Reiki

Reiki is a Japanese practice of energy healing in which the practitioner is understood to channel a universal life energy (the name combines rei, "spiritual/universal," and ki, the vital energy) through the hands to promote relaxation, balance, and healing in the recipient. The practitioner places the hands lightly on or just above the body, moving through a sequence of positions, while the energy is held to flow to where it is needed.

Reiki was developed in early twentieth-century Japan by Mikao Usui, who taught it as a spiritual and healing discipline; it was carried to the West mid-century and has since become one of the most widespread forms of "energy" or "biofield" therapy worldwide, practised both privately and, in many places, offered alongside conventional care in hospitals and hospices as a relaxation aid. The tradition includes a lineage of attunements by which teachers are said to transmit the ability to channel Reiki, and a set of symbols used at higher levels. Presented honestly and per reputable medical bodies: Reiki is generally experienced by recipients as deeply relaxing and is regarded as safe when used as a complement to, not a substitute for, medical treatment; from a scientific standpoint, however, there is no demonstrated physical "energy" of the kind it posits and no robust evidence of specific healing effects beyond relaxation and the placebo response. It is thus best understood as a complementary relaxation and spiritual practice, valued by practitioners within a framework of universal energy and intention.

Reiki has an unusually clear history for a healing practice, because it is recent and its lineage was recorded as it went.

Mikao Usui founded a healing society in Tokyo in the 1920s and taught a method he described as received during a period of fasting and meditation on Mount Kurama. Chujiro Hayashi, a former naval officer, developed a clinical form of the practice with fixed hand positions. Hawayo Takata, a Japanese American from Hawaii, was treated at Hayashi's clinic, trained under him and brought the practice to Hawaii in the 1930s. Almost every Western lineage traces to her, and she taught a version adapted for an American audience, including an origin story that later researchers have found does not match the Japanese record.

The claim under test is that a practitioner channels an energy that promotes healing, with or without physical contact. Systematic reviews of controlled trials have not found an effect attributable to the treatment itself. The usual design compares reiki against a sham in which an untrained person performs the same movements, and the two arms have not reliably separated.

What the trials do consistently record is that people receiving it report feeling better: calmer, less anxious, in less distress. That is a real outcome, and the honest reading is that a quiet room, unhurried attention and a practitioner's hands produce it, rather than a transferred energy.

It is widely offered in hospices and hospitals on exactly that basis.