What is Reiki?
Reiki is a Japanese healing practice that reduces stress, alleviates pain, and activates the body’s healing processes. It is accomplished through gentle touch or with the hands slightly above the body. A warm and soothing energy flows from the hands of the practitioner into the recipient, releasing tension, creating relaxation, and facilitating healing. The energy used is not the practitioner’s, but the subtle life force energy that flows through and around all of life.
How does it work?
Reiki works through the energy field that surrounds and flows through the body. A person is healthier when energy flows freely throughout their energy field. Energy can become blocked as a result of many factors. These blockages can cause or contribute to unhealthy physical, mental, or emotional conditions. Reiki removes blockages and helps to create a healthy flow of energy, resulting in improved health and well-being.
As with any healthy lifestyle choice, the greatest benefits from Reiki are realized through consistent use over time.
How do I know it works?
Although numerous benefits of Reiki have been widely reported, most evidence of its effectiveness is anecdotal. Scientific studies have been conducted within the last 30 years and can be accessed at https://centerforreikiresearch.com.
The best way to know that Reiki works is to experience it.
What are the benefits?
Some frequently reported benefits of Reiki are: relaxation, stress reduction, alleviation of insomnia, pain relief, mental clarity, a sense of peacefulness, and decrease in anxiety.
Is it possible for Reiki to cause harm?
There are no known dangers or contraindications for Reiki.
Where did Reiki originate?
The healing practice known in the West as Reiki was developed in Japan early in the last century by Mikao Usui (1865-1926), a widely traveled man who was educated in a number of disciplines. Usui established a clinic in Tokyo and traveled throughout Japan, treating the sick and teaching Reiki until his death in 1926.
In the mid-1930s, Hawayo Takata, an American of Japanese descent, sought treatment at the Tokyo clinic of one of Usui’s students, Dr. Chujiro Hayashi. Following her recovery from several serious health conditions, she remained in Japan to study with Dr. Hayashi.
Mrs. Takata returned to Hawaii in the late 1930s and established a clinic in Hilo. She began teaching Reiki on the U.S. mainland in the 1970’s. Before her death in 1980 she had trained 22 teachers (Masters). Reiki has spread rapidly throughout the world in the years since, and practitioners are now found in almost every country.