Home
Reiki Digest
Log in
Reiki: pure and simple? 
Once upon a time in Japan, at the beginning of the 20th century, a man called Mikao Usui had an interesting experience whilst fasting on a mountain called Kurama. Following this experience, he developed a spiritual healing practice that has become known as Usui Reiki Ryoho.
Usui realised, because of all the changes in the world and the fact that many people were “out of their minds worrying about illness and accident”, that everyone could benefit from Usui Reiki Ryoho. So he wanted it to be freely available to anyone who was willing to learn.
His system was very easy to learn and once the basics had been learned, the practitioner just had to practice regularly (reciting the Reiki Precepts and hands on healing of self and others). Usui Reiki Ryoho became so popular that it spread rapidly throughout many parts of Japan. Usui travelled all over Japan and so did several of his teaching students, such as Chujiro Hayashi.
Students could learn everything they needed to know to begin practicing Reiki in just a few hours and had monthly meet-ups or Reiju-kai where they could practice their techniques discuss any issues, rather like Reiki Shares today. Even when Reiki was first brought to the West, by Hawayo Takata, Reiki was taught in just a few hours, often divided over three evenings.
Since the mid-1970s, after Hawayo Takata initiated her 22 Master students, Usui Shiki Ryoho (as Takata usually called it) became even more popular and spread worldwide in a matter of a few years. Now there are millions of Reiki practitioners happily practicing this wonderful system and even more happy recipients who have benefitted from receiving Reiki sessions!
Unfortunately, it would appear that Usui Reiki Ryoho is becoming a victim of its own success. Three things in particular have arisen that in effect aim to restrict the practice of this simple yet so beneficial system:
1) Science, in the form of “old school” research scientists and pharmacologists (working for drug companies).
Apart from a few “cutting edge” pioneers, most scientists do not appear to want to research something that hasn’t already been proven (but can’t be proven because there is no scientific evidence!).
Drug companies make incredible amounts of profit from the fact that people get ill and expect a pill to make them better. So they would not like a drugless healing system like Usui Reiki Ryoho to decrease their profit. There is not as much money to be made from such a system, so they do not put any resources into researching it and may even try to actively discredit it.
It has recently come to my attention that a group of scientists, possibly under the auspices of a group called ‘Sense about Science’, have been trawling literature and websites of complementary therapists with the aim of reporting any items which they feel do not meet the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) Code. This has resulted in several sites and leaflets having to be re-written to exclude certain “banned” words, and claims that treatments can (or even may) improve a specific medical condition, unless it is backed up by supporting evidence, such as a human trial based on recognised procedures and reported in a ‘reputable peer reviewed journal’.
Although this is likely to be an inconvenience to some complementary therapy practitioners (and the CAP, since it is only able to take action when someone submits a claimed breach) it may actually do complementary therapists a favour, by removing some of the more “woo-woo” elements that are quite evident in some areas and do not help the acceptance of our practices.
2) Religion.
Religions have always been wary of things like science, and even other religions, which may lure followers away from them, resulting in less income and less power over people. People who dare to think for themselves are seen as outcasts or even dangerous. For centuries, the favourite ally of the Christian Church has been the Devil, who is always brought in as the excuse for people not behaving or thinking in the official way prescribed by the Church. This fear-based tactic is still seen today. For example, we recently had a group of American Catholic Bishops very publicly warning fellow Catholics against practicing Reiki because it was not from God and was not “scientific” (which is rather ironic from a faith based organisation!). There are also fundamentalists from other denominations who vehemently denounce the practice of Reiki as akin to Satanism or some insidious cult that lures in unsuspecting members of their flock to turn them away from their religion.
3) Politics.
Politics affects the practice of Reiki in even more ways than the other two factors – there are even politics between Reiki practitioners but I will leave them out of this discussion for now!
Since Reiki has become extremely popular and millions of people are choosing to experience Reiki as a complement (or sometimes even an alternative) to allopathic medicine, it has drawn attention to itself in the form of one of the many complementary therapies available to the general public. Some complementary and alternative therapies have been proven to be unsafe and dangerous in unskilled hands, so it is right that such therapies should be investigated and regulated. However, these therapies usually involve physical manipulation, the use of potentially dangerous equipment and chemicals or the prescribing of various substances. Therapies such as Reiki, which do not involve any of these things, should therefore be logically considered safe. However, in today’s “where there’s blame there’s a claim” culture, it is wise for Reiki practitioners to have adequate insurance – to protect themselves from their clients, rather than vice versa!
