Reiki is a Japanese word which loosely translates to mean the transfer of universal energy. This transfer can be to another person, animal, plant, situation or even to oneself. Traditional Reiki healing originated in Japan approximately two centuries ago, after Dr. Mikao Usui rediscovered the ancient formulas in Buddhist Sanskrit scriptures for this hands-on healing art. Eventually, this knowledge reached the U.S. from Hawaii via Mrs. Hawayo Takata, who had learned the system from Dr. Chujiro Hayashi, who directly received the information from Dr. Usui himself. Mrs. Takata initiated twenty-two original Reiki Masters before her death in 1980. Today there are hundreds of these traditional Reiki Masters, and also thousands of non-traditional Reiki Masters, while hundreds of thousands of people practice Reiki throughout the world.

Reiki enhances all forms of alternative and conventional medicine. A holistic modality, Reiki works on our entire energetic being as it delivers energy directly to the cells, revitalizing the body's own healing ability. Reiki can be given anytime, standing or sitting, but is most commonly administered lying on a massage table, fully clothed. The practitioner's hands are placed in non-invasive positions on the body over problem areas, the body's organs, the major energy centers (chakras) and key neurovascular and acupressure points. A full treatment lasts from 1-1.5 hours, although even "mini-sessions" of a few minutes can provide immediate relief when necessary. The healing effects of Reiki can range from feeling a deep relaxation, calm and centeredness to instances of complete and spontaneous healing. Other positive effects of Reiki can be subtle or experienced long after a treatment session such as increased awareness of one's spirituality, a sense of personal power or perhaps a release of long-buried emotion. Each individual's response to Reiki, and for each condition, is unique.

I have collected the following Reiki stories from my actual experiences with Reiki over the past six years. My hope is that in sharing these inspirational accounts here, a wider audience can be introduced to this powerful, yet simple hands-on healing modality which can be learned and used for personal healing by anyone. Yet, as faith becomes belief only when personally experienced, the reader is encouraged to have their own Reiki experiences, and perhaps give to themselves the lifetime gift of learning Reiki for themselves.

HEALING AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT

My friend had a lumpectomy several years before they discovered the cancer had reappeared right on the suture site. She believed she had "done everything right" to prevent this: eating correctly, exercising and taking all the recommended supplements. Aware of many women's horror stories of one metastasis after another, my friend was naturally devastated and panic-stricken. This time she opted for a radical mastectomy.

I was just a beginner of Reiki then, having barely completed my Level I course, and had just been gifted with a massage table. Being open-minded, my friend accepted my offer of a Reiki treatment when she came for a visit, and then went out for a walk.

Upon returning, she related the following amazing experience. "As I walked along, suddenly three things happened to me simultaneously. A sharp pain, like a bolt from the sky, shot right into my breast scar. I burst into tears, and then I recalled a memory from my childhood, probably my most painful childhood memory and long forgotten. But this time I was an observer of the scene with the insight of a much wiser adult, and I wept for myself as that confused child with great compassion, as well as for the members of my family."

That was five years ago. I did not realize at that moment how significantly Reiki and I had been involved in this grace-filled event, but I intuited that my friend's cancer would never recur, knowing she had just released the energy that had caused her cancer in the first place. To this day she remains cancer-free.

While some may consider my friend's healing "miraculous," it is important to note that not all Reiki sessions bring about such spectacular results. In administering Reiki, we are channeling everyone the same energy, yet because everyone is unique, so is his or her experience. My friend, at that time, was intensively involved in psychotherapy with a remarkably gifted therapist. There is no doubt that the difficult work she was willing to do in therapy culminated in this healing experience which was brought to light through the awesome power of Reiki. The addition of this extra energy helps to release energy blocks in the physical, emotional and or spiritual body, enabling the body to then heal itself. One of the benefits of Reiki is that it can even be self-administered. The basic Reiki Level One course is the truest lifetime gift one can give to oneself or loved ones.

PAIN FREE AND LOVING IT

One of my personal Reiki cures is a story about fibrocystic breasts. I had what was termed one of the most severe cases my doctor had ever encountered of this condition. He required me to see him every six months and have an annual mammogram. Each time I had the mammogram, radiology insisted on an ultrasound because the mammogram was inconclusive. Self-examinations were an impossibility. There was no way I could tell from the immense number of lumps I would feel. They were painful, and relieved only by my doctor's adept needle drainage of fluid from a number of cysts on each visit.

