What is Reiki?
A complete guide — how it works, where it came from, what to expect, and whether it's right for you. No prior knowledge needed.
What is Reiki?
Reiki is a Japanese energy healing technique that supports the body's natural healing capacity through gentle touch or intention. Developed by Mikao Usui in 1922, it promotes deep relaxation, stress relief, emotional balance, and physical ease — with no belief or preparation required.
The word Reiki (ray-key) is Japanese. Rei means universal, divine, or spiritual wisdom. Ki means life force energy — the same concept known as prana in Sanskrit, chi in Chinese, or mana in Hawaiian tradition. It is the invisible energy that animates all living things.
Reiki healing is the practice of channelling that energy — through a trained practitioner's hands — to support the body's own natural healing capacity.
How does Reiki work?
Reiki works by clearing blockages in the body's energy flow. When life force energy is disrupted — by stress, trauma, or illness — it manifests as pain, fatigue, or emotional heaviness. Reiki restores balance by channelling universal healing energy, activating the body's own innate healing intelligence.
The practitioner is not the healer. The energy — and your own body's innate wisdom — does the healing. This is the central insight at the heart of Shilpa's practice, and it's why sessions feel empowering rather than passive.
What does Reiki feel like?
Every experience is unique. Women commonly describe:
- Warmth or gentle tingling in the hands or body
- A profound sense of relaxation — deeper than sleep
- Emotional release — sometimes tears, sometimes unexpected lightness
- Vivid imagery, colours, or a floating sensation
- Simply: nothing in particular — just rest, which is itself healing
There is no wrong experience. Whatever arises is exactly right for where you are.
Is Reiki a religion?
No. Reiki is not a religion and has no doctrine or dogma. It has spiritual roots, as do yoga and meditation, but it welcomes people of all faiths and none. No belief is required.
Is Reiki safe?
Completely. Reiki is non-invasive, gentle, and has no known negative side effects. It does not interfere with medication or medical treatment. Sessions are held in a safe, private, women-centred environment. The US National Institutes of Health classifies Reiki as a complementary and alternative medicine.
Reiki works best as part of a holistic approach to wellbeing — Shilpa will always encourage you to maintain your existing medical support.
The history of Reiki
Reiki is not a modern invention. Its roots reach back to early 20th century Japan, born from one man's profound spiritual awakening — and carried across generations by an unbroken chain of teachers and students to practitioners like Shilpa today.
Mikao Usui is born in Taniai, Japan
Mikao Usui was born on 15 August 1865 in the small village of Taniai in Gifu Prefecture, Japan. From an early age, he displayed a deep curiosity about medicine, philosophy, and spiritual practice, studying across several Buddhist and Shinto traditions throughout his youth and adult life.
Years of study and spiritual searching
Having worked as a businessman, civil servant, and secretary to a politician, Usui turned toward a deeper calling in his late 40s. He immersed himself in Zen Buddhist practice at a monastery in Kyoto, studying ancient texts, meditation, and healing practices. He sought a way to activate healing energy intentionally — not through years of ascetic practice, but accessibly, for anyone willing to receive.
The awakening on Mount Kurama
In March 1922, Usui undertook a 21-day meditation, fasting, and prayer retreat on Mount Kurama, a sacred mountain north of Kyoto. On the final night, he experienced a powerful spiritual awakening — a profound vision of light and symbols that he understood as the Reiki healing system. This was not something he invented intellectually, but received, as many great healing traditions describe their origins: as a direct transmission of wisdom.
Following this experience, Usui found he could channel healing energy through his hands — and that this ability could be passed to others through a process of energetic initiation he called attunement.
Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai established in Tokyo
Mikao Usui founded the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai — the Usui Reiki Healing Method Society — in Tokyo in April 1922. He opened a healing clinic in Harajuku and began treating clients and teaching students, attracting hundreds of people seeking relief from illness, stress, and pain. The Gakkai continues to exist in Japan to this day, though it has remained largely private and has not sought to spread internationally.
Healing survivors of the Great Kanto Earthquake
On 1 September 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake devastated Tokyo and Yokohama, killing over 100,000 people and injuring hundreds of thousands more. Usui and his students moved through the devastated city offering Reiki to survivors — treating trauma, physical injury, and emotional shock on an enormous scale. This experience demonstrated Reiki's power in crisis conditions and significantly expanded awareness of the practice. The Japanese government recognised Usui's humanitarian work with an official commendation.