Another effect of Reiki’s popularity is that groups of people seek to control its practice under the guise of making it safe for the general public. Yes, there are some people who claim to practice Reiki who may not have the best interests of their clients in mind but this is true in most walks of life and those people usually end up being brought to justice under existing laws of the land. I am not saying here that the practice of Reiki should not be regulated in any way but, if we take a look at what is happening in a little more detail, I think you would agree that things are getting a little bit out of hand.
The Increasing Complexity of Reiki Practice
In the early days of Reiki, in Japan, in 1927, the year after Mikao Usui died, some of his students set up the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai – an organisation that was dedicated to preserving the practice of Usui Reiki Ryoho. However, because this organisation was initially run by naval officers, it became quite nationalistic and also charged large fees, which restricted its membership. Several of Usui’s original students, including Chujiro Hayashi, left to pursue their practice of Reiki independently of these restrictions.
In 1982, two years after Hawayo Takata died, some of her students (including Phyllis Furumoto and Paul Mitchell) set up the Reiki Alliance, Barbara Ray set up The American International Reiki Association and some remained independent Reiki teachers.
When Reiki first started to spread here in the UK, in the early 1980s, there were really just two alternatives for Reiki practitioners. They could join the Reiki Alliance UK (if they were taught by an Alliance trained Reiki Master) or they could be independent. Around 1990 there were discussions about proposed restrictions on complementary therapies that had been mooted by the European Community. This eventually gave rise, in 1991, to the formation of the Association of European Reiki Practitioners (AERP), which later became the Reiki Association, an organisation that any Reiki practitioner could join, and which provided a Code of Practice and a practitioner referral scheme. The Reiki Association retained close ties with the Reiki Alliance, recognising Phyllis Furumoto as Lineage Bearer and Paul Mitchell as Head of the Discipline.
In 1999, partly as a reaction to the seemingly restrictive practices of the Reiki Alliance and Reiki Association and partly because of a perceived need to get Reiki recognised and used within the NHS, the UK Reiki Federation was founded.
So now, Reiki practitioners had several choices of professional organisation, with Codes of Practice and Disciplinary/Complaints Procedures, or they could remain independent.
However, as early as 2005, the Reiki Regulatory Working Group (RRWG) began working on setting up a Regulatory Body for Reiki as part of a Voluntary Self-Regulation (VSR) which would be in place in case government or European restrictions on Reiki practice actually materialised. In October 2007, the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health (PFIH) proposed a regulatory structure for complementary therapies but by the end of that year the RRWG had pulled out of the regulatory process being discussed by this Federal Working Group, which included the formation of the Natural Healthcare Council (NHC) as a Federal Regulatory body for complementary therapies.
By July 2008, the RRWG announced that it had finished its work towards regulation and would become the Lead Body (LB) for Reiki, renaming itself the Reiki Council. The Reiki Council is made up of members, from various Reiki Professional Associations, and has developed a Core Curriculum that describes the minimum standards of Reiki training expected for Professional Reiki Practitioners. It has also developed National Occupational Standards (NOS) for Reiki under the guidance of Skills for Health, which describes the necessary competencies the Reiki practitioner has to achieve in practice. The main competences are:
CHN1 Explore and establish the client's needs for complementary and natural healthcare
CHN2 Develop and agree plans for complementary and natural healthcare with clients
CHN12 Provide Reiki to clients
Interestingly, the Core Curriculum for Reiki is only available for purchase from the Reiki Council (and some professional associations) as part of the Reiki Council Resource Handbook (£12.95 as a hardcopy or £7.99 as an e-book).
The main requirements of the Reiki Core Curriculum are:
• 140 hours of training (45 hours in-person teaching and 95 hours home study
• 75 recorded treatments (5 to be supervised)
• in-person attunements
• a minimum training period of 9 months from start to finish.
The above curriculum apparently covers both Reiki level 1 and 2 and is meant to be for “professional” Reiki practitioners, i.e. those who will work in the Public Sector (both paid and as volunteers). Reiki level 3 is dealt with separately.
In spite of most Professional Associations holding registers of Reiki Practitioners, the Reiki Council felt that Reiki Practitioners, and the public, would be best served by giving the option to register with a national Complementary Therapy Regulatory Body, which would hold a single register for practitioners of many complementary therapies. Currently the only nationally recognised regulatory body that will register Reiki practitioners is the General Regulatory Council for Complementary Therapy (GRCCT) but the government-funded Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (NCHC) is in the process of agreeing requirements for the registration of Reiki practitioners.
