The Spiritual Science of Reiki
Reiki is a Japanese word for Universal Life Force Energy.
Reiki energy is said to come from the Source of all creation.
This Source is said to be the vital force that sustains the cosmos and infuses us with light and life, providing the energy source from which our bodies, and all forms of matter, arise.
People sometimes ask, could Reiki energy be an illusion?
Could benefits come from a placebo effect? What is the scientific basis for such an energy to exist? Is this Universal Life Force Energy a metaphysical construct, a symbol, a myth?
On the contrary, we should ask ourselves if our common perceptions of reality create illusions. Perhaps our bodies and our egos are an illusion.
Perhaps energy is the fundamental nature of reality, the basic building block of everything in the perceptible Universe.
If we could see the energy exchanges going on around us, we might live very different lives.
Still, it’s hard to imagine a Reiki practitioner tuning in to a source of limitless energy and then using their intuition and intent to direct the energy therapeutically.
Mentally, most of us live in an Eighteenth Century Newtonian Universe – the Universe of Physics 101, where atoms are modeled by billiard balls and it is assumed that every action and reaction under the Sun can be reduced to a series of neat diagrams and elegant mathematical equations.
Pool billiards game situation. 2 bank shot, called sawtooth, with ball 1 and following position play on ball 2, 4 or 7
LezFraniak, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Classical Newtonian physics assumes that the cosmos is composed primarily of emptiness – the vacuum of space, devoid of matter and energy.
In the classical model the Universe is composed mainly of dead and death dealing space.
Classical physics also assumes that objects within this radically empty space are composed at the most basic level of matter, which has mass, and because of this intrinsic mass, matter tends to remain still or to remain in motion once moving.
This is called the law of inertia.
These old scientific paradigms are being challenged by new discoveries and ancient wisdom that go a long way to explain what Reiki energy is, what the source of Reiki energy is, and how Reiki works.
In the process, these new scientific paradigms show that energy is the fundamental source of all the matter in the Universe, including human beings.
We are all, in some sense, beings of light.
Classical physics had taught us that matter is the basic building block of the Universe, that space is a vacuum, and that friction kills momentum.
An oscillating pendulum would eventually come to rest if not continuously energized by an outside force, such as a spring.
In the Twentieth Century, quantum physics theorized that all oscillators continue to “jiggle” randomly about their “resting point”, with a very small amount of energy always present.
Quantum physicists called the ground state of any oscillating system zero-point energy. The term “Zero Point Energy” refers to zero degrees Kelvin. Zero degrees Kelvin equals -273.5 degree Fahrenheit, and is accepted as a symbolic representation for the absence of all heat, as in the “vacuum” of space.
Astrophysicists, following up the work of these quantum physicists researching the roots of inertia, found that the void of deep space is in fact a limitless self-sustaining source of Zero Point Energy.
Zero Point Energy appeared to some astrophysicists to be the most ubiquitous energy in the Universe.
Nor is matter the fundamental building block of our Universe, as Newtonian physics had proclaimed.
Instead Zero Point Energy, which is coterminous with the vast field of the Void in deep space, appears to be the true origin of all matter in the Cosmos.
In the 1930s, quantum physicists described the Void as a state of minimum energy where minute fluctuations of Zero Point Energy lead to constant formation of particle-antiparticle pairs.
Far from being dead and death-dealing, the “vacuum” of space was discovered to generate a low level of background energy and simultaneously to precipitate the energy particles that are the most basic, subatomic building blocks of matter.
Scientists today call this new, energetic version of deep space The Zero Point Field (ZPF).
Scientists differ about how much energy exists in the Zero Point Field, but Nobel laureate Richard Feynman and John Wheeler, one of Einstein’s protégés, calculate that there is enough of this Zero Point energy in the volume of a coffee cup to evaporate all the world’s oceans.
Enough energy to provide a limitless Source of Universal Life Force Energy for Reiki and other energy practitioners around the world until the end of time.
God's Aura
I propose that the Source of Reiki energy originates in what some modern scientists describe as the Zero Point Field – a field of low-level energy filling the seemingly empty vastness of deep space.
Some scientists are beginning to see the Zero Point Field as a limitless Source of energy and even as the Source of all the matter in the Universe.
This radical view of the Universe gained ground in the 1990s, with the publication of thescientific work of American astrophysicists Hal Puthoff, Bernie Haisch, and Alfonso Rueda.
