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.
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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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