09/06/2026
THIS POST DOES NOT BELONG TO ME
IT IS BEING SHARED FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN THE TRUE ESSENCE OF REIKI
Seeing the Reiki of the 学会 (Gakkai) As It Truly Is
— 学会の霊気を、ありのままに見る (Gakkai no Reiki o, arinomama ni miru)
I am retracing the 霊気 (Reiki) left to us by 臼井甕男 (Usui Mikao) Sensei, back to its origins. Not to attack anyone. As a matter of research, when we look at the Reiki of the 学会 (Gakkai — the 臼井霊気療法学会, Usui Reiki Ryōhō Gakkai, "the Society of Usui Reiki Healing"), I ask only this: set aside for a moment the lens of Western Reiki added in later times, and read the words the Gakkai itself left behind, just as they are.
In Western Reiki, Usui Sensei's Reiki has long been told with 安心立命 (Anshin Ritsumei — "settled peace of mind / spiritual repose") at its center. Spirituality first, 悟り (Satori — enlightenment) first. But when we read the Reiki of the Gakkai through its own original sources, a different picture appears.
◆ 1. "安心立命" — where, and how often, does it appear?
The word 安心立命 (Anshin Ritsumei) appears in only one book, in only one place: 『霊気療法のしおり』 (Reiki Ryōhō no Shiori — "Handbook of Reiki Healing"). It does not appear even once in the Gakkai's most important original source, 『公開傳授説明書』 (Kōkai Denju Setsumeisho — "Explanatory Document of the Public Transmission"); nor in the treatment manual 『霊気療法必携』 (Reiki Ryōhō Hikkei — "Essential Handbook of Reiki Healing"); nor in 『霊気 愛の光』 (Reiki Ai no Hikari — "Reiki: The Light of Love"), supervised by 小山君子 (Koyama Kimiko) Sensei; nor in the 『霊気療法指導書』 (Reiki Ryōhō Shidōsho — "Reiki Healing Instruction Manual") that we use today.
And that single place in the Shiori is not a passage explaining the purpose of the therapy. It is one line in the biography of Usui Sensei's youth: 「人生の窮極は、安心立命を得ることだ」 (meaning: "The ultimate end of life is to attain anshin ritsumei") — this, it says, was his 「第一の悟り」 (meaning: "first awakening"). It continues: unable to reach the next awakening, he secluded himself on 鞍馬山 (Kuramayama — Mt. Kurama) and began a fast. So even within the Shiori's own account, anshin ritsumei is not the destination but the starting point.
One more thing about this Shiori. The copies circulating online as "the Gakkai's material" are mostly retyped copies of an original, lacking the 奥付 (okuzuke — the colophon giving publisher, address, and date). The contents are genuine, but it was issued in September of Shōwa 49 (1974), in the time of the fifth president, 和波豊一 (Wanami Hōichi) Sensei. The very next year it passed to the time of the sixth president, 小山君子 (Koyama Kimiko) Sensei. It belonged to a very short period and did not circulate widely within the Gakkai. To take a single word appearing a single time in one booklet and treat it as the heart of the Gakkai's Reiki differs from the whole of the original sources.
◆ 2. Then how is the purpose of the therapy written?
It is set down clearly in the catechism of the Kōkai Denju Setsumeisho: 「第一 心を癒し、第二 肉體を健全にしなくてはなりません」 (meaning: "First, heal the mind; second, make the body sound."). Mind first, body second — in that order. It continues: 「霊肉一如となつて……傍ら他の病者を癒し、自他共に幸福を増進することが、臼井霊気療法の使命であります」 (meaning: "Becoming one in spirit and body … and, alongside this, healing the illnesses of others and increasing the happiness of both self and others — this is the mission of Usui Reiki Ryōhō.").
Mind and body are one — 霊肉一如 (Reiniku Ichinyo). Setting oneself in order and healing others' illnesses stand side by side, at the same time. Both together are called the "mission." The very name says it: in full, 心身改善臼井霊気療法 (Shinshin Kaizen Usui Reiki Ryōhō — "Usui Reiki Healing for the Improvement of Mind and Body").
◆ 3. Remove the treatment of illness, and nothing is left to speak of.
