Of the many types of bodywork available in the modern world, Reiki is perhaps the least dependent on physical manipulation and the most related to the spiritual. It usually involves the practitioner placing hands on or above the client’s body while connecting mentally to a form of energy—or is it a form of consciousness?
In her book Empowerment Through Reiki (Lotus Light Publications, 1997), Paula Horan explains that Reiki sees all physical issues as having mental causes, specifically a misalignment between mind and spirit. Purely physical treatment does not address the true cause and therefore does not bring about complete healing. Reiki brings spiritual energy to bear on the problem and helps to resolve the mental cause.
Different practitioners define the energy in different ways. Anna Ginta Zvilius, who lives in Phoenicia, calls it “the love of God, a universal healing energy. The word ‘Reiki’ means life force.”
Liam Watt, another Phoenician, explains, “The practitioner’s energy is aligned with a higher level of consciousness, and there is a sympathetic response in the client, so that their energy level aligns with that balance.”
Cindy Brody of Woodstock says, “I call it a love energy, the power of prayer. It’s a positive and intelligent energy.”
However the process is defined, the goal of a Reiki treatment is deep relaxation and healing. Zvilius finds people often come to her when they have given up on medical treatment, which has its limits in dealing with pain. “Someone has an ache or pain that’s chronic, and they’re open to the idea of energy work. The term encompasses a lot, but basically it’s looking beyond the physical.”
She emphasizes that Reiki is not a religion. “Some people are hesitant to try it because they think it’s a cult. It just touches on the spiritual aspect of our nature. We are spiritual beings. You become aware of that.”
Brody had never heard of Reiki when she discovered healing in her hands as a child. At the age of eight, she was sent to her grandparents’ farm in Nebraska. One day she was sitting in the dirt of the barnyard, watching the animals. Next to her was the barn dog. “A voice in my head said, ‘Beam your hands at the dog.’ When I did, the dog jumped in the air, then put its mouth gently on my hands and asked me to do it again.” In Nebraska, gems and crystals pop up out of the ground, and Brody theorizes that crystals in the soil conveyed an energy attunement while she was sitting in the dirt. “After that, I held feral kittens at the farm. My hands would get hot, and the kittens would calm down and purr. I was drawn to animals and loved putting my hands on them.” Later she worked with people as well.
Brody was in her 30s when she walked through a New Age fair in New York City and saw a man putting his hands on someone, doing exactly what she had been doing. But when she learned that the price of a Reiki attunement, a transmission of energy from a teacher, was $10,000, “I whimpered and walked away. But when anyone says you can’t do this… if you say no, I say go. I put together a small practice during the AIDS epidemic in the early ‘80s, putting my hands on artists, dancers, people with AIDS. You can do energy work without an attunement. We all have the ability to help using energy.”
Some years later, when the price came down, she took Reiki training and found that attunement made the energy in her hands “hotter and more focused.” By then she had moved to Woodstock, where she was taking riding lessons. At the barn, she saw horses that were sore or hurt. “After my lesson, I’d sneak into the barn and put my hands on the horses. Next day, people would say their horse looked better, wasn’t limping as much, or had stopped coughing.”
Brody soon had a thriving practice treating horses. Their owners, seeing the results, asked her to work on them as well. In the late ‘90s, she treated many women with breast cancer. Reiki treatment reduced pain after any type of surgery and speeded the healing process.
Twenty years ago, Brody treated Petal, a pit bull diagnosed with leukemia and given 30 to 90 days to live. Petal recovered and survived another five years with weekly Reiki treatments. Brody, who also practices animal communication, heard a message from Petal: “If you take care of the dogs, the dogs will take care of you.” She set up a room in her office for treating dogs. She has given Reiki to cats, snakes, cows, turtles, plants, and a hog.
Brody is now teaching Reiki and believes anyone can learn to heal with their hands. “The energy is a part of the healing of our planet. It’s been utilized back to the Egyptians. We’ve walked away from our intuition and our own natural gifts. Now it’s so needed. When doing energy work, it sharpens your intuition. When we listen, we can change our world and the people around us.”
Watt agrees that the healing power is available to everyone, and he also discovered his abilities early in life. “In my teens, I found I could lay my hands on people and they would feel better from whatever was going on.” Wanting the support of a formal system, he studied Reiki. In the training, “I felt they were talking about what I know I have. Everybody has it. They just have to open to a certain level of sensitivity within themselves.”
Zvilius and Brody both place their hands on people who are lying clothed on a massage table. Watt sits his clients (also clothed) in a chair. Along with applying gentle touches, he reports the intuitions that come to him as he works. Like some practitioners, Brody at first held her hands above the client’s body, but she eventually realized that people crave touch.
“I’ve been told by teachers that the energy has a mind of its own,” said Zvilius. “I’m just a faucet. The energy comes through my crown, down my arms, into your body, and the energy knows what you need. It has its own intelligence.”
So is Reiki energy physical or spiritual?
Zvilius: “Is electricity physical? It’s the same kind of thing. But the source in non-physical, I believe.”
Watt: “When I walk past a TV, it crackles, so that’s physical.” But he also does distance healing, where the client is not physically present.
Brody: “I think it’s a spiritual energy. It’s a spiritual practice.”
To contact Anna Ginta Zvilius, email her at ginta65@aol.com. Liam Watt can be reached at iamliamwatt@gmail.com or 845-688-3344. Contact Cindy Brody at cindy@cindybrody.com.
History of Reiki
Although Reiki was developed in Japan, it has historical connections with the U.S. The dominant system of Reiki came from Mikao Usui, a civil servant and a student of spirituality, who received healing power through a mystical experience on a mountain.
Hawayo Takata, a Hawaiian woman of Japanese descent, traveled to the Tokyo clinic of Usui’s student Chujiro Hayashi. She was suffering from a tumor, gallstones, appendicitis, and asthma, which were healed during her four-month stay at the clinic. Upon her recovery, she convinced Dr. Hayashi to teach her Reiki, although it was traditional to teach only men. In 1937, he went to visit her in Hawaii to help establish Reiki there and initiate her as a Reiki Master.
When the Japanese government was planning to attack the U.S., Hayashi was asked to identify locations of warehouses and military targets in Hawaii, and he refused. He was labeled a traitor, causing disgrace for his family, and he committed ritual suicide.
The practice of Reiki in Japan was suppressed during World War II, and the method might have died out if Takata had not kept it alive by teaching Reiki in the U.S.
When learning Reiki, the student receives an attunement from the teacher, strengthening the student’s healing power. Mrs. Takata required teachers to charge $10,000 for an attunement at the Master level, to ensure that students respected the teachings. Later teachers lowered the price, encouraging the spread of the practice.
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