Jumping Off a Cliff Without a Parachute: The Real Risks of Reiki Initiation
The first three articles in this course were about methodological and economic errors in Reiki teaching. This article is about what almost nobody talks about openly: the real risks of initiation itself, the loss of tradition, and what happens to a person after «the jump».
Reiki Ryoho Gakkai: Tradition in Isolation
The organisation Usui founded in 1922 in Tokyo — Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai — still exists today. But its members have no right to describe their practice to outsiders, to «avoid possible misunderstanding». This means one thing: the entire Reiki system existing outside Japan is a branch that has lost direct connection with the original source.
Lineage Length and Purity: What It Means in Practice
| Master | Lineage | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Hyakuten Inamoto (Komyo Reiki Do) | Usui → Hayashi → Yamaguchi Chiyoko → Inamoto | 3 links, publicly disclosed, verified |
| Frank Arjava Petter | Western branch through Takata; researcher of original Japanese Usui materials | Known as co-author of the original Usui manual |
| Irina Kozlova | Not publicly disclosed | Has an ethics code in the professional training programme that is not publicly disclosed before payment |
Different Initiation Schemes: Whom to Trust
One of Reiki’s main problems as a tradition — the absence of an initiation standard. Different masters conduct it in fundamentally different ways:
- Some describe 4 initiations at Level 1, 1 at Level 2, 1 at Master level — close to what Takata described
- Hyakuten Inamoto uses a sequence of 4 Reiki symbols in the Reiju ritual — the most verified Japanese form
- Western «improved» masters conduct initiation according to proprietary schemes, often without any justification for the changes
- Online masters — through visualisation, without physical contact
None of these variants can be externally verified: Reiki Ryoho Gakkai is closed, original Japanese sources are hard to access, and no scientific studies comparing different initiation schemes exist.
Initiation as Jumping Off a Cliff Without Guaranteed Landing
Before initiation, the body sends an alarm signal. This is not fantasy or weakness — it is an instinctive response of the nervous system to an impending identity change. The body distrusts the person who will conduct the initiation — because it does not know them, has not spent enough time with them, has not tested their reliability.
States before and immediately after initiation are often described as:
- Acute excitement bordering on panic
- A sense of «erasure» — as if something important inside is changing without consent
- Disorientation, blurring of the familiar «self»
- Crying without visible reason
- In severe cases — acute dissociative reactions
Who Is Especially Vulnerable: Risk Groups
- People in acute financial stress or crisis — loss of job, debts, unstable income
- People with personality disorders — primarily borderline personality disorder (BPD)
- People with traumatic experience — PTSD, CPTSD, experienced physical or emotional violence
- People in acute conflicts with relatives or going through divorce/loss
- People seeking meaning after loss of religious identity
Not one Russian Reiki school practising commercial two-day seminars conducts preliminary screening on these criteria.
Minimum Criteria for Safe Initiation
- Verified short lineage — the master knows and publicly names every link from Usui to themselves
- Live contact after initiation — not only during the course, but at least 3–6 months after
- Preliminary screening — the master asks about mental state, trauma history, current therapy
- Public ethics code — not hidden in paid materials, but accessible before registration and payment
- Clear instructions for the post-initiation period — what to do during acute states, who to contact
- Understanding of boundaries — the master explicitly says: «For psychological crises — to a psychotherapist with a higher degree, personal therapy, and supervision. For physical symptoms — to a doctor.»