Usui passes; lineage continues through his students
Mikao Usui passed away on 9 March 1926, aged 60, following a stroke. By this time he had trained approximately 2,000 students and 20 Reiki Masters — practitioners holding the deepest level of Reiki training and the ability to attune others. His memorial stone at Saihoji Temple in Tokyo records his life and philosophy, and is still visited today by Reiki practitioners from around the world.
Dr Chujiro Hayashi systematises hand positions
Dr Chujiro Hayashi (1880–1940), a retired naval physician and one of Usui's senior students, deepened the Reiki system's clinical structure. He opened a Reiki clinic in Tokyo and developed the specific hand-position sequences still widely used in Reiki practice today. Hayashi documented and refined the methodology — making Reiki more teachable, systematic, and reproducible. He trained dozens of practitioners at his clinic, including the woman who would carry Reiki to the Western world.
Hawayo Takata brings Reiki to the West
In 1935, Hawayo Takata (1900–1980), a Japanese-Hawaiian woman, arrived at Hayashi's Tokyo clinic with a life-threatening illness — gallstones, a tumour, appendicitis, and nervous exhaustion. She had been told surgery was her only option. Instead, over four months of daily Reiki treatments, she was fully healed. So moved was she by the experience, she asked to stay and train under Hayashi for two years.
In 1938, Hawayo Takata returned to Hawaii as a fully trained Reiki Master — the first in the West. She built a thriving practice and, over the following decades, began teaching and attuning students across North America. In the 1970s and 80s, she trained 22 Reiki Masters before her death in 1980 at age 80. From those 22 masters, Reiki spread to every corner of the globe.
2000s
Reiki reaches every corner of the world
Following Takata's death, her 22 Masters carried Reiki outward. By the 1990s, Reiki was being practised and taught across Europe, Australia, South America, and beyond. New lineages and schools emerged, some innovating on the original teachings, others committed to preserving the Usui tradition as faithfully as possible. Global Reiki organisations were established to maintain ethical standards and training quality.
Reiki in hospitals, research, and daily practice worldwide
An estimated 1.2 million people in the United States alone have received Reiki treatment, with millions more practising worldwide. Reiki is now offered as a complementary therapy in over 800 hospitals in the United States, and is increasingly integrated into palliative care, oncology support, and mental health settings globally. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) classifies Reiki as a complementary and alternative medicine.
In Australia, Reiki practice continues to grow — with practitioners like Shilpa Wason carrying the Usui tradition forward with training, skill, and a deep commitment to the people they serve.
The unbroken lineage
In the Usui Reiki tradition, the lineage — the chain of teacher-to-student transmission — matters deeply. Every attunement Shilpa gives, every healing session she offers, connects back through an unbroken line to Mikao Usui himself.
When you receive Reiki from Shilpa, you are connecting with over a century of healing tradition.
The Five Precepts of Usui Reiki
Mikao Usui taught that healing the mind and spirit is as important as healing the body. The Five Precepts are guiding principles for living with presence, gratitude, and compassion — and they form the ethical and spiritual heart of everything Shilpa offers.
I will not anger
Anger disconnects us from our body's healing intelligence. This precept invites us to notice anger without acting from it — returning, again and again, to equanimity.
I will not worry
Worry is the mind living in a future that hasn't arrived. This precept calls us back to the present moment — the only place where healing and clarity are available.
I will be grateful
Gratitude shifts our energetic state profoundly. It opens the heart, softens resistance, and creates space for healing to flow.
I will do my work honestly
To work with integrity is an act of self-respect and service. This precept honours the dignity of effort and attention brought to daily life.
I will be kind to all living things
Kindness — to others, to animals, to the earth, and to oneself — is not a spiritual luxury. In the Reiki tradition, it is the foundation of healing.
Things people believe — and what's actually true
"You have to believe in it for it to work."
Many clients arrive deeply sceptical and leave transformed. Reiki works with the body's intelligence — not your intellectual agreement. Open curiosity is enough.
"It's just relaxation — nothing actually changes."
Deep relaxation is itself healing — it activates the parasympathetic nervous system and creates conditions for physical and emotional repair. Many clients also report concrete shifts: better sleep, reduced pain, emotional clarity, and renewed energy.
"Distance Reiki can't be as powerful as in-person."
Reiki energy is not bound by physical proximity. Many clients report their most profound experiences from distance sessions — received in the comfort and safety of their own home.
"It's a religious practice — not for me."
Reiki is not a religion and has no dogma. It has spiritual roots, as does yoga and meditation — but it welcomes people of all beliefs and none.
The best way to understand Reiki is to feel it.
Words can only take you so far. A session with Shilpa will answer every remaining question — from the inside out.