Their research transcended the Newtonian model.
According to Newton, matter is the fundamental building block of Nature, and possesses an innate mass, which can, however, be converted to energy.
Puthoff, Haisch and Rueda took the opposite viewpoint.
They see the entire Universe and all matter within it as a creation of light.
Is matter an illusion? Is the universe floating on a vast sea of light, whose invisible presence provides the resistance that convinces us, with our limited sensory perception, that matter is solid?
Puthoff, Haisch and Rueda see “matter” as composed of subatomic light “particles” accelerating in a relative vacuum.
A vacuum filled nonetheless with an ocean of background energy, called the Zero Point Field. Since the Zero Point Field varies in density from place to place, subatomic light particles encounter resistance from the Field as they travel, causing these accelerating particles to coalesce into more concentrated fields and forms, eventually creating “matter”.
This “matter”, or coalesced light, encounters increasing resistance from the Zero Point Field as it forms, creating what physicists call “inertia”.
In this view of reality, all objects, no matter how large, dense, or heavy, whether animate or inanimate, sentient or non-sentient, are composed of a collection of electrical charges interacting with a background sea of electromagnetic and other energy fields.
Einstein’s formula E=Mc2 treated matter and energy as two different types of things, showing that matter could be converted to energy and vice versa.
This new scientific hypothesis views matter as a form of energy arising from the Zero Point Field.
Mythology of the Zero Point Field
In this model of the Universe, the Zero Point Field (ZPF) is the Source of all matter in the Universe. The Zero Point Field (ZPF) fills the cosmos, including what appears to the naked human eye as the vacuum between planets and stars. The ZPF permeates all space, and all animate and inanimate objects therein, connecting them to one another.
The ZPF is a Universal Energy Field of various wavelengths, including visible and invisible light frequencies.
Resistance to the movement of subatomic particles/waves of light through the Zero Point Field is theorized to cause gravity, and to precipitate the coalescing of these particles/waves of light into what we call matter.
This Universal field of energy of various wavelengths, in its movement, as it generates gravitational and electromagnetic forces and fields, forms whirlpools of energy vast and small, creating galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets and even the life forms evolving on the planets thus created.
According to this new science, we are all beings of light, localized fields of crystallized Universal Life Force Energy, interconnected with all that exists by virtue of being contained within the larger Universal Field.
Scientists exploring this new model of the Universe find their vision converging with the ancient wisdom of mystical traditions found throughout the world.
Mystics of many traditions worldwide throughout history have described universal fields of intelligent life force energy in their creation myths and used various forms of this energy in their healing practices.
Reiki energy treatments follow in this long and venerable worldwide tradition.
In the Old Testament, God’s first words on Day of One of Creation were “Let there be light!”
The Greek myth of the Goddess Gaia begins with an image of the Goddess whirling out of darkness, wrapped in flowing white veils.
Hindus view the original creation as swirls forming in a sea of milk, a metaphorical representation of an energy field precipitating matter from the Void.
The Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition that began around 538 B.C., refers to this same primal sea of energy as the astral light, or Ain Soph Aur.
The notion of Zero-Point Energy was in some ways a throwback to earlier models of the universe.
The idea of a universal field of energy had been accepted by every ancient culture on Earth.
Called Spirit, prana, chi, aether, or some other name, it was believed in many religious traditions to be the primordial energy that sparked and sustains all creation.
Not God or Goddess, but the breath of God, the Word of God, the aura of Goddess, the fundamental stuff out of which creation arises, and which infuses all creation with vitality.
Plato called this field the quintessence, and spoke of five elements, earth, air, fire, water and aether, each with its own unique sacred geometry.
We call this energy quintessence Reiki or Universal Life Force Energy.
The Zero Point Field, or Universal Life Force Energy also provides a medium through which energy in the form of distance Reiki, prayer or shamanic healing can be delivered instantaneously to remote recipients.
Scientists are beginning to explore the possibility that theUniversal Life Force Energy Field exhibits a cosmic consciousness in addition to its other qualities.
The Zero Point Field might be God’s aura.
Universal Life Force Energy & Reiki Treatments
Reiki energy treatments spring from the ancient wisdom concerning Universal Life Force Energy revealed in religions, mythologies and traditions of energy healing around the world.
