you CANNOT learn Reiki in an all-in-one weekend that costs only $100. I have had Reiki “Masters” (teachers) ask me about things that I do that they never learned. In the original Usui system, there are three degrees of practice. The First Degree practitioner works with physical conditions. The Second Degree practitioner can take care of emotional and subconscious healing matters and can even perform healing sessions in-absentia (from a distance). Then there is the Master level. While the practitioner is complete in his or her abilities at the second degree, the Master is the one who attunes and teaches others. The cost of training in the original method is $150 for First Degree, $500 for Second Degree (after a three month training period), and, after a three-year period of practice, one can become a Reiki Master for $10,000, which entails a lengthy, detailed apprenticeship.

The most important thing for you to know is that it can help you no matter what ails you, what bothers you, what pent up emotional disturbances you may suffer from, or what strange addictions you may have. It is also beneficial to the person who wants to maintain their state of wellness. Many hospitals offer Reiki to their patients to help them relax before a procedure and to heal faster afterwards. There has even been a study done several years ago at the Cleveland Clinic Heart Center in Cleveland, Ohio proving that people who receive Reiki healing do recover faster from open heart surgery. Several other studies have been conducted since that time. When I am caring for a chiropractic patient who is experiencing a tremendous amount of muscle tension and mental apprehension, I place my hands on them for several minutes, if they are willing to accept the treatment. This relaxes the patient, which allows the chiropractic adjustment to be delivered with greater ease and less stress. Reiki has helped me to be a better chiropractor. It can certainly help you to be a healthier person!