UNDERSTANDING WESTERN vs JAPANESE REIKI

What’s the Difference Between Japanese Reiki and Western Reiki?
 

As you explore Reiki —no matter where you may be on your Reiki journey—you’re likely to come across terms like “Traditional Reiki”, “Japanese Reiki”, or “Usui Reiki Ryoho”.  While they sound like traditional systems of Reiki, its helpful to understand that despite using these words, a vast majority (almost all) of Reiki being practiced today falls under the category of 'Western Reiki' or 'Westernised Reiki' and are a substantially modified version of the original, traditional Japanese practice. 

What was the Traditional Reiki System?

​

Reiki was founded in Japan by Mikao Usui in the 1920s.  The original, traditional practice was not only about hands-on healing, it was path to enlightenment, offering a full set of spiritual and healing practices to help heal the mind and body and to eliminate suffering.  There were also a full set of healing techniques (in additional to hands on healing) to target specific types of healing (such as unwanted habits/mental patterns, fresh injuries, balancing energy, and eliminating toxins).  With hands-on healing, practitioners were taught specific techniques for sensing the energy of the recipient, locating troubled areas and using specific techniques to hasten healing.

Why did the Traditional Reiki Teachings change? 

​

One of Usui's key students, Chujiro Hayashi, passed on the teachings to a Japanese-American woman named Hawayo Takata, who introduced Reiki to the West in the late 1930s.  She called it 'Usui Reiki Ryoho". After Hayashi died, and due to the anti-Japanese climate during World War II, Takata adapted Reiki by removing many of its spiritual, intuitive, and culturally specific elements of the traditional practice. She also shortened the training format from ongoing group practice (as taught in Japan) to weekend workshops.  This caused her to remove all the advanced traditional healing techniques due to time constraints as well as creating a simplified set of hands positions for the treatment of all clients (rather than teaching students more advanced techniques to sense troubled areas and advanced techniques to treat them). 

What was left was a very stripped back version of the original practice, focusing on hands-on healing using set hand positions (rather than intuitive), with minimal emphasis on energy cultivation, spiritual growth, or intuitive development.  In short, a substantial majority of the original, traditional spiritual and healing practices were removed from her teaching.

​

Meanwhile, the original Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai in Japan closed its doors during the war and has remained a private group ever since. Because it is not open to the public, the original Japanese system did not continue to spread.

As a result, Reiki was only able to spread through Takata's teaching.  This means that every Reiki system that has emerged outside of Japan has come through Takata’s lineage—and is therefore a Western system, regardless of the name it uses.  None of those systems are traditional systems of Reiki due to the substantial changes and reductions made to the original Japanese healing and spiritual practices.  

​

That changed when Chiyoko Yamaguchi, a Japanese student of Hayashi, was sought out by Westerners who were looking to reconnect with the original form of Reiki. Chiyoko had never formally taught Reiki—she and her entire family had simply continued to practice it quietly as Hayashi had taught them. When asked to share what she knew, she agreed, and eventually the system known as Jikiden Reiki was established to preserve and pass on the full set of original Reiki practices, exactly as she had learned them. A second system, Komyo ReikiDo, also draws from this lineage, and whilst has adapted the practices and Reiju, has retained, to a large degree, the essence of the traditional practice.  Because these systems have emerged in Japan (by Japanese natives), they are broadly categorised as 'Japanese' systems of Reiki.   ​

​​

By contrast to Western Reiki, Japanese Reiki systems like Jikiden Reiki include the full set of original traditional Reiki healing and spiritual practice, including:

​

• Daily spiritual practices as a pathway to enlightenment

​​

• Daily practices to accumulate and strengthen energy

​​

• Intuitive healing based on energy sensitivity (known as 'the system of Byosen')

​​

• Techniques for detoxification, eliminating unwanted mental habits/patterns, moving and revitalising energy, removing stagnation, healing fresh injuries and energetic balance etc

​​

• Reiju (attunements) are given repeatedly and beyond the workshop to support the student's continuing connection to the Energy

​​

• A deeper spiritual and cultural context

​​​

Why Do Western Reiki Practitioners & Teachers Often Describe Their Practice as Traditional?

​

When it comes to Western Reiki and the modifications made by Takata, many practitioners and teachers—who are deeply dedicated to their practice—are simply unaware that significant changes were made. Most don’t realise that Takata removed key spiritual and healing practices, or that the set hand positions commonly taught today were an adaptation from the original system. As a result, they genuinely believe they are practising the traditional form of Reiki.

So when someone says they practice or teach “Usui Reiki Ryoho,” “Traditional Usui Reiki,” "Japanese Reiki" or “Traditional Reiki,” it may sound like they’re offering the original teachings—but in most cases, what’s being practiced or taught is the Westernised version passed down through the Takata lineage.  And it needs to made clear here, they are still practicing and teaching Reiki, and the energy is the energy, but how it practiced and taught is very different to the traditional system.

​

These Western systems now dominate Reiki practice globally. While Japanese systems like Jikiden Reiki and Komyo ReikiDo do preserve the traditional practices—or, in Komyo’s case, modified versions closely aligned with them—they remain far less well known and are very much in the minority worldwide.

​​​

If you are curious to learn more about what was lost from the original teachings and why, 
you may be interested to read the full article on the evolution of Reiki here.

​​

MESSAGE FOR WESTERN REIKI STUDENTS, PRACTITIONERS AND/OR TEACHERS....

If you’ve trained in Western Reiki and have a curiosity about these missing practices and elements of the original teachings—perhaps you feel something’s missing, or you have a desire to move deeper into your practice—these original techniques and practices can be easily integrated into your existing system and practice. They are a cohesive addition and complementary to any Reiki practice, likely to bring greater depth to and enhance your existing practice.​