1장
The Healing Touch That Changed the World
When Hawayo Takata lay on an operating table in Japan in 1935, facing surgery for a host of serious medical conditions, she heard a voice clearly state: "The operation is not necessary." This moment of intuitive intervention led her to discover Reiki, a healing system that would transform her life-and eventually, the lives of countless others worldwide. Today, this Japanese healing art has become a global phenomenon, practiced in hospitals, wellness centers, and private homes across continents. Celebrities like Nicole Kidman, Sandra Bullock, and Meg Ryan have embraced Reiki, while scientific research increasingly validates its effectiveness in pain management and stress reduction. What began as an ancient spiritual practice hidden in Buddhist monasteries has evolved into one of the most accessible complementary therapies of our time-yet its most profound secrets remained veiled until author Diane Stein made the controversial decision to reveal them all.
2장
The Ancient Origins of a Modern Healing Art
Reiki's traditional story begins with Mikao Usui in 19th-century Japan, but its roots reach much deeper into human history. According to channeled information, Reiki was incorporated into human genetic coding as a birthright when the human body was first designed. Psychic Laurel Steinhice suggests it originated from an advanced planetary culture that brought many-armed deities to Earth, becoming part of pre-patriarchal India. The deity we know as Shiva-originally female-brought Reiki to Earth and wishes to be remembered for this gift.
In the early Earth civilization called Mu, Reiki was a universal practice. Children received Reiki I training at elementary school age and Reiki II during adolescence. Reiki III was required for educators and available to anyone interested in teaching. After Mu's destruction, this knowledge survived in India and Tibet but became increasingly restricted to a select few.
The conventional Reiki story centers on Mikao Usui, reportedly a Christian minister and university principal in Kyoto during the mid-1800s. When his students asked how Jesus performed healings, Usui embarked on a ten-year quest that led him through Christianity, Buddhism, and extensive studies. However, research by William Rand found no records of Usui at the institutions mentioned in this story, suggesting parts of it may have been modified to make Reiki more acceptable to Western audiences.
What's more historically verifiable is that Usui discovered the healing formula in Sanskrit texts at a Zen Buddhist monastery but couldn't activate the energy. After a three-week meditation and fasting period on Mt. Koriyama, marked by twenty-one stones, he experienced a powerful light striking his third eye. He saw "millions of rainbow bubbles" and the Reiki symbols with their activation information-effectively receiving the first Reiki attunement.
Descending the mountain, Usui experienced what he called "four miracles": healing his stubbed toe, eating a full meal without discomfort after fasting, healing a woman's toothache, and curing a monk's arthritis. He named the method Reiki (universal life force energy) and worked in Kyoto's slums before becoming discouraged when healed beggars returned to begging rather than starting new lives.
3장
The Transmission to the Western World
Usui became a traveling teacher, carrying a torch through Japan while lecturing. He met Chujiro Hayashi, a retired naval officer who received Reiki Master training in 1925. When Usui died in 1930, Hayashi became his successor, having trained sixteen to eighteen Reiki Masters.
Hayashi established a healing clinic in Tokyo where practitioners worked in teams, with patients living at the clinic during treatment. One such patient was Hawayo Takata, born in Hawaii to a pineapple cutter's family. After her husband's death in 1930, Takata developed severe health problems requiring surgery. Hearing that inner voice telling her surgery wasn't necessary, she sought alternative healing and found Hayashi's clinic.
After four months of treatment, she was completely healed and requested Reiki training. Initially refused because she was a foreigner, she eventually received Reiki I in 1936, followed by Reiki II in 1937 when she returned to Hawaii. In 1938, Hayashi visited her in Hawaii, made her a Master/Teacher and his successor. When war approached in 1941, Hayashi summoned her to Japan, announced the coming conflict would endanger Reiki, and psychically stopped his own heart, dying on May 10, 1941.
