Reiki is a Japanese compound word. “Rei”, pronounced like the English word “ray”, can be translated to mean “universal”, “transcendental”, “mysterious”, “ethereal”, or “spiritual”. “Ki”, the other symbol, pronounced like “key”, is translated as “life force energy” which is very similar to the “Chi” of Tai Chi. Every living thing already contains Ki or Chi, as it is the life force.

Reiki is a system of energy healing rediscovered in the mid 1900’s by a Japanese man called Mikao Usui. Anyone can put their hands on another and transfer some of their own energy to help the healing process. This can be magnified for those trained as spiritual healers but what makes Reiki different from other forms of healing is the “attunement” process which the student receives for each of the three Levels. The Reiki attunement process fine-tunes the body’s energy systems and in particular causes certain chakras, or energy centres in the body, to vibrate at a different frequency. This results in them being able to process energy much more efficiently, allowing the healer to collect Reiki energy from the world around them and channel it through their hands and into the person receiving healing. Spiritual healers use similar techniques but channel energy from the Spirit World, which is added to the healer’s own energy and intent.