As soon as I learned about Reiki, I began to treat both breasts each day. At my next mammography appointment several months later, I asked the radiologist to please not squeeze the machine down so hard, that it hurt, and she would only have to do an ultrasound anyway. After a fashion, the chief radiologist came out to talk with me. He looked at me rather incredulously, said I did not need to have an ultrasound, and wanted to know just what I had been doing. I told him that my doctor had told me that once women underwent menopause this condition tended to abate. His response was to quickly pooh-pooh this information and say that he knew all about that. "But not like this," he said, and asked me again what I'd been doing. I then told him that I was giving myself Reiki treatments. He had no idea what Reiki was. I gave him my business card but never heard from him further, and sadly, never received a referral from him.

I always share this story with my Reiki students. One of my Reiki students proudly told me recently that she had listened intently in class to this story because she had the same condition. She had just come from her own annual mammogram and had been given the same good news as I had - her cystic breast condition had cleared up to the point that she, too, no longer required a follow-up ultrasound.

Self-treatment is one of the distinct beauties of Reiki because it empowers people and makes them independent from a practitioner. To many people Reiki is incredulous. They think it is only the transfer of a person's own energy through the hands. But if this were the case the practitioner would end up drained of energy at the end of a treatment. Yet in marked contrast, Reiki practitioners come away from treatments with additional energy themselves. This is because in giving Reiki, one is channeling the energy through them, be it to another or to themselves. For thousands of years many people of the East have taken advantage of specific meditative techniques in which they draw the energy of the sun, the stars and the planets in through the crown chakra and direct it to heal their various bodily organs.

Similarly, in giving Reiki, this same energy is channeled through the crown chakra (energy vortex), passes down through the third eye, throat and heart chakras, and from there it flows down the arms and out through the palm chakras. When students learn Reiki they receive four attunements from the Reiki Master, also known as being "initiated" into Reiki. These attunements follow particular formulas which have been passed down in lineages from Reiki Master to Reiki Master since the mid-1800's. Can anyone learn this? Yes, they can. Reiki is such a simple system that even children learn it. One of my dreams is that one day it will be taught in all of our schools as a regular part of the curriculum. But in the interim, there are lots of Reiki Masters available to teach anyone interested. Look for well-experienced teachers who offer thorough classes and ongoing support for their students.

DYING WITH REIKI

Referred by a friend who also had cancer, this very brave woman had just been told she had a month to live. To say she was frightened would not be correct. Actually, she was so upset that she denied it saying she couldn't afford Reiki sessions because she was about to begin construction on a new home. She had very courageously endured multiple surgeries as her breast cancer spread from one organ to another over a course of several years.

I met her husband when he dropped by to pick up something I suggested she might be interested in reading. As we sat and talked, he liked what he heard and ending up deciding to give her Reiki sessions for her upcoming birthday.

In her initial Reiki session, she actually drew so much energy through my hands that her blouse became soaked through to her skin where my hands were placed. When she returned two days later she had a sort of bounce to her walk, in marked contrast to the first time when she'd arrived leaning heavily on her husband's arm. She smiled with obvious delight, and related her joy in having had the energy to enjoy an evening with her children in simply watching TV and munching popcorn, something she'd been unable to do for a very long time. She came to the office a couple more times before her illness took its downhill course, necessitating home visits.

The last time I saw her, despite being weak, she insisted on sitting up at the edge of her bed for the Reiki treatment. As she did so, she whispered a secret to me, something she'd obviously been wrestling with. I listened and then simply asked if she thought she could forgive herself. The VNA nurse who was in the room at the time, later told me she had never seen anyone die so peacefully and so quickly. She revealed to me that as soon as I'd left, the client had turned to her saying that she was ready now, laid down, closed her eyes and drew her last breath.

I was practicing Reiki for about three years at this point and will confess that at times I still occasionally had my doubts about the validity of what I was doing. But incidents such as this one would only further impress upon me what I had been taught: Reiki is the transfer of universal energy which is always healing, even though the "healing" may not result in a "cure."

SIGHT FOR SORE EYES

An associate picked a balloon at the annual fundraiser for the North Shore Aids Health Project containing a certificate for a Reiki treatment. Never having experienced a Reiki treatment, she was excited to try it.

I began this woman's treatment starting at her head. Ordinarily, this is a relaxation-inducing position, and by the time all of the head positions are completed, a person is often in a deeply peaceful state, feeling as if they're floating in and out of a trance-like sleep. But in this case, as soon as I laid my hands on her forehead covering her eyes, I began to feel an intense pulling sensation. It was so alarmingly strong that I had to ask her if there was anything she was aware of going on in this area. I was both relieved and surprised as she reminded me that she had a lazy eye, and mentioned she'd had some unsuccessful surgeries to correct it.

