Reiki (ray-key) is an easy to learn, simple to use Japanese technique for reducing stress, enducing relaxation, and promoting healing, health, and well being in both practitioners and recipients. Reiki emerges from the Oriental understanding of the Universal Energy or Life Force that flows through and around each of us, giving us life, nourishing and repairing our cells, restoring balance, and maintaining our health. To have and use Reiki, a person needs to do nothing more than be attuned by a properly trained Master and have the intent for Reiki to flow whenever they put their hands on themselves or someone else. It is that simple—and everyone can do it. Reiki is not a religion; it has no arcane dogma, no religious tenets; it requires no rigorous ascetic practices or rituals. Anyone, everyone can enjoy the benefits of Reiki in their life.

Reiki is an ancient form of touch therapy with origins in ancient healing practices of the East, such as those preserved in Qiqong, Shaolin Kung Fu, kimoodo (healing arts form within the martial arts), acupuncture, and chi healing. The techniques of Reiki were re-discovered in Japan in 1922 by Dr. Mikao Usui, a Japanese healer proficient in various forms of oriental therapies including qigong (chi kung) and chi healing. There are distinct differences, however, between Reiki and the older forms of energy healing. Reik as Dr. Usui handed it forward is an evolutionary advance over the old healing traditions which still require years of discipline, practice, and effort before the practitioner can be effective. In Reiki, a properly trained Reiki Master working with the unique energy activation techniques of Reiki, can open immediate access to the universal healing energy in a student's hands through a process known as an "attunement." Once properly attuned, Reiki practitioners can use the universal life energy to re-charge their own or another's cellular energy or chi, to realign and re-balance their energy fields, to support and restore the body's powerful abilities to heal itself, and to heal the mental and emotional issues that affect physical health

The Reiki System of natural healing that developed around Dr. Usui's teachings is a form of subtle energy healing in which a practitioner, trained by a Master qualified in the methods of Reiki transmission, makes the universal life energy available to the body (one's own or that of another) through light, non-manipulative touch. Touch in and of itself is healing and life supporting as medical professionals have learned in the care of premature babies, but touch enhanced with Reiki energy greatly amplifies the body's ability to heal itself. As many in the medical profession are discovering, touch amplified with Reiki energy directly replenishes and balances the body's vital cellular energy (chi), increases relaxation, and creates the general feeling of well being and safety needed to activate the body's recuperative systems. During a Reiki treatment universal energy flows through the arms and hands of a properly trained practitioner into the cells of the body to boost and activate the body's natural healing mechanisms, including the endocrine and immune systems, thus facilitating a return to balance, harmony, and health.

The ability to make the Reiki energy available to ourselves and others, however, is not a learned "skill" acquired through long study, practice, or even through some natural "gift." Reiki ability is a personal empowerment or “energetic activation" opened in the hands of everyday normal people by a Reiki Master trained in the subtle energy technology of Reiki attunements. Such empowerments are possible because human beings are already "energy beings,” that is, we already contain within our physical forms, our cellular structure, and our DNA, the ability to act as conduits for life force energies. Our ancestors knew how to use these natural abilities and left records carved on stones and in ancient manuscripts. Unable to decipher the messages, we simply forgot—until now. But once a person is attuned, using Reiki feels completely normal and is a very simple, pleasant, non-verbal "experience" that makes verbal explanations difficult to formulate and ultimately unsatisfactory. Just as describing joy bears little connection to the experience of joy, so too the words used to explain Reiki, while necessary for communication, are mere shadows of the energetic reality. When word descriptions are necessary, however, the easiest explanation begins with the word Reiki itself.

The word "Reiki" is both a noun and a verb. As noun, Reiki is the name of the ancient healing energies discovered in the early 1920's in Japan by Dr. Mikao Usui and brought to the West in 1937 by Ms. Hawayo Takata. It is also the name of the Method of Natural Healing practiced by millions of people all over the world and used in dozens of hospitals in the US and Canada. To understand Reiki as a verb, as the dynamic process through which energy rejuvenates and heals us, we must look at the word in its kanji form, that is, in the Japanese ideographic system of writing borrowed from the Chinese a thousand years ago. "Reiki" as written in kanji is composed of two ideographs, Rei and ki. Understood together these ideographs are a fluid expression of the relationship between the universal life force behind all creation, the energies of our bodies, and the mystery and method of Reiki healing.

Rei, the first ideograph, interpreted as Transcendent Spirit and Essence of Life denotes the Universal Life Force that creates, surrounds, and sustains all matter. In western terms, it signifies the non-visible quantum energy field that underlies all matter and energy. In terms of the world's belief systems, it is the Source of Creation as that concept is expressed in the many names for God found throughout our cultures.

Ki (Chinese chi, Hindu prana, Indigenous mana) denotes the unique and individualized aspect of that Life Energy, the Inner Source, Life Force, or personalized form of the Universal Energy that both creates and sustains every individual being. Ki (chi) is the Universal Life Force (Rei) stepped down in frequency to create the material world in linear time and space. The Ki of each person vibrates with unique frequencies of the Universal Life Force that are specific to the individual body and spirit. Like snow flakes everything that exists--from amoebas to humans and rocks to planets--has a unique vibration that comes from and is supported by the Universal Life Force. In the human body Ki is the energy of our cells, our DNA, our mitochondria, our brains, hearts, and nervous systems, of our seven chakras. Ki is the energy within our meridians and nadiis and the energy of our auric fields. In its most primal and intense form it is referenced in Hindu tradition as kundalini.

Rei joined with ki to form Reiki becomes a perfect description both of the Reiki healing system and the Reiki healing process whereby a Reiki Practitioner acts as intermediary to join the Universal Life Force (Rei) with an individual's life force (Ki) to return the ailing body to energetic balance and harmony, thus activating the body's enormous power to rejuvenate and heal. The message Reiki healing energy carries to body and spirit is the message of Unconditional Love, of our great value in the universe. Surrounded and infused with Reiki energy, the wounded spirit heals, the vibrancy of our Ki is restored, our intent to live and love is reinforced. As the denser energies of fear, self-hatred, despair, and anger are released, as ki is replenished, the body finds the strength and the will to heal itself.

Dr. Usui discovered a method of energy healing unmatched in the history of the world for simplicity and directness of experience. Healing energies as they appeared in the past fit the definitions, beliefs, and restrictions of the cultural, racial, or religious structure from which they sprang. Reiki accommodates our need for healing outside of a specifically defined religious or cultural context, yet reinforces the truth found in all religious and cultural beliefs. People of all ages, all religions, all belief systems, even die-hard skeptics and those with no beliefs at all have become Reiki practitioners. Reiki, as Dr. Usui received it and as Mrs. Takata passed it to the world, is uniquely suited to modern—to western—sensibilities: it is deeply spiritual yet outside of all religion. It is easy to learn, simple to use, and effective. It is the system of natural healing for the twenty-first century and beyond.