Shamanic healing practices of indigenous peoples worldwide extend far into pre-history, and rely upon a deep understanding of the animistic universe, the Universal Energy Field, and the human energy field, or aura.
Shamans utilize “power”, for self-improvement, healing, and to obtain spiritual wisdom.
This power comes from one-pointed attention, devotion to the path of Spirit, and the ability to manipulate life force energy within oneself and the environment.
This “power” is not exactly the same as kundalini or prana or ki, because “power” represents this energy plus the focused intent of the shaman, which is connected to a very specific ancestral lineage and spiritual world.
Ancient Hindu spiritual traditions emphasized that health and spiritual progress depend upon balancing the energy systems of the body and enhancing the flow of universal life force energy through the key energy centers, or chakras located along the spinal column and in the head.
This balancing and enhancement requires discipline, focus and diligent, patient work on the part of the individual, who was expected to practice meditation, purify the body, practice moderation in all aspects of life, and perform a variety of other spiritual practices.
Over 5,000 years ago, Hindu spiritual tradition focused on a fundamental form of energy called prana, the “breath of life”, which is the basis and source of all existence. Yogis practice breathing techniques, meditation, and physical exercises to heighten this life force energy within them. They hope to activate the electrical energy within the spine known to yogis as kundalini, and thus to achieve altered states of consciousness, leading ultimately to self-realization or spiritual enlightenment.
In the third millennium B.C., Chinese sages first spoke of a vital energy necessary to sustain life, which they called Ch’i or Ki.
The Chinese viewed Ki as the universal energy infusing the entire Cosmos. The Chinese system of healing through acupuncture relies upon balancing the two polar manifestations of Ki called yin and yang within the human body.
Christian tradition recounts the story of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ’s twelve Apostles.
The Apostles entered a higher state of consciousness, began to speak in tongues, and traveled near and far, preaching the Gospel fearlessly throughout the world.
The Apostles healed many by prayer and the laying on of hands.
This was a clear example of simultaneous kundalini awakening. Jesus Christ’s entire group of disciples attained this precious gift simultaneously, and the result is that two thousand years later, Christianity is the largest religion in the world.
The wisdom teachings of the Western world’s yogis, known as alchemists, speak in detail of the true nature of the Universal Energy Field and of its healing properties.
The legendary alchemist Hermes Trismegistus reveals many fundamental truths about the relationship between the human aura and the Universal Energy Field in his cryptic but illuminating work, The Emerald Tablets of Thoth, wherein the initiate discovers that the Logos, The Word of God in the Bible, is liquid living light.
The Word, this liquid living light, is composed of cosmic consciousness, which is synonymous with unconditional Love. The Word is coterminous with the cosmos.
In essence this Logos is God’s aura, and we all live within this loving, intelligent, beneficent field of Universal Life Force energy.
Hermes Trismegistus calls this conscious, liquid living light “The Strength of All Strengths”, “The One Thing”, the Mercury of the alchemists.
Mercury’s nature is pure Love. On the physical plane, this energy manifests as sexual energy.
On the mental and spiritual planes, Mercury appears as pure light or the Holy Spirit, who inhabited Christ’s disciples on Pentecost.
Alchemical mercury is equivalent to the kundalini energy Eastern adepts in the yoga tradition raise within themselves in the process of enlightenment.
Kundalini energy is aroused at the base of the spine through love and compassion, elevated through purity to open the heart, and is there transformed into pure light, or the Holy Spirit, and raised to the crown of the head, conferring enlightenment, or Christ consciousness.
Reiki and the Human Energy Field
It is no accident that Self-Realized individuals, true Gurus, Jesus Christ and other Ascended Spiritual Masters, are depicted throughout history as miraculous healers.
These enlightened individuals had all obtained complete conscious control of the Universal Life Force Energy, of their own energy field, and of the connection between the two.
Universal Life Force energy, Reiki energy, works directly on the human energy field to balance the flow of energy throughout the body in a very interesting way.
Reiki works at a profound level to promote self-healing, because the human energy field is the most fundamental aspect of our nature.
We normally think of ourselves as physical beings who may possibly have a nonphysical component to our nature of some unquantifiable, metaphysical kind. The truth is that we are beings of light inhabiting a material body crystallized out of universal life force energy.
Spiritual teachers of both East and West have always taught that the truth is different from our everyday perceptions of life. These spiritual teachers have always taught that aspects of the human aura are more fundamental to our being than the body.
