Christian Reiki

Every Reiki healer brings her own beliefs with her to the Reiki table, and in
my case those beliefs are Christian and Biblical. There is no contradiction
in this because Reiki is not a religion, and there is nothing in pure Reiki
which conflicts with the truths taught in scripture. Traditional Usui Reiki
advocates only a simple set of principles for moral behavior which are
compatible with any spiritual belief.

Reiki energy - like all good things in this world - was created by God
as an expression of Gods' unconditional love and desire to bless us.
My Christian clients have reported intense experiences of the Holy Spirit
revealing God's presence and Love during their Reiki sessions.

When I give Reiki, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ for the person who
is receiving it. I do not presume to tell the Lord what you need, because
God sees you so much more completely than I can and knows exactly
where your true needs are. Whatever your beliefs, you can know that
I am praying for your highest good. Whatever your circumstances,
Reiki can do no harm.

Reiki is a gift and a blessing from God.
If you are unsure of this, I hope your questions are answered below.

If you are a Christian who uses Reiki, you may email me to join a
discussion group for Christians who use Reiki.

Should Christians Practice Reiki?

First let me say that the only reliable authority on this subject is the Lord.
A Christian has an obligation to settle this question through prayer and
searching the scriptures. I came to my own sense of peace about Reiki over
a four-and-a-half-year period during which I twice took time off from Reiki
because I had questions about what I was learning. I gave scripture and the
Holy Spirit a chance to get through to me. I was confident that if I opened my
heart to the Lord, asking to be shown the truth about Reiki, God would show
me what I needed to know in addition to answering my questions. If you
genuinely want to please the Lord, the Holy Spirit can certainly reach your
mind and your heart with the truth.

Reiki’s Critics

So far, the critics I have read fall into three categories. One is people who
don’t believe ki and the human energy system exist at all. Another is people
who have misunderstood Reiki before and now reject it. A third is people
who do not see how Reiki fits with scripture.

The first group could learn more if they wished by reading some recent
science and learning more about healing energy. The second group does
real harm to Reiki’s reputation by their inability to separate their individual
experiences from simple Reiki. For example, one person’s experience was
strongly colored by associating Reiki with massage and his own lust for the
woman who introduced him to Reiki.

The third group is right in saying Reiki is never mentioned in the Bible per se,
but then neither are penicillin and many things we use today. Healing is listed
as a spiritual gift (I Cor. 12:9), and Jesus tells us that anyone who has faith
in Him can have the power to heal like He did (John 14:12). This is not to say
that Reiki healing is the same as Jesus' method of healing or the spiritual gift
of healing. I am only saying that hands-on healing is mentioned in the Bible,
but drugs and surgery, etc., are not. The main issue is whether Reiki's healing
energy was created by God and can be used by God. We can tell that Reiki
energy was created by God because it can only help, heal and comfort; it
can only do good and not harm. All good gifts come from God (James 1:17).

The Christian Research Institute, an extremely conservative Christian group,
has written that Reiki cannot be good because it is associated with world
views that are in opposition to Christianity and practices that are forbidden
in scripture, specifically channeling (which I discuss below). One problem
with their argument is that many things Christians use daily are associated
with world views and practices that are in opposition to Christianity. TV has
great power to form and condition our minds with what we see and hear,
yet how many Christians carefully limit what they watch on TV? How many
movies we see, businesses we patronize, and service providers we use are
associated with world views that are in opposition to scripture? Sometimes
we go ahead and expose ourselves to those world views. Sometimes our
using a service or spending time with a person does not expose us to their
underlying world views at all. This can be the case with Reiki if you go to a
person who practices traditional Usui Reiki. Traditional Reiki will be all
Reiki, with no add-on teachings, tools or techniques.

The only teaching beyond how to give Reiki that is part of the original Usui
Reiki are these Reiki Principles: Just for today, I will feel gratitude. Just for
today, I will let go of anger. Just for today, I will let go of worry. Just for
today, I will do my work honestly. Just for today, I will be kind to my
neighbor and every living thing. To me, this sounds more like an healthy
AA meeting than a dangerous philosophy. There is nothing here to mislead
or undermine any spiritual convictions. If people with world views other
than Christian ones practice Reiki, that does not make it evil. Very few people
would even think of asking doctor whether the science he is using is based
on a Christian world view. In fact, few Christians feel the need to pray about
whether to see a doctor instead of praying and giving the Lord a chance to
heal them first.

One question I wrestled with repeatedly was why, if Reiki is a gift from God,
anyone can practice it regardless of their beliefs. Each time I came to the
same conclusions. God is generous with many gifts, such as intelligence,
artistic ability, strength, and beauty, regardless of beliefs. We all have the
ability to love, to communicate, and to care for others. Since Reiki is available
to anyone, it is clearly a general ability to do good for one another that God
built into His creation. It is not a spiritual gift through the Holy Spirit. The
section on ki explains how the energy is made available to all. Through
prayer, I have come to understand that God built everything we would ever
physically need for our health and well being into creation. Sadly, we have
spent much scientific effort on learning how to help ourselves without God's
guidance. Unlike taking medication or having surgery (which do have their
place in restoring our health when we have not been able to maintain it) it is
impossible to do harm with Reiki healing energy. What any individual
teaches in addition to simple, traditional Reiki is something that individual
will be held accountable for. We are all called to walk in obedience to God's
Word and His will.

"No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.
Each tree is recognized by its own fruit" (Luke 6:43-44).

Does Ki (or Chi or Prana) Exist?