Takata brought Reiki to Hawaii, mainland United States, Canada, and Europe, training hundreds of people during her lifetime. In her final decade (1970-1980), she initiated twenty-two Reiki Masters. Her teaching style varied-sometimes starting treatments at the head, other times at the middle or feet-and she never allowed students to take notes.
After her death in 1980, her granddaughter Phyllis Furumoto became Grand Master of Usui Traditional Reiki, though several branches evolved with different approaches. Traditional Reiki maintained the three-degree system with expensive Master training ($10,000) available by invitation only, while other systems developed different structures and fee scales. Today, Reiki continues to evolve beyond what its founders originally taught, reaching more people as some non-traditional teachers reduce fees and make the practice more accessible.
4장
The Essence of Universal Life Energy
Laying hands on the body to comfort and relieve pain is one of humanity's oldest and most fundamental healing instincts. When in pain, we instinctively touch the affected area, and mothers naturally place hands on their children's foreheads when they're ill. This simple touch conveys warmth, serenity, healing, caring, and love-the foundation of all touch healing techniques. Throughout history, this intuitive response has been documented in healing traditions across continents and civilizations, from ancient temple healers to modern therapeutic practices.
The living body radiates energy known by many names across cultures: Mana (Polynesian), Orenda (Iroquois), Prana (India), Ruach (Hebrew), Barraka (Islamic), Ch'i (China), and Ki (Japan). This life force is the "activating energy of the universe" that creates the body and determines health. When Ki departs, life ends. Everything alive contains and radiates this bio-magnetic aura energy. Scientists have documented measurable electromagnetic fields around living organisms, and modern research continues to explore these biofield phenomena. This energy field extends beyond the physical body and interacts with other energy fields, creating complex patterns of influence and exchange.
What distinguishes Reiki from other healing modalities is the unique attunement process. When attuned to Reiki, a person's energy channels are opened and cleared through specific sacred ceremonies, connecting them directly to the universal source of Ki. This connection allows them to channel healing energy without depleting their own reserves, unlike other energy healing methods where practitioners might feel drained after sessions. The attunement creates the healer-it's not merely a healing session but a permanent energetic transformation that enhances one's ability to channel universal life force. This process involves the opening of the crown, heart, and palm chakras, creating a clear channel for energy flow.
Each degree of Reiki involves additional attunements that increase the practitioner's channeling capacity and introduces new healing symbols and techniques. The First Degree focuses on physical healing, the Second Degree enables mental and emotional healing across distances, and the Master level deepens the connection and teaches advanced techniques. Without these attunements passed directly from Teacher/Master to student in an unbroken lineage tracing back to its founder, Mikao Usui, the healing system isn't truly Reiki. This direct connection to universal energy-whether called Goddess, God, Higher Self, First Source, or Universe-transcends any religious framework while tapping into the fundamental source of life itself. The system works regardless of the practitioner's or recipient's beliefs, making it a truly universal healing art.
5장
The Three Degrees of Transformation
Reiki is structured in three progressive degrees, each with distinct attunements and healing capacities. Reiki I focuses on physical healing, enabling practitioners to perform direct healing on themselves and others through physical touch. The initial attunement period requires about three weeks of adjustment, during which practitioners may experience detoxification symptoms, increased energy flow, and vivid dreams as their energy channels expand.
Imagine your body as a garden hose that has been kinked and partially clogged for years. The Reiki I attunement is like suddenly removing those kinks and clogs, allowing water to flow at full pressure. The system needs time to adjust to this new energy capacity, which is why many new practitioners report temporary headaches, digestive changes, or emotional releases during the first weeks.
Reiki II significantly amplifies healing power, addressing emotional, mental, and karmic healing. This attunement introduces three conscious symbols and enables distance healing. The integration process can take up to six months as old emotions and past patterns resurface for healing. Think of it as upgrading from a garden hose to a fire hose-the increased capacity requires even more adjustment and integration.
Reiki III, the Master/Teacher degree, brings spiritual-level healing and pure joy. This highest attunement introduces two additional symbols, methods for passing attunements, and deepens the practitioner's channeling abilities. It's recommended only for serious healers who wish to teach and make Reiki central to their lives.
