An introduction to Reiki

If you have never experienced Reiki, the following is an explanation of what you might expect from a treatment. A Reiki treatment usually lasts between sixty and ninety minutes. The Reiki practitioner places his/her hands gently and passively on different locations on the body, usually beginning at the head. Each position is held for at least five minutes. Reiki is different from traditional massage because the person may remain fully clothed. Unlike massage, Reiki does not require any form of manipulation of tissue or muscles so the hands remain still. Reiki will even flow through a plaster cast.

It is common for the person being treated to experience sensations such as warmth or tingling flowing from the Reiki practitioner's hands. Most people report entering a very deep state of relaxation. Those familiar with meditation say they enter a deep meditative state. The mind calms, the breathing slows down, and a feeling of well-being and centredness and a better sense of perspective is attained.

By receiving a one-hour session of Reiki, one physiologically attains many of the benefits equivalent to three to four hours sleep, such as increased oxygen supply to the blood and cells. This clinical observation, combined with the meditative state, makes Reiki a most effective natural stress reliever.

Regular use of Reiki leads to an increase in general vitality and well-being and a sense of inner peace. It greatly accelerates and promotes the healing process and regeneration of tissue, and is capable of improving the quality of one's life to an amazing degree.

Reiki cannot be learned from a book or by instruction. It is one of the ancient mysteries of the world and the activation of Reiki in your hands occurs only through a process referred to as an `attunement' or `initiation' which is given by a Reiki Master.

An important difference between Reiki and other effective energy therapies is that, once it has been activated in your hands, you have it for life and you are able to treat yourself. Most other energy healing systems do not extend beyond the ability to treat others.

In many other natural energy healing systems the practitioner is limited by his/her own physical and spiritual development and is often in danger of depleting his/her own energy in the process of treating others. As you will soon understand, this difference is one of Reiki's primary benefits.

Reiki can be explained in many ways. It can be considered an energy science which makes sense from the perspective of some theories within the field of quantum physics. This is discussed in chapter two. It can also be seen as a state of manifesting consciousness, which is discussed in the second part of this book. Whatever the explanation, it is an ancient healing/harmonizing therapy rapidly becoming recognized among health practitioners as a safe and highly effective complementary therapy to all other forms of health care.

Since the 1970s, when Reiki first began to spread significantly in the Western World, clinical observation has enabled the establishment of a more scientific understanding of Reiki. Although many Masters still prefer to teach Reiki in the traditional manner, others are now adding to the traditional teachings the added insight provided by modern science. There are forces in the universe that have been around for many thousands of years such as anti-matter, curved space, subatomic energy, etc.. Now that such phenomena are being explained in scientific terms, we are beginning to have a deeper understanding of the implications of these discoveries in our daily lives.

As human beings, most of us require more than just spiritual catch words or blind faith before we can accept the validity of such techniques as Reiki. To many people it constitutes the use of an energy outside the normal realms of human experience and credibility.

There are those who have personal beliefs as to the origins and dynamics of Reiki and prefer to impart these impressions to their students. In the following chapters we hope to move outside the sphere of individual or personal belief systems. We will endeavor to present those scientific and philosophical properties that make Reiki what it is.

Ashley was three years old and spending two or three days a week in hospital with serious asthma attacks. She was frail, weak, pale and had difficulty even walking a few hundred yards. We initiated Ashley and her parents to Reiki. Ashley immediately understood the significance of that incredible energy in her "magic hands", as she called them. She found that whenever she lay quietly and placed her hands on her body, they switched on and became warm and nurturing. Her energy levels increased daily and the trips to the hospital decreased. Mom and Dad did not need to give her Reiki treatments. Ashley took full responsibility for her own recovery by treating herself daily with Reiki.

Three months later Ashley had her last asthma attack. One year later Ashley was a strong, robust little girl off all medication and with a zest for life. She has successfully treated the next door neighbor's arthritic dog and spontaneously places her "magic hands" on anyone she meets who is sick or in pain with outstanding results.

Ashley is one of our many initiates who have inspired our book "Reiki - the science, metaphysics, and philosophy."

The science of Reiki

Reiki is an energy which has been known in the west for only a few decades. It is practiced by over one million people which, when compared to the world population, is certainly little more than a smattering.

To explain Reiki from a scientific point of view we need to discuss some concepts of science first. Scientific validation arises in many ways. It is popular to give a rational understanding of the mechanics of some phenomena based on the logic of `sound' scientific principles.

Your typical example of this is the `rational' explanation of Reiki using the terms - `subatomic matter' ; `unpolarized'; `vortex theory'; `mirror imaging' etc. These sound good and are probably the best way of appeasing the need for a rational explanation which so many Reiki Practitioners have. There is, however, a flaw. The mere use of physics terminology is not a scientific validation of Reiki! That is only a rational explanation based on common (but often contradictory) terms used in physics. (As will be discussed later, we can apply those labels to Reiki based upon our observations.)

The whole field of high energy physics is new and pioneering. When you are explaining it to a layperson, it is totally appropriate to generalize and use the scientific (unpolarized, subatomic etc.) terms we use because we are using them to establish a conceptual framework for the understanding of the clinical manifestations of Reiki - not to validate Reiki.

Reiki is `nonpolarized' subatomic energy that is released as a harmonic into energy blueprints (e.g. - the body) that are in a state of disharmony. Once it leaves the subatomic world, it must polarize because it is entering the physical, manifest world where it is acted upon by time. Because it is, by nature, a harmonic, it will polarize and form a `mirror image' of any disharmonious frequency in that energy blueprint, thereby restoring normal harmony and well being. This, in turn, accelerates the natural healing processes of the body.

To validate and explain that definition we must use the scientific process of clinical observation and the logical rationalization of the results. Most of the things we utilize in our daily lives are there because they work consistently. If they didn't, they would be discarded. If a new drug is tried clinically and gets good consistent results (without significant side effects) it is used because the observed results validate it! Once that drug stops working or proves to have bad side effects, it is discarded and considered no longer valid.

This is very important to understand. We cannot validate or prove Reiki with fancy charts or scientific terms. These things are great for explaining frameworks and actions. Validation, at this early stage, comes from our own clinical hands-on experience and the experience of hundreds of thousands of Reiki practitioners using Reiki daily for the past few decades.

When we list the observations made my Reiki practitioners and their patients, we start to build up a clinical picture which will tell us a great deal about Reiki.