When Reiki travelled west, something was left behind
What crossed the ocean was hands-on healing for other people. What stayed home in Japan was the part Mikao Usui built the whole system around: healing yourself, steadying your own mind, and letting everything else follow from there.
I teach the part that stayed home.
Perhaps you have taken a weekend course somewhere and come away with a certificate and the feeling that you were handed a technique rather than a practice. Or perhaps you have never touched Reiki at all, and something keeps pulling you back to it.
Either way, you are probably carrying something. Stress that will not put itself down. Sleep that will not come. Pain no one has been able to explain. Grief. A mind that will not stop circling.
You do not have to become a healer to be helped by this. You need a practice you can do yourself, in a few minutes, on an ordinary morning, that brings you back to yourself. That is what Level 1 is for.
My story
I was a PhD psychotherapist in private practice when my health began to fail. That is when I found Reiki, and I was quickly sold on what it did for me personally.
For years I studied with Western Reiki masters, and it helped me cope. But when I found the Original Japanese practices, everything changed. After years of disability, the pain and stress I had carried for decades began to disappear.
Then I discovered something I had not expected. These practices did not only heal me. They held me steady.
My husband has had five potentially fatal strokes. Through the first ones I trembled, my heart pounded, and I was paralysed with fear. I could not imagine living without him.
By the fifth, and again a year later when my youngest daughter haemorrhaged and nearly died in childbirth, I stayed calm and present through all of it. I remained at peace, knowing I am always safe. I never even got a headache.
That is why I teach.
Original Japanese Reiki and Western Reiki
Usui taught Reiki as a complete system for the individual: principles to live by, meditations to practise, and the healing that grows out of both. Self first, others second.
What reached the West came through naval medical officers who had asked him for emergency aid they could use at sea, and then through one teacher and one student who carried it to Hawaii. It was a fragment, and it pointed outward, toward other people's bodies. Both are real Reiki. They are simply not the same training.
| Western Reiki | Original Japanese Reiki | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts with | Healing others | Healing yourself |
| Energy map | Seven chakras | Three centres: Heaven, Heart, Hara |
| Foundation | Hand positions | The Five Precepts |
| Attunement | Usually once | Reiju, received repeatedly |
| Goal | Relief of symptoms | Balance, and your own true nature |
You will still learn to share Reiki with other people. You will simply learn it second, the way it was taught first.
Six empowerments
In the West it is called an attunement, and it is usually given once. In the original system it is called Reiju, and Usui gave it to his students again and again, for as long as they kept coming. Reiju is not a certificate. It is an opening: the first one opens the path, and every one after it widens it.
You will receive six Reiju in this course, one in each module.
I offer each Reiju to everyone present and to everyone watching the recording, at any time. This is not a recording of something that happened to somebody else. Every time you return to that lesson, the Reiju is being offered to you again.
It is also why this course does not really end. Students come back to these six lessons for years.
Six modules
Every module contains teaching, a guided meditation, a Reiju, and time spent actually practising rather than only listening.
Module One
Foundations of Original Reiki
Where Reiki comes from and how it changed on its way west. The Five Precepts, recited in English and Japanese, and why Usui said following them alone is enough. Your first meditation, your first Reiju, and the self-healing positions Usui himself focused on.
Module Two
Purification and Sharing Reiki with Others
Kenyoku ho, the dry bathing purification, and how to open and close a session properly. How Reiju differs from a Western attunement, why aiming Reiki at a problem gets in its way, and your first practice sharing with another person.
Module Three
The Precepts and New Ways to Heal Yourself
Chanting the precepts so you feel them in the hara. Joshin Kokyu Ho at your own pace, and a different way of healing yourself by picturing your own body in front of you. And the question almost everyone asks: what if I cannot feel anything?
Module Four
Seishin Toitsu and Reiki Beyond Your Hands
Byosen, the sense of where energy is needed, and how to tell it apart from your own. Keeping the energy flowing after your hands move away. Clearing water, food and objects, and sharing Reiki through your breath and your eyes.
Module Five
Sharing Reiki at a Distance
Every method people use to share at a distance, and the one I actually use. Crown to crown practice, and clearing negative energy wherever you happen to be. And why we never decide in advance what someone's healing should look like.
Module Six
Grounding, and Carrying Your Practice Forward
The Heaven and Earth connection through the three diamonds. Self-healing with no hands at all, the way the founder taught it. What the twenty-one days really mean, and how to keep this alive once the course is behind you.
Six steps from Usui
Reiju carries a lineage. When you receive it from me, here is where it comes from.
Hiroshi Doi received his attunement from Kimiko Koyama, sixth President of the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai, the society Usui founded in Tokyo in 1922. The line is unbroken.
