We have already spoken about the attunements. This process opens a channel for the healer to transmit Reiki energy to the recipient. It can be performed by a Reiki Master for anyone who wishes to heal themselves or others.

The recipient of Reiki energy can be any living thing that needs life energy or healing. Most often this is a person, but plants and animals thrive if given Reiki as well. If you define all things as living, you can see giving Reiki to vitalise the soil you plant your garden in, your food and drink, your home and furniture, rocks and crystals, and any other objects that you use for healing, such as bandages, medicines, herbal preparations, etc. With imagination and openness, the possibilities are endless!

Reiki can facilitate any other healing modality a person may be using. It simply adds life energy to the process of healing from surgery, to the alteration of body chemistry brought about by medicines or herbs, to the relaxation created by the massage, to the self-exploration done in hypnosis, or to the energetic balancing offered by energy healing, flower essences, or meditation techniques.

On the other hand, no ethical Reiki practitioner would encourage a client to avoid seeking professional help for a problem that could be serious. Nor would s/he suggest tampering with the treatment offered by a doctor or other healing professional. Indeed, a Reiki practitioner may suggest followup with a doctor or therapist if problems are uncovered in a session.

So, for Reiki to work, the healer must wish to give it to something or someone that would benefit from an infusion of life-force energy. Once the healer touches the recipient, his/her/its need pulls the Reiki energy through the channel provided by the Reiki healer.

The final essential ingredient is the willingness of the recipient to heal. Reiki will not force itself on a being who is resistant to it, and no ethical healer would try to make it do so. If Reiki is offered to people who are resistant, they will simply not let the Reiki in; the energy will just flow through them to some other healing task in the world. But conscious belief isn't necessary; if a person wants to be healed on any level, the energy will do what it can. This is not an all-or-none-thing; if people are partially open or partially closed, they receive whatever they are willing to receive. Reiki will work without belief, but the deeper and more encompassing one's willingness to heal, the deeper and more permanent the healing.

Reiki can be offered at any time in any place where it is needed: it can be done at the side of the road, at a party, or in a convention hall. While conscious participation of the recipient enhances the healing, an individual 's deeper healing consciousness can work without active participation of the mind. People often fall asleep during Reiki sessions; maybe they need the sleep or maybe their healing intelligence needs the mind to be out of the way for a while. All that is essential is need and willingness to heal. So Reiki can benefit someone is unconscious, senile, an infant, or even intoxicated; if there is a need for Reiki, it will help.

Reiki will never harm anyone; it works to facilitate all natural healing processes on the level of body, mind, heart, and spirit. Once you work with it for a while, you will begin to trust in this. The worst that can happen is "a little less than the best."

One of the challenges that Reiki presents to our Western minds is that the healer does not control it. The healer provides a channel to someone or something that s/he perceives would benefit from Reiki, but Divine Intelligence directs the healing. If a being is willing to receive healing , the energy goes where it is needed most. I have learned to trust that Reiki always works for our highest good . . . the ongoing challenge is to consistently remember that God/dess knows more about what constitutes "highest good" than I do, and to give up attachment to the outcome.

So when a client asks me to "heal" an ache, I may say a prayer asking that the Reiki will help the person determine why they have the ache and what s/he can do to heal it; I try not to let my ego get caught up in whether the pain is gone by the end of the session.

Almost every time one receives Reiki, s/he feels better for it. Often this takes the form of relaxation, relief of tension, feeling energised, or feeling positive, balanced, and at peace. In acute or life threatening situations, or recent trauma, the physical healing Reiki offers can be dramatic. But if one is working on a very chronic condition, much of the healing Reiki offers will be mental and emotional, so under the surface.

This has to do with the difference between the concepts of "healing" and "cure". Western medicine treats physically measurable states and when obvious disease is resolved, pronounces the individual "cured". "Healers" believe that disease registers on the physical plane only when mental and emotional dysfunctional processes become so entrenched that they effect energy flows through the body. Reiki will work at loosening the energy blocks, replacing them with clean-flowing life-force, and helping the recipient work through the emotional, mental, or spiritual issues that caused the problem. Often, a lot of work that helps one toward wholeness and peace goes on under the surface before changes are detectable in the physical body.

By the time a chronic process is healed, the individual often has an entirely different outlook on Life, the Universe, and Everything! Again, this will only occur with one's consent, but as it often involves having all one's parts in balance and living in harmony with oneself and all other beings, who wouldn't want it?

Another possibility is that people can subconsciously chose an illness to teach them certain soul lessons. A healer cannot possibly know the details, but if s/he is willing to let healing flow without trying to fit it to a personal agenda, Reiki can offer a lot of help to people who need to perceive and accept such lessons. Sometimes a person has chosen death, and has lessons to learn before they receive that final healing; Reiki can offer immeasurable support and nurturing during this process. Neither of these outcomes is a defeat; the Reiki works to give us the space and support we need to do the work we have chosen to do. Since we are constantly growing and life is constantly changing, the process of healing is life-long, helping us to ever greater wholeness and balance until we die, which is the final act of life.

A Reiki treatment involves a one-way flow of energy from the Universe, through the healer, to the recipient. A Reiki practitioner doesn't pick up "stuff" from a client. If anything, while the energy flows through the healer, it will do any healing his/her system needs on its way. Also, the energy used is not the healer's. . . it comes through him/her from an infinite source; I feel incredibly energised after doing several sessions in a row.

Many healers are naturally empathic or psychic and do pick up emotions or psychic impressions from the people they work on; this isn't a function of the Reiki as such, although Reiki can help these individuals develop their talents. Most Reiki healers with such sensitivities also develop a sense of when it is appropriate and in the best interest of a client to share them.

A level one practitioner works by putting his/her hands on the body or in the aura of the recipient. S/he will let the hands stay in one location until the flow of energy starts to fade off, then move the hands to another location. This is a "laying on of hands," not a massage, so the recipient stays fully clothed and there is no manipulation of tissues. A level two practitioner can send Reiki over distance by connecting with the Higher Self, Godself, or Soul of the recipient. The recipient will receive the energy the next time s/he opens to healing.

So, the short answer to "How does Reiki work?" . . . it is Divine love and healing intelligence working with a healer and a recipient, doing whatever the recipient needs most.

If you believe in a God who tells you any forces not of Him are evil, you may need to reassure yourself that this energy is of your God. I think that once you feel it, you will feel little doubt. I once had a student who had been a nun for many years. She walked into my home, strewn with Pagan altars and full of Reiki, and said, "This place feels sacred; it's like I'm back in the Abbey church."

If you have even a shred of belief that there must be some sort of intelligent Source that created life, you can benefit from and/or practice Reiki. Receiving and giving Reiki requires no commitment to anything but the process of growing toward the best you can be; you certainly won't be pressured to believe anything you don't already believe.

However, I should warn any cynics in the audience that once you start to feel this loving, nurturing energy flow through you, you may find your capacity to believe in a compassionate Divinity expanding!