What Is Reiki? John Ankerberg

Reiki

http://www.ankerberg.com/ankerberg-articles/reiki.html

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.