The registrants for the GRCCT are required to:
• agree to abide by a Code of Professional Conduct & Ethics
• be answerable to the GRCCT Complaints and Disciplinary procedures
• maintain their training and knowledge with continuing professional development (CPD)
• have in force professional indemnity and public liability insurance.
In order to maintain registration on the GRCCT National Register the practitioner will undertake a minimum of 12 hours of continuing professional development per year. A minimum of 2 hours must be therapy specific to each therapy group in which the practitioner is listed on the National Register. A maximum of 50% can be generic including reflection or research.
You will note that the Professional Associations already maintain a register of practitioners, have a Code of Practice and Ethics, Complaints and Disciplinary Procedure and usually require practitioner members to have professional indemnity and public liability insurance (and often provide access to such insurance). So there is some duplication here. The UK Reiki Federation has also made 12 hours of CPD a compulsory requirement of membership.
It should also be noted that there is currently no legal requirement for Reiki practitioners to register with any regulatory or professional body.
In summary:
We still have many Reiki practitioners and teachers, who may or may not belong to a professional association or regulatory body, who will generally be those people who have no wish to work in the public sector and are considered as practicing Reiki as a “folk art”, according to an RRWG roadshow I attended. These people are still likely to be competent and have received Reiki training in the same manner as Reiki practitioners have always received training. Many will also seek out or self-train in those areas where they may need extra expertise, such as practice management and people skills but will generally focus on the dedicated practice of Reiki as a spiritual and healing system. Those who are not competent, have not received sufficient training or do not act in a professional manner, are not likely to remain Reiki practitioners for long, as they are likely to fall by the wayside through natural selection.
We also have those Reiki practitioners who are considered to be “professional”, who wish to work in the Public Sector, alongside other healthcare professionals. These practitioners will have been trained above and beyond the usual Reiki training course to include such things as Anatomy and Physiology, Book Keeping, Practice Management and other non-Reiki specific subjects, as well as being insured members of a professional association, registered with a regulatory body and undertaking regular CPD. These practitioners are also likely to have paid out a considerable amount of money in training courses, materials and membership and registration fees. There is little, if any, mention of the spiritual component of Reiki practice.
So, the practice of Reiki in the UK in the 21st century seems a far cry from the practice of Reiki in Usui’s and Hayashi’s days in Japan. Reiki was originally taught and practiced in a pure and simple way but today it appears to be anything but pure and simple!
Once upon a time in Japan, at the beginning of the 20th century, a man called Mikao Usui had an interesting experience whilst fasting on a mountain called Kurama. Following this experience, he developed a spiritual healing practice that has become known as Usui Reiki Ryoho.
Usui realised, because of all the changes in the world and the fact that many people were “out of their minds worrying about illness and accident”, that everyone could benefit from Usui Reiki Ryoho. So he wanted it to be freely available to anyone who was willing to learn.
His system was very easy to learn and once the basics had been learned, the practitioner just had to practice regularly (reciting the Reiki Precepts and hands on healing of self and others). Usui Reiki Ryoho became so popular that it spread rapidly throughout many parts of Japan. Usui travelled all over Japan and so did several of his teaching students, such as Chujiro Hayashi.
Students could learn everything they needed to know to begin practicing Reiki in just a few hours and had monthly meet-ups or Reiju-kai where they could practice their techniques discuss any issues, rather like Reiki Shares today. Even when Reiki was first brought to the West, by Hawayo Takata, Reiki was taught in just a few hours, often divided over three evenings.
Since the mid-1970s, after Hawayo Takata initiated her 22 Master students, Usui Shiki Ryoho (as Takata usually called it) became even more popular and spread worldwide in a matter of a few years. Now there are millions of Reiki practitioners happily practicing this wonderful system and even more happy recipients who have benefitted from receiving Reiki sessions!
Unfortunately, it would appear that Usui Reiki Ryoho is becoming a victim of its own success. Three things in particular have arisen that in effect aim to restrict the practice of this simple yet so beneficial system:
1) Science, in the form of “old school” research scientists and pharmacologists (working for drug companies).
Apart from a few “cutting edge” pioneers, most scientists do not appear to want to research something that hasn’t already been proven (but can’t be proven because there is no scientific evidence!).
Drug companies make incredible amounts of profit from the fact that people get ill and expect a pill to make them better. So they would not like a drugless healing system like Usui Reiki Ryoho to decrease their profit. There is not as much money to be made from such a system, so they do not put any resources into researching it and may even try to actively discredit it.
