Reiki FAQ

What is Reiki?
Reiki is a form of energy healing. Unlike some other forms of energy work a person needs to receive a Reiki attunement before they are open to using the Reiki energy. A Reiki healing is usually given through a hands-on healing session but can also be transmitted in a distance healing session.

What does Reiki mean?
The meaning of the two-syllabled Japanese word ‘Reiki’ as I was given it is ‘Life Source Energy’. I’ve also seen translations that ‘Rei’ means spirit, aura or subtle power. ‘Ki’ means energy. There seems to be no ‘one correct meaning’ as required by Western minds.

What is the energy that is being used in a Reiki healing?
Every culture, every tradition seems to have different names for what essentially seems to be the same thing. This healing force has been called Mana, Orenda, Prana, Ogone energy, Animal magnetism, Barraka. The Chinese tradition refers to it as Ch’i. In Japan it is Ki. Because of the resistance of Western science to the idea of subtle energies we do not yet have a ‘scientific’ definition for this energy.
Ch’i Kung instructor Mantak Chia defines Ch’i as ‘energy, air, breath, wind, vital breath, vital essence…the activating energy of the universe.’ (Awaken Healing Light of the Tao, Mantak and Maneewan Chia, Healing Tao Books, 1993)
Ki is also the essential life force of the Earth, the planets, the stars and the heavens, and the interplay of energies affects all living bodies. Everything alive contains and radiates this energy. It is the bio-magnetic energy of the aura.

How does it work?
The body has access to this energy already through your very existence. Reiki increases the body’s ability to heal. Once you receive the Reiki attunement your body’s energy channel is opened to the level of that attunement and cleared of obstructions. You receive an increase in the energy for your own healing and become (re-)connected to the source of all universal Ki. This connection then allows you to be able to connect to and channel that energy as you require it. You are always in control of your connection to and use of the energy.

What do I have to do to use Reiki?
Hands on, Reiki on. Hands off, Reiki off.
And it’s that simple…When you place your hands on your own body or somebody else’s body with the intent to channel Reiki then you start channelling Reiki energy. When you remove your hands then the channelling stops.

What do I have to know to use it?
You need to have received an attunement and have someone (yourself or somebody else present with you) that wants healing. You must want to be the channel for the healing energy for them***
***Note that I didn’t say that ‘you want to heal them’. With Reiki you are not a healer for other people in the sense that you do not make them better. You are a channel for the energy, it passes through you to them, they make the decision to accept it or not, to heal themselves or not. It is important to avoid the ego trap that is believing that you are the healer, that you have the ‘god-given’ abilities to heal another person.

What is a Reiki attunement?
A Reiki attunement is a brief ceremony where a Reiki Master channels the energy themselves and through their energy they create a connection from you to the source of Reiki energy. Only a Reiki Master can attune another to the energy. An attunement may also be referred to as an ‘initiation’.