霊気

Reiki (霊気) is composed of two kanji: 霊 (rei, 'spirit' or 'soul') and 気 (ki, 'vital energy' or 'breath'). The compound literally means 'spiritual energy' or 'soul force.' The word predates the healing practice; in classical Japanese, reiki described the atmosphere of sacred places — shrines, mountains, ancient forests. Mikao Usui (1865–1926), a Japanese Buddhist layman and businessman, adopted the existing word for his new healing system in 1922.

Usui claimed to have received the ability to heal through palm contact after a twenty-one-day meditation and fasting retreat on Mount Kurama, near Kyoto. He founded the Usui Reiki Ryōhō Gakkai (臼井霊気療法学会) in Tokyo in April 1922. The practice spread rapidly in Japan, partly because the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake created enormous demand for healing of all kinds. Usui and his students treated survivors in the aftermath. By the time of his death in 1926, Usui had trained over two thousand students.

Reiki traveled to the West through Hawayo Takata, a Japanese-American woman born in Hawaii. Takata learned reiki in Japan in the 1930s from Chūjirō Hayashi, one of Usui's senior students. She brought the practice to Hawaii and later to mainland America, training twenty-two reiki masters before her death in 1980. Takata simplified and modified the practice for Western audiences, removing much of its Buddhist and Shinto context. The word reiki survived the translation, but the cultural framework did not.

By the 2000s, reiki had become one of the most widely practiced forms of complementary therapy in the Western world. Hospitals in the United States and United Kingdom offered reiki sessions alongside conventional treatment. The word entered English dictionaries. Whether reiki 'works' in a clinical sense remains contested, but the word itself has achieved something remarkable: a Japanese compound meaning 'spirit energy' is now understood, without translation, in dozens of languages.