Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that adherents believe also promotes healing. Reiki (rhymes with nakey) was developed in 1922 by Japanese Buddhist Mikao Usui. It uses a technique often called “palm healing” or “hands-on-healing”. Practitioners believe that they are transferring “universal energy” through their palms into the patient’s body, which they believe can benefit the healing of all ailments: physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual.
Clinical research has not shown Reiki to be effective as a treatment for any medical condition. The American Cancer Society, Cancer Research UK, and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health state that Reiki should not be a replacement for conventional treatment of diseases such as cancer, though some physicians believe it could be beneficial to a person’s sense of general well-being.
To do Reiki, you need to get Reiki from someone. It has supposedly been passed down to every practitioner from Mikao Usui himself. I was worried the Reiki wouldn’t work for me, but according to ICRT, “Reiki is not dependent on belief at all and will work whether you believe in it or not.”
Another thing I couldn’t believe is how profitable Reiki can be. The average price for a one-hour Reiki session in New Zealand is $60. You only need to do a five to seven day course to get the qualification you need to charge this much money. The course will set you back $1500-$2000. That may seem heinously expensive, but once you’ve done it, you are not only able to set up as a Reiki practitioner, you are qualified to teach Reiki to other people. For money. After five days of training.
I wanted to become a Reiki healer but I didn’t want to pay anything. Most people said you can only get your Reiki from another person, but some people claim that can be from a distance, or online. I went online and found a YouTube video called “Learn Reiki in Ten Minutes,” posted by Dr Randalph Shipon. I watched his video, summoned the Reiki into my upturned palms, and voila! I had the Reiki!
Having become a Reiki practitioner I set out to start healing people.
Session 1: Tahu
My first patient was my good friend Tahu. I went to her house and we set up in her triangular “White temple room” with Bjork’s “Vespertine” on the stereo. Tahu had had Reiki in the past from a couple of different people. She said she didn’t know if she believed in it or not.
Before I began the session I asked Tahu how she was feeling and what we should work on. She said she was feeling “really good,” but she had ongoing issues with a kidney infection she had had for some time, as well as a urinary tract infection. She had pain in her back, around her sacral chakra and solar plexus. She had also had some emotional dramas and felt like her “heart chakra had been through the wars.” We said we would focus on the heart and the root chakra, or, as Tahu put it, “the Root! The ROOOOOOT CHAKRAAAA! The rooty tooty fruity tooty chakra.”
The basic session of beginner Reiki I had worked out was to get my patient relaxed and comfortable lying on their back, then to do The Power Symbol in the air with my hand. It looks like this:
It is the first symbol you learn when you practice Reiki. Reiki Energy will flow without it, but when you use it, it is believed that the energy increases significantly.
Next I stood away from the bed facing my patient. With palms up I visualised energy (I thought of it as blue for some reason) rushing into the palms of my hands. I calmed my mind and began the session.
All you do is stand with your hands over different “chakras” on the body, working from the head downwards. If you feel prickling, stiffness, or pain in your hands, you stop and either shake or dust off the “bad energy.”
After the session, Tahu said she felt very relaxed, and “definitely energized by the sweeping and the consolidating.” She felt her kidneys “responding” to the treatment, but her heart not so much. The strongest response was in the throat chakra, where Tahu said she “saw a blue light and a green light as well, which was from the heart chakra, potentially.” She felt her heart “starting to tingle” and a forward, circular movement in her throat. Her favourite part was the sweeping away of energy at the end, which she said was “energizing.” Tahu said it was the best Reiki she had ever had.
I had fun spending an hour with my friend doing something novel. We were drinking wine, which you are not supposed to do, but it didn’t seem to matter. One instructor said that wearing nail polish would poison your fingertips and can stop the flow of energy, but another one had long nails painted soft pink. I had nail polish on (blue) but it was adequately chipped so I thought the Reiki could flow around it if it needed to. Maybe the blue light Tahu saw was because of the blue paint on my fingers? Who knows?
Success rating: 4/5.
The “sweeping” Tahu had liked was the final stage of my healing session. Having treated the chakras on both sides, I “consolidated” the energy by standing back to beam Reiki at full intensity at the patient. This is meant to push good energy into the body and force the bad energy upwards. You can then go to the person and sweep the air above them from head to toe using your hands. You can claw it off if it’s particularly strong. Then I opened the door and shooed the bad energy outside. It’s terribly fun.
One thing is for sure – if I had charged $60 for the Reiki session, it would have been the easiest $60 I had ever made.
Session #2: Miriam
My next patient was Miriam, an old friend. Miriam had pain in the right-hand side of her neck and shoulder to the point where she was having trouble turning her head, as well as a sore pelvis. She had had Reiki in the past for “psychological things.” Miriam said she couldn’t tell if it was helpful or not, but she liked having someone paying attention to her for an hour. She said she was a “little bit sceptical” but was happy to drop all doubt while I treated her.
After the treatment Miriam told me she had an “improved range of motion” in her neck. She said her neck had been quite painful after her physio session, but now she felt slightly less restricted. Her pelvis and spine were still “really sore.” She said she felt “some strange stuff” round her chest. At one point she felt a weight on her chest then realised I was standing across the room, doing something with my hands. She liked the sweeping at the end, saying it was “good fun” and “felt very effective.” She said it felt like I knew what I was doing and she would recommend me to other clients. Miriam was hoping the Reiki would affect her “on a much more deep and spiritual level” than just her physical body.
The next morning Miriam wasn’t feeling better. She was in too much pain for me to visit but said she didn’t blame the Reiki. She must have slept badly.
I was delighted by how much better I could make my friend feel, even for a little while. It was disheartening that she felt so bad the next day.
Success rating: 3/5.
I was feeling a bit like I was making it up as I was going along, but, according to Reiki practitioners, Reiki is so powerful you literally can’t do anything wrong when you are treating someone. The Reiki knows what to do. The man on the course I took insisted that he has seen five-year-old children who are wonderful Reiki practitioners. Nothing against children, but if a toddler can do this thing, why do you need to pay $2000 to learn to do it?
Session 3: Isaac
My flatmate Isaac agreed to be my next patient. He said he would like Reiki because he was feeling tired a lot, had itchy eyes, and “sort of bad skin – dermatitis and shit.”
One lady I watch online feels so much energy when she does Reiki she has to huff it out in a kind of high-pitched cough. I tried this on Isaac and it made us laugh.
After I had finished Isaac joked: “all the bad energy is gone, replaced with good energy!” I asked if he really meant that and he said: “I don’t know. I guess I do feel more positive energy. Cos I found the whole experience kind of funny, and I laughed a bunch which is always good for giving good energy.” He said he liked it better when I did the front half of his body and see where my hands were, so he could “kind of imagine the energy being sucked out.” On the back half of his body he couldn’t see what was happening, so couldn’t make the same kind of psychological connection.
A couple of days later I asked Isaac if he was feeling any long-term effects from the Reiki, and he said he didn’t know. He said his skin had gotten worse and then a bit better.
Success rating: 2/5.
One YouTuber claimed that Reiki could keep you alive and healthy for 120 years. Only one verified person has lived to be over 120, and she didn’t do Reiki. She was French, a smoker, ate a kilogram of chocolate a week, and attributed her longevity to eating masses of olive oil. She did, however, say that her mental calmness helped her live a long life. Perhaps there could be something in Reiki’s calming effect. Mikao Usui died on 9 March 1926 of a stroke, aged 60 and just four years after discovering the supposed healing life force. In that time he is said to have taught his technique to around 2000 people.
Session #4: Tess
When I had finished Isaac’s session, his friend Tess turned up at our house. She also agreed to get some Reiki. She said she was feeling tense because she “left home in a bit of a huff.” Tess is a caregiver, so always has aches in her back from lifting and moving people. She also loves to walk, so had quite tense legs.
I re-powered my palms and got to work.
Tess was the first person I did Reiki on who wasn’t a close friend, and I was aware how strange it was to be getting close to someone I didn’t know well. She enjoyed it and said it “definitely worked.” She felt more relaxed. “It could have been maybe your presence and knowing that you were trying to make me feel relaxed, or maybe there was some magic in there and it did work.” Tess said even when she wasn’t looking she could sense my hands over her body. She felt some “weird vibrations” round her head, like “magic powers,” and could sense my presence with a kind of “sixth sense.” She said: “Before I was feeling a lot more tense and a little bit anxious cos I just sort of popped into the room, but after lying down and relaxing, it seemed to help.”
Since Tess was a near stranger I was pretty chuffed at how well the session had gone. She seemed noticeably happier after the Reiki and genuinely grateful for it.
Success rating: 4/5.
Session #5: Tom
My last patient was my boyfriend Tom. Of all the people I had tried my new skill on, Tom was the only one who was an outright non-believer and not that keen for me to Reiki him. He was recovering from a cold and said he was feeling “5/10,” quite congested and low on energy. He also had a broken tooth, back pain, and knee trouble. I asked if he thought any of them could be fixed with Reiki, and he said “No.”
Despite his scepticism, Tom said he did feel something when my hands were over his eyes. He found the sensation of having someone nearly touching his face strange and relaxing. When I shifted to his neck he said: “Now I’ve got the anticipation of being strangled.” He said if a stranger were doing that to him he would feel “quite terrified.”
Further into the treatment Tom said: “I have to admit that there’s a change. It forces you to relax. You have to lie really still, so that makes you feel different. The feeling when someone’s almost touching you – it unsettles you a little bit. Things like your breathing and stuff, you start to notice. Weird things like that. The whole experience – it does make you feel in a slightly different headspace or something. But, you know. You still have exactly the same fucking problems. I’m still full of snot.”
I made Tom turn onto his front so I could Reiki his back. He commented on the feeling of mucus draining differently. When I was done he needed to blow his nose before I did the consolidation. He said, “I couldn’t blow out all that snot before!” Maybe it was because he turned over, but why did he turn over? Because of the Reiki!
I asked Tom later if he was feeling any long-term effects of the Reiki session. He said “No.” But I was surprised at how effective it seemed to be at the time, despite Tom not believing in it even a bit.
Success rating: 4/5.
In 2011 a controlled study of Reiki’s effectiveness was carried out at Sonoma State University. 189 patients receiving chemotherapy were randomly selected to receive actual Reiki, a sham Reiki placebo (where the “practitioner” had no training), or standard care. The result of the study was that the Reiki really was effective at making patients feel better compared to the control group, but so was the fakey-Reiki. The placebo was as effective as the real thing.
My experience as a Reiki healer made me believe that there actually is something beneficial going on. As long as it isn’t used to exploit people out of their money or give people false hope in recovering from serious illness, I think Reiki is a good thing. As Tom said, “People don’t take time to lie down and do nothing. You’re always doing something. Just to stop what you’re doing in life and lie there. Chill the fuck out.” It is nice to have someone giving you their attention for an hour, and taking the time to relax. But then, you could do all that and get a massage too. Reiki is fun, but it’s not worth $60 an hour.