In ancient times the village or tribal shaman was responsible for the health and welfare of the village or tribe. With the advent of modern medical practices, people stopped visiting the local shaman (or barber ) for treatment in favor of the local sawbones. Modern medical practices are completely based on science, and so the faith/belief aspect was completely removed from the equation, which, IMHO removed a valuable and powerful component.

Shamans (and now quantum physicists) long acknowledged the existence of forces beyond our understanding and spent hundreds if not thousands of years attempting to understand this power. Some of the stronger shaman were actually able to harness this powerful energy and direct it at will. There are several accounts that Reiki is no more than the rediscovery of a practice long since forgotten albeit previously the domain of those shamans (and shamanesses, as traditionally found in Japan) initiated (or attuned) into its realm.

In virtually every culture there is a history of some type of shamanism. The works of Mircea Eliade exhaustively discuss many of them, at least many of those that haven’t been lost with the ages. In Japan, for example, the Onmyoji, Itako, and even the practices of Shintoism and Shugendo themselves all have extremely strong shamanic components which would NOT have gone unnoticed by Dr. Usui in the creation of his Reiki Ryoho as, along with Bushido, as their basic philosophy was (and to some extent still is) ingrained in the culture, language and customs of day to day life in Japan.

I’ve seen some new Reiki styles with various shamanic practices incorporated but have yet to see one with the shamanic practices that would have been familiar to Dr. Usui, with the exception of some of the non-traditional Reiki additions that Hiroshi Doi has incorporated into his Gendai Reiki. I’d really like to see a true Shamanic Reiki system based on those practices Dr. Usui might have incorporated, although rumor has it that many of the techniques practiced (and kept secret) by the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai are based on such practices and deemed quite unsafe for the common people… which is why Doi Sensei presents watered down (and completely safe) versions for general consumption.

Of the various energy systems I’ve experienced, I find Chios Energy Healing to be most in tune with the spirit of traditional shamanic energies, and while technically not a Reiki system, in many respects it is quite similar, and generally in line with modern Reiki practices. I also find the Chios distance attunement procedure to be much better than that used by most Reiki systems and is more effective, and thus more along the lines with how I personally perform distance attunements.

I find the idea that Dr. Usui rediscovered (as opposed to discovered) Reiki after its being lost for many years to be quite inspiring. Rediscovering lost systems and piecing together the philosophy and logic (not to mention the energy itself in Reiki’s case) is fascinating…. especially in cases such as Huna and Onmyodo where the practices were outlawed and forced to go underground where they were gradually buried until their rediscovery. Thank heavens for Dr. Usui’s persistence.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!