A human being is much like a rain cloud or a flower -- an electro-colloidal suspension of particulate matter in a liquid medium, infused with and surrounded by a coherent energy field.
Mist is an aerosol colloidal suspension of water droplets and fine particles in the air.
Colloids can be defined as particles of a substance, which are finely divided and mixed in a supporting substance such as liquid, gel, or gas.
Technically, Merriam Webster's Medical Dictionary defines a colloid as "a substance that consists of particles dispersed throughout another substance which are too small for resolution with an ordinary light microscope but are incapable of passing through a semipermeable membrane or as a mixture (as smoke) consisting of a colloid together with the medium in which it is dispersed."
Colloids are pulled together by their surface tensions, which tend to coalesce the colloidal suspension into greater and greater density, a more and more gelatinous form.
Colloids are also pushed apart, toward a condition of greater and greater dispersion called a sol, by their electrical properties.
"The particles of a colloid selectively absorb ions and acquire an electric charge," according to the Columbia Encyclopedia. "All of the particles of a given colloid take on the same charge (either positive or negative) and thus are repelled by one another."
Cells, tissues, indeed, all life exists in the equilibrium between gel and sol. Life depends completely upon a constantly equilibrating balancing act by which the electro-colloidal suspension maintains its continuity. Move the suspension too far toward gel, or too far toward sol, and life ends.
All life consists of the maintaining of a dynamic equilibrium over time.
This dynamic equilibrium is sustained by a set of coherent energy fields infusing, surrounding, patterning and sustaining all life forms and their constituent cells and tissues -- all of which are formed of colloidal suspensions.
Scientists have measured electrostatic, electromagnetic, sonic, thermal, and visual components of the human energy field, which some call the human "aura".
Now we must add the concept of the intelligent, morphogenetic field, which helps structure life forms and even guide them toward their optimum state of development, containing the blueprint for their growth and evolution throughout their lifecycle.
Certain dynamic energy fields surrounding crystals, human beings, and animals have been called "morphogenetic fields" by biologist Rupert Sheldrake.
The morphogenetic fields create blueprints for both form and behavior in living beings, according to Sheldrake. "Sheldrake has hypothesized a field of morphic ('pattern-related') resonance in which patterns of knowledge, structure or behavior of a certain kind of thing (whether a salt crystal or a human mind) become increasingly embedded as a 'habit,' an ingrained pattern of information which influences and is accessible to other members of that category of thing," explains the Co-Intelligence Institute website.
"In the 1920s Harvard University psychologist William McDougall did experiments for 15 years in which rats learned to escape from a tank. The first generation of rats averaged 200 mistakes before they learned the right way out; the last generation 20 mistakes. McDougall concluded that, contrary to accepted genetic science, such acquired knowledge could be inherited."
"In later efforts to duplicate McDougall's experiments in Australia, similar rats made fewer mistakes right from the start. Later generations of rats did better even when they were not descendents of the earlier rats. This wasn't genetics at work. It was something else. Nobody tested it further."
Commenting on the rat experiments, Sheldrake said: "If rats are taught a new trick in Manchester, then rats of the same breed all over the world should show a tendency to learn the same trick more rapidly, even in the absence of any known type of physical connection or communication. The greater the number of rats that learn it, the easier it should become for their successors."
Energy healing systems, such as Reiki, work to maintain the dynamic equilibrium within the human energy field, and thus within the human body, the mind, and even the collective unconscious, where we might find the patterns that form the evolutionary arc of human existence, according to Sheldrake's theories.
Beings of Light in a Holographic Universe
Exactly how the various components of the human energy field arise from the Universal Life Force Energy Field, or Zero Point Field , remains to be explained.
However it is clear to mystics and some scientists that matter and life forms arise from this field, and are composed of energy.
Science cannot find particles that constitute the basic building blocks of matter; they do not exist. As one looks deeper and deeper into matter one discovers more and more, smaller and smaller particles, in an infinite regression of forms.
One must approach creation from the energetic perspective, which sees all matter as crystallized light.
The "particles" scientists perceive are an aspect of this condensed light, and can be perceived at the subatomic level as either waves or particles.
Our commonsense worldview turns upside down once we realize that energy fields form all matter.
Our bodies are formed and sustained by energy fields.
The health of the human body depends upon the health of the aura, an energy system in dynamic equilibrium.
Maintaining a healthy flow of energy throughout the body and aura is of paramount importance.
We traditionally think of objects or bodies generating fields of energy around them, but exactly the opposite is true. The energy field gives rise to the object within it, whether the object is a computer, a cloud or a child.
We exist as conscious beings of light within a universe composed of fields within fields within fields of energy, all interconnected holographically.
The cells of human body are electro-colloidal suspensions, small fields that exist within larger fields of electro-colloidal suspension called tissues.
These tissues exist within larger fields called organs, and the organs exist wel in the net.
One can picture the Cosmos as Indra's Net, described in the Avatamsaka Sutra as an unbroken Web of life, interconnected and self-reflective at every point, with every sub-component containing the whole.
Paradoxically every sub-component appears to be self-contained and autonomous when viewed from within a limited field of activity.
"In the heaven of Indra, there is said to be a network of pearls, so arranged that if you look at one you see all the others reflected in it," says Sir Charles Eliot, in his book Japanese Buddhism. "In the same way each object in the world is not merely itself but involves every other object and in fact is everything else. 'In every particle of dust, there are present Buddhas without number'."
Dr. Karl Pibram, a renowned brain scientist, theorizes that the human brain also has holographic properties.
Pribram states that the brain structures sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch holistically.
Further, Pribram states that the brain abstracts information such as memories from a holographic domain that transcends time and space.
If consciousness is an energy field existing within and interconnected with, a set of larger energy fields extending to and coterminous with the Universal Life Force Energy Field, the Zero Point Field, then mind, body, aura and environment are all radically interdependent.
Distance Reiki and the Zero Point Field
If the Universe is holographic, then Universal Life Force Energy can be transmitted instantaneously across time and space.
This could explain the mechanism behind such phenomena as distance Reiki treatments, the power of prayer to heal physical illness, psychic impressions of past lives and future events, and much, much more.
In theory, using a holographic model of the Universe, the faster than light Warp Drive of Star Trek fame is a very real possibility.
Reiki practitioners, mystics, shamen and other energy healers know that our human energy field, including the physical body, is extremely sensitive to energy fluctuations, which disturb the electro-colloidal suspension’s balance between sol and gel, among other variables.
The entry of toxins into our energy fields and bodies throws the delicate, dynamic equilibrium of life out of balance, resulting in physical, emotional and mental dis-ease.
Thoughts and emotions are energies, just as physical matter appears to be energy.
When polluted or negative physical substances, thoughts or feelings enter our energy fields, either from inner imbalance or outer conditions and other beings, we experience trauma.
This trauma can be held in various parts of our energy field -- in the aura, in the mind, in the heart, or even in the physical body, manifesting as mental misconceptions, negative emotions, blockages in the flow of energy within our auras and the rest of our beings, or physical illness.
Basically, when we ingest environmental toxins, allergens, or pathogens, when we experience negative thoughts or emotions, and when we endure physical traumas of various kinds, the natural flow of life force energy, or Ki, within the human energy field, including the physical body, is disrupted.
These disruptions can create blockages and pockets of toxic physical, mental, or emotional substance, resulting in illness, neurosis, negative emotions, mental misunderstandings, and problems in relationships in our lives.
Reiki energy treatments help to restore a balanced flow of life force energy, or Ki, through all parts of the human energy field, and throughout the physical body.
Practitioners have found that Reiki, like the Alchemical Mercury constituting Cosmic Consciousness and the Zero Point Field, is an intelligent, loving energy, and because the “Higher Intelligence” of the Source guides Reiki, this energy knows exactly where to go in the body and in the aura to create balance in the areas that suffer from a restricted flow of Ki.
This same Universal Life Force energy, Reiki, can be used to strengthen our energy field, to optimize the activity of the chakra system, to enhance our ability to meditate, to improve our access to intuition and inner spiritual guidance, and to unlock our own creative powers.
Spiritual teachers in the East and in the West agree that enhancing the flow of Universal Life Force Energy throughout the human energy field and the body is necessary for spiritual progress.
Indeed all mystical experiences rest upon the attainment of kundalini awakening, the infusion of universal life force energy in such superabundance that the entire system fuses with the Universal Life Force, and human consciousness fuses with the Zero Point Field.
This state is called Nirvana.