Reiki

 

           Reiki is a healing art from Japan. "Reiki can be defined as a non-physical healing energy made up of life force energy guided by the Higher Intelligence.”(1) Reiki will work uniquely in each individual and potentially support the healing of any ailment or provide comfort and ease to the dying.

          Reiki differs from other healing arts in how it is transmitted from teacher to student. A teacher not only passes knowledge about Reiki but attunes the student so that they become a channel for Reiki which flows out through a practitioner's hands.

          A Reiki treatment is best described as a laying on of hands. It is administered over the clothes and is composed of a series of hand placements over the head and front and back of the body. Because the touch applied is extremely gentle and requires no special equipment it can be given to anyone, anywhere.

          Client experiences while receiving Reiki differ but the most common is a sense of relaxation and well-being.

           Kathy Barnard LaPointe, a local Moscow, Idaho resident wrote of her experience receiving Reiki as a complementary therapy after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998. The following is taken from one of her pieces describing her fight with cancer published in the Lewiston Tribune:

          “Mary starts by putting her hands over my eyes, which usually immediately sparks a kaleidoscope of color. There are several head positions and then she works down each side of my body, front and back.

           Her hands get incredibly hot at different places, and sometimes the energy buzzes between her hands and my body. Imagine opening the top of your head and pouring in pure goodness.

          When I was in treatment there were times when she’d lay her hands on a certain spot, and I’d burst into tears. Not because it hurt or because I was sad. It was an irresistible urge to cry, an urge that would disappear almost as quickly as it came. Chalk it up to stored up pockets of bad energy.

          While it always made me feel better—relaxed and not quite so separated from myself—I wondered about the true “healing” of Reiki until the end of my chemotherapy when I had the port-a-cath removed.

          I’d had a Reiki treatment later in the same day as the surgery, and had to go back to the doctor a week later to have the stitches removed. The nurse removed my bandage and gasped. “My goodness, what have you been doing to this?” she asked.

          “Nothing,” I said.

          “Well, you’re certainly a good little healer, then. This shouldn’t look this good for another month or so.”

           I still go to Reiki every other week.”(3)

 

•      Rand, William Lee, Reiki Energy: What is it? How does it heal?.

Massage magazine, Issue 50, July/August 1994, Pg. 86

 

•      Rand, William Lee (with Walter Lubeck and Frank Arjava Petter), The Spirit of Reiki,

Lotus Press 2001, Pg. 22

 

•      LaPointe, Kathy Barnard, I give chemo a try, and some other treatments, too.

                Lewiston Tribune, October 12, 1999