Many of us have never heard of Reiki. Or what we have heard has left us uncertain about what it actually is. So let’s start simply.
Reiki is a Japanese mind–body practice with roots stretching back more than a century. It is gentle, non-invasive, and today it is integrated into hospital settings worldwide – offered by some of the world’s leading medical institutions, including the Cleveland Clinic.
Where it comes from
Reiki was developed by Mikao Usui in Japan in the early 1920s. Hawayo Takata, one of Usui’s students’ students, brought Reiki to Hawaii in the 1930s and later taught it across the United States, Canada, and beyond – ensuring the practice spread throughout the Western world. Today it is practised in over 100 countries, including in hospital settings across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
How leading institutions describe it
The Cleveland Clinic, a non-profit academic medical centre and global leader in research, education and health, describes Reiki as “a safe, gentle, non-invasive form of natural hands-on, energy-based healing.”
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of the world’s foremost medical research centres, classifies Reiki as “a complementary approach to health.”
C. Norman Shealy, MD, PhD, founding president of the American Holistic Medical Association, referred to Reiki as “one of the leading safe energy medicine approaches.”
Sheldon Marc Feldman, MD, Chief of Breast Surgery & Breast Surgical Oncology at Montefiore Medical Center and past President of the American Society of Breast Surgeons, describes Reiki as “compassionate mind–body energy medicine” — and is currently leading clinical research into the use of Reiki alongside breast cancer surgery.
What Reiki is, and what it isn’t
You may have seen Reiki online surrounded by crystals, oils, or other rituals, and felt understandably unsure about what it actually is. Here is the simplest way to hold it: traditional Japanese Reiki, as Mikao Usui taught it, is a standalone practice. It asks for nothing to be added -no crystals, no oils, no special objects, chanelling or psychic readings.
As Reiki travelled the world, particularly through the West, some practitioners began weaving it together with other practices, such as crystals or aromatherapy. Those practices carry their own histories and their own value, and many people find them deeply meaningful. They are simply additions to Reiki, rather than part of the original Japanese system. Neither approach is wrong – they are just different. And knowing the difference can make what you find online a little clearer.
A quiet practice
For all the questions it raises, Reiki is quiet at its heart. It is a complementary practice – one that sits alongside medical care, never in place of it. What remains, when nothing is added, is something simple: a practice of presence, with more than a hundred years of Japanese tradition behind it, now finding its place in modern care.
To find out more about Reiki practice in Cleveland Clinic, click the link below:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/departments/cancer/patient-education/reiki
Larisa Sipek