Reiki
Reiki is an ancient Japanese/Tibetan technique which
stresses psychic healing through the manipulation of alleged universal life energies. The
term originates from the Japanese words rei for universal and ki for vital force or life
energy. Reiki was "rediscovered" in Japan by Dr. Mikao Usui in the
mid-1800’s. Allegedly, after many years of studying ancient Indian sutras, he
discovered a formula for activating and directing mystical energies. According to an
article in the Yoga Journal, "Reiki can be defined as the art of activating, applying
and balancing the universal life force energy that dwells within every living being,
animal, and/or plant."1 Although not as popular as a related practice,
Therapeutic Touch, it like the latter, is now practiced in many hospitals.
AIRA has over 10,000 members worldwide and continues
to experience steady growth. Among famous individuals who have taken Reiki include actors
Ben Vereen and Eddie Albert, New Age musician Steven Halpern and opera singer Francesca
Howe:3
Reiki treatments consist of a series of three or four
sessions lasting about an hour each. The practitioner’s hands are held at twelve
basic positions, for five minutes each. Although there are many possible hand positions, a
practitioner allows his or her own intuition to guide the placing. Over problem areas, the
holding time is doubled. During a Reiki session, the practitioner supposedly draws energy
and focuses it through his hands, thus providing a link between himself and the patient.
Some Reiki teachers have described this connection as "lighting up."
The technique, proponents say, can be applied to the
practitioner himself, to other people, to plants, or to animals. Reiki practitioners say
they can even heal long distance! They do not claim to diagnose or to possess medical
skills. But with practice, they say they can detect energy responses from the body that
often give clues to the site of an organic problem and its seriousness.4
However, Reiki is a process designed not only for psychic
healing, but for personal spiritual transformation as well. According to Canadian Reiki
Master Rick Bockner, Reiki is more than just healing therapy; it is actually a way of
life: "Reiki in its fullest sense is not a healing therapy as much as a life path
using treatment and attunements as a focus for a whole experience of universal life
energy."5
In order to become a Reiki instructor, one must be
initiated by one of the Reiki "Masters." During the process of learning the
technique, the "master" injects psychic energy into the student, allegedly
opening his psychic centers (chakras) and activating his "life force." The
process is reminiscent of Eastern gurus transmission of occult power from guru to disciple
(shaktipat diksha). Consider the following description in The Reader’s Digest Family
Guide to Natural Medicine:
When a Reiki healer is trained, he or she is initiated with
a series of attunements. This process consists of the instructor, or Reiki master, tracing
ancient energizing symbols on the person’s head, and then on 12 other places along
the body, known in Ayurvedic medicine as chakras.
The therapeutic effect of Reiki is not dependent on how the
hands are held or on the skills of the Reiki practitioner; what is important is the
transfer of energy from one being to another. But there is general agreement that one
must learn this healing art through a Reiki master. In seminars taught by Reiki Masters,
students practice on one another and also learn to project life energy.6
For example, initiation for the First Degree Reiki includes
four specific "attunements." "The attunements are rather secretive, solemn,
short ceremonies during which the ‘master’ reportedly ‘activates’ the
universal life force by repeating a series of careful, deliberate, somewhat mysterious
movements."7 Thus, the purpose of the attunements is to "facilitate the process
of opening you up to receiving and then channeling the Reiki energy."8
In the Second Degree, one progresses into absent healing:
"They learn how to do ‘absentee healings’ and how to work with deeply
rooted emotional and mental disorders."9
In "Reiki: The Radiance Technique,The Official Reiki
Program" a brochure describing the Reiki technique, it is evident that Reiki
instructors function in a manner indistinguishable from psychic healers who utilize spirit
guides. Reiki is again, described as "the art and science of taping, activating and
directing natural universal energy" and "with this technique, a higher frequency
of natural energy passes from the hands of the therapist to those whom he touches. . .
.Further, once activated, it will always work when used as instructed and you will have it
for life."10
According to Olsen [in the Encyclopedia of Alternative
Health Care], these Reiki masters themselves don’t understand how it works. They can
only describe it as a linking with the cosmic radiant energy, an opening of
chakras, or an
attunement with universal life energy.11
But such terms and the practice itself are only reminiscent
of long standing occult and spiritistic traditions. Practitioners are told to release
themselves "to the spiritual influences of the Reiki energy."12 Reiki
energy may also be used "as a key to help people reach higher consciousness."13
This science of energy, based on the language of symbols,
comes to us from ancient Tibet, having been rediscovered in the India sutras in the
mid-1900 century by Dr. Mikao Usui the technique is not Japanese, but is related to a
number of similar kinds of universal energy sciences from India/Tibet such as the science
of Mandala, of yantras and any science based on mantras.
The complete REIKI system consists of a series of component
parts made of universal symbols and a series of seven degrees or what can be termed
"attunement processes." We experience direct contact with universal energy and
its radiant power. A person using the REIKI system is participating in a
"transcendental bridge of universal energy" which interconnects the user with
the cosmic universal matrix directly and conscious. This allows us to heal, to suture
our dense energies and to align with and expand the universal light energy within each of
us. . . .[Reiki can be] used consciously in our daily lives to promote healing, wholeness,
energy balancing, and a state of positive aliveness in our own personal journey of
transforming and awakening.14
In essence, Reiki is an occult technique designed to
influence and/or manipulate patients through the use of unadvertised or undiscerned
spiritistic energy. Our chapters on channeling, New Age medicine and intuition in our
Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs provide background material in documentation.
In Reiki we discover the same problem illustrated in
Therapeutic Touch and related forms of spiritistic/psychic healing. The practice appears
innocent and many people assume it "can’t hurt." Further, "Since Reiki
doesn’t interfere with conventional medical treatment in any way, nurses can use it
in the hospital to comfort the sick and control pain."15
But as we have demonstrated in The Coming Darkness (Harvest
House, 1993) and elsewhere, the manipulation of occult energies is anything but harmless.
It may easily produce serious emotional and spiritual problems. For this reason alone
Reiki should be avoided.
FOOTNOTES
1. Susan
Jacobs, "Reiki: Hands On Healing", Yoga Journal, May/June, 1984, pp. 40-41.
3. I bid., p. 42.
4. Daisaku Ikeda, Heritage of the Ultimate Law
of Life, Part II, (Santa Monica, CA: World Tribune Press, 1977), p. 169.
5. Jacobs, "Reiki: Hands On Healing",
p. 42.
6. Alma Guinness (ed.), Readers Digest
Association, Family Guide to Natural Medicine: How to Stay Healthy the Natural Way
(Pleasantville, NY: Readers Digest, 1993), p. 99.
7. Jacobs, "Reiki: Hands On Healing",
p. 41.
8. Ibid., p. 42.
9. Ibid., p. 41.
10. Barbara Ray, "Reiki Energy," New
Frontiers, March 1985; one page rpt. by the Reiki organization.
11. David and Sharon Sneed, The Hidden Agenda: A
Critical View of Alternative Medical Therapies (Nashville, TN: Nelson, 1991), p. 169.
12. Jacobs, "Reiki: Hands On Healing", p.
42.
13. Ibid., p. 42.
14. Ray, "Reiki Energy," second emphasis
added.
15. Jacobs, "Reiki: Hands On Healing", p.
43.
For further information on "Reiki," please see our
resource catalog for The Facts on Holistic Health.
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