Reiki was discovered by Mikao Usui around the 1920s. It is a complementary method of healing and balancing physical, emotional and mental bodies that heals and/or relieves various symptoms.
According to an article in the Atlantic magazine “Reiki treatment, training, and education are now available at many esteemed hospitals in the United States, including Memorial Sloan Kettering, Cleveland Clinic, New York Presbyterian, the Yale Cancer Center, the Mayo Clinic, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital”. According to a 2017 scientific study in a British journal of integrative medicine, Reiki is more effective than the placebo effect and has the potential to be considered a complementary medicine therapy. According to another 2007 study by the University of Minnesota in the United States, 1.2 million adults and 161,000 children received one or more Reiki energy therapy sessions in the previous year.
Some of the hospitals mentioned above have added Reiki to their list of services, considering it to have a placebo effect, but agreeing to offer it because patients have requested it and the effects are beneficial. Moreover, there are insurance companies that have agreed to cover the costs of Reiki services as long as they are included in a comprehensive palliative care program and are delivered by qualified personnel as part of standard procedures during hospitalization.
The Reiki practitioner’s guide includes five principles that at first glance are ideals rather than applicable principles. Over time, however, with concentration and practice they can become guides of daily life. In fact, if we analyze ourselves, these principles are healthy enough to be worth guiding your life according to them, whether or not you have received Reiki initiations. It is difficult to imagine situations in which this principle does not help:
- I’m not worried today
- I’m not angry today
- Today I am grateful
- Today I work hard
- Today I am gentle with all living creatures
The actual therapy consists of light and non-intrusive touching of the dressed body with the palms or placing them at a short distance from the body. A typical Reiki treatment session will consist of one or more different positioning of the palms. The person receiving the treatment may feel slight tingling and trembling, sensations of heat or cold. This sensation can be accompanied on the spot or later by new understandings and perceptions of life situations, present or foreshadowed in our future.