Reiki is a form of psychic healing that was developed in Japan. The word Reiki is a Japanese word meaning "universal life-force energy". It is a system of channelling that energy to someone for the purpose of healing. According to most records it was discovered by Dr Mikao Usui in the late nineteenth century. Usui was a Christian Minister in Japan, and made it his mission in life to discover the way in which Jesus had healed the sick. He studied theology in America and read Buddhist teachings but all to no avail. After years of study he had come to a basic understanding of the principles of healing and decided to go further he would require an in depth meditation. He informed his brother monks in the monastery that he was going to the top of the mountain to meditate for twentyone days, and that if he did not return after that time, they were to come and recover his body.
He went to the mountain and collected twentyone stones with which he could count the days. As each day passed he would throw away one of the stones. On the night of the twentieth day he threw away the last stone having discovered absolutely nothing. During that night, he saw a ball of light on the horizon. This light was slowly approaching him, and as it got closer, his instinct was to run away, but he realised that this might be just what he was waiting for. Eventually the light hit him square on the forehead. As the light struck him he was taken on a mystical journey, and shown bubbles of all the colours of the rainbow enclosing the symbols of Reiki. When Usui returned from the mountain, he found that he had an incredible power to heal. On his first day back at the monastery he healed the broken toenail of a monk, an ailing tooth, his own starvation, and the abbot's sickness which had kept him bed ridden for months. These have become known as the first four miracles of Reiki.
Usui wanted to use his new-found abilities to help others, and spent the next seven years in the poorest parts of Tokyo, healing the sick and helping the poor to improve their lives. After the seven years and realising that he had not taught gratitude along with the healing, and only focused on the physical illness without dealing with the spiritual, he returned to his monastery. After some time meditating in the monastery he decided to travel around the countryside, teaching both physical and spiritual healing.
It was during this time that he met Dr Chujiro Hayashi, a navel commander. Hayashi was very impressed with the conviction and sincerity of Usui, and asked if he could accompany him on his travels. After Usui passed to spirit, Hayashi took over his work, opening a clinic in Tokyo near to the imperial palace. The clinic consisted of eight beds in a large room, with two Reiki practitioners per patient. One would treat the head, the other would treat the stomach area, then both would treat the patient's back. Dr Hayashi developed what is now the most common form of Reiki, a type of treatment using specific hand placements over the body.
Hayashi committed suicide in 1940, shortly before Japan attacked Peal Harbor. As a reserve officer, Dr Hayashi knew that he would be called to duty and would then be responsible for killing many people. He could not live with this thought and so ended his life. Before he did so, he passed on the Reiki teachings to Mrs Hawayo Takata a Hawain of Japanese decent. Mrs Takata has widely promoted Reiki throughout the world, and is now one of the most widely known forms of healing through direct application of Chi, the underlying force that the Chinese believe makes up the universe.
How it Works:
Reiki applies an energy quality commonly known as "vibration", and is very simply performed. A practitioner simply places his hands upon the person to be healed with the intent for the healing to occur, and then the energy begins to flow. Practitioners believe that this energy form has its own intelligence and knows where it should go within the body in order for the healing to take place. Nonetheless, there is a prescribed set of hand positions traditionally taught which give good coverage over the recpient's entire body.
The latest development in Reiki techniques is the most psychic of them all. The laying on of hands is one thing, but practitioners are now able to perform "remote healing". To the world of the spirit there is no such thing as time or space. The world that we see around us is only a small fragment of that which exists and since time and space do not exist there is no limit to what reiki practioners can achieve, and they can bring healing to any patient regadless of time or distance any where in the world.