The Kōkai Denju Setsumeisho even describes the method in detail: 気 (ki — vital force) and light are emitted from the eyes, mouth, and hands; one gazes at the affected part, breathes upon it, strokes it with the hand. For toothache, stomach pain, neuralgia, bruises, burns — such sufferings, it says, 「立所に痛みをさり、腫れがひきます」 (meaning: "the pain leaves at once and the swelling subsides"), while chronic illnesses 「幾回かの治療を要します」 (meaning: "require several treatments").
The later documents are the same. The Shiori uses the word 治療 (chiryō — treatment) more than 150 times, records the case of a family's stomach cancer in 神戸 (Kōbe), and conveys Usui Sensei's words: 「医薬で、どうしても治らない病は、進んで霊気で治しなさい」 (meaning: "For illnesses that medicine cannot cure at all, go ahead and heal them with Reiki."). The Reiki Ai no Hikari is filled with the accounts of those who were helped.
And the Reiki Ryōhō Shidōsho by the seventh president, 近藤正毅 (Kondō Masaki) Sensei — the one we actually use today — is unmistakably a manual of treatment. Its 「療法指針」 (Ryōhō Shishin — "Guidelines of the Therapy") states the basics: 「霊示で生体の不正常な細胞のひびく所に手を当て、霊気を送り、組織を活性化させる。……日々繰り返し、心身の健全化を助けることができる」 (meaning: "Guided by 霊示 [reiji — intuitive sensing], place the hands where the abnormal cells of the living body resonate, send Reiki, and activate the tissue. … Repeating this daily, one can help restore the soundness of mind and body."). It even sets up a chapter, 「系統に沿った主な疾病とその霊気療法」 (meaning: "Principal diseases by bodily system, and their Reiki therapy"), explaining hand placements illness by illness — headache, insomnia, dementia, down to treatment at the navel (臍, heso). For headache: 「風邪の場合は胸・喉を、脳出血・脳梗塞の場合は患部に手当てする」 (meaning: "For a cold, treat the chest and throat; for cerebral hemorrhage or infarction, treat the affected area."); for the navel: 「癌はもちろん、細菌性のものはすべて臍の治療をする」 (meaning: "For cancer, of course, and for all bacterial conditions, treat the navel.").
From Usui Sensei's old documents to the manual in active use today, the single thread running through all of them is, from first to last, treatment — 手当て (teate, the laying on of hands). Remove the treatment of illness, and these books have nothing left to speak of.
◆ 4. The Reiki of the Gakkai is not a religion.
The view that "the Gakkai's Reiki is Buddhism" or "a religious path aiming at satori" also proves mistaken once one reads the originals.
Usui Sensei himself, in the Kōkai Denju Setsumeisho, distinguishes Reiki Ryōhō from 「催眠術、気合術、信仰療法」 (meaning: "hypnosis, 気合 [kiai — spirit-shout] techniques, faith healing"), saying it is 「同工異曲のものでありません」 (meaning: "not merely a variation of the same kind of thing."). It is true that the words 神 (kami — god/deity) and 仏 (hotoke — buddha) appear in the originals. But look at how they are used: 「神や仏の様な心になつて後人を治療することを主眼として、自他共に幸福に充ちることが出来ます」 (meaning: "Becoming a heart like that of kami or hotoke, one makes the treatment of others the main aim, and so both self and others can be filled with happiness."). This is not "believe in gods and buddhas and be saved." It is a simile for a state of mind — to become clear-hearted, like a kami or a hotoke, and to treat others. The main aim is placed squarely on treating others.
The Shidōsho we use today states this even more plainly: 「霊気は宗教のように、神の言葉を信じて自己を律し、神に救われるというのではなく、宇宙に遍在する霊気を個人が心身で受容し……人間と生物の健康と充実を図るものです」 (meaning: "Reiki is not like religion, in which one disciplines oneself by believing the words of a god and is saved by that god; rather, the individual receives, in mind and body, the Reiki that pervades the universe … and works toward the health and fulfillment of human beings and all living things."). The Gakkai itself states that Reiki is different from religion. The Shiori, too, conveys Usui Sensei's teaching that 「医療、薬などを無視したり、排斥したりすることは、不謹慎極まりない」 (meaning: "To ignore or reject medical care and medicine is utterly improper."), urging respect for modern medicine — the very opposite of a faith healing that keeps people away from doctors.
Scholarship outside the Gakkai agrees. Usui Reiki Ryōhō is studied not as a religion but as one of the 民間精神療法 (minkan seishin ryōhō — folk psycho-spiritual therapies) and 手当て療法 (teate ryōhō — laying-on-of-hands therapies) of Japan from the Meiji to the early Shōwa eras. For example, the academic volume 『近現代日本の民間精神療法』 (Kingendai Nihon no Minkan Seishin Ryōhō — "Folk Psycho-Spiritual Therapies of Modern and Contemporary Japan"; publisher 国書刊行会, Kokusho Kankōkai), edited by 栗田英彦 (Kurita Hidehiko), 塚田穂高 (Tsukada Hotaka), and 吉永進一 (Yoshinaga Shin'ichi), places this therapy within the current of folk therapies of that age, and notes that such psycho-spiritual therapy arose as a "de-religionization of traditional religious healing," established as something separate from religion.
◆ 5. Then does the Gakkai have no spirituality?
Reading this far, you might ask: "Then does the Gakkai's Reiki have no spirituality at all?" No — the spirituality is certainly there.
There are the 五戒 (Gokai — the Five Precepts): 「今日だけは 怒るな 心配すな 感謝して 業をはげめ 人に親切に」 (meaning: "Just for today: do not be angry; do not worry; be grateful; work diligently; be kind to others."). This is a fine path of the heart. The Kōkai Denju Setsumeisho, too, places the mind first: 「第一 心を癒し」 (meaning: "First, heal the mind."). The practitioner first sets his own heart in order. That is the foundation of the Gakkai's Reiki.
But the form of that spirituality differs from Western Reiki. In Western Reiki the inner state of anshin ritsumei has been told as the center, with spirituality coming to the fore and treatment receding behind. In the Gakkai, spirituality is not separated from treatment. The two are one (reiniku ichinyo).
The spirituality of the Gakkai, in a single phrase, is this: through treatment, both oneself and others become happy together. In the words of the Kōkai Denju Setsumeisho, 「傍ら他の病者を癒し、自他共に幸福を増進すること」 (meaning: "alongside this, to heal the illnesses of others and to increase the happiness of both self and others"). In the words of the Hikkei, 「肉體の病気を癒すのみではありません。心の患い……を矯正することが出来ます。そして神や仏の様な心になつて後人を治療することを主眼として、自他共に幸福に充ちる」 (meaning: "It does not heal only bodily illness; it can also correct the afflictions of the mind. And, becoming a heart like that of kami or hotoke, making the treatment of others the main aim, both self and others are filled with happiness."). One sets the heart in order; with that heart one lays hands on another's illness; and within that laying-on of hands, both oneself and the other are healed. Spirituality and treatment are not two separate paths, but one and the same path.
So to split them in two — "spirituality, or treatment?" — and ask which stands higher is itself to see through the lens of Western Reiki. In the Gakkai, the two were one from the very beginning.
◆ In closing
I do not deny Western Reiki. There may be a Reiki that treasures satori, and a Reiki that learns from Buddhism; each has its own merit.
Only — when one says "the Gakkai is a body that aims at Buddhism" or "a body that aims at satori," one is describing not the Gakkai but Western Reiki. For the original sources speak of something else. The Gakkai does have spirituality. But it is not a satori cut off from treatment; it is a spirituality of becoming happy together with others, through treatment.
My request is only one. When you look at the Reiki of the Gakkai, set aside for a moment the lens of Western Reiki, and read — including all the period primary sources I have introduced until now — the words the Gakkai itself left behind, just as they are.
I will not argue. I have no wish to compete over who stands above whom. Without anger, without worry, grateful for every connection, I simply place the facts here, quietly. I leave the judgment to each person who takes up the original sources. The words Usui Sensei left behind are still here, quietly, even now.
(Note) The words "therapy," "treatment," and "healing" in this text are used to explain the materials and terminology of that period. They are not a substitute for diagnosis or treatment by a physician today. If you are ill or unwell, please first receive a doctor's diagnosis and care.
#臼井霊気療法 #霊気 #手当て #五戒 #霊気療法