What makes Reiki extraordinary is its intelligence. The energy flows automatically to wherever healing is needed without the practitioner's conscious direction. Unlike conventional medicine that treats only symptoms, Reiki addresses all four bodies-physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual-healing not just the manifestation of pain but its root causes.
6장
The Healing Session: Where Magic Happens
Once attuned to Reiki I, practitioners can begin applying the energy immediately. A Reiki healing involves placing both hands, palms down with fingers extended and held together, gently on specific body positions. The energy flows through the chakras in the palm centers and fingertips. When hands rest on someone with healing intent, Reiki automatically activates and stops when lifted.
During a session, healers typically feel cycles of sensations-initial body warmth followed by heat, cold, vibration, tingling, or other sensations that last about five minutes before returning to normal warmth, signaling time to move to the next position. As Callie, a six-year-old Reiki practitioner puts it: "It goes up, and then it comes down, and then you can move."
The seven major chakras serve as energy centers that transform Ki from Earth and Heaven into the human body. The Crown chakra at the top of the skull connects to spirituality and the pineal gland. The Brow or Third Eye chakra between the physical eyes governs psychic perception. The Throat chakra relates to communication, while the Heart chakra corresponds to emotions and universal love. The Solar Plexus between the lower ribs is associated with personal power, the Belly/Sacral chakra stores emotional impressions, and the Root chakra relates to survival and abundance.
Self-healing forms the foundation for all Reiki work. The hand positions follow a systematic pattern from head to feet on both front and back of the body, though intuition should always guide the practitioner. There is no incorrect way to do Reiki-the basic instruction is to put your hands where the pain is. Each position is held until the energy flow changes, typically about five minutes.
When healing others, the process mirrors self-healing with key differences. The healer must position themselves comfortably while respecting the receiver's body privacy. The session progresses through specific hand positions from head to feet, then continues with back positions after the receiver turns over.
Group healing multiplies Reiki's effectiveness through teamwork. Multiple practitioners can work simultaneously on one receiver, dramatically reducing session time while intensifying energy flow. These group sessions foster community through "Reiki Shares" where practitioners gather to exchange healings followed by social time.
7장
The Sacred Symbols: Keys to Deeper Healing
Reiki II introduces conscious connection with spirit guides who participate in every healing, manifesting as heightened intuition and providing key information during sessions. The symbols themselves are often recognized by students before formal introduction, as they're placed in the aura during Reiki I attunements.
The Sei-He-Ki symbol is traditionally designated for emotional healing, used specifically when someone is upset or emotionally disturbed. While defined as "God and man coming together," more inclusive language might be "Divinity and people" or "As Above, So Below." The symbol brings divine energy into human patterns and aligns the upper chakras.
Virtually all physical dis-ease has an emotional component. Whether emotional states cause dis-ease or vice versa is irrelevant-they're interconnected, and healing requires addressing both. People often suppress painful emotions, which then manifest as physical illness. The Sei-He-Ki specifically addresses emotional aspects, often the key to healing. It helps bring suppressed emotions to the surface so they can be released, frequently resulting in physical healing.
The Hon-Sha-Ze-Sho-Nen symbol, resembling a tall pyramid or human body, translates to "No past, no present, no future." While primarily known for distance healing, it's much more powerful-it accesses the Akashic Records and heals karma. Using this symbol during hands-on healing allows reprogramming of present-life traumas and release of past-life patterns.
The Dai-Ko-Myo symbol, introduced in Reiki III, comes in multiple variations, with both traditional and modern spiral forms. The modern spiral form is drawn clockwise from center outward, creating an energy vortex that condenses Ki at its core. When used in healing, it travels from the healer's Heart chakra to the receiver's Heart chakra, focusing on healing the soul or spiritual body-the blueprint from which the physical body derives.
