Reiki and Psychic Healing: A Comparative Essay 
by Elige Stewart

There are many forms of energy healing available to the seeker. It’s easy to get confused wading through all of the choices for healing out there. This article addresses some of the different forms of healing you may find in search of a healing modality to suit your needs.  I’ve chosen to focus heavily on Reiki in the article, as this healing system is versatile, easy to learn, and is readily available in most communities.

Reiki is an attunement process system to broaden the channels of energy in a person’s body so that they may draw in more of the Universal Life Energy from around them to perform healing and healing attunements. Psychic Healing is the manipulation of a person’s energy field via the healer’s own energy field for the purpose of healing.  Doesn’t seem that different, does it?

Reiki though is a fairly systemized entity that holds a spiritual path at its core and relies more on the wisdom of the Universe to hold a sacred space within the client’s body to allow it to heal itself. Psychic healers use their own auras to create a similar space within the client’s body to heal, but may try to hasten the healing by using other techniques, such as shamanic extraction, ‘psychic surgery’, or trance channeling to more forcefully raise the persons vibration.

Psychic healers may focus more on a ‘science and anatomy’ of the auric fields to attain a more balanced and ‘healed’ or healthful condition in the client receiving treatment.  Psychic healers vary in what they have learned or what systems they may incorporate into a healing session.

Crystal healers will open your energy and create a sacred space around you, then allow the energies of your emotions, mind and body to ‘synch up’ with the energy of the crystal. This encourages your energy to take on the traits of the crystal. For example, if you had ADHD, stomach ulcers and hated your job then a crystal healer may place amethyst on your forehead (to calm you), citrine at your throat (to balance your energy and dispel excess negativity), chrysoprase at your abdomen (to strengthen your stomach) and magnetite and/or lodestone in your hands (to help you find direction and bring the options to your fingertips).

Psychic surgeons and shamanic practitioners frequently view illness as pertaining to spirit or energetic attachments, and sometimes, that the client may have lost a part of their soul or spirit due to trauma.  Shamanic practitioners will use a trance state to find and retrieve the fragments of the client’s essence through a process called Soul Retrieval. Both shamanic practitioners and psychic surgeons utilize a method called extraction where the essence of a negative spirit, energetic intrusion or illness is cut from (or otherwise removed from) the client’s energy field and body. Some psychic surgeons will also ‘incorporate’ or channel a spirit guide aid in the process of the session.       

Sound healers will utilize sound to manipulate the energies of a client’s physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional bodies through sound (vocal, instrumental or tuning forks) to create a change in the energy vibration for healing. Essentially, they look to ‘fine tune’ the client’s body, literally.

Chakra balancers will utilize a variety of methods, ranging from extraction to crystals to yoga therapy, to bring our seven major energy centers into alignment.  The focus of chakra balancers is to bring an equal awareness, and thus energy flow, to all aspects of the life as manifested in our bodies through the chakras.

Hands on healers, such as Therapeutic Touch or Quantum Touch practitioners focus on feeding a client’s body universal life energy to bring about a higher state of wellness.  Therapeutic Touch and Quantum Touch are essentially the same methodologies used by Reiki without the focus on spirituality or the practice of attunement, and with more focus on medically testable result via the healing. Both utilize intense visualization and breathing technique to control the flow of the energy during a healing session.

Spiritual healers, as you would find in a spiritualist or metaphysical church, utilize the same techniques as Reiki would, only without the attunement process, and without expectation of medically testable results. Spiritual healers and Reiki healers are truly cousins if not siblings.

Reiki uses a process called attunement to strengthen and open a person’s energy channels to allow more energy to pass through to effect a healing change in a client. Reiki has a strong spiritual (not religious) base that emphasizes right living and appreciation.  In Reiki, it is the practitioner’s goal to step aside and allow as much healing energy from the Universe to flow through them as possible. A Reiki attunement also aids in the prevention of the practitioner draining their own energy to heal another person. Also, Reiki focuses equally on healing self, others and environment/Earth.

Many who practice Reiki incorporate other healing methods into their work. I utilize medical intuition, chakra balancing, and shamanic healing forms in my practice. These have required further research and training from my initial Reiki training. That being said, whether or not I’m using another modality, I always use Reiki in my healing sessions. This is a conscious choice, as well as a reflex. Reiki is one of the simplest and most effective tools to implement in my repertoire, which allows me to use it with ease in almost any situation – whether in my office or on a train.

My love of Reiki comes from the fact that it is steeped in a spiritual tradition and practice, and yet is versatile enough to be used and tested in a hospital setting. Also, it is one of the simplest and most effective forms of healing to learn (in my opinion). This allows virtually anyone old enough to read with access to a Reiki Teacher to learn this form of healing, empowering the student to learn to heal themselves as well as others.

No single form of energy healing is better than another. They are all simply tools to help the client realign with their path to their highest state of health. Each method has its pros and cons, and all of these should be considered in determining what type of practitioner you wish to work with, or which type of healing work you wish to practice.

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Elige Stewart is a psychic medium and healing practitioner in the Mid Michigan area.  He has a busy consulting and healing practice, offering healing sessions, as well as in-person and phone readings. He enjoys teaching and attending classes, as well as writing. Elige has a monthly email newsletter, which you can sign up for through his website: www.eligestewart.com.