It has recently come to my attention that a group of scientists, possibly under the auspices of a group called ‘Sense about Science’, have been trawling literature and websites of complementary therapists with the aim of reporting any items which they feel do not meet the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) Code. This has resulted in several sites and leaflets having to be re-written to exclude certain “banned” words, and claims that treatments can (or even may) improve a specific medical condition, unless it is backed up by supporting evidence, such as a human trial based on recognised procedures and reported in a ‘reputable peer reviewed journal’.
Although this is likely to be an inconvenience to some complementary therapy practitioners (and the CAP, since it is only able to take action when someone submits a claimed breach) it may actually do complementary therapists a favour, by removing some of the more “woo-woo” elements that are quite evident in some areas and do not help the acceptance of our practices.
2) Religion.
Religions have always been wary of things like science, and even other religions, which may lure followers away from them, resulting in less income and less power over people. People who dare to think for themselves are seen as outcasts or even dangerous. For centuries, the favourite ally of the Christian Church has been the Devil, who is always brought in as the excuse for people not behaving or thinking in the official way prescribed by the Church. This fear-based tactic is still seen today. For example, we recently had a group of American Catholic Bishops very publicly warning fellow Catholics against practicing Reiki because it was not from God and was not “scientific” (which is rather ironic from a faith based organisation!). There are also fundamentalists from other denominations who vehemently denounce the practice of Reiki as akin to Satanism or some insidious cult that lures in unsuspecting members of their flock to turn them away from their religion.
3) Politics.
Politics affects the practice of Reiki in even more ways than the other two factors – there are even politics between Reiki practitioners but I will leave them out of this discussion for now!
Since Reiki has become extremely popular and millions of people are choosing to experience Reiki as a complement (or sometimes even an alternative) to allopathic medicine, it has drawn attention to itself in the form of one of the many complementary therapies available to the general public. Some complementary and alternative therapies have been proven to be unsafe and dangerous in unskilled hands, so it is right that such therapies should be investigated and regulated. However, these therapies usually involve physical manipulation, the use of potentially dangerous equipment and chemicals or the prescribing of various substances. Therapies such as Reiki, which do not involve any of these things, should therefore be logically considered safe. However, in today’s “where there’s blame there’s a claim” culture, it is wise for Reiki practitioners to have adequate insurance – to protect themselves from their clients, rather than vice versa!
Another effect of Reiki’s popularity is that groups of people seek to control its practice under the guise of making it safe for the general public. Yes, there are some people who claim to practice Reiki who may not have the best interests of their clients in mind but this is true in most walks of life and those people usually end up being brought to justice under existing laws of the land. I am not saying here that the practice of Reiki should not be regulated in any way but, if we take a look at what is happening in a little more detail, I think you would agree that things are getting a little bit out of hand.
The Increasing Complexity of Reiki Practice
In the early days of Reiki, in Japan, in 1927, the year after Mikao Usui died, some of his students set up the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai – an organisation that was dedicated to preserving the practice of Usui Reiki Ryoho. However, because this organisation was initially run by naval officers, it became quite nationalistic and also charged large fees, which restricted its membership. Several of Usui’s original students, including Chujiro Hayashi, left to pursue their practice of Reiki independently of these restrictions.
In 1982, two years after Hawayo Takata died, some of her students (including Phyllis Furumoto and Paul Mitchell) set up the Reiki Alliance, Barbara Ray set up The American International Reiki Association and some remained independent Reiki teachers.
When Reiki first started to spread here in the UK, in the early 1980s, there were really just two alternatives for Reiki practitioners. They could join the Reiki Alliance UK (if they were taught by an Alliance trained Reiki Master) or they could be independent. Around 1990 there were discussions about proposed restrictions on complementary therapies that had been mooted by the European Community. This eventually gave rise, in 1991, to the formation of the Association of European Reiki Practitioners (AERP), which later became the Reiki Association, an organisation that any Reiki practitioner could join, and which provided a Code of Practice and a practitioner referral scheme. The Reiki Association retained close ties with the Reiki Alliance, recognising Phyllis Furumoto as Lineage Bearer and Paul Mitchell as Head of the Discipline.
In 1999, partly as a reaction to the seemingly restrictive practices of the Reiki Alliance and Reiki Association and partly because of a perceived need to get Reiki recognised and used within the NHS, the UK Reiki Federation was founded.
So now, Reiki practitioners had several choices of professional organisation, with Codes of Practice and Disciplinary/Complaints Procedures, or they could remain independent.