The Raku symbol resembles a lightning bolt and is used exclusively for passing attunements, never in healing work. Most Masters know it as "banking the fire" and use it to ground the receiver of Reiki energy, but it actually does much more. It activates the Hara Line, helps students channel Reiki energy, and grounds it in the Hara center.
8장
Beyond Physical Presence: Distance Healing
Reiki II symbols enable practitioners to perform absentee healing-treating someone who isn't physically present-while simultaneously expanding the healer's psychic sensitivities and intuitive abilities. Operating predominantly on emotional and mental planes rather than purely physical ones, distance healing allows practitioners to transcend ordinary spatial limitations and connect with subtle energetic realms beyond conventional physical reality.
Distance healing operates through focused visualization achieved in a meditative state. After obtaining explicit permission from the recipient, the healer channels and directs healing light of various frequencies and colors-including astral colors that exist beyond Earth's visible spectrum. Rather than imposing predetermined colors, skilled practitioners allow the recipient's specific needs to guide the selection of healing frequencies. The Hon-Sha-Ze-Sho-Nen symbol serves as the primary bridge for transmitting Reiki energy across space and time boundaries, while Cho-Ku-Rei amplifies the energy's potency and Sei-He-Ki specifically addresses emotional and mental blockages.
While the actual transmission process may take only seconds, the effects can be profound and far-reaching. Because healing occurs first at mental-emotional levels before manifesting physically, visible results may develop gradually over time. Interestingly, recipients frequently report sensing the exact moment healing energy arrives, even when they weren't consciously aware a session was scheduled. Practitioners can choose from four established distance healing methods: conducting a complete visualization of a hands-on session with the recipient; mentally reducing the recipient's image to a size that fits between the palms; using their own knees as surrogate treatment areas (left knee representing the front of the body, right knee for the back); or directing energy through a physical proxy such as a teddy bear, photograph, or personal object belonging to the recipient.
The practical applications of Reiki II symbols extend far beyond healing sessions. The Cho-Ku-Rei symbol drawn over food can enhance its nutritional value and life force energy, while Sei-He-Ki helps clear negative energies from objects or spaces. For manifestation work, practitioners combine detailed visualization with strategically placed Cho-Ku-Rei symbols to ethically attract desired outcomes. This process typically includes the essential affirmation: "I ask for these things, or their equivalents or better, according to free will, harming none, and for the good of all." Advanced practitioners often create specialized combinations of symbols for specific purposes, such as blessing spaces, protecting travelers, or supporting important life transitions.
The distance healing aspect of Reiki II represents a significant evolution in the practitioner's ability to channel and direct healing energy, transcending conventional limitations of space and time while maintaining ethical boundaries and respect for free will. This level of practice often leads to enhanced intuitive abilities and a deeper understanding of energy work's subtle aspects.
9장
The Master Path: Teaching and Transformation
The Third Degree represents the teaching level of Reiki, where practitioners learn to pass attunements to others. The attunement process is described as a "miracle" that must be experienced to be understood. It's the defining element that separates Reiki from other healing systems, creating profound life-changing effects for recipients.
During attunements, the Master becomes a lightning rod for Ki energy, using the Hui Yin position with tongue at the roof of the palate to direct energy flow. This creates a circuit where Heavenly Ki enters through the Crown and Earthly Ki through the feet, with the closed Hui Yin forcing the intensified energy to exit through the hands, carrying the symbols into the receiver's aura.
Each person receiving a Reiki attunement experiences something unique-seeing colors, feeling sensations, connecting with past lives or spirit guides, or being filled with bliss. Some cry or giggle while others feel nothing obvious yet display physical signs of the energy activation. Most develop the characteristic "hot hands" of a Reiki healer, sometimes immediately and sometimes later when first attempting healing work.
Teaching Reiki requires patience and ethical consideration. After receiving all three Reiki degrees, students need time to integrate before teaching. Begin by mastering each level sequentially: practicing self-healing and sessions with others at Level I, then adding distance healing and symbols at Level II, followed by Ki Exercises and the Hui Yin position. Only when thoroughly comfortable with all previous practices should one begin working with the Reiki III teaching energy through attunement practice.
