Reiki for Beginners gives you the basic and practical principles of using Reiki as a simple healing technique and as a tool for spiritual and personal growth. Increase your self-awareness, heal your past, and discover your potential for great happiness.

Reiki for Beginners explains the origins of Reiki and traces its development through the years. Follow the history of Reiki, from founder Dr. Mikao Usui's search for a universal healing technique to the current development of a global Reiki community. There are also many healing stories, new ideas, techniques, advice, philosophies, contemplations, and meditations that you can use to deepen and enhance your practice.

Learn how to prepare for a Reiki Empowerment (initiation) and what to expect during and after you receive one. Learn about the different levels of Reiki, how to give a full treatment and discover the different ways Reiki healers can work with life force energy.

Reiki is very flexible and freely available to everyone and can easily be adapted to a wide variety of purposes. The list of what you can do with Reiki is almost endless! You can use Reiki to heal yourself and others physically, mentally, and emotionally. It combines wonderfully with other healing techniques. It can help with spiritual and personal growth, including developing compassion, wisdom, patience and many other inner qualities. You can use it to heal animals, or to improve relationship problems at work, school, or home. Use Reiki to relax yourself before going into stressful situations such as exams, interviews, or public speaking. Use Reiki to improve your creativity, memory, or learning capacity. You can even use it to help you find a new house, travel safely, sleep well, the list goes on and on!

The potential for Reiki is almost unlimited. Reiki energy follows thought, so whatever you wish for can be brought to you by Reiki. However our wishes have to be for the greater good! Reiki for Beginners explains this process in detail and how we can find lasting inner peace by becoming a pure Reiki channel for the greater good of all.

Extract from the book

Introduction to Reiki for beginners

Writing this book has been a special experience, a great joy and a real privilege. Reiki has touched my life in many special ways and has given and continues to give me so much that it is hard to express in words how grateful I am.

There are now many books available on Reiki and no doubt many more will follow. It can be quite confusing for the beginner and the experienced practitioner to see through all this information to the heart, or essence, of Reiki, so it is important to remember that Reiki is basically a very simple, enjoyable, and experiential technique. Keeping our practice simple, learning from other practitioners, books, and most importantly our own experience is the key to successful Reiki.

Since Reiki came to the West from Japan, people's awareness of the roots of Reiki in the Buddhist tradition has been diluted. This is now changing rapidly as we learn more about the life of Dr. Mikao Usui, the founder of Reiki, and on how Reiki is practiced, as he originally taught it, today in Japan. This should not worry Reiki practitioners who are not Buddhist. We definitely do not need to be Buddhist to practice Reiki and we definitely do not need to be Buddhist to benefit from Buddha's teachings. They are both open to everyone, always.

It seems that today many Reiki practitioners are looking for an authentic spiritual framework, form, or context in which to deepen their understanding and experience of Reiki. I became interested in Buddhism not long after becoming a Reiki practitioner and found that the practice of Buddhism and Reiki were very complementary. Practiced together, they both improved my quality of life tremendously while still allowing me to honor my Christian roots.

The motivation to write this book came from the wish to share the good health, sense of personal fulfillment, and deeper appreciation of life that I have gained from Reiki and Buddhism. I also felt that a simple guide to Reiki from a general Buddhist perspective might help Reiki practitioners, traditional and nontraditional, gain new and clearer insights in to their own Reiki practice and path toward personal growth.

I hope this book is helpful, and enables you to clarify, understand, and deepen your own experience of Reiki and become a little more whole, healthy, and happy along the way.

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Reviews

As well as the actual physical aspects of Reiki, Vennells discusses the five principles, which include ‘be grateful today’ and ‘be kind to others today’, and how to integrate them into daily practice. He talks about the causes and nature of disease, including karma. One chapter includes stories from other practitioners about how they've used Reiki to heal themselves, friends, and clients. He finishes with meditations and visualizations.

An appendix lists sources for finding a Master and various Reiki groups. While Vennells offers tips for preparing to become attuned to practice Reiki and provides guidelines for using it after attunement, people can only obtain their attunement and certificates from a Reiki master, not from his book.

Vennells says that ‘whatever your spiritual path, or path of personal growth, Reiki can enrich it and bring you closer to your full potential as a human being’. Reiki for Beginners is an excellent reference for anyone interested in hands-on healing.

Mid West Book Review - Sandra Smith 1999

This is a wonderful book for beginners in the healing arts. As a Reiki practitioner I would highly recommend this book. The author does a wonderful job covering the history, techniques, and basics of Reiki. This book would be a wonderful tool to help reinforce the skills of a beginner both in and out of the classroom.

Independent Review - Jennie McNeely Jan 2000

Although it may seem, at times, as if nearly everyone you know is a Reiki practitioner, there is still much value in this book. Despite the proliferation of Reiki, not everyone has access to a skilled practitioner and I believe that Vennells sensitive, well-written text would be of considerable benefit to someone who would want to learn these healing skills. I believe even Reiki practitioners with skill and experience would benefit as well and even those who are teaching Reiki would find value in this book. Thoughtful, well-organized and highly accessible to the reader.

Independent Review Dec1999

There are many of you out there surfing the net trying to find information on what reiki is and where to get started, this article is for you. I've been reading the book Reiki for Beginners. Regardless of what system of Reiki you practice, this is a great book for the level one practitioner.

David Vennells has written his Reiki book based on his own experience, love, and reverence for Reiki. He first used Reiki in his life to help recover from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, so his knowledge of Reiki's healing benefits comes first hand, he is now a Reiki teacher. Mr. Vennells is also a Buddhist, and he offers an enlightening perspective from his spiritual practice.

It made sense to me that since Reiki comes from a mostly Buddhist culture, Buddhism would come in to play in helping to understand Reiki. One of the first things that stood out in this book was the detail of the Reiki story. Though I've heard the story and told it a thousand times, I enjoyed reading it in David Vennells' words and learned a couple of things myself.

Reiki for Beginners does talk about each level of Reiki, but its main focus is on the first degree. Vennells writes all about how to use Reiki to heal our self and others. The book contains pictures of the hand positions, setting Reiki intentions, scanning, and the aura, as well as thankfulness and continuing healing.

Chapter 7 is one of my favorites, as it discusses the Reiki principles in detail. Vennells says "If we use Reiki in accordance with the five principles, our motivation will naturally be positive and the results of our actions will always be for the greatest good." I couldn't agree more.

This book also discusses the nature of illness and disease itself and Vennells covers information on karma, again from a Buddhist perspective. He wrote this subject in a way that is easy to follow and understand. There is also a section in Chapter 8 that lists all the hand positions and the holistic properties associated with each. This is an invaluable tool!

Reiki for Beginners also contains what I consider a "bonus" section, as it covers meditation and visualization with Reiki. Vennells says we can use the techniques to "help us deepen our Reiki practice, learn to relax more easily, and create more positive states of mind which in turn will benefit all those we come into contact with, especially if that is our conscious intention." I've tried a couple of these meditations so far myself, and I love them!

The book also has wonderfully shared stories from other Reiki practitioners, I always love to hear how Reiki ventured into someone's life and changed them, I know that Reiki has certainly made my life more complete. I highly recommend this book to any beginner Reiki practitioner or anyone who is interested in learning Reiki. It is a wonderful resource! On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it a good 9.5.

Independent Internet Review – T Darlene Cheek, October 2000