Mythconceptions about Reiki

Mikao Usui was a Christian
Unfortunately there is no evidence that Usui was ever a Christian.(1) He was, however, Christlike. I suspect that people wanted to believe he was Christian to make it “okay” for Christians to practice Reiki, or because some of the healing miracles performed by Jesus in the Bible feel like Reiki. In my mind it doesn’t matter too much, because really, Reiki is accessible to everyone, Christian or not.

Reiki is of the Devil
Reiki itself is not of the devil. Reiki cannot hurt anyone. It is made of the universal life force energy, of unconditional love and light. If anything, Reiki is Christlike energy because it meets each person where they are at, just like how it is taught that the Savior Jesus Christ does with the Atonement.

However, once in a while you will meet people who say they are using Reiki, but in actuality they are not. I have heard of an incident where someone said they were using Reiki but in reality they were using “high vibes” as a guise to hook into their client’s energy to encourage scarcity thinking so that their clients would feel like they absolutely had to return to them in order to get help. That is NOT Reiki. That is someone acting as the Devil, appearing to be love and light on the surface, but it’s only the surface, a mask, to trick you into not seeing underneath. This is not simply a thing that happens with Reiki. It happens with every healing modality.

If you ever feel uncomfortable with someone, it’s okay to stop the session at any time and leave. It’s okay to never go back. Not everyone is a good fit.

There is no Jesus with Reiki
I believe that this dovetails off the myth of Reiki being of the devil. On the contrary, you can always pray and ask for help from God, from Jesus, to be the best vessel of healing possible. In fact, when I went through a meditation to meet my Reiki guide I met Jesus! It was an awesome experience.

However, some people have been deeply wounded and cannot deal with working directly with Jesus. These people are more likely to call on the overarching unconditional love of the universe. Since God is Love, and the Atonement is the ultimate expression of that love, it’s absolutely safe to work with someone who doesn’t believe in Jesus, nor invokes his name.

In essence, stay out of judgment. “By their fruits ye shall know them.”
Trust your intuition, trust that the Spirit will guide you.

Reiki will cure cancer
Sometimes. However, I have seen people oversell Reiki, guaranteeing results that cannot be guaranteed. Everyone’s energetic, spiritual, emotional, and physical needs are different. Reiki can help cancer patients experience less severe symptoms during treatment. It can help the body heal itself. However, sometimes what the person with cancer needs most is reassurance on a soul level, perhaps their time is done here and they are afraid of dying. And thus the Reiki helps the cancer patient with that aspect, and the person still dies, but it is a kinder passing.

I’m still wounded so my wounds will negatively impact the Reiki I give.
If Reiki needed a perfect channel to go through none of us would ever be able to activate it. When you give Reiki you receive Reiki. When you give Reiki you are focusing on the person you are helping, holding them in absolute positive regard, trusting that the Reiki going through you will automatically filter out and contain anything that should not go into the person you are working on.

Accepting money for Reiki is bad
Money is the system our societies use to be able to move and act in the world, even for the basic necessities of modern living; of food, shelter, clothing, etc. So, is it wrong to charge for your sessions? No. As long as you stay out of judgment. That is the most important aspect. Stay out of judgement. Whatever price you charge, do so because you feel guided to without judging anyone who cannot afford your price.

I have heard people say that higher prices equals higher quality clients. Thus, judging everyone who can’t afford their prices as “low quality” people. As someone whose ex-boyfriends mother told me I wasn’t well bred enough for her son, I know how much that kind of judgment cuts.

Also, that means that you are implying judgement of those who charge less, as if charging less money is the same as having less skills, or that they’re one of “those” people who think charging a lot is bad, or that they work with “less quality clients” and that the Reiki practitioners charging less aren’t healed enough to “charge their worth.”

It also assumes that two Reiki Masters with the same skill and experience are defined by the amount they charge. One may be called to charge $125 an hour, while the other may be called to charge $60 an hour. One is not better than the other.

This may sound a bit wack. However, I have seen this at play. There is no example here that I have not witnessed. Thank you internet.

Charging money is an equal exchange
Let’s be real. It will NEVER be an “equal exchange.” What it can be is a fair exchange. A fair exchange is when both parties get what they need. Using the example above, does the Reiki Master who only charge $60 only giving you $60 worth of Reiki? Of course not! Is the Reiki Master charging only giving $125 of Reiki? Of course not! Reiki is priceless.

Let me say that again.
Reiki. Is. Priceless.

We charge what we charge because of the world that we live in. Some will charge nothing. Some will charge several hundred dollars. Some will accept donations. Some will do sliding scale pricing. Some a mix. Everyone is needed. Some people can’t accept a healing at a low price. That’s their block. Some people can’t accept a healing at a high price. That’s their block. And then there are those who simply can’t afford it and are used to being turned away due to lack of money. Thus we need the different pricing tiers offered by Reiki practitioners to help bring healing into all the world. One is not better than the other.

Reiki is priceless. As long as you live by the Reiki principles in your practice and stay out of judgment and abide in love, you will do just fine whatever you choose.

Reiki can never be directed
I remember playing around with Reiki with one of my students and she put so much intention of getting Reiki into my head I totally felt it in my head, but it went straight to my hips and settled there. Reiki absolutely can be directed, but in reality it’s not your head that directs it. Reiki directs itself by guiding your hands and touching your intuition so you can feel where you need to go. Not only that, but if you sustained an injury, even one as simple as a papercut, you can absolutely direct Reiki to go there in order for it to heal faster. When you use Reiki this way, you use the power form of Reiki coming up from the Earth, as well as the Heavens.

Reiki Attunements can’t be done over distance.
In Reiki II you learn how to do Reiki sessions and healings across the boundaries of time and space. Therefore, in my mind, it makes no sense to me that an attunement cannot be done over distance by a practiced Reiki Master. However, an attunement is NOT listening to a recorded meditation. There is no individuality in that, and it will only be truly effective for a tiny slice of the population, similar to how strictly following a math curriculum only works for just a tiny few of your students. You have to be able to read the room, to read your student, in order to meet their needs.

You have to put on protection when doing Reiki
As my favorite Reiki Master, Lisa Powers has said, Reiki can do no harm, therefore no protection is needed. If you are running pure Reiki then the Reiki itself is the protection. You can use Reiki to enhance Reiki. Now, if you feel that you are too much of a novice and you need to do something extra for protection, that is fine. Just remember that you want to use Reiki to prepare yourself like a surgeon before going into surgery, and then you want to run pure Reiki through you powerfully enough so that nothing can get through into you or in the room, rather like pumping purified air into a surgery room so that when the surgery doors open you feel that puff of cool air blow out so no germs can get in. Whatever steps you feel you need to do to get to that point are okay. It will get easier to turn on the Reiki pump as you practice.

You have to be healed to a certain point in order to use Reiki
You start where you are. Everyone is starting in different places, and where you start is where you start and doesn’t have anything to do with another person (unless someone is talking down to you and you believe them). This is part of why attunements are important, because for some people the attunements give them permission to do Reiki, to remember the power they already had.



1: Diane Stein discusses this in her Reiki book