However, as early as 2005, the Reiki Regulatory Working Group (RRWG) began working on setting up a Regulatory Body for Reiki as part of a Voluntary Self-Regulation (VSR) which would be in place in case government or European restrictions on Reiki practice actually materialised. In October 2007, the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health (PFIH) proposed a regulatory structure for complementary therapies but by the end of that year the RRWG had pulled out of the regulatory process being discussed by this Federal Working Group, which included the formation of the Natural Healthcare Council (NHC) as a Federal Regulatory body for complementary therapies.
By July 2008, the RRWG announced that it had finished its work towards regulation and would become the Lead Body (LB) for Reiki, renaming itself the Reiki Council. The Reiki Council is made up of members, from various Reiki Professional Associations, and has developed a Core Curriculum that describes the minimum standards of Reiki training expected for Professional Reiki Practitioners. It has also developed National Occupational Standards (NOS) for Reiki under the guidance of Skills for Health, which describes the necessary competencies the Reiki practitioner has to achieve in practice. The main competences are:
CHN1 Explore and establish the client's needs for complementary and natural healthcare
CHN2 Develop and agree plans for complementary and natural healthcare with clients
CHN12 Provide Reiki to clients
Interestingly, the Core Curriculum for Reiki is only available for purchase from the Reiki Council (and some professional associations) as part of the Reiki Council Resource Handbook (£12.95 as a hardcopy or £7.99 as an e-book).
The main requirements of the Reiki Core Curriculum are:
• 140 hours of training (45 hours in-person teaching and 95 hours home study
• 75 recorded treatments (5 to be supervised)
• in-person attunements
• a minimum training period of 9 months from start to finish.
The above curriculum apparently covers both Reiki level 1 and 2 and is meant to be for “professional” Reiki practitioners, i.e. those who will work in the Public Sector (both paid and as volunteers). Reiki level 3 is dealt with separately.
In spite of most Professional Associations holding registers of Reiki Practitioners, the Reiki Council felt that Reiki Practitioners, and the public, would be best served by giving the option to register with a national Complementary Therapy Regulatory Body, which would hold a single register for practitioners of many complementary therapies. Currently the only nationally recognised regulatory body that will register Reiki practitioners is the General Regulatory Council for Complementary Therapy (GRCCT) but the government-funded Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (NCHC) is in the process of agreeing requirements for the registration of Reiki practitioners.
The registrants for the GRCCT are required to:
• agree to abide by a Code of Professional Conduct & Ethics
• be answerable to the GRCCT Complaints and Disciplinary procedures
• maintain their training and knowledge with continuing professional development (CPD)
• have in force professional indemnity and public liability insurance.
In order to maintain registration on the GRCCT National Register the practitioner will undertake a minimum of 12 hours of continuing professional development per year. A minimum of 2 hours must be therapy specific to each therapy group in which the practitioner is listed on the National Register. A maximum of 50% can be generic including reflection or research.
You will note that the Professional Associations already maintain a register of practitioners, have a Code of Practice and Ethics, Complaints and Disciplinary Procedure and usually require practitioner members to have professional indemnity and public liability insurance (and often provide access to such insurance). So there is some duplication here. The UK Reiki Federation has also made 12 hours of CPD a compulsory requirement of membership.
It should also be noted that there is currently no legal requirement for Reiki practitioners to register with any regulatory or professional body.
In summary:
We still have many Reiki practitioners and teachers, who may or may not belong to a professional association or regulatory body, who will generally be those people who have no wish to work in the public sector and are considered as practicing Reiki as a “folk art”, according to an RRWG roadshow I attended. These people are still likely to be competent and have received Reiki training in the same manner as Reiki practitioners have always received training. Many will also seek out or self-train in those areas where they may need extra expertise, such as practice management and people skills but will generally focus on the dedicated practice of Reiki as a spiritual and healing system. Those who are not competent, have not received sufficient training or do not act in a professional manner, are not likely to remain Reiki practitioners for long, as they are likely to fall by the wayside through natural selection.
We also have those Reiki practitioners who are considered to be “professional”, who wish to work in the Public Sector, alongside other healthcare professionals. These practitioners will have been trained above and beyond the usual Reiki training course to include such things as Anatomy and Physiology, Book Keeping, Practice Management and other non-Reiki specific subjects, as well as being insured members of a professional association, registered with a regulatory body and undertaking regular CPD. These practitioners are also likely to have paid out a considerable amount of money in training courses, materials and membership and registration fees. There is little, if any, mention of the spiritual component of Reiki practice.
So, the practice of Reiki in the UK in the 21st century seems a far cry from the practice of Reiki in Usui’s and Hayashi’s days in Japan. Reiki was originally taught and practiced in a pure and simple way but today it appears to be anything but pure and simple!