What students say
I attended my first Reiki class because I was interested in Reiki as a self practice for physical and emotional healing. I didn't know anything about it other than what I had read. From the first class, I was immediately intrigued and wanted to learn more. Dr. Sally has a patient, kind manner and shares her enthusiasm wholeheartedly. She is very knowledgeable about traditional Japanese Reiki and freely shares her expertise. I was inspired to take more classes, and I completed my Reiki Master Practitioner class last year.
JulieRetired nurse · Michigan
Early in my training I expressed some concern about Reiki and my Christian beliefs. We talked it through, and I am comfortable in my understanding that there is no conflict. As a retired nurse, I believe Reiki is complementary to medical and nursing care in the treatment of disease and injury.
RuthRetired nurse · Michigan
Sally is a gifted Reiki practitioner. Her presence and intuition, accompanied by her lengthy training in energy healing and her former practice as a psychotherapist and counselor, give her a profound depth of understanding which sets her apart. Her sessions with me increase my experience of sacred light and help me to self-heal through the release of emotional and energetic blockages in my body.
FrancineCranial Sacral Therapist
Dr. Sally did a distance session for me that was loving, healing and revealing. I received messages from my Guides about areas in my life I have been working on for many years, so I can take my healing to a deeper level. Finding Sally has been a true blessing!
AngelaCoaching and Healing
What if I do not feel anything?
Most people feel very little the first few times. That is not a sign that nothing is happening. It is a sign that the sense has not woken up yet, and it wakes up with practice.
Everything you need
- Six modules, thirty-three lessons. Yours for life, at your own pace.
- Six Reiju empowerments. One in each module, offered again every time you return.
- The complete Shoden manual. Full colour, covering Reiki history, principles and practices as taught by Hiroshi Doi. Yours to download and keep.
- Guided meditations for every session. Practise alongside me as often as you like.
- Every practice demonstrated, not just described. You watch it done, then do it with me.
No prior Reiki knowledge is needed, and experienced practitioners often find their personal practice renewed here.
This is for you if
- You want a practice you can do on your own, in a few minutes, most days
- You have taken Western Reiki and felt something was missing
- You are carrying stress, pain, sleeplessness or grief and want something you can pick up yourself
- You are willing to practise a little, most days, rather than a lot, once
This is probably not for you if
- You are looking to open a practice and see clients within a month
- You want the symbols and formal distance healing, which belong to Level 2
- You want a certificate without a practice behind it
Dr. Sally Littleton, PhD
I am a certified Shihan, a master teacher, in two Original Japanese Reiki traditions, and the founding owner of the Enlightenment Reiki Healing Association. I have been practising for nearly thirty years and studying with some of the best known Reiki masters in the world for twenty-five of them.
I work hands-on with clients in Traverse City and at a distance with people around the world. Because I also spent decades as a psychotherapist, I know what a nervous system does under stress, and I know what to do about it from both sides.
My promise to you is to give you all that I have learned, and to do all that I can to help you heal yourself and learn to practise the Reiki Way.
Begin
$297
One payment. Lifetime access.
Start your Level 1 trainingStart today and move at whatever pace suits your life.
You can return to any Reiju as often as you like.
Questions
Can I really receive an attunement through a recording?
Yes. Reiju is not bound by distance, which is one of the things that distinguishes it from a physical ritual. I give each Reiju to everyone present and to everyone watching the recording, whenever they watch it. Distance healing has been part of the Reiki system since Usui.
How much time will this take each day?
Less than you think. A few minutes of breathing meditation and a short self-healing is enough to build the practice. A full self-healing session with all twelve positions takes about an hour, but I teach the head positions as the core, and those take a fraction of that. On the days you have nothing at all, intending to connect still counts.
I have never meditated. Will I manage?
The meditations are guided from beginning to end, and you can slow the videos down or repeat them as often as you like. A scattered mind is the normal starting condition, not a disqualification. The Reiki system was built to bring a scattered mind back to balance.
Will this conflict with my religion?
Though Reiki is inherently spiritual, it is not a religion. It has no dogma, and there is nothing you have to believe in order to learn and use it. Reiki does not rely on belief and will work whether or not you believe in it. Most people find it intensifies and supports the spiritual tradition they already have.
Will I be able to work on other people?
Yes. At Level 1 you will learn to share Reiki hands-on and to send it at a distance. What you will not learn here are the symbols and the formal distance system, which belong to Level 2.
Do I have to buy anything else?
No. The Shoden manual is included. I recommend Hiroshi Doi's Modern Reiki Method for Healing as further reading, but it is entirely optional.
Can Reiki replace my medical treatment?
No, and it is not meant to. Reiki is complementary. It sits alongside whatever care you are receiving and does not replace any of it.
I have another question
Write to me at drsally@enlightenmentreiki.com and I will answer you myself.
You can heal yourself, and receive whatever you need
I will be there to support your journey.
Reiki is a complementary practice. It does not replace medical or psychological treatment and is not a substitute for the care of a licensed professional. Nothing in this course is a diagnosis or a treatment plan. Dr. Littleton does not diagnose conditions or advise on medication.
