How Does Distance Reiki Work? A personal explanation for “skeptical-but-open” friends in crisis far away…

By Sandy Cleary

In December, my friend Gina and her husband Dave suddenly needed to relocate from their home in Mexico to Houston so Dave could get in line for a kidney transplant. I wrote to them to offer them remote Reiki treatments, knowing that as grounded, practical, science-minded folks, accepting such intangible assistance might be a stretch.

Dear Gina, 

I am sure you are overwhelmed with notes of well-wishes and people to respond to. Put me at the bottom of the list. I am here. No need to respond at ALL if you're having to focus elsewhere. You know where to find me.

 But I had a thought about how I could be supportive. (Please take or leave… as is suitable...) 

If Dave is even vaguely interested – or you are – I would be so happy to gift both of you weekly distance Reiki sessions. (I completely understand that the idea of distance energy work is simply a "bridge too far" for some folks, so if it doesn't resonate, no worries AT ALL. I have zero fragility around this, and understand full-well how esoteric it seems, being a generally practical and grounded person myself. But I've been practicing Reiki remotely for long enough now that I have accrued more than enough evidence of its effectiveness to continue wholeheartedly offering it to clients and friends. As far as the Reiki recipient goes, they absolutely do not have to “believe to receive'' – the same way we don't have to believe in air to breathe it – and the recipient doesn't have to do anything, other than relax... If the recipient is open or even curious, that's nice for them, of course, and it can be great for opening a dialogue with the practitioner, but even if they're not open or curious, the energy flows – and simply works. Most people, I find, can get relatively comfortable with the fact that Reiki is a harnessing and directing of the unseen energy that pulses through our world and animates all things; nature, man, animal... earth, air, fire, water...

I would propose doing these sessions weekly in the morning – but only IF the prospect resonates.

Dave and Gina didn’t take me up on my offer, at first. And I didn’t take it personally. But they had hardly settled into their new home in Houston when they had a fire, which took out a big portion of their house, including Dave’s art studio and a bunch of his irreplaceable, original artworks. Between Dave’s dialysis treatments 3x a week (which were wiping him out) and dealing with moving from AirBnB to AirBnB with their two pups while waiting for their home to be fixed, they found themselves utterly exhausted and stressed. They accepted my offer. After Dave’s first session, he was amazed at how much energy he had and how good he felt.

Sandy,

….I can feel the better flow and lighter energy you described in your session notes.  I can't begin to fathom how this works from thousands of miles away.  I can only say that my body feels better, and not just better than last night, but better than pre-reiki.  And it does sort of feel like I got a deep massage. Amazing!

I'm definitely intrigued enough to take you up on your generous offer to do it again next week. Maybe better to do it on a non-dialysis day?  And if you can point me to an article or website you like that does a good job of explaining how exactly this works, I'd love to read up about it.  

Thanks so much, this is really a gift!

xo

Dave

I struggled with how to respond; there are not a lot of grounded, practical articles out there that I’ve found, so far, about Reiki that I resonate with, so I attempted to explain to Dave the mystery of distance Reiki in my own words and from my own evidentiary experience.

Dear Dave,

I wish I had an article that could effectively explain remote Reiki treatment. I'll keep looking for that. Unfortunately, there's mounds and mounds of Reiki info out there that doesn’t explain the essential practice of distance Reiki – and most of it I don’t completely resonate with.

Since Reiki came to the west, it has gotten combined with many other practices; crystal healing, chakra balancing, sound healing, shamanic healing, etc. and can definitely be effective as a companion to those treatments but, for me, Reiki is its own stand-alone treatment system.

There's a pretty good article in The Atlantic about Reiki, that utilizes a first-hand, investigative reporting style. I don't love it and it doesn't go into remote/distance Reiki practice, but I've shared it with folks who appreciated it. One in particular was a super-cerebral, 80-year-old retired international business guy. He got a lot out of it and came for a session and has been coming every two weeks for many months now. His mobility issues and energy levels have improved and he can do much more to care for his disabled wife.

Distance Reiki sessions are still mysterious to me –  even after doing them with folks for the last few years. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio..." But below are some musings and some hopefully-helpful context.

