Raku Kei

Iris Ishikuro and Arthur Robertson

William Lee Rand of the International Center for Reiki Training writes that Iris Ishikuro, one of Hawayo Takata's Reiki Masters, had also learned another kind of Reiki from her sister, who worked in a Tibetan temple in Hawaii, and that this other kind came to be called Raku Kei. In Rand's account, Arthur Robertson learned both the Usui system and the Raku Kei system from her and began teaching in the mid-1980s. The page is a teacher's own account, carries no date, and does not independently confirm the Tibetan connection.

Two practitioner history pages add detail. They say that after Takata's death in 1980 Ishikuro chose to teach for a lower fee than the $10,000 that Takata had asked of her Masters, and that she trained only two Masters, Robertson and her daughter. They describe Robertson as a former teacher of Tibetan shamanism who had learned a healing method using several symbols and an attunement-like technique called an empowerment, and who combined it with Usui Reiki. These are statements by Reiki practitioners, not records from outside the tradition.

Dating and attribution

The sources agree on the two names but not on the date. International House of Reiki says Ishikuro and her student Robertson created the branch in the early 1980s, while Rand and the practitioner pages place the start of Robertson's teaching in the mid-1980s. The Reiki Council, a UK body of Reiki organizations, credits the style jointly to Ishikuro and Robertson. One practitioner page spells the second name Robinson, so the spelling should be checked against any future primary record.

None of these pages cites dated class records, certificates or correspondence. The scholarly World Religions and Spirituality Project entry on Western Reiki describes hundreds of styles that differ in the number of symbols, the initiation ritual and training fees, and counts twenty-three Masters trained by Takata, whereas the other pages say twenty-two. It does not mention Raku Kei, so it supports only the wider context of diversification.

Spread through William Rand

The Reiki Council notes that many Reiki practitioners have the Raku Kei style as part of their lineage through William Rand. Rand writes that he experimented with both systems and eventually developed what he called the Usui/Tibetan system of Reiki. International House of Reiki describes Raku Kei as a strong influence on Usui/Tibetan Reiki, Tibetan/Usui Reiki, Seichim, Tera Mai Reiki and Johrei Reiki, and less directly on many other branches. That influence is the page's own assessment.

Names in use

The Reiki Council's style list describes the Raku Kei style as developed by Ishikuro and Robertson. The same list calls Tibetan Reiki a generic term that mostly includes elements from Raku Kei Reiki or Usui Tibetan Reiki, with lineages that generally include Takata, Ishikuro and Robertson, and says the term may also be used for Wei Chi Reiki. A practitioner who offers Tibetan Reiki therefore does not necessarily teach the Raku Kei lineage, and a lineage statement is the clearer guide.

Meaning of the name

A practitioner history page reports that Raku is described as a vertical flow of energy and Kei as the horizontal flow, and that the system is sometimes called The Way of the Dragon. International House of Reiki lists a breath of the fire dragon among the techniques attributed to Ishikuro and Robertson. These are teachers' explanations, and the sources reviewed do not give a linguistic derivation from Tibetan or another language.

A separate practitioner article on the Raku symbol states that the origin of Raku is unknown to people because it was not part of traditional Usui Reiki, and offers one theory that it is a Tibetan symbol used by Ishikuro. No source reviewed draws on Tibetan studies or independent historical research, so the Tibetan attribution should be read as a claim made within the tradition and not as an established fact.

Elements teachers describe

A practitioner history page says the Raku Kei system combines a Tibetan style of healing with Usui Reiki, incorporates two Tibetan symbols with one used as a master symbol, includes a technique called the Violet Breath, and uses three symbols from the Okuden level of Usui Reiki. It adds that the system was taught separately from the Takata-style Usui system. This matches the one-line variant entry on the Reiki page, which attributes the same additions to Robertson's mid-1980s teaching.