Every Reiki III develops their own teaching methods. Traditional Reiki is rigidly defined, avoiding psychic skills, spirit guides, past lives, or alternative symbols. Nontraditional Masters have more choices and information. What matters most is that they pass successful attunements and teach the essential elements that make Reiki effective.
10장
The Buddhist Roots of Reiki Practice
In the quest to understand Reiki's origins, a conversation with a Mahayana Buddhist nun provided breakthrough insights. She recognized the Reiki symbols from her Buddhist practice, though not the healing application. This led to research in Buddhism, where the "simple formula" from which Reiki derived was discovered.
The five Reiki symbols represent five levels of mind leading to Enlightenment, corresponding to the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, Void), five colors (yellow, white, red, black, blue), and five forms of the Stupa. Together they represent the non-duality of mind and object that achieves Nirvana. Originally used for spiritual enlightenment rather than healing, the symbols survived translation through many languages and cultures over 2500 years, adapting to each while maintaining their essence.
The Cho-Ku-Rei meditation takes practitioners into altered states, detaching them from the Earthplane by going within. In Tibetan practice, meditation involves drawing light rays into the heart until one's body becomes "pure as a crystal vessel." This process-letting go of the mundane world to experience the Void's peace and ego's emptiness-forms the beginning of all spiritual disciplines.
The Sei-He-Ki represents the alchemical transformation of emotions-the second stage on the Buddhist Path. Earth and incarnated beings are considered "impure ground," represented by yellow, while wisdom's fire purifies and transmutes this to gold-similar to Renaissance alchemy where the alchemist's consciousness transformed while attempting to transmute lead.
The Hon-Sha-Ze-Sho-Nen literally means "no past, no present, no future," representing the transcendence of all limitation through ego emptiness. When mind recognizes true reality (the Void), all delusions dissolve. This symbol enables distance healing across thousands of miles and through time itself by revealing linear time as mere delusion.
The Dai-Ko-Myo represents the Bodhisattva Path-"the one with the Mahayana heart of giving." The Bodhisattva achieves Enlightenment for others' sake, understanding that unification underlies all things. Though freed from incarnation and suffering, she refuses Nirvana's bliss while others remain in pain, choosing to reincarnate to help all beings achieve Enlightenment.
The Raku symbolizes more than grounding-it represents Enlightenment itself, the completion and achievement of lower Nirvana. It signifies the emptiness of self-existence and release from material illusion. The Raku resolves these opposites through non-duality, revealing their underlying oneness despite apparent contradictions.
11장
Healing for a Planet in Crisis
We live in a time of accelerated change and planetary pain-political instability, environmental disasters, new diseases, and violence everywhere. The old makes way for new in a difficult rebirth process where leaders and authorities prove helpless. Yet amid this chaos, positive transformation emerges: increased awareness of needed change, recognition of abuse, and people helping each other directly rather than waiting for bureaucracies.
Power shifts from external authorities to inner empowerment, especially through women's voices demanding equality, compassion and healing. The metaphysical movement offers inner growth alternatives to mainstream religions, while people increasingly reject mechanized medicine for gentler, older healing ways.
Reiki stands among these alternatives-requiring no tools beyond the healer's hands, easily taught even to children, and applicable to any disease. Coming from a culture valuing compassion and oneness, Reiki brings peaceful, noninvasive healing that cannot be misused.
This is a call to action for healers to spread Reiki widely, making it universal again as it was meant to be-to heal people, animals, and Earth herself during this critical time of planetary transformation. The more practitioners who learn and share this gift, the greater our collective capacity to address the challenges facing humanity and our planet.
What makes Reiki extraordinary is that complete beginners can become competent healers in a single afternoon-something that would take years with other healing disciplines-and their work will always be positive and never harmful. As we face unprecedented global challenges, this accessible healing system offers hope and practical tools for transformation on both personal and planetary levels.