It's taken me a ton of suspension of disbelief and a mega-ton of discipline, humility, and surrendering to the process of learning Reiki to become proficient at something so invisible… ineffable. During the process, I consoled myself at times by remembering that there are lots of things that work that I can't see; microwaves, gravity, WiFi, photosynthesis...the list goes on. So I kept practicing and learning. Why would I want to do this? Because receiving Reiki weekly (sometimes remotely and sometimes in-person) was just shy of miraculous for turning my health around mentally, physically, emotionally, and energetically after years of successive rock-bottom burnouts. I kept practicing because I knew it was working when I received treatments. I trained with a teacher who was in the direct teaching lineage of the system's originator, Usui Mikao. (Usui was not an ascetic, or a guru type, as one might imagine, but a scholar, government officer, father/husband, and, above all, a "seeker" living in Japan at the turn of the last century.) She had been teaching Reiki for many decades and I was lucky to be a student in her very last cohort.

Reiki: "Rei" in Japanese can translate in a number of ways; Rei means Universal, Intelligence, Effective, Spiritual, Divine - or Ghost! 

"Ki" (the same as "qi or "chi" in Chinese) can translate as Vitality, Life-force, Energy… the force that is responsible for animating all things. So, Reiki is commonly translated in the west as "spiritually guided ( I prefer “intelligent”) universal life-force energy" – a spiritual, mysterious form of "ki."

The disciplines involved in learning Reiki and extending it to others are, at face value, very simple. They involve breathing, meditation, and visualization – and at the second level, a few symbols are incorporated that are passed down from one's teacher. Many practitioners endow these symbols with super-powers (I do not, as of yet – though I diligently employ them as tools for focus and connectivity, as I have been taught and I do feel their effectiveness). There are also a few chants or kodtodamas, which I am just starting to emplyoy –  I'm not much of a chanter, unless I'm at a Joan Jett concert! There is a code of conduct for the practitioner of Reiki, penned by Usui. It’s somewhat like the 12 steps, except there are only 5: "Just for today: Anger not; Worry not; Be Grateful/Practice Gratitude; Do your work honestly/with integrity; Be compassionate to yourself and all beings." Pretty basic good stuff. Reiki was created as a secular system for self-improvement of the “heart-mind” (which, fabulously, is one word, kokoro, in Japanese) first and foremost – and that includes the mysterious or spiritual aspects of the Self. Usui's preamble to these precepts states that his system is "The secret method to invite happiness; the spiritual cure for countless diseases."

The components of the system and practices of Reiki have their roots in Buddhism – and to an extent the more esoteric and shamanic branches of the Buddhist tree. There are underpinnings of Chi-Kung ( or Qi-Gong) in the practice and system of Reiki, as well. The first set of Reiki teachings focus on bettering/healing the Self, and the second set focus on the outward extension of Reiki to people, places, things, the world…

These simple, simple practices have, in my experience, "gathered me back together." If I can do this, being as cerebral, practical and grounded as I am (and being as unwell as I was) anyone can. It takes practice, discipline, and commitment, of course, just like learning any other skill. So I don't consider myself special or gifted in any way – just Practiced. 

The person receiving Reiki doesn't have to believe in it. And I would go even further than that to say that the person practicing it doesn't either. I think, however, that most people are able to accept that everything is connected; that the atoms and molecules between where I am and where you are are connected, and that there is an all-pervasive energy (one word for it being Reiki) that flows through it all… that unites and informs all of creation.

I have come to "believe in" this, but only over time and through diligent practice. I needed to gather my own evidence. But it is not my belief that makes it work. It's the practice that does. And so, I don't need to convince anyone or convert anyone. I can just, if people are the slightest bit open, curious, and willing to accept Reiki, use my practice to be helpful. 

When we look at the study of Quantum Physics, there are potential answers there as to why distance Reiki works. To me, Reiki seems like a tool that creates a temporarily heightened or amplified state of Quantum Entanglement, where something impacting a particle in one location can have the same impact on another particle some distance away. I feel great deal of electromagnetism in my hands and in my body when I practice. 

Is there a placebo effect involved for the recipient? I think so – absolutely. How could there not be?  An open mind enhances a person's receptivity and one’s sincere desire for self-improvement definitely helps. But Reiki also works whether or not a person is focused on receiving it — and even when they are unaware that it is in-action.