When the client reported she could feel the pulling sensation also, we became excited over the prospect that it meant the eye muscles were attempting to make a correction. The intensity of the muscle pulling gradually lessened but did not totally subside, and time necessitated moving on to complete the full treatment. When the Reiki session was over, we both wondered if we were just imagining the improvement in the position of her eye, so we decided to set up other appointments to continue this work. The woman also decided that she would take my next Reiki class so that she could administer self-treatments. Several weeks after she attended the Reiki I class, I saw her again and she reported that she very rarely used her corrective glasses anymore, and that she's even been required to change her prescription as a result of the marked improvement in her lazy eye condition! It was a thrill to see a noticeable improvement in the appearance of her eye as well.

This story is a prime example of how Reiki can bring about an outcome that is not at all what the client or the practitioner had in mind. It brings home to me what I was taught by my Reiki Master, and in turn, teach my students - how the recipient uses Reiki is not up to the practitioner who should not be invested in any particular outcome. We are only the channels for this intelligent energy which will go where it is needed the most - be it towards emotional healing when we want a physical cure, or towards repairing eye muscles when we thought we were just channeling relaxation.

JUST PASSING THROUGH

An elderly female, who'd had a stroke and was left paralyzed on one side, attended the adult day care center at Blackburn Industrial Park in Gloucester, MA, where I conducted a Reiki clinic for senior citizens. Their weekly treatments are done in chairs and are only from 15-25 minutes in duration, yet they all feel they benefit tremendously.

Like other clients, this woman said the Reiki was very calming and that she could feel the warmth spread throughout her entire body as the practitioner's hands lay gently on her head. She soon began to ask us to place our hands under her arm on her side, and she said that she had a terrible problem with kidney stones. Each week she asked specifically for Reiki to her side and insisted that it was the only thing that took the pain away.

Many weeks later, she shared with me that now when she urinated, she was passing gravel and was without kidney pain. She told me that she'd had lithotripsy a few years before, which had not worked, and the doctor had told her there wasn't anything further they could do for her. She attributed the passing of these stones to Reiki, which she believed had broken the stones down into gravel so they could pass out of her body and relieve her pain. She told me she was saving them in a jar to show her doctor. I hoped she'd also tell the MD how the stones dissolved!

CUT OFF AT THE KNEES

During my first exposure to healing with energy, I heard the instructor say that unresolved issues with our parents are held in our knees. I did not believe it. She explained the Eastern concept of the body - that our left side is our feminine side while the right is masculine. Therefore, she said it is in the left side that issues with our mother reside, and those with our father are held in the right. It was allegedly through the insight of a gifted psychic, Rosalyn Bruyere, that this became public knowledge. Rosalyn had been asked to observe various well-known hands-on energy healers at work, and this information came to her repeatedly as she observed them working on their subjects. "Yea, right!" I thought, and rolled my eyes towards the ceiling. Over the years, my "Doubting Thomas" persona has emerged time and again, only to be shown the facts as appropriate in each situation. This one proved to be no exception.

One client I worked with had just been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Being so concerned about the tumors in her lungs and those now spreading to her neck lymph, I'd broken the rule of always giving a complete Reiki treatment, and instead focused only on the area of her symptoms. Finally, one day I moved to other areas and happened to lay my hands on her knees. I was immediately surprised to feel distinct crunching movements in her left knee because it was perfectly still. Commenting on my experience and relating what I'd been told, I channeled Reiki to this knee. The client told me her knee had been hurting her for years, and we shared a nervous laugh, as she recounted how difficult her relationship with her mother was.

It was several weeks later that she told me the most marvelous story of a confrontation she had with her mother. In this incident she had "stood up" to her mother, but did so coming from a deep inner strength she'd not exhibited before, which enabled her to come both softly yet firmly from her heart. The incident concluded with her mother dropping her own defensiveness, tears being shared, and much emotional healing took place between them. This was an amazing breakthrough for this client, yet just as amazing was her proud report that at that moment her knee stopped hurting!

It is fascinating to consider that our energies are grounded through our legs to our feet and must pass through our knees to get there. The old saying "cut off at the knees" rings poignantly in my ears in relationship to unresolved emotional issues with parents. To be grounded is to be comfortable being one's unique self, and one cannot be in that space until parental issues are resolved.

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A Registered Nurse for 20+ years, Donna Patrican is a Traditional Usui Reiki Master. She is a second generation Takata Master, having obtained her training 6 years ago directly from one of the original 22 Reiki Masters created by Mrs. Takata. Donna teaches Reiki, conducts her private practice and runs two Reiki clinics at her office in Gloucester, MA and in the homes and hospitals of surrounding Boston area. She is a member of the Reiki Alliance, Holistic Nurses Association and Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce. She also produces and hosts a local cable TV program. To contact Donna and for further information about her classes, visit her website at www.ReikiMasterRN.com.