Jikiden Reiki

Hayashi's courses and Yamaguchi Chiyoko

In a 2017 University of Toronto dissertation, Justin Stein describes Hayashi Chujiro's Hayashi Reiki Society as teaching Usui Reiki Therapy, and says Hayashi introduced an intensive five-day course covering the 'first transmissions' (shoden) and 'inner transmissions' (okuden). Chiyoko Yamaguchi (1921-2003) took this course in 1938 in Daishoji, Ishikawa, and recalled that it was designed for outlying regions without local masters (shihan). Stein reports her recollection that the fee was fifty yen, roughly a month's salary for an average worker.

Stein's account of the course rests on Yamaguchi's recollections as published in a 2007 book by her son Tadao, which was not opened for this page. Stein adds that her recollection differs from Hawayo Takata's: the main Hayashi centers in Tokyo and Osaka are described as using gradual advancement through ranks, with the five-day seminar given in outlying regions.

The lineage's own account of the family

The Jikiden Reiki Kenkyukai states on its own pages that Chiyoko Yamaguchi was born in Kyoto on December 18, 1921, and attended Hayashi's 1938 seminar in Daishoji. It says her uncle, Wasaburo Sugano, met Hayashi around 1930 and introduced the family to Reiki, and that after moving to Kyoto in 1951 with her husband and four children she used Reiki at home until her death in 2003. The English pages give her years of practice as over 60 and as 65, so the figure varies by page.

Seminars from 2000

The organization says that in 2000 Chiyoko Yamaguchi and her fourth son, Tadao, decided to hold the Jikiden Reiki Seminar, intended as a recreation of the format of Hayashi's seminars, and that the two taught, including giving reiju, until her death in 2003. Tadao Yamaguchi is named as the representative of the Kenkyukai. The English page about the lineage says he rediscovered his mother's Reiki through her memories and historical documents. These are the lineage's own statements and no independent corroboration of the 2000 start date was found in the sources reviewed.

The Reiki page lists Kōmyō Reiki, led by Inamoto Hyakuten, as a separate lineage that also derives from Yamaguchi Chiyoko's teaching. The sources reviewed for this page do not describe Kōmyō Reiki or any teaching by Inamoto within the Jikiden Reiki Kenkyukai.

What 'jikiden' and the organization's name signal

The lineage gives 'jikiden' as meaning directly passed down, and says its courses follow what Yamaguchi Chiyoko learned directly from Hayashi in 1938. Its organization is called the Jikiden Reiki Kenkyukai in Japanese-language use and the Jikiden Reiki Institute in its English pages. The name states a transmission claim that the sources reviewed do not test independently. Stein's dissertation, written as historical scholarship, treats Yamaguchi's recollections as testimony about Hayashi's teaching.

Ranks and technical terms

Stein glosses shoden as 'first transmissions', okuden as 'inner transmissions' and shihan as masters. He describes reiju as a ceremony performed at regular meetings of the Usui and Hayashi societies and normally reserved for Buddhist monastics, which he reads as a democratized reinvention for lay urban audiences. He gives byosen as 'sick glands' and byogen as 'disease source', words used by Hayashi's students for the spots where a practitioner's hands register a sensation.

The lineage also certifies a second tier called shihankaku alongside shihan, and it lists both in public rosters. The pages opened for this page give no English gloss of the difference between the tiers, so none is stated here.

Seminar structure

The lineage's English seminar page describes a three-day program. Shoden Part 1 is held on the first day, Parts 2 and 3 on the second day, and okuden Parts 1 and 2 on the third day. New students complete shoden before okuden, mid-course entry and early departure are not allowed, and groups are listed at 6 to 12 participants. The page states a fee of 85,000 yen plus tax for new students, which includes a textbook, and 25,000 yen plus tax for repeat students.

The page says the seminars emphasize therapeutic effectiveness and practical Reiki therapy, and it names byosen, hand positions and reiju as parts of the teaching without describing them in detail. It contains no medical disclaimer in the text reviewed. The statement about effectiveness is the organization's own claim and the page cites no study for it.

Hand-based treatment

Stein reports that Hayashi and Takata both taught that sensations in a practitioner's hands indicate where the cause of a problem lies, sometimes at a point distant from the most evident symptom. He states that learning to find these points was an essential bodily technique, and that the Hayashi Reiki Society treatment manual uses moderately detailed anatomical terms for ailments and hand positions. Hayashi's courses also included practical sessions of giving and receiving treatment. These are historical descriptions of 1930s teaching, not a description of current seminars.

Ranks and teachers

Only teachers certified by the Institute are presented by the lineage as authorized to teach Jikiden Reiki through its seminars, and its member page lists shihan and shihankaku rosters. The page reported 543 shihan and 1,368 shihankaku at the time it was read, and showed a date that differs from the access date, so the counts should be rechecked. The requirements for each rank were not available in the pages opened, and no outside training standard or register covering this lineage was found.

Family care as the lineage describes it

The lineage describes Chiyoko Yamaguchi's use of Reiki as a home practice for her family, including for common ailments such as colds and headaches, and quotes her as saying that nothing is more convenient than Reiki for raising children. This is an account of one family's practice, offered by the lineage. It shows what the lineage says its founder did and does not show that any treatment altered an outcome.

Therapy-focused framing

The Institute's seminar page frames its teaching as practical Reiki therapy with high therapeutic effectiveness, in contrast with the Western spiritual emphasis it attributes to other styles. Stein's historical work notes that Hayashi's society taught anatomy and treatment practice and that Usui Reiki Therapy had been presented in early twentieth-century Japan as a therapy for physical and mental improvement. The sources reviewed give no data on which conditions Jikiden Reiki recipients seek help for or how often.

No lineage-specific trial found

A PubMed search for the term Jikiden returned no records, and a search combining Reiki with Jikiden, Komyo, Japanese style or Usui Reiki Ryoho returned none. Web searches for a Jikiden trial, survey or interview study also returned only general Reiki research. No controlled study that names Jikiden Reiki as the intervention was therefore found, and no finding on Reiki in general should be read as a finding about this lineage.

What general Reiki reviews report

A 2015 Cochrane review of Reiki for depression and anxiety found three small randomized trials, with only 25 participants with anxiety and 17 with depression whose data could be separated, and reported no evidence that Reiki is either beneficial or harmful in that population. It rated risk of bias as unclear or high in most domains and concluded the evidence was insufficient. The abstract refers to Reiki delivered by a trained practitioner and does not name a lineage.

The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health states that Reiki has not been clearly shown to be effective for any health-related purpose, that most research has been of low quality with inconsistent results, and that there is no scientific evidence supporting the energy field the practice describes. Family-wide trials and reviews are covered on the Reiki page.

How the lineage describes the difference

The lineage states that 99 percent of the Reiki practiced in Japan is Western style, and presents itself as a Japanese line that does not pass through Hawayo Takata, whom it says trained 22 teachers. It describes its seminars as authentically Japanese in origin. These are the lineage's own claims, and the sources reviewed give no independent count of practitioners by style.

Points raised by a historian

Stein states that the Takata lineage probably accounts for over 90 percent of Reiki practitioners worldwide, and reports that Hayashi's society used reiju at meetings and a booklet of 100 poems by the Meiji Emperor, which he says Takata appears not to have received or to have discarded. He also reports Tadao Yamaguchi's view that Takata misunderstood the symbol phrases: in his account the names are not to be recited and a different incantation is used. Stein reports this as a claim by Yamaguchi and does not adjudicate it.

Reported harms and gaps

NCCIH states that Reiki has not been shown to have any harmful effects, while the Cochrane review found too little data to say whether Reiki is beneficial or harmful in people with anxiety or depression. Neither source addresses Jikiden Reiki specifically, and neither reports adverse-event data for this lineage. The Institute pages reviewed contain no safety statement or medical disclaimer.

Care boundaries and costs

NCCIH advises discussing decisions about treatment or care with a health care provider. Reiki should not replace or delay medical evaluation or necessary treatment. The seminar fee stated by the Institute, 85,000 yen plus tax for new students, is a cost of training and not of treatment; no statutory regulation or independent training standard for Jikiden Reiki was found in the sources reviewed.