To make Reiki even weirder, the practitioner doesn't (or shouldn't) go into a session with an agenda. There's no "I am going to heal this person of X, Y, or Z." This is where the inherent "intelligence" of Reiki comes in. The flow of Reiki guides the session and an adept practitioner remains objective and "steps out of the way" and goes with – or follows – that flow. For me (and it differs practioner to practitioner) I generally experience tactile sensations. And even when I'm engaged in a distance session I have the same, if not stronger, sensations in my hands and experience a wide variety of energy (heat, tingling, static, electrical pulsation, pressure, and often the sense that I'm physically touching something solid, or moving through matter of different consistencies) and I inexplicably know, about 80% of the time, where the Reiki is connecting-in to a person’s body/energy. I follow the flow closely and pay attention to what happens. Every session is unique and always surprising. As Reiki moves, it shifts areas, aspects, and qualities of the recipient’s energy; often a person’s energy is fortified or expanded, connectivity between systems in the body are optimized, emotions released or regulated... For the client, as the sympathetic nervous system takes a back-seat, the body's natural healing capacity is activated, feelings of isolation dissipate, pain is reduced, tensions released, nerves calmed, mobility increased… A Reiki treatment instigates the process of our system(s) coming back into balance/harmony and the recipient usually feels a renewed sense of connection with themselves or their vitality in a way that, perhaps, they haven't in a long while. As with in-person treatment, these effects are generally cumulative over successive sessions. That has been my personal experience as a regular Reiki recipient for the last decade. 

Reiki can do no harm. Its practitioners should not diagnose, are not medical intuitives, psychic-surgeons, or shamanic healers. Those modalities are their own thing and oftentimes I have found that they employ the polarities of "good" and "bad" when talking about energy. This construct of good energy vs bad energy is what, I  believe, the western "healer's" ego needs to feel like they are the the powerful eradicator of "BAD energy." And as a Reiki practitioner I find this upsetting. These kinds of healers abound – and are oftentimes unwittingly destructive, though incredibly well-intentioned and often gifted in their modalities. I don’t want to insult or throw the baby out with the bathwater here, as I myself have benefitted from a wide variety of alternative healing practices over the years, but many people come in for a first Reiki session and are terribly afraid that I'm going to find something "bad" or wrong, or they’ve had an upsetting experience with another practitioner. This is disheartnening. Reiki just doesn't work with polarities that way. Reiki pervades polarities/dualities and is itself the very energy of unification.

Reiki has found its way into clinical settings, which I find exciting, and it seems that the Cleveland Clinic, in recent years, has been one of the most visible proponents of this. There’s also the fabulous work of Raven Keyes author of Medical Reiki, who worked to get Reiki into operaitning rooms and document its effectiveness. Fascinating.

If I've been a bit disjointed in my explanations here, it's only because it's wild and challenging stuff to explain. Let me know if you have more questions. I welcome them. I, too, am still learning.

My best to you both!

Sandy

After a few months of weekly Reiki treatments, Dave and Gina wrote the following:

I was as cynical and doubtful as they come about Reiki – never mind distance/remote Reiki! Sandy totally got that, and still encouraged me to try it. And what do you know, she quickly made me a convert! I'm on dialysis, which always leaves me feeling drained, like a limp noodle. A session with Sandy puts me to rights -- I feel completely renewed, buzzing with energy, in a positive mood, and ready to get on with life. I can't begin to comprehend how this works, but as I wrote to her after my last session, "Good feels, as per usual." And as the song goes, if it makes you feel good, do it!

–  Dave
Visual Artist and Musician dealing with End Stage Renal Disease

I began weekly remote Reiki sessions with Sandy during a time of crisis – my husband and I had been displaced from our home due to a fire while he was receiving critical, life-saving medical treatment. While the process of remote Reiki is mysterious, I have found it to be consistently helpful in terms of calming anxiety and feeling both physically and emotionally more balanced and grounded. Sometimes during the sessions, I've felt warmth and a swirling of energy and other times, the comforting sensation of having a weighted blanket on top of me. Afterwards, I feel like I've had a profound energetic massage--my jaw feels unclenched and tension in my neck and shoulders feels released. Sandy is a very gifted practitioner.

– Gina
Writer, artist, caretaker to two rescue pups and one very ill husband