Reiki
Japanese: 霊気 (reiki), from rei ('spiritual' or 'mysterious') and ki ('life energy').
Reiki is a Japanese energy-healing practice, developed by Mikao Usui in the early 20th century, in which a practitioner channels healing energy to a client through light touch or hands held near the body. Practitioners describe it as promoting relaxation and supporting the body's own healing capacity.
Reiki is typically taught in stages of attunement leading to practitioner and master levels, and sessions are usually conducted with the recipient fully clothed and relaxed on a treatment table. It is used as a complementary practice alongside, not a replacement for, conventional medical care.
Reiki was developed in Japan in the early 1920s by Mikao Usui and is traditionally transmitted through a series of attunements from a trained teacher to a student, organized into levels culminating in Reiki Master training. Systematic reviews of Reiki research, including a widely cited 2008 Cochrane-affiliated review, have found the evidence base generally weak and inconsistent, with most positive findings attributable to relaxation and placebo-type effects rather than any measurable energetic mechanism, which is why it is best approached as a complementary relaxation practice, not a substitute for medical care.
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