International House of Reiki gives a different list of techniques attributed to Ishikuro and Robertson: the chakra system, the hui yin breath, the Johre symbol, the breath of the fire dragon, a Tibetan-style history and kanji hand mudras. The two lists are not identical, and the sources reviewed do not set out a full curriculum. The symbols and breath methods themselves are not reproduced here.

The Raku symbol in use

The practitioner article on the Raku symbol says it is used to ground a student after attunement, to separate the energies of student and teacher, and to close a session. It also describes uses such as severing connections with troublesome people, and visualizations for specific physical conditions. Those condition-specific uses are practitioner claims that no source reviewed tests. The article does not establish that this symbol is the same teaching as the Raku Kei lineage.

Attunement and session format

Like other Reiki styles, teachers of Raku Kei describe attunement as the way the practice is passed on. The Cochrane review of Reiki states that the attunement process differentiates Reiki from other forms of energy therapy, and the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council curriculum lists person-to-person attunement, initiation or reiju as a prerequisite to practice. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health describes practitioners placing hands lightly on or just above a person. None of these sources describes a session format specific to Raku Kei.

What the sources describe

The sources reviewed describe uses of particular components, such as grounding after attunement, separating energies and closing a session, in preference to claims about named conditions. The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council curriculum describes Reiki treatment in general as non-invasive and used holistically to restore balance in mind, body and spirit, which is the standard's own wording about the practice. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health notes that Reiki has been studied for pain, anxiety and depression.

Limits of the claims

No source reviewed reports Raku Kei-specific claims about outcomes, and this article does not assess them. Claims that a practitioner may make for the added symbols or breath work are statements of belief within the tradition.

Lineage-specific research

No study found identifies the Reiki delivered as Raku Kei. A PubMed search on 2026-10-06 for Raku Kei or Raku-Kei combined with Reiki returned no records, and web searches returned history and teaching pages but no trials or reviews. The sources reviewed contain no controlled study of the added Tibetan-attributed symbols or the Violet Breath. Whether Raku Kei differs in effect from other Reiki is therefore untested in the sources reviewed.

Family-wide findings

For Reiki generally, a 2015 Cochrane review of three randomized trials with 45 participants found insufficient evidence on whether Reiki is useful for anxiety or depression, with low-quality evidence and wide confidence intervals. A 2025 meta-analysis of 11 randomized trials with 661 participants reported a small pooled improvement in quality of life (standardized mean difference 0.28, 95% confidence interval 0.01 to 0.56), with substantial heterogeneity (I2 65.1%) and blinding limitations. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health states that Reiki has not been clearly shown to be effective for any health-related purpose and that there is no scientific evidence for the energy field thought to play a role.

The 2025 review treated Reiki as a single intervention and did not distinguish styles, and the Cochrane review describes Usui-initiated practitioners. These findings should not be carried over to Raku Kei's added elements. The Reiki page covers the family-wide research in more detail.

Reported harms and gaps in reporting

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health states that Reiki has not been shown to have harmful effects. The reporting behind that statement is thin: the Cochrane review notes that none of its included trials reported on adverse events for the relevant subgroups, and the 2025 meta-analysis gives no systematic adverse-event data from its included trials. An absence of reported harm in these sources therefore reflects limited reporting as well as any real difference.

No source reviewed examines the safety of the Violet Breath or other breathing techniques attributed to Raku Kei, and none reports adverse events for this lineage. The sources do not describe the method, so no statement can be made about who should avoid it.

Care boundaries, training and regulation

The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council curriculum, a UK voluntary-register standard, states that there are no known contraindications to Reiki treatment when used on its own, and that practitioners should recognize conditions for which Reiki may be incomplete and the client should seek other advice. It requires knowledge of the history and development of the styles practiced, without naming Raku Kei. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health advises that the information does not replace advice from health care providers. Reiki should not delay or replace necessary medical care.

The sources reviewed identify no Raku Kei-specific training standard, professional register or code. Training is described as passed along through teacher lineages, and the practitioner pages do not give current fees or course lengths.