Reiki treatment is balancing to the individual’s system. The more balanced a system is, the less stressed it is. The less stressed the system is, the more resilient it is, and the more efficiently it self-heals. Reiki treatment encourages the receiver’s system to regain balance and thus optimizes self-healing. Reiki treatment supports and does not override the body’s natural process of self-healing.

When Reiki treatment is used as part of a comprehensive treatment plan for someone with a medical diagnosis, the Reiki treatment does not address the disease or any symptom directly. Rather, Reiki treatment encourages the person’s system toward balance so that the person is better able to address both the disease, and the side effects of medical treatment. Reiki treatment supports the person undergoing medical treatment, and does not interfere with the processes involved in the medical treatment.

Besides looking at the treatment itself, health care also looks at how a treatment is delivered, meaning how it gets to the patient. It is conceivable, for example, that there might be reasons why a treatment that might help a patient cannot be safely delivered to that patient. For example, some cancer patients who could theoretically be helped by massage might be too fragile to be able to safely receive massage, or there might be limitations as to what parts of the body could be safely massaged (perhaps hands and feet only).

Reiki treatment is most commonly delivered through light, non-invasive contact. The Reiki practitioner’s hand can also be held just above the body. In a quarantine situation, the Reiki practitioner offers treatment while wearing gloves. Since Reiki touch is non-manipulative (or non-contact), it carries no contraindications.

Reiki treatment involves no substances. The receiver is not asked to swallow anything, nor is any substance applied to the skin. There is nothing material involved in Reiki treatment that could interfere with medical care or impact the receiver’s health.

Therefore, from a health care perspective, there are no known medical contraindications, no time when Reiki treatment is unsafe.

It is always safe to offer Reiki treatment, as long as you are also taking care of whatever else is needed. For example, in an emergency, you can place a Reiki hand on the victim while calling 911. Reiki is not a replacement for needed conventional medical care, but used sensibly, Reiki can be a valuable resource that can help improve health care outcomes.

If you have a specific question or comment, please post it below.

It’s either modern (a practice started by Mikao Usui in the 1920s in Japan), or it’s timeless (if by Reiki, you mean the unified field, source, primordial consciousness, pure awareness, great mystery, whatever you call that all-pervasive, unending reality to which we connect when we practice Reiki).

Using the term Reiki without specifying what comes after it (Reiki treatment, Reiki practice,  Reiki sensations, Reiki state, etc.) leads to confusion, especially when we’re addressing people who are new to the practice.

But no matter how you look at it, Reiki is not ancient.

It’s right here,
right now,
as you place your Reiki hand.

That’s not to say there isn’t a talented scientist or two engaged in cutting edge investigation of these mysterious realities. The scientific community has fringe elements like any other community. But fringe scientists doing frontier science don’t get a lot of respect until their data–and cause–are taken up by the mainstream.

Science is a group conversation, and in any group, what matters is what most people are saying. That’s called consensus, and that’s what carries weight. Consensus can be wrong, but it’s foolish to buck it, especially when trying to establish credibility.

Unless done skillfully, reaching for science to bolster your presentation of Reiki will likely backfire. Only people who don’t need “proof” will be impressed; scientists are skeptical by nature and training, and readily find the holes in an argument. So until such time as doctors are ordering kirilian photographs instead of CT scans and MRIs, don’t risk running your argument aground by confusing frontier science and conventional science.

If you want to lean on science, be humble. Deflect attention away from biofields, and focus instead on the research into how Reiki treatment can benefit people. Acknowledge first that this investigation is just beginning, then state that preliminary data suggest Reiki can help improve heart rate, blood pressure, and immunity, and reduce pain, anxiety, and depression. We do not yet have enough research evidence to say more than that, and if you try to, you run the risk of discrediting yourself, and Reiki.

If you are communicating with physicians or other health care professionals who want more information, you needn’t do the heavy lifting yourself; just hand them the top three articles in the medical papers section.

*NOTE:
The section of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that studies the safety and efficacy of complementary therapies such as Reiki is the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM).

Here is what NCCAM says about biofields in the section on energy medicine: “Biofield therapies are intended to affect energy fields that purportedly surround and penetrate the human body. The existence of such fields has not yet been scientifically proven.”

I was the principal reviewer for the Reiki Backgrounder posted on the NCCAM website. This document has no copyright and you are encouraged to use it freely.

What is wrong with that sentence?

First of all, there are no Japanese words. The Japanese language is written in pictograms, not words.

I hear someone saying, “Picky, picky, picky.” And I completely own it. I am picky, picky, picky. But that doesn’t make a pictogram a word, or even a reasonable equivalent. A pictogram is a stylized picture. Even the most florid word is linear compared to a picture. Words define; pictograms suggest. And they can only be understood in context.

The definition above traces back to Hawayo Takata, the Reiki master who, with her Reiki master Chujiro Hayashi, brought Reiki from Japan to Hawaii in the late 1930s.

I want to go on record as having only the most profound admiration and gratitude for Mrs. Takata. But that doesn’t mean we freeze dry everything she said and use it without reflection.

Anyone who heard Mrs. Takata say those words also heard her say more, and likely felt her hands as well. Taking a line from a live event and turning it into the lead of an article doesn’t work. When writing, we have only our words with which to interest people. Make them count.

Use your words to tell people what they want to know about Reiki–how it can help them. If you lead with a definition that tells them nothing, you may not get a chance to elaborate.