I recently encountered an interesting discussion on one of the Reiki boards about why Reiki “did not get air under its wings in Japan as it did in the West” and in my opinion, while many of the suggested causes were quite interesting (especially the one about the refrigerator) they are ultimately all wrong. The closest thing to a correct answer was probably suggested by the asker of the question himself when he suggested that “Japanese society is quite secretive”… although this is only part of it.

Japanese Communication Style

If you could draw a picture of the traditional Japanese Style of Communication it would be a spiral. Were a Reiki practitioner to broach the subject, they would begin with a very general question or statement and see if there was any interest on the part of whoever they were communicating with. If the other person verbally or non-verbally showed little or no interest the conversation would no doubt just drift on to another subject that was more mutually interesting. If there was some interest shown, the conversation would slowly spiral inward as it got closer to the desired subject (taking whatever detours were necessary for clarification). If there is no negativity encountered the discussion can progress slowly toward something like “Do you know about Reiki?” This is quite a tedious process and many topics, such as Reiki, which have a lot of negative baggage, never culminate in actual discussion. It will just have to patiently await a better time.

Reiki Secrecy

The Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai (the original Reiki organization started by its founder) is an extremely secretive society. And if it were left up to them, only a handful of people would ever know about Reiki. There are many such age old secret societies here in Japan protecting secrets that have lasted millennia… and no doubt countless other such societies that have died out and taken their secrets with them… which is in all likelihood exactly where the Gakkai is headed if they don’t start sharing. It is due to this that the Reiki world owes so much to Mrs. Takata i.e., for exposing Reiki to the Western world… which has a very different style of communication… and the wonderful result is Reiki as we know it.

There is further discussion about Reiki n Japan here.

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