Proof of Reiki, Proof of Eternity

Reiki is one of the most popular energy-healing systems in the world, if not the most widely used. Founded in Japan in the early 20th century, it is simple to learn and everyone who has been attuned to it can use it. It is truly mind-boggling: you book on a Reiki course and hours later walk home with ‘healing hands’, the trademark feature of Reiki.

Reiki is easy to learn – but also easily misunderstood. Beyond the simplicity of its methods lies enormous depth. If we want to understand it properly, we need to look at it as both an alternative therapy and a spiritual path. Even if we concentrate on one, the other is always present. What makes Reiki so unique is that the two are closely interwoven: healing and personal development cannot be separated.

And indeed, this is how it all started: with the spiritual development of one person, a Japanese man called Mikao Usui, who, to his own surprise, eventually found himself with healing hands. But, rather than styling himself as a super healer, he thought: If I can do it, others should be able to as well. After all, the entire world needs healing! So he created a system that could be learned by absolutely everyone. One could say that he democratized palm healing. It isn’t exclusive to saints and shamans anymore – it’s open to you and me. (And if you are a saint, you’ll still benefit from it.)

And yet when it comes to explaining exactly what Reiki is and how it works, most people are at a loss. Practitioners normally feel a physical sensation in their hands and recipients often experience strong sensations of warmth or energy movement, but there can be a confusing variety of results.

For Dad, Reiki brought physical healing. But it didn’t stop there. His thoughts soon moved from I’ve survived! to Why have I survived? What am I supposed to learn from this? What am I supposed to change? While waiting for the car to take him home from hospital, he phoned me and said, ‘I definitely won’t carry on living as I have before. There’s so much I’ve started to understand now…’

Sometimes, though, the effects are very simple. My student Anthony, for instance, had a son with sleeping problems. For the whole nine years of his life the boy had been waking Anthony and his wife at least once every night: ‘Mum, Dad, I can’t sleep!’ After his first Reiki course, Anthony started to give him Reiki just before bedtime. He now sleeps through the night!

Indeed, Reiki is often described as a method for relaxation and stress reduction. But there is more to it than that.

Patty, a primary school teacher, was in charge of the school playground when a little girl fell and cut her chin. Taking her to the first-aid room, she decided to place her hand near her face and give her Reiki. When they met the first-aider, they were greeted with puzzlement. Why all the fuss? And indeed, the bleeding had stopped and the cut had already half healed. I just love hearing stories like this at my monthly Reiki Shares.

Unsurprisingly, Reiki is now used in many hospitals and even recommended to reduce the side-effects of cancer treatments. But there is still more.

A lady joined one of my courses after she’d had a beauty treatment. Apparently she’d looked so tired and sad that the beautician had decided creams and make-up wouldn’t be enough. As a trained Reiki practitioner, she’d asked whether she could add a few minutes of Reiki to the end of the session. Her client was gobsmacked by what followed: closing her eyes, she saw different colours, felt warm and relaxed – and found a wave of love washing over her. A few weeks later she joined the Reiki course and started to deal with a recent bereavement and decades of trauma. I’d never seen such a stark change in facial expression over the course of a single weekend before. She arrived looking as though she’d given up on life and left radiating relaxation and happiness and with an almost constant smile. A few weeks later, she mentioned that her husband simply couldn’t believe how much she’d changed.

And yet we can go still further. If you’re already used to Reiki, you may not even be surprised by the story a lady told me about her first Reiki treatment. Lying on the treatment couch, she suddenly felt the presence of her mother, who had passed away a few years before. They had a long conversation and the mother gave a detailed message for the lady’s brother: he should be careful at a place called Golden Oak. The lady duly passed this information on, but her brother, a policeman, only knew of a pub of that name, and it wasn’t one he’d go in anyway. However, a few weeks later he was called to a house in Golden Oak Avenue, where a schizophrenic man was causing trouble. As he approached the man, he remembered the warning and slowed down – at which point the man suddenly produced a knife and tried to stab him. Without the warning, he would have been severely injured at least.

For another lady, the most exciting experience after her first Reiki course was comparatively simple: an encounter with a bumblebee. Lying on its back, it appeared more dead than alive. Gently turning it over, my student placed her hand over it and gave it a few minutes of Reiki, after which it happily flew off.

Reiki works in a myriad of ways. No wonder it can be confusing! Why does one person find it helps to reconcile them with their partner and another person find it gives them the strength to divorce? Why do the results differ from person to person? Why does it work for so many different problems? And, question of questions, how does it technically work?

I’ve met quite a few people who’ve found this so challenging that they’ve actually walked away from it. And frankly, I almost did this myself. My intellect was asking, ‘How can I use something I cannot explain?’ But my heart was saying, ‘It simply feels right.’ And I couldn’t deny the physical sensation – and the results.

This is what Reiki is famous for. It’s not about theory, it’s about tangible results. It’s not about belief, it’s about proof.

And I would like to add that we can reconcile our heart and our intellect.