This question leads us to the intersection of ancient spirituality with modern
physics. If you enjoy learning, find physics books that are written for your
level of knowledge. You may be pleased to see how science is tending in a
philosophical and spiritual direction, unlike the anti-spiritual direction of the
19th and early 20th centuries. Physics has clearly proven that the entire
universe is composed of energy and that physical matter is a concentration
of energy. Your own energy field can be perceived by scientific instruments.

As people who believe that "all things were created by Christ and for Christ ...
and in him all things hold together" (Col. 1:16-17), it's not hard to believe in
a universal life force (ki, chi, prana) that was created by God and informs
all living things. This is the energy which science is learning to perceive.
This is the energy with which Reiki heals. We do not understand it yet, but
both biologists and physicists on the cutting edge of science are studying it.
Christ created it and controls it, and we are blessed with the ability to use it.

Reiki practitioners treat the human energy system. Many people who do not
have Reiki can feel the human energy field and some can also see it. This is
easy to learn and does not require any spiritual activity of any sort. Since this
field does exist and has always existed, it only makes sense that people have
perceived it in all centuries and cultures. This is harder for we who have been
raised to believe that nothing exists besides what we can sense with our five
senses. Except for our faith in an unseen God, Christians are as affected by
the science-oriented culture we are raised in as everyone else.

Does Reiki Involve Channeling?

I am a Usui Reiki Master and a Karuna Reiki® Master, and I believe I am a
gifted healer and teacher of Reiki ... but I do not channel any spirit guides
or angels or ascended Reiki masters. My only guide is the Lord Jesus Christ
through the working of the Holy Spirit. However, I am only an authority on
my own experience, and I cannot speak with certainty on what happens with
non-Christians. By most people’s definition of the word "channel" Christians
channel the Holy Spirit and the prophets all channeled God. We don’t use the
word because of its connotations of spiritism and mediumship, but the word
itself doesn’t denote evil. In the same way, our receiving guidance from God
could be called a psychic experience because it comes through supernatural
means. When we try to sort through these issues, it’s good to separate the
actual meaning of a word from some of the ways it is used in other contexts.

That being said, it is still true that Reiki practitioners are encouraged to ask
for spiritual guides to guide our Reiki sessions so that we are able to intuit
where a client needs to receive Reiki. I was already a Christian when I began
to use Reiki, so I already knew that my spiritual guide is the Holy Spirit and
believed it would be wrong to ask about anyone else. Besides, the Reiki
energy and the human energy field we can perceive with our hands is enough
to tell us where Reiki is needed without asking for additional guidance.

It seems possible that God does send angels to help us practice Reiki -- in
fact, I am quite sure I have experienced their help -- but here again I have
felt it is wrong to ask to know more about them. All that a true angel desires
is to glorify God, not to receive any attention itself. I simply pray that the
Lord will give my client what He knows they need and ask the Holy Spirit
to guide me. How God’s will is accomplished through Reiki isn’t necessarily
for me to know.

Many Christians' fear about spirit guides is that they are actually demons
disguising themselves as the Buddha or angels or whomever. I think this
is unlikely, due to my experience of the great good that Reiki does and how
impossible it is to think of any way to misuse Reiki. It seems more likely that
people who don't have the Holy Spirit to enable them to recognize the work
of the Lord can be deceived into believing the power of Reiki comes from
some other spiritual source. If all good gifts come from the Lord, then Reiki
comes from the Lord, but Satan tries to steal His glory in the same way he
does with anything that is created by God.

What about the Reiki symbols?

Reiki practitioners who achieve Level II and above use Japanese-looking
symbols with Japanese names to focus different aspects of Reiki energy.
The symbols have no meaning in themselves and the names are descriptive
and harmless. The symbols represent different frequencies of healing energy
which the practitioner receives through a laying-on of hands so that s/he
can access that energy when it is needed. The symbols are neutral and the
energy is good.

It may help to remember that no symbol, no matter how strong its associations,
is good or evil in itself. The swastika and even the pentagram have been used
in past centuries simply as decorative designs. Today people cannot use
them without raising the idea of great evil, but that is because of the groups
which have used the symbols, not because of any actual power in the symbols
themselves. The same is true for a symbol of great good like the cross. It is
just two lines, just a pattern without any power to do good in and of itself,
yet it reminds us of the greatest love that was ever shown to humankind.

Why not just use prayer instead of Reiki?

We could just as well ask “Why not use prayer instead of medical care?” or
instead of anything else we turn to for help with a problem. Hopefully, most
Christians use prayer AND medicine (or whatever) and remember to thank
God for the answer to their prayers. I use prayer AND Reiki, and I think it is
much more obvious that God is doing the work with Reiki than with medicine.
(I am not implying that Reiki should ever be a substitute for medical care,
though it is true that it can heal people.) If a person objects to Reiki because
the practitioner or Reiki receive all the glory instead of the Lord, it is the
practitioner who has the problem. In humility, any Reiki practitioner of any
belief system should know that they are not the source of Reiki energy and
that they cannot truly make Reiki do anything. Reiki comes from God and
He determines how it will help the person who receives it in the same way
He does when we pray for someone.

Personally, I have found that Reiki greatly benefits my prayer life in the peace
that I have myself and in the confidence I have in the Lord to hear my prayers
for others. Something about the fact that I cannot control Reiki and make it do
what I want it to do for a person has deepened my ability to ‘let go and let God’.
Less and less do I tell God what I think He should do and how He should do it.
More and more I simply take a person or situation before Him in prayer and
trust that He knows far better than I what is best.

If you would like to experience Reiki for yourself, please email me
- or visit my Appointments & Classes page - or call me at 610-626-6647 -
to make an appointment or ask any questions you may have.

If you are a Christian who uses Reiki, you may email me to join a
discussion group for Christians who use Reiki.