Rare interview about Jikiden Reiki.

Tadao Yamaguchi Sensei (co-founder & President of Jikiden Reiki Institute, Kyoto, Japan) gives a rare interview to Gisela Stewart about Jikiden Reiki, Reiki in its original Japanese simplicity

BY KINDRED SPIRIT · NOVEMBER 23, 2015

GS: How did you and your family first get involved in Reiki?

TS: My mother learned Reiki when she was seventeen. In those days her sister, auntie and grandmother were all using Reiki. People say that she was very young to learn Reiki at the age of seventeen, but she said that she couldn’t wait to learn it. It was actually her Uncle Wasaburo’s idea. He thought she could learn Reiki after she finished school. My mother was told that it would be very useful when she gets married and has children. I was given Reiki energy even before I was born. In my childhood, Reiki healing was a normal, everyday thing as my mother would give me Reiki healing for everything. So, that was the beginning for me. It wasn’t like ‘when’ I started, but Reiki has always been there as part of everyday life.

GS: Why do you think people come from all over the world to attend your seminars?

TS: Honestly, I don’t know! (big laugh). I think it’s because Reiki has become so popular around the world. People now understand how effective Reiki is. In the old days, people were seeking more information about Reiki. People thought Reiki, although it originated in Japan, was not practised in Japan anymore. People came to Japan and visited places such as Mr Usui’s grave and Mt. Kurama, where Mr Usui did his ascetic training, but they never met anyone who actually practised Reiki as part of daily life. Then a Japanese person who had learned the Western type of Reiki and become a Reiki master discovered someone who had been practising the original form of Reiki for over sixty years. The Reiki master announced their discovery to the world. That was how my mother was discovered. After that, people started to visit us for further information on Reiki. At the time, although we weren’t aware of it, the information that my mother had to offer on the original Reiki was considered very valuable. I guess someone like my mother was very rare to Western style Reiki practitioners, as they didn’t think that there was anyone still practising the original form of Reiki.

GS: How was it that only your family was practising Reiki?

TS: I suppose after the Second World War, it became difficult to practise traditional healing. So there were fewer people doing it. The law got tighter on the use of traditional medicines. The revised medical law prohibited anything other than modern Western medicine. Also, after the war, many new things were available, including newly developed medicine. Traditional healing methods, such as what we are doing, were considered non-scientific methods in peoples’ minds.

GS: I’ve heard that your mother didn’t call the doctor even when you were seriously ill. She didn’t even have a first aid kit. What was it like for you as a child growing up with Reiki?

TS: That’s right. It was like that. Until I started primary school, I thought other families were the same – that they didn’t go to see the doctor either. But then, when I was at primary school, I discovered that my family was different.

GS: What sort of conditions can be treated with Reiki?

TS: Basically, you can treat any condition with Reiki. To be more specific, if you use Reiki at home, you can treat cuts and bruises for example. When I was a child I used to often get colds and also I ate too much. Conditions like this, that every child has, can be treated with Reiki. Reiki is the best thing you could have as home medicine. When I was a little older, maybe around fifteen years old, people started coming to see my mother to be treated for various ailments. I saw them getting better.

GS: Can you give me examples of conditions that she successfully treated?

TS: There are so many. One memorable case was someone with a liver problem. This person had jaundice. The doctor said to this person there is nothing they could do to help and the only thing the patient could do was rest. He was one of our distant relatives. So my mother said to him that he could stay at our house for a while and she would treat him everyday. Instead of charging him, she said he could just look after the children and maybe clean the house. He probably stayed at our house for a month. In the end he recovered completely. He is now over seventy and healthy. There was a cancer case too – someone who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After three months of Reiki treatment this patient recovered. He was in his late twenties at the time and recovered completely. It’s been over ten years since then but he is well. The cancer has not come back to this day.

GS: Did he have any other therapies to help his cancer at the same time like chemo therapy?

TS: He always preferred natural treatment. His wish was to use naturopathic methods to treat his cancer. At the beginning, he felt aches in his lower back. He didn’t know what was causing the problem. After being examined he was told it was pancreatic cancer. At that time, fortunately, the cancer had not spread anywhere other than the pancreas. So the doctor said anticancer drugs would be sufficient for his case. But he didn’t want to use anticancer drugs. Someone then introduced him to my mother and he came to our house everyday to receive treatment. After three months he was completely clear of cancer. At the time, my mother had an assistant. Sometimes both my mother and her assistant treated a person together. Sometimes even three treated a person at one time. I helped them as well.

GS: Is it better if more than one practitioner gives a treatment?

TS: Of course, one practitioner is sufficiently effective. However, if there are more practitioners treating a person at the same time, it becomes even more effective. Also, several breast cancer patients came to see my mother and they all got better. My mother attracted female patients because they are same gender. For example, ladies with uterus myoma or endometriosis. These conditions also got much better with my mother’s treatments.
GS: Do you have to have a special ability to practise Reiki or can anyone learn it?

TS: Anyone can learn Reiki if you attend the seminar and receive Reiju

GS: What does Reiju mean?

TS: Reiju is the most important part in learning Reiki. In a way it’s like a ritual. To understand Reiju properly, you need to attend the seminar but in short, I would say Reiju awakens the natural ability of healing that everyone has.

GS: Where does Reiju come from?

TS: It is of course Mr Usui who originally started Reiju.

GS: Why did you start giving public Jiiden Reiki seminars? When did you start giving them?

TS: We started giving seminars in 2000, although we started preparing them in 1999. Until then, we were just using Reiki at home. We never advertised or put up a sign or anything. People found out about my mother and came to see her, all through word of mouth. Those who my mother treated told others. That was how people knew about us. Then Western style Reiki reached Japan in around 1990. Western Reiki practitioners didn’t know there were still some people in Japan practising the original Reiki. So anyone who wanted to learn Reiki had to go to a Western Reiki teacher. Then a Reiki master of the Western style found out about my mother and came to visit us. He said he wanted to learn Reiki from my mother. My mother was mainly treating people but very occasionally taught as well. So she taught the Western Reiki master, then gradually more people came to her wanting to be taught as well. To meet the demands, my mother began giving seminars which were conducted in exactly the same way as the ones given by Chujiro Hayashi when my mother was learning.

GS: What does Jikiden Reiki mean? Why don’t you call your seminars just Reiki seminars?

TS: We could just simply call our seminars Reiki seminars, however, there were so many Reiki seminars going on around the world already. When we were thinking about a name, we thought of ‘Jikiden’, which means Chiyoko Yamaguchi, my mother, learned Reiki directly from Chujiro Hayashi. So we thought that that was very appropriate. When Japanese people hear the word ‘Jikiden’ they immediately understand that our Reiki has been directly passed on. ‘Jikiden’ is easy to remember for foreigners as well.

GS: How does Reiki heal people?

TS: That is a difficult question! But at the same time Reiki is simple. We use our hands and touch the person. This action of touching heals the person. If you ask how the Reiki energy heals problems, the answer is, ‘I don’t know’. I don’t think we scientifically understand how it works. If the power of Reiki were to be scientifically proven, Reiki would spread a lot more rapidly. We all have a natural ability to heal ourselves. But this ability is not working properly in many people for various reasons. In many of us this natural healing ability is dormant. I believe Reiki activates this ability and restores it to its original state. The healing ability of the person then starts working as it’s supposed to. In modern day, we say that our immune system becomes stronger. I think Reiki healing is something that enhances our immunity.

GS: So it helps the natural healing process. How do you feel about the relationship between conventional medicine and Reiki?

TS: Doctors of conventional medicine are highly educated people who have studied the human body in depth. I would very much like them to practise Reiki. I want doctors to learn Reiki and teach nurses to use Reiki. Ultimately, it would be ideal if doctors could say to patients that they can heal themselves. I think that would be my ultimate goal. That way, we can reduce medical costs and fewer people would suffer from the side effects of medicine.

GS: What do you think the future of Jikiden Reiki will be?

TS: The vision is to have one Jikiden Reiki practitioner per household.

Interview conducted by GS Stewart, translated by Rika Tanaka and Kyoko Atsumi