Assisting those with ongoing health challenges and their caregivers

Reiki (pronounced ray-key), is a healing system in which the practitioner channels universal life force energy to the individual in need of healing. Reiki is pure, unconditional love. It fills one with a sense of peace, acceptance, and well-being. In this balanced state, healing can occur: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Reiki has many benefits, including the following:

• Accelerated healing after surgery or injury
• Accelerated recovery from illness
• Powerful assistance with pain management
• Normalized blood pressure
• Assistance with detox from pollution, or drug or alcohol abuse
• Assistance with recovery from grief and loss
• Decreased stress
• Increased vitality
• Better quality sleep
• Clearer thinking
• More positive mental and emotional outlook
• Closer connection with Spirit

Reiki is not a religion or belief system, and it works in conjunction with—and enhances—all other medical and therapeutic techniques.

The Healing Session

The practitioner works in one of two ways: by placing hands on the client's body or by working from a distance (any distance), which requires no physical contact. Both methods are equally effective.

In a hands-on session, you will remain fully clothed but will be asked to remove your shoes and jewelry. You will lie on your back on a comfortable, padded table in a soothing environment (soft light, calming music).

The intent is to balance the flow of your energy, to remove any energy blockages, and to fill your being with the pure love that is Reiki. The touch is extremely light and gentle, and does not involve massage. Most everyone experiences Reiki as relaxing, soothing, and calming. Most often, clients report an increased sense of well-being immediately after receiving Reiki.

Hands-on sessions are available in my Woodstock, IL, office, or in your Chicago-area home or hospital room.

In a distance session, you will relax in a quiet place of your choice, and I will send Reiki to you.

The more clear you are about why you are seeking Reiki and the more committed you are to your healing, the more beneficial the results will be.

If you have questions about how Reiki can assist you in healing, I invite you to email me to schedule a free phone consultation.

The Origin of Reiki

In the late 1800s, Dr. Mikao Usui of Japan received Divine instruction in the healing art that he would later name Reiki.

Dr. Usui’s journey towards this knowledge began when he was a Christian minister teaching college students in Kyoto. His students asked him if he believed that healing through laying on of hands was possible, work that Jesus is reported to have done. He said that he did. They asked him how it was possible. He realized he did not have an answer.

Dr. Usui then left his position at the university and began a years-long quest to find the answer. First he came to the United States, where he studied theology at the University of Chicago. This study did not reveal the answer he was looking for.

He had learned about Buddha in his comparative religion classes—a man who performed all of the same healing miracles that Jesus performed—and so he went back to Japan to study Buddhism and question many Buddhist monks. He still did not find the answer.

So he moved into a tiny cell in a monastery at the foot of Mt. Koriyama, just outside of Kyoto. Here he read Japanese translations of the sutras—ancient Hindu texts. When he did not find the answers he sought, he learned Chinese and read Chinese translations of the sutras. Then he learned Sanskrit and read the sutras in the original. While Dr. Usui gained the technical information he needed, he still lacked the ability to make the process of healing work.

It was at this point that Dr. Usui chose to go to the top of Mt. Koriyama to meditate and fast for 21 days. His expectation was that he would receive some type of message that would aid him in his search for understanding. On the last day, he was knocked to the ground by a powerful light and was shown the keys, or symbols, we now use to activate Reiki energy. (You will learn these symbols in Level II.)

Dr. Usui then returned to Kyoto and began healing in the slums. For seven years, he healed everyone who came to him, both children and adults, living among them in poverty. As each person was healed, Dr. Usui sent him or her to the temple to receive a new name—and begin a new life. But at the end of the seven years, he began to see the same faces in the slums, people he believed had been healed living once again in the huts of tin and cardboard. It was then he realized that the spirit of a person must be healed as well as the body, and he vowed to never again give Reiki away. He understood that those being healed must take responsibility for their own healing and that there must be an energy exchange in order for complete healing to occur.

At this time, Dr. Usui discovered the five Reiki Principles.

Dr. Usui trained 16 Reiki Masters before his transition around 1930. He chose Master Chujiro Hayashi to preserve the Reiki teachings and carry on his work. Dr. Hayashi developed the Usui System of Natural Healing and founded the first Reiki clinic in Tokyo. It was at this time that the basic hand positions began to be used for Reiki healing.

Dr. Hayashi trained 13 Reiki Masters. All of those he trained were men, except for his wife and Hawayo Takata. Mrs. Hayashi and Mrs. Takata were the only two Reiki Masters who survived after World War II.

After being healed of a severe illness in Dr. Hayashi’s clinic, Hawayo Takata felt a strong calling to do Reiki and received her mastership. She spent the remaining years of her life teaching and practicing Reiki. Between 1945 and 1970, she was the only living Reiki Master in the world. Until 1982, Reiki was an oral tradition with no written account of its teachings or history. All information about Reiki healing has come to us through the spoken word of Hawayo Takata.

Master Takata trained 22 